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Speaker 3: Happy Wednesday, Welcome to Counterpoints. How you doing, Emily, I'm good, Crystal.
Speaker 4: Those Counterpoints doesn't exist anymore. It's all breaking Points.
Speaker 3: I was going to say breaking Points, but there's the
Speaker 3: Counterpoints logo. We have some things to work out it, right,
Speaker 3: we'll figure it out when soccer's back.
Speaker 5: That sounds good. So we have a big show today.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is in the Middle East, some great drop
Speaker 4: site reporting to talk about actually on the serious situation.
Speaker 4: But Trump gave a hell of a speech in Saudi
Speaker 4: Arabia that we're going to go through.
Speaker 6: Yes, and he's now he's on his way to Doha.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 3: Maybe you're gonna pick up his big beautiful plane. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're also going to have a mire to bone join us.
Speaker 3: He's a Haretz columnist going to talk about what this
Speaker 3: means for the genocide in Gaza and whether or not
Speaker 3: we're going to actually see an end to this or
Speaker 3: And as I was talking to Amir about this yesterday,
Speaker 3: if Trump doesn't end that this week, almost certainly thousands
Speaker 3: upon thousands upon thousands of people will die in the
Speaker 3: coming weeks. Like this is at a critical moment. So
Speaker 3: the question is is Steve Whitcoff and Trump they got
Speaker 3: eat you know, Alexander out. Are they happy and they
Speaker 3: just move on and they just leave thousands of people
Speaker 3: to their fates, or does he actually put a stop
Speaker 3: to this or we'll talk about you know, this kind
Speaker 3: of pivotal moment here. He's also pushing his big beautiful
Speaker 3: bill Congress. This is happening, that's right.
Speaker 4: No, I mean the second component of their trade war
Speaker 4: is getting this tax bill passed because they see it
Speaker 4: as well. We'll get into all of this, but they
Speaker 4: see this as a necessary component of the trade where
Speaker 4: you can't have the trade war or without as they
Speaker 4: see it, these big tax cuts or the continuation of
Speaker 4: these tax cuts.
Speaker 3: But people, the trade war's not on the bottom there yea.
Speaker 3: Trump basically gave up this weekend in his talks with China.
Speaker 4: But even if you keep a ten percent global tariff,
Speaker 4: they want to have all of these incentives to be sure,
Speaker 4: and they don't feel like the markets will continue to react.
Speaker 5: As they are.
Speaker 4: It's a fragile situation if they don't get the tax
Speaker 4: cuts that they are promised, the continuation and tax cuts
Speaker 4: they are promised. The Scott Besson has been pushing one
Speaker 4: hundred percent right offs some building and factory equipment, so
Speaker 4: all of that stuff is on the line in a
Speaker 4: big reconciliation bill that Congressional Republicans with their razors of
Speaker 4: majority are trying to stuff all kinds of stuff into,
Speaker 4: from AI to salt deductions to run nonprofit exemptions.
Speaker 5: And they were the House was in sessions like four am.
Speaker 4: So we're going to bring you all the details from
Speaker 4: that fight. It's a big one. Also, Ruan the Jake
Speaker 4: Tapper Alex Thompson book on It's called the Original Sin
Speaker 4: on the cover up of Joe Biden's health is causing
Speaker 4: a stir. A big excerpt was published yesterday and The
Speaker 4: New Yorker about Biden failing to recognize George Clooney at
Speaker 4: that now infamous LA fundraiser last year.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, yah know if you remember, that's when things
Speaker 3: started to break, because Clooney came out publicly right in
Speaker 3: the New York Times, right yeah, and I was like,
Speaker 3: it was like, I don't think that this guy really
Speaker 3: is up for another term. And now we know that
Speaker 3: specifically Joe Biden did not recognize George Clooney, which would
Speaker 3: put Joe Biden in the point zero zero one percent
Speaker 3: of people I don't know about the world, but certainly
Speaker 3: in the United States who wouldn't recognize George Clooney.
Speaker 6: It's George Clooney.
Speaker 5: Plus they have had a relationship as Clooney.
Speaker 3: And if you don't, it's George Clooney.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the man is very recognizable. Yes, So
Speaker 4: it's a man's There's a raging debate once again about
Speaker 4: the media's role in all of this, and about the
Speaker 4: Biden family's.
Speaker 5: Role and all of this.
Speaker 4: So we'll bring you the details on a huge day
Speaker 4: in the Diddy trial yesterday Cassie testified with some really
Speaker 4: not just Cassie, other sestisfied too. But Cassie's testimony was
Speaker 4: as wrenching as you can imagine. So we will dip
Speaker 4: into the trial and bring you some important updates on
Speaker 4: how that is proceeding. Let's return to the Middle East,
Speaker 4: Ryan and start with Donald Trump making his way through
Speaker 4: this trip, giving this massive speech in Saudi Arabia yesterday
Speaker 4: that you can tell usually tell from writing, but the
Speaker 4: writing of this speech was meant to be very consequential.
Speaker 6: Yes, Trump doing a regional tour.
Speaker 3: He's going to hit cutter, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, He's very
Speaker 3: deliberately and conspicuously skipping Israel in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: And I've seen some people compare it to Obama went
Speaker 3: to the Middle East and on what the right calm
Speaker 3: an apology tour. If you go back and read the
Speaker 3: speech he gave there, it's very similar to Trump's.
Speaker 6: They're coming at it from a different angle.
Speaker 3: Trump Obama was saying that the United States needs to
Speaker 3: step aside and just allow the Middle East to you
Speaker 3: to develop itself and that nation building. He at then
Speaker 3: you know he was attacking George W. Bush was the
Speaker 3: wrong thing to do. Trump now saying basically the same
Speaker 3: thing that, and he's also going after the same guy,
Speaker 3: George W. Bush. Like, so the only thing Obama and
Speaker 3: Trump really agree on.
Speaker 6: Is that George W. Bush really screwed up that region.
Speaker 4: It brings the whole country together, really, yeah, except for
Speaker 4: like Michelle Obama, who's still yes.
Speaker 6: We can all rally around that.
Speaker 3: Now. The difference is, I watched the entire Trump speech. Uh,
Speaker 3: and of course the first like fifteen minutes he's talking
Speaker 3: about how many counties he won in the election. Red
Speaker 3: stands Ford Republican all to the specific number of counties
Speaker 3: that he won. He makes sure that he makes sure
Speaker 3: everybody at this REDD conference knows that he won all
Speaker 3: seven swing states. And so Obama didn't do that. Obama
Speaker 3: didn't go over his kind of county by county loss.
Speaker 5: I mean he could have.
Speaker 3: He could have. Yeah, he had some interesting things he
Speaker 3: could have pointed, you know, yeah, yeah, and people people
Speaker 3: seem to love that. So when he gets into the
Speaker 3: historic nature of the speech, that's when it does become
Speaker 3: very interesting. So let's let's roll.
Speaker 6: This is the piece that's kind of going viral in
Speaker 6: the Middle.
Speaker 7: East before our eyes. A new generation of leaders is
Speaker 7: transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past
Speaker 7: and forging a future where the Middle East is defined
Speaker 7: by commerce not chaos, where it exports technology not terrorism,
Speaker 7: and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are
Speaker 7: building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence.
Speaker 8: We don't want that, and.
Speaker 7: It's crucial for the wider world to note this great
Speaker 7: transformation is not come from Western intervention, no less, or
Speaker 7: flying people and beautiful planes giving you lectures on how
Speaker 7: to live and how to govern your own affairs. Now,
Speaker 7: the leaming marvels of Riad and Abu Dhabi were not
Speaker 7: created by the so called nation builders, neocons, or liberal
Speaker 7: nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars
Speaker 7: failing to develop Kabal Baghdad so many other cities. Instead,
Speaker 7: the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought
Speaker 7: by the people of the region themselves, the people that
Speaker 7: are right here, the people that have lived here all
Speaker 7: their lives. Developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own
Speaker 7: unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way.
Speaker 7: It's really incredible what you've done. In the end, the
Speaker 7: so called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built.
Speaker 7: The interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did
Speaker 7: not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it,
Speaker 7: but they had no idea how to do it themselves.
Speaker 6: So there's an interesting through line here from Obama.
Speaker 3: And in an interesting contrast, Obama in his speech was
Speaker 3: talking about how this isn't for the United States to decide,
Speaker 3: you know, how the Middle East is going to develop,
Speaker 3: It's for the people of the Middle East. And the
Speaker 3: people in that room really blamed him when the Arab
Speaker 3: spring kicked off a year and a half or so later,
Speaker 3: and said, look, you got all these people's hopes up
Speaker 3: that actually that they can control their own destinies. And
Speaker 3: if you notice Trump's phrasing, he says the people who
Speaker 3: are here, and then he's like the people here, like
Speaker 3: the ones that I'm looking at. It's like, I'm not
Speaker 3: talking about the Arab streets, so to speak. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying that you need democracy. We're not exporting democracy to
Speaker 3: this region anymore. Look, you're a king, you have to
Speaker 3: crown prints over here. These are your cultures, this is
Speaker 3: your tradition.
Speaker 6: Cool.
Speaker 3: You guys in this room have developed this stuff, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to support you to do that. So it's
Speaker 3: and the reason I say it's an interesting through line
Speaker 3: is that if you want to spawn to that, let
Speaker 3: me know. Otherwise we can go to the Syria thing,
Speaker 3: which is which is an interesting connection.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that's a part of exactly what
Speaker 5: you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like so, one of the things that flowed
Speaker 3: out of the Arab spring was the uprising in Syria,
Speaker 3: which began non violently and then turned into a civil
Speaker 3: war that then Cutter was funding elements of it. Ua
Speaker 3: was funding elements of it, Saudi was funding elements of that,
Speaker 3: the CIA was funding all sides of it at different points.
Speaker 3: Russia gets in, gets involved, and it ends with former
Speaker 3: terrorists taking power and setting up a meeting or trying
Speaker 3: to set up a meeting with Trump.
Speaker 8: But be like the.
Speaker 3: Acman al Shara, this Heyrean president went to Iria trying
Speaker 3: to meet with Trump with an offer to the United
Speaker 3: States saying, please lift sanctions on us, and we will
Speaker 3: open up all of Syria to American oil and gas companies.
Speaker 3: So a delegation went to Damascus recently met with al Shara,
Speaker 3: returned here to Washington last week. I sat down with
Speaker 3: them and a group of other reporters and wildly and
Speaker 3: left that meeting. I was like, we need to write
Speaker 3: this fast, Like this is an on the record offer
Speaker 3: from al Shara to the United States saying we want
Speaker 3: We're going to we will allow American companies to do
Speaker 3: all of the reconstruction. We allow American companies to exploit
Speaker 3: the oil and gas. It's it's not a completely clean
Speaker 3: offer because the Kurds control a lot of the oil
Speaker 3: and gas. So it's like, can you really give away
Speaker 3: the curds oil anyway?
Speaker 4: Uh, that's just a minor concern.
Speaker 3: Moz and I like were raced to write it up
Speaker 3: because there's reporters from the Times, the Posts, you know
Speaker 3: where else at this meeting. Nobody else wrote it. Like,
Speaker 3: nobody else wrote the piece. It's hilarious. So that so
Speaker 3: that offer was made last week and he said, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be in real I'd love to give me five
Speaker 3: minutes with you. I will give you this store.
Speaker 4: Well, other people not taking it seriously because it's so unorthodox.
Speaker 3: But I think political story. I think it was the editors,
Speaker 3: any of the reporters, were all like, well, this is
Speaker 3: this is really interesting?
Speaker 6: Maybe yeah, maybe if you if you know.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, you know that that's completely serious, like if
Speaker 4: you followed him closely and taken him as a serious figure,
Speaker 4: not just this like flat caricature.
Speaker 5: You know, he hears something like that.
Speaker 4: They're speaking his language, and they're doing it sort of
Speaker 4: cleverly and strategically.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't know what on Earth's up with them.
Speaker 3: Weird.
Speaker 6: I don't know, something the weird is going on.
Speaker 3: So in this speech, the biggest news he made besides
Speaker 3: I think the speech itself is news because it's kind
Speaker 3: of reframing and framing his approach to the Middle East.
Speaker 3: But the specific news he made was on Syria. And
Speaker 3: this is the kind of the end of the arc
Speaker 3: that begins with Obama. Let's let's roll a one here, and.
Speaker 7: Also with President Ernigan of Turkey who called me the
Speaker 7: other day and asked for a very similar thing, among
Speaker 7: others and friends of mine, people that have a lot
Speaker 7: of respect for in the Middle East. I will be
Speaker 7: ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to
Speaker 7: give them a chance at great this, Oh what I
Speaker 7: do for the Crown Prince, Oh.
Speaker 3: What I do for the Crown Prince. I think Tom Barrack,
Speaker 3: by the way, is uh friend. I think he was
Speaker 3: referring to a friend who asked him to do it,
Speaker 3: who has experience in the region. I think that's Tom Barrick,
Speaker 3: and look him.
Speaker 5: Up google Ryan Grim good.
Speaker 3: Friend of Trump's. But in any event, so Trump is saying, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna lift sanctions.
Speaker 5: And massive applause and standing ovation.
Speaker 3: I owe what I do for the Crown Prince, and
Speaker 3: actually he loves the Crown Prince. So how are can serve?
Speaker 6: Is responding to this particular element of it.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's really interesting because everyone seems like they're
Speaker 4: on the right at least on board, and except for
Speaker 4: the cutter stuff and we're going to talk about that
Speaker 4: in the next block. Has generated a pretty significant backlash.
Speaker 4: But I think this what did he say? Commerce versus chaos?
Speaker 4: That dichotomy that he landed on in the speech is
Speaker 4: an interesting one because commerce often brings with it lots
Speaker 4: of geopolitical chaos. In fact, the sort of original sin
Speaker 4: of America's relationship with Iran came because of commerce, which
Speaker 4: is like has the entire Middle East, you know, to
Speaker 4: this very day in upheaval constantly, and it's because of
Speaker 4: what the United States and the UK were doing with oil.
Speaker 4: And so I think most people on the right see
Speaker 4: it as you know, it's interesting you talked about the
Speaker 4: through line with Obama's first trip in his first term
Speaker 4: on the apology tour, as people on the right called it,
Speaker 4: and I think there was some truth to that. But
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people right now look back
Speaker 4: and say, gosh, we should have been apologized right when
Speaker 4: Trump said in that speech, the nation builders destroyed more
Speaker 4: than they ever built. Again, if John McCain had won
Speaker 4: the presidency in two thousand and nine, in two thousand
Speaker 4: and eight, and then in two thousand and nine said
Speaker 4: that to Arab leaders overseas, the backlash would have been incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean it would have been a completely different world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And we learned speaking of nation Builders, that there's
Speaker 3: a new report I forget. I think it might have
Speaker 3: been the New York Times that the Biden administration and
Speaker 3: the Harris team had put together this massive plan to
Speaker 3: basically completely destroy Yemen over a period of like a
Speaker 3: year and a half or something to take on the Hoothies,
Speaker 3: but they didn't do it because they wanted to wait
Speaker 3: for either their reelection or to let Trump do it.
Speaker 3: So like that the nation building and the interventionism is
Speaker 3: still very much a live faction. Trump is not just
Speaker 3: pushing on an open door, like there is resistance to this,
Speaker 3: and so that does make itrential. It's ironic that he
Speaker 3: has to agree with Obama while the Obama position is
Speaker 3: now a real minority faction inside the Democratic Party.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so I think some of the Cutter battle
Speaker 4: is a proxy battle for that people who don't necessarily
Speaker 4: want to say openly that they and maybe they don't
Speaker 4: even want to think openly that they support ground invasions
Speaker 4: in a place like Iran or more confrontation with Iran.
Speaker 4: But I think some of it comes out in the
Speaker 4: cutter fight. It feels like an easy battle for the
Speaker 4: people who are hawks to take Trump on. Now, I
Speaker 4: will say I think a lot of the American public
Speaker 4: and I think the same thing about the plane.
Speaker 5: We'll talk about this later, but the.
Speaker 4: American public looks at this and it's the same thing
Speaker 4: with Obama, if it gets us closer to peace and stability.
Speaker 4: We can have a raging debate about whether it does,
Speaker 4: but if they get that sense, they'll support it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So at the same time, the p k K
Speaker 3: just a couple of days ago, this is the are
Speaker 3: militant group in Turkey that's been waging war for you know,
Speaker 3: for Kurdish independence for decades, just a couple of days ago,
Speaker 3: said it's wrapping up business at their at their congress,
Speaker 3: they voted to dissolve themselves. And so everywhere you look
Speaker 3: in the region, there's something kind of seismic going on
Speaker 3: with with Iran kind of at the center of it,
Speaker 3: like with Witkoff and Bowler or in wood Coffer particular.
Speaker 3: Still you know, still still pushing hard to bring to
Speaker 3: bring Iran in, you know, against the objections of Israel,
Speaker 3: which we'll get into, you know later when we have
Speaker 3: our guest on. But it does seem like the time
Speaker 3: is ripe to kind of reshape this Middle East, and
Speaker 3: in ironically in the exact way that Obama wanted to do,
Speaker 3: because you know, he did the deal twenty fifteen to
Speaker 3: say like look enough, like let's like let what what's
Speaker 3: why are we doing this, like why why are you
Speaker 3: guys all at war?
Speaker 6: And Obama and I think Trump too.
Speaker 3: They all want to do it because they want to
Speaker 3: focus on other stuff.
Speaker 4: We've seen this throughout the trip, by the way, even
Speaker 4: just where he talks about, oh the things I do
Speaker 4: for the coperience. So he was being driven around in
Speaker 4: a golf cart by Muhammad bin someonee. Yesterday, they brought
Speaker 4: out do we have this guy's They brought out the.
Speaker 5: Place donald's trailer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can roll through some of these videos that
Speaker 4: you can see on the screen, but they brought out
Speaker 4: a McDonald's trailer.
Speaker 6: YMCA is playing while this is going.
Speaker 4: Yep, they played the YMCA, which some noted is.
Speaker 3: A right after his speech.
Speaker 5: Right after his speech.
Speaker 3: Here's just like just like a Trump rally.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here's what Sam Altman and MBS having what appears
Speaker 4: to be a very friendly conversation.
Speaker 6: Which drives me insane. Why is Sam Altman there?
Speaker 4: Well, you know why, come on, you know what, there's this.
Speaker 6: AI guy.
Speaker 4: This is very very awkward signing ceremony where they're sitting
Speaker 4: at tables like twenty yards apart from each other, maybe
Speaker 4: ten yards apart from each other. Here's the famous McDonald's
Speaker 4: trailer that they rolled out for Trump, because that man
Speaker 4: loves McDonald's and they know how to they know how
Speaker 4: to work with Trump.
Speaker 6: Pats lay a fish all the way out and riodd.
Speaker 4: But you know, the what I was getting at with
Speaker 4: this is I think Trump has this sense that he wants,
Speaker 4: if you're going to do the anti nation building thing
Speaker 4: like Obama did you also, or Obama tried to do
Speaker 4: early in this term before you know, drne striking US
Speaker 4: citizens and all of that, if you if you want
Speaker 4: to be in that position, Trump believes that you have
Speaker 4: to frame it differently, that you have to look like
Speaker 4: you're the winner, not that you're prostrating yourselves yourself to
Speaker 4: these powers. And so with the Iran deal, for example,
Speaker 4: I think there are some it's looking like there would
Speaker 4: be some significant differences, but broadly the point is the same,
Speaker 4: why why is this? Like?
Speaker 5: Why are we not just ending this?
Speaker 4: Why are we continuing to allow people to come in
Speaker 4: between the peace process and set things back decades and
Speaker 4: all of that. Trump is just the difference between Trump
Speaker 4: and Obama is that he knows the people who would
Speaker 4: have been furious at say John McCain, for going to
Speaker 4: the Middle East and saying is something about, you know,
Speaker 4: anti nation building in two thousand and nine, actually probably
Speaker 4: were anti nation building, meaning it's about tapping into the
Speaker 4: sort of nationalism.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: So like the people who end up voting for Trump,
Speaker 4: who maybe voted for Obama too, by the way, were
Speaker 4: just as opposed to George W. Bush's foreign interventions, but
Speaker 4: they didn't want to apologize for it, and I think
Speaker 4: Trump has That's a difference between Trump and Obama, and
Speaker 4: I think it speaks to Trump knowing his constituency, which
Speaker 4: is which is different.
Speaker 3: I also think Republicans love to talk about Trump derangement syndrome,
Speaker 3: and it's it's definitely a thing Trump plays, blaming of
Speaker 3: a role in triggering the derangement.
Speaker 5: You take medication for it.
Speaker 3: I take medication for it. The Obama derangement syndrome was
Speaker 3: unlike anything related to Trump. I think there's like the
Speaker 3: derangement was so much wilder for people who are old enough,
Speaker 3: and if you're not old enough, you can google this.
Speaker 3: One of the big scandals when Obama went over to
Speaker 3: the Middle East of the first or second time, they
Speaker 3: said he.
Speaker 6: Bowed to the king, and that was Saudi Arabia. It
Speaker 6: was yes, Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he bowed, And how dare he like it
Speaker 3: was an impeachment worthy allegation? Like how dare this American
Speaker 3: president bow to a Saudi king? In his speech last night,
Speaker 3: Trump starts reading this line about how because of his
Speaker 3: amazing first hundred days and he's cleaned up everything Biden
Speaker 3: has done wrong, the US now has the most dynamic,
Speaker 3: incredible economy in the world, and he stops himself. He's like,
Speaker 3: I can't believe I almost said that right here in
Speaker 3: front of the Crown Prince. Of course, Crown Prince, you
Speaker 3: have the greatest economy. Your economy is incredible. I would
Speaker 3: how awful would it be if I even finished that sentence? Like,
Speaker 3: go find the clip. It's it's classic comical Trump, and like,
Speaker 3: what do you like? So he's up there on stage
Speaker 3: debasing himself in front of this crown prince, yes, and
Speaker 3: doing it like fabulously.
Speaker 4: With the YMCA, which people were pointing out is a
Speaker 4: gay anthem in Saudi Arabia, is sort of a well.
Speaker 3: That's pretty funny. That's almost more a troll of the
Speaker 3: Crown Prince than a bow to him. But the speech itself.
Speaker 3: He was just bowing constantly to and all. Look Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 3: like the citizens of Saudi Arabia are doing well. Their
Speaker 3: economy overall is not better than the United States. Like
Speaker 3: it's it's a broken economy that's kept alive by oil. Congratulations,
Speaker 3: like good, good for you. You can pump oil out
Speaker 3: of the ground and spend the money, but doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you have a great economy. And for Trump, it's just
Speaker 3: lavishing with praise. If Obama would have done that, Like
Speaker 3: it's just different. Oh yes, just different worlds.
Speaker 8: Two.
Speaker 6: The two live in just completely different media environments.
Speaker 4: Sam Altman was there, by the way, because I think
Speaker 4: we've covered this before. Ran Saudi Arabia is a massive
Speaker 4: investor in AI and what Trump.
Speaker 6: I'm not surprised he's there.
Speaker 3: It's just that I just don't like that this Ai
Speaker 3: king pinn No not a part of our elite.
Speaker 4: Well, the same thing with Elon Musk. And you know,
Speaker 4: we saw Elon Musk sitting down with Mody what two
Speaker 4: months ago, with all appearances of being a representative of
Speaker 4: the United States government at that point, but you know,
Speaker 4: also a business leader with massive interests in the Indian market,
Speaker 4: and that's what Sam Altman was doing there. There was
Speaker 4: also like Jensen Wang was there, Andy Jasse was there,
Speaker 4: And what Donald Trump is trying to do and maybe
Speaker 4: you can flesh this out more. Ryan to that point
Speaker 4: again about commerce versus chaos, which sounds almost like Fukuyama.
Speaker 4: By the way, interesting because there was literally a McDonald's
Speaker 4: trailer two countries with McDonald's just won't go to war
Speaker 4: with each other, right, But it sounds in that sense
Speaker 4: a little like the exact ideology that people who are
Speaker 4: now regurgitating the Samuel Huntington thesis are are have sort
Speaker 4: of staked their worldview in opposition to. But Ryan, the
Speaker 4: what trem is trying to do basically is spur massive
Speaker 4: investment between from actually not just Saudi Arabia, other golf states.
Speaker 5: That he's visiting this week.
Speaker 4: And your point about Syria is an important one, But
Speaker 4: that's what he's trying to do, is basically like explode
Speaker 4: the business interest between the United States and places like
Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia. Probably cutter too.
Speaker 3: And you'll like this, so we can we can roll
Speaker 3: a eight here. This is Trump being asked if he
Speaker 3: did have the meeting with the serre and president he did,
Speaker 3: which is kind of fun to think, Like dropsight was
Speaker 3: the first report this, that's crazy. Shara wanted to meet
Speaker 3: with Trump and then at Riodd and they're like, hey, okay,
Speaker 3: let's meet, let's do this. We're just we're just out
Speaker 3: here making deals for Trump. Shara formerly what number two
Speaker 3: we ran mozel for isis or something like it was
Speaker 3: like a formerly al Qaeda, then rebranded it as Nousra. Like,
Speaker 3: this is a guy with a very interesting pass. Let's
Speaker 3: see what Donald Trump has to say about his meeting
Speaker 3: with a guy who up until very recently had a
Speaker 3: ten million dollar bounty on his head for being a
Speaker 3: wanted terrorist.
Speaker 8: How did you find a Syrian president? Right right?
Speaker 7: I think very good, young, attractive guy, tough guy, you know,
Speaker 7: a strong pish, very.
Speaker 3: Strong fighter, very strong pass. He's a fighter. Last Yeah,
Speaker 3: he loves the hoot these too, well, they're very brave.
Speaker 3: He respects Yeah, he respects strength, yes, whether that that's yes.
Speaker 3: And if you are a member of a designated terrorist
Speaker 3: organization at war with the United States, he respects you
Speaker 3: even more because he sees, you know, his beefy generals
Speaker 3: giving the given the briefings, about all the different munitions
Speaker 3: and billion They dropped a billion dollars worth of weapons
Speaker 3: on the hoo Thies and they would stood it, every
Speaker 3: bit of it. And Trump's like, gotta respect that and yes,
Speaker 3: strong like strong past.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I.
Speaker 4: Think it's important the I think the backdrop to all
Speaker 4: of this is important.
Speaker 5: This is a six we can put this on the screen.
Speaker 4: So the Wall Street Journal did a big report ahead
Speaker 4: of the trip, laying out and this was a gargantuan task.
Speaker 4: This is a breaking point graphic from the Wall Street
Speaker 4: Journal article. But they were I mean, it must have
Speaker 4: taken them a long time to get all of the
Speaker 4: straight These are all of the different deals right now.
Speaker 4: We'll read them for you if you're listening to this
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump and his family have in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: So residential towers are going to be constructed in Dubai,
Speaker 4: Jedda and Jedda and Dublin, and.
Speaker 6: The al Qaeda guy offered one in Damascus too.
Speaker 4: Damascus. Yeah, I think that's what I meant to put there. Okay,
Speaker 4: So then there's oh yeah, not Dublin. Yeah, it's supposed
Speaker 4: to be Damascus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then they have one in Dublin.
Speaker 8: Two.
Speaker 4: There's the Trump owned luxury golf course and Cutter stable
Speaker 4: coin by the Trump organization has two hundred billion dollars
Speaker 4: in funding from the UAE and Saudi Royals two billion
Speaker 4: two billion in.
Speaker 5: Funding from the UA and Sadi Royals.
Speaker 4: Royals of three states have committed three and a half
Speaker 4: billion dollars to the Kushner Pe Fund.
Speaker 5: State backed funds have.
Speaker 4: Raised six hundred six billion dollars for Trump advisor Elon
Speaker 4: Musk's x Ai. Dubai just made a deal with the
Speaker 4: Boring company, or is trying in the process of making
Speaker 4: a deal with boring company for an eleven mile tunnel network.
Speaker 5: And the Saudi.
Speaker 4: Prince is a nephew to the king has is an
Speaker 4: investor in Xai.
Speaker 3: I mean this is like and then one other put up,
Speaker 3: this is a four. They announced this. This is the
Speaker 3: thing that you were signed that you were that they
Speaker 3: were signing. That we showed that footage one hundred and
Speaker 3: forty two billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia, which
Speaker 3: would be the largest.
Speaker 6: Arms deal.
Speaker 3: I think that we've agreed to the largest security pact
Speaker 3: we've agreed to. They're talking about a four hundred and
Speaker 3: six hundred billion dollar kind of trade and business commercial agreement.
Speaker 3: Trump is saying it might go up to a trillion.
Speaker 3: Take that with a huge grain of salt. The entire
Speaker 3: GDP of Saudi Arabia is like one trillion m hm.
Speaker 3: And so that's that's a fake, made up number, you ei.
Speaker 3: They're not going to send every penny of their GDP
Speaker 3: to the to Trump, but they're going to send as
Speaker 3: much as they possibly can.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And you know, you and I and probably a lot
Speaker 4: of our audience are the like naive remaining critics of
Speaker 4: this level of corruption in the Trump orbit.
Speaker 3: And we can get into that in the next block,
Speaker 3: which I think is interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, it's very much baked into Trump is. I completely
Speaker 4: understand that. So I think the important way to see
Speaker 4: what's happening this week is that Donald Trump absolutely openly
Speaker 4: believes that the best way to do business with these
Speaker 4: countries and the best way to achieve peace with these
Speaker 4: countries is to have these entanglements, these deep financial entanglements
Speaker 4: with these states, no matter how problematic they are, no
Speaker 4: matter how much they don't want you to play the
Speaker 4: YMCA like, you have to have these.
Speaker 5: And it's very it's actually sort of.
Speaker 4: A mirror image of the way that they approach policy
Speaker 4: domestically in foreign policy, with like family ties, personal ties.
Speaker 4: Trump admires that and likes it, and.
Speaker 5: It speaks to him.
Speaker 4: And that's why he has these great relationships with the
Speaker 4: Saudi countries is because he does believe that commerce will
Speaker 4: win over chaos and not cause the chaos, because he's
Speaker 4: seen that happen from his perspective at least, I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't agree with that, but he believes that he's
Speaker 4: seen that happen as a businessman. Look at Steve Whitkoff,
Speaker 4: for example, a close friend of Donald trump'ss we'll talk
Speaker 4: about talk about him when we talk about Cutter too,
Speaker 4: but big investments in the space. So I don't think
Speaker 4: Trump is in any way hiding from the appearance and
Speaker 4: reality of corruption.
Speaker 5: He's kind of embracing it.
Speaker 4: He wants that to be the foundation of the policy
Speaker 4: going forward. Is that there are deep financial entanglements between
Speaker 4: government and business.
Speaker 3: President Donald Trump is facing increasing pushback for accepting a
Speaker 3: four hundred million dollar plane from Cutter. Here he is
Speaker 3: on his old raggedy plane Air Force one, responding to
Speaker 3: some of this criticism.
Speaker 9: The plane that you're in right now is almost forty
Speaker 9: years old. And when you land and you see Saudi
Speaker 9: Arabia and you see UAE, and you see Qatar, and
Speaker 9: you see all these and they have these brand new
Speaker 9: bowing seven forty seven's mostly and you see ours next
Speaker 9: to it. This is like a totally different plane. It's
Speaker 9: much smaller, it's much less impressive, as impressive as a
Speaker 9: and you know, with the United States of America, I
Speaker 9: believe that we should have the most impressive punt. So anyway,
Speaker 9: so they said to me, we would like to ineffect
Speaker 9: who would like to make a gift. You've done so
Speaker 9: many things, and we'd like to make a gift to
Speaker 9: the Defense Department, which is where it's going. And they said, well,
Speaker 9: that's nice. Now some people say, oh, you shouldn't accept
Speaker 9: gifts for the country. My attitude is, why wouldn't I
Speaker 9: accept the gift we're giving to everybody else? Why wouldn't
Speaker 9: I accept the gift? Because it's going to be a
Speaker 9: couple of years, I think, before the voetings are finished.
Speaker 6: Why wouldn't I accept the gift.
Speaker 3: This has roused democratic leadership and a bunch of Republicans
Speaker 3: to finally get up and offer a little bit of
Speaker 3: criticism of Trump. Here's both Senate leaders Schumer and Democratic
Speaker 3: leaders the leader of the Senate leader House, Schumer and
Speaker 3: Jeffreys pushing back through all those.
Speaker 10: News of the Gatari government gifting Donald Trump a four
Speaker 10: hundred million dollar private jet to you as air Force
Speaker 10: one is so corrupt that even Putin would give a
Speaker 10: double take. This is not just naked corruption, it is
Speaker 10: also a grave national security threat. So, in light of
Speaker 10: the deeply troubling news of a possible Guitari funded Air
Speaker 10: Force One and the reports that the Attorney General personally
Speaker 10: signed off on this clearly unethical deal, I am announcing
Speaker 10: a hold on all DOJ political nominees until we get
Speaker 10: more answers.
Speaker 11: And Donald Trump is publicly defending accepting a four hundred
Speaker 11: million dollar flying palace from a close ally of Iran
Speaker 11: and Hamas. I mean, you can't make this stuff up,
Speaker 11: which is why even some of his closest Maga sick
Speaker 11: offense have made clear this is a plane too far.
Speaker 3: Close ally of Iran, and I must we have a
Speaker 3: giant military base there. Anyway, Here's Ben Shapiro agreeing with
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer and a keen Jeffreys let's roll that one.
Speaker 12: That's not America first, Like, please define America first in
Speaker 12: a way that says you you should take sacks of
Speaker 12: cash from the Katari royals who are behind Al Jazeera.
Speaker 12: It just isn't America first in any conceivable ways. If
Speaker 12: you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeazy
Speaker 12: stuff needs to stop.
Speaker 13: My problem with taking this plane from Qatar is I
Speaker 13: do not think the President of the United States of
Speaker 13: America should sit and fly on a plane purchased with
Speaker 13: the same money used to murder American citizens.
Speaker 3: And the most powerful person who's not in the White
Speaker 3: House in the United States. Laura Lumer also came out
Speaker 3: against Trump. Put up B three. Here's saying, I love
Speaker 3: President Trump, but this is ridiculous. Come on, get out
Speaker 3: of here. You can't accept a four hundred million dollar gift.
Speaker 3: And then then then she dips into hersophobia.
Speaker 4: Rare that Ben Shapia Laura Lumer agree something, and.
Speaker 6: With Schumer and Jeffreys as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I think just quickly Trump would to Ben
Speaker 4: Shapiro say, oh, it's easy to define this as America first.
Speaker 4: He just basically did it in the clip that is
Speaker 4: like the plane is too small where the United States
Speaker 4: of America and where this makes us have a better
Speaker 4: relationship with another powerful potential like hostile in a potentially
Speaker 4: hostile area. So he would have no problem answering that question.
Speaker 4: You know, I think the problem for him at this
Speaker 4: point is that most people aren't buying his argument.
Speaker 3: So joining us more to discuss the implications of all
Speaker 3: of this is Howret's journalist Amir TBone. Amir, thanks so
Speaker 3: much for joining us. That the timing of this, uh,
Speaker 3: just kind of delightful, just hilarious. Right before he travels
Speaker 3: first to Ria, then to than to Doha with a
Speaker 3: series of historically consequential decisions in front of him, we
Speaker 3: hear that he's going to be getting his four hundred
Speaker 3: million dollar plane. How is this news being received in Israel?
Speaker 8: I'll say two things about it. Number one, you may
Speaker 8: recall that in February, Prime Minister Metanio came to the
Speaker 8: White House to meet President Trump and there was a
Speaker 8: lot of thought in his close circle what they could
Speaker 8: give him in order to create a good atmosphere and
Speaker 8: kind of, you know, give him a gift, really okay,
Speaker 8: and let's put it in his terms, And eventually they
Speaker 8: brought Trump a golden deeper, right because related to that
Speaker 8: famous operation in Beirut with all the his balla beepers
Speaker 8: that blew up. And so they brought him a golden deeper,
Speaker 8: pretty small, and there was a whole ceremony where NATANIAO
Speaker 8: gave it to him, and you know, I don't think
Speaker 8: that made much of an impression. I also don't think
Speaker 8: it was real gold. It was probably goldfill. And then
Speaker 8: you look at the Kataris, who how they're playing the
Speaker 8: Trump game. You know, they give him a plane and
Speaker 8: god knows what's in that plane, and I mean, who
Speaker 8: would be surprised if there are all kinds of other
Speaker 8: gifts flying with it. So they know what they're doing
Speaker 8: in terms of appealing to President Trump, and they are
Speaker 8: better at this game than anyone else probably, Okay, I
Speaker 8: mean they're not giving him something small, you know. And
Speaker 8: I have to say about a week before his trip,
Speaker 8: I was talking about this with a friend from the
Speaker 8: newspaper from atz Hein Levingston, who writes about diplomatic affairs,
Speaker 8: and he mentioned to me that he watched a news
Speaker 8: segment where a Katari official was talking about the country's
Speaker 8: deliberations whether or not to buy new planes from Boeing
Speaker 8: or from Airbus right basically American or European. And after
Speaker 8: the Trump plane story came out, he wrote, I feel
Speaker 8: ashamed of myself as a journalist. I thought the gift
Speaker 8: that we're going to give Trump is to buy Boeing
Speaker 8: planes for Qatar. I'm not on their game. I don't
Speaker 8: even you know, not even close. They may do that
Speaker 8: as well, but that's the change. But the really is
Speaker 8: giving Trump a Katari plane from Boeing. Yeah, they know
Speaker 8: what they're doing. They're good at this and the other
Speaker 8: thing I want to say, And you're putting aside all
Speaker 8: the just unbelievable nature of it. If it helps end
Speaker 8: the war in Gaza, I would say give you know,
Speaker 8: Katar can buy a second plane for Sara and antaniao
Speaker 8: be the wives. If it brings an agreement to end
Speaker 8: the war in Gaza, release all the hostages, stop all
Speaker 8: the suffering and the death. Maybe that's what we need
Speaker 8: right now. Because I'm a bit hopeless this morning. I
Speaker 8: got to tell you, I'm seeing the negotiations happening. They're
Speaker 8: in Qatar for ending the war. I don't think it's
Speaker 8: moving fast enough so whatever works at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we want you to we want to stick
Speaker 3: around for an update on those negotiations and where that's
Speaker 3: going to go. First, let's unpack a little bit more
Speaker 3: about of this situation because here in the United States,
Speaker 3: from my perspective, at least Israel and its backers here
Speaker 3: in the United States, in Joe Biden had a fierce
Speaker 3: ideological supporter, like it, absolutely unapologetic supporter of Israel. Yes,
Speaker 3: he like pressed net Yahoo to allow you know, a
Speaker 3: couple hundred trucks of aid in every day, and for
Speaker 3: you know, three or four days he withheld two thousand
Speaker 3: pound bombs after you know, a series of like over
Speaker 3: the top massacres. But otherwise carte blanche for Israel's war
Speaker 3: effort or if you would even call it that at
Speaker 3: this point, and they fought him and traded him for
Speaker 3: the most transactional politician the US has had in that
Speaker 3: office for as long as anybody can really remember. And
Speaker 3: if you're going to have the most transactional office, like
Speaker 3: you said, you've got to be on your game, and
Speaker 3: you know, gold plated beepers.
Speaker 6: Are just aren't going to do it.
Speaker 3: So is there any reflection in Israel about a strategic error,
Speaker 3: a blindness, and throwing out.
Speaker 6: These democrats.
Speaker 3: Who are we going to who were willing to self
Speaker 3: immolate for Israel and for Israel in exchange for this guy.
Speaker 3: It's like, can just be out, you can just be out.
Speaker 8: Bid. I'll tell you what, Ryan, I think it's a
Speaker 8: little too early to reach the conclusion that Trump is
Speaker 8: actually changing the Biden policy on Gaza. I think you're
Speaker 8: right that we saw some important arenas in the Middle
Speaker 8: East recently where he was willing to go against the
Speaker 8: stated position of the Attenbiao government. We saw it on Syria.
Speaker 8: Tania appealed to the Trump administration not to lift sanctions
Speaker 8: on the new Syrian government because of the jihadi past
Speaker 8: of ahmedu Shara abul Jolani, the new leader of Syria,
Speaker 8: and Trump ignored Natania's requests and went with the policy
Speaker 8: that was advocated by Muhammad ben Salman of Saudi Arabia
Speaker 8: and President Erganov Turkey and lifted all the sanctions of Syria.
Speaker 8: Met Ahmedushara in Riad, and yes, he asked him to
Speaker 8: join the Abraham of course with Israel. And I'm sure
Speaker 8: the new Assyria and President told him we'd be willing
Speaker 8: to consider it once the war in Gaza is over, okay,
Speaker 8: because they're not going to do it while Israeli planes
Speaker 8: are bombing and killing in Gaza. That that's just not
Speaker 8: going to happen.
Speaker 3: Realistic.
Speaker 8: So on that issue, obviously a disappointment for the Natania
Speaker 8: government with Trump's policy on Yemen. I'm sure you've discussed this,
Speaker 8: the fact that he reached a ceasefire with the Hussies
Speaker 8: that does not include their continuous attempts to launch missile
Speaker 8: stward Israel, including one that landed at Bengurian Airport is
Speaker 8: whereas only intern National Airport last week and almost every
Speaker 8: day now you have about a million people in Israel
Speaker 8: running into bomb shelters because of the hoof is while
Speaker 8: the American seas fire stands on Iran. I think we'll
Speaker 8: have to wait and see. We don't really know what
Speaker 8: is the actual content of the negotiations, and what we
Speaker 8: hear from Stephen Witkov every week is different. Right one
Speaker 8: week it seems closer to the Israeli position, the next
Speaker 8: week it seems more detached from it. Wade and see.
Speaker 8: But on Gaza, I think that's where Nataniel is playing
Speaker 8: the fiercest game right now against Trump, and that's where
Speaker 8: he's being the most really kind of, you know, bare
Speaker 8: knuckles approach. He's not willing to budge on the American
Speaker 8: attempts to move toward ending the war and releasing all
Speaker 8: the hostages in one deal. I call it the end
Speaker 8: the nightmare deal, okay, and the nightmare that for Israeli
Speaker 8: is claring. My family started on October seven and has
Speaker 8: been going in an every day sense in Gaza and
Speaker 8: in the region broadly. Okay, this is just a nightmare,
Speaker 8: and if we don't end it soon, it's going to
Speaker 8: get much worse, because right now there are preparations for
Speaker 8: another military operation in Gaza, and I don't want to
Speaker 8: think what would happen. This is very personal for me
Speaker 8: because I have a friend who has held hostage there
Speaker 8: for five hundred and eighty six days now. On rem
Speaker 8: Iran was kidnapped by Hamas from my community Keeboard, snachal Os,
Speaker 8: on the border with Gaza. We fear for his life,
Speaker 8: and we know that President Trump and they want to
Speaker 8: end the war. We know that. And honestly, guys, Biden
Speaker 8: wanted to end the war too, Okay, he had his whole.
Speaker 8: If you remember, in May twenty twenty four, almost a
Speaker 8: year ago, he presented a plan to end the war,
Speaker 8: but he didn't really use any leverage to actually bring
Speaker 8: about that result. And right now I can't say for
Speaker 8: sure that there is a change on the issue that
Speaker 8: Trump is actually going to use the immense leverage that
Speaker 8: he has to bring about an end to the war.
Speaker 8: Maybe something will emerge out of this visit right now
Speaker 8: to Qatar. We are all hoping and praying. We haven't
Speaker 8: seen it yet.
Speaker 4: Well, let's put on the screen here some of your
Speaker 4: points actually that you've made, Amir c One. We can
Speaker 4: start with one, So, Amir, you posted on ex trump
Speaker 4: statement now on the release of hostage of Don Alexander
Speaker 4: is the first time since January twenty twenty five that
Speaker 4: he explicitly mentioned ending Gaza War as part of a
Speaker 4: deal to release all hostages and finish the nightmare that
Speaker 4: began on October seventh. Huge positive sign. Only he and
Speaker 4: Whitkough can do it. And then we can move to
Speaker 4: the next element where you point out a mirror less
Speaker 4: than a day since his return from Hamasque captivity, the
Speaker 4: pro Nesta Yahoo channel fourteen is attacking it Don Alexander
Speaker 4: and his family on live television because his mother thanked
Speaker 4: President Trump for a Don's release and not Prime Minister
Speaker 4: Netta Yaho sick twisted, narcissistic behavior, and I just want
Speaker 4: to ask him here if you could tell us a
Speaker 4: little bit, share a little bit about how this is
Speaker 4: being received domestically in Israel. The developments just in the
Speaker 4: last couple of days. It's been really I can't remember.
Speaker 4: You're seeing such an interesting or interesting sort of political
Speaker 4: dynamic between the US and Israel.
Speaker 5: Interesting. Surprising is maybe one way to put it.
Speaker 8: Unprecedented. Yeah, listen, Yeah, you're right, because let's look back
Speaker 8: what happened here, Okay. Dan Alexander is this twenty year
Speaker 8: old guy, grew up in New Jersey, son of Israeli parents.
Speaker 8: When he was eighteen, decided he wants to go back
Speaker 8: to Israel serving the military, and then he was taken
Speaker 8: by Hamas on October seven and held in terrible, inhumane
Speaker 8: conditions for so many days, you know, tortured and went
Speaker 8: through hell and for a long time there was an
Speaker 8: attempt to release him as part of the broader deal.
Speaker 8: But at some point when people in the Trump administry,
Speaker 8: specifically Adam Bohler, who was in charge of hostage negotiations,
Speaker 8: realized that NATANIAO and Ron Dermer, his right hand man,
Speaker 8: we're wasting time and we're not serious about moving into
Speaker 8: the second phase of the January twenty twenty five ceasefire.
Speaker 8: And then we saw, of course that you know, the
Speaker 8: ceasefire collapsed because Natania wasn't willing to continue. They began
Speaker 8: an independent effort to release only Idan Alexander, who is
Speaker 8: the last living a hostage who was a dual Israeli
Speaker 8: American citizen. There are also four hostages who were murdered
Speaker 8: on October seven and are held by FAMAS. Their bodies
Speaker 8: are there, but Idani is alive, and Adam Bahler went
Speaker 8: to meet directly with some of the most senior people
Speaker 8: in Hamas without notifying Israel a bat and there was
Speaker 8: a whole crisis about this. In March, the Trump administration
Speaker 8: suspected that it was leaked by the Israeli government after
Speaker 8: they found out about it through intelligence. In order to
Speaker 8: aboutage those negotiations. Two months pass and eventually again the
Speaker 8: Americans try a separate channel with Ramas Barakravid. My friend
Speaker 8: wrote a very interesting article in Access about how exactly
Speaker 8: was negotiated and they succeed to reach some understanding with
Speaker 8: Ramas we don't know all the details, and Haramas releases
Speaker 8: Idan Alexander, so that by itself is incredible and like
Speaker 8: you said, unprecedented. And in Israel, everybody is happy that
Speaker 8: Idan is out. Okay, this young man came to Israel
Speaker 8: to defend the country. He didn't have to do it,
Speaker 8: could have gone to college like everybody his age in America.
Speaker 8: So everybody is really happy for him. But we're also asking, wait,
Speaker 8: what does this mean? Is there a difference between an
Speaker 8: Israeli citizen who also has an American passport and all
Speaker 8: the others. If you're taken hostage by a terror organization,
Speaker 8: you better have an American passport or otherwise your own government.
Speaker 8: I mean, I don't even want to continue the sentence,
Speaker 8: but it raises really disturbing questions. And then the second
Speaker 8: part of it was that yesterday his mother l gave
Speaker 8: a short statement to the press at Efield Hospital in
Speaker 8: Tel Aviv, were already done is recovering, and she thanked
Speaker 8: President Trump and mister Whitkoff, and I think also Adam Boehler,
Speaker 8: and she thanked you know, the soldiers who fought to
Speaker 8: bring her son back and the doctors who are treating him.
Speaker 8: And she did not thank Prime Minister Natanielle. And I
Speaker 8: think for obvious reasons, because he's been stonewalling, he's been
Speaker 8: wasting time, he's been avoiding a decision to make a
Speaker 8: deal in end this war. And again there is suspicion
Speaker 8: that he harmed the previous attempt to release her son.
Speaker 8: And as a result of this, you had this ugly
Speaker 8: phenomenon of pundits and media people and people with large
Speaker 8: following on social media attacking her and attacking him her
Speaker 8: son simply because they you know, she thanked President Trump
Speaker 8: and not Prime Minister natataniel and that. I also wrote
Speaker 8: a column about it today in how it's it's unbelievable,
Speaker 8: it's despicable. And instead of attacking her and saying why
Speaker 8: doesn't she think, you know, maybe we can just move
Speaker 8: along to actually do a deal, bring out all the
Speaker 8: other hostages, and end the war, and then we won't
Speaker 8: and then we can have a lot of time to
Speaker 8: fight over who gets the credits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so there are a couple of different reactions.
Speaker 3: You could have as an Israeli public to that, like
Speaker 3: one is the one that you're describing like anger at
Speaker 3: the mom like, how dare you?
Speaker 6: We don't have it.
Speaker 3: But there's this amazing clip I'm sure you've seen it
Speaker 3: where wick Cough and net Yahoo are talking and wit
Speaker 3: Cough thanks nt Yahoo for not getting in the way
Speaker 3: of the deal.
Speaker 8: For not sabotaging it.
Speaker 3: Basically like an absolutely striking thing to say while in
Speaker 3: a public call.
Speaker 6: And maybe this is w.
Speaker 8: And Ryan and Ryan I want to interrupt and just
Speaker 8: note that the very situation that this guy is an
Speaker 8: Israeli soldier and an Israeli citizen and Withitkoff is the
Speaker 8: one who greets him and then gets his own prime
Speaker 8: minister on the phone, is by itself, you know, unusual.
Speaker 8: I mean, why should we But that's just the situation
Speaker 8: right now. And this feeds into a greater feeling that
Speaker 8: you hear from a lot of the families of the
Speaker 8: hostages who tell the press that they get a lot
Speaker 8: more empathy and a lot more support and a lot
Speaker 8: more understanding from people in the Trump administration, especially with
Speaker 8: coof and Adam Bohler then they get from people in
Speaker 8: the NATANIAU government, and they have more meetings and more
Speaker 8: briefings and more access to mister Whitkof and the others
Speaker 8: working on this issue in Washington, then in Jerusalem, where
Speaker 8: many of the ministers in Nataniao's government look at them
Speaker 8: with scorn and they look at them as a burden
Speaker 8: that is hurting the war effort. Yeah, so that's what
Speaker 8: we've come to. It's very sad, all right.
Speaker 3: So the one the one response would be, well, let's
Speaker 3: burn burn this woman, uh, you know, for you know,
Speaker 3: being disrespectful to the Prime minister who you know, so
Speaker 3: so selfish, so selflessly like, didn't sabotage the deal, So
Speaker 3: they can't you know, can't he get some some gratitude
Speaker 3: for that. The other reaction would be the one that
Speaker 3: you alluded to earlier, which is what is wrong with
Speaker 3: my government that you have to have an American passport
Speaker 3: for them to care about you. Why don't they care
Speaker 3: about the Israeli citizens? So why isn't why isn't that
Speaker 3: more predominant? Why isn't that driving the politics? And what
Speaker 3: what did you mean earlier when you were saying that
Speaker 3: you feel a lot of pessimism this morning about the
Speaker 3: about the state of the negotiations.
Speaker 8: Well, the two things are connected to one another, because
Speaker 8: you've seen in public opinion polling that around seventy percent
Speaker 8: of the Israelis tomorrow morning would gladly take the deal
Speaker 8: to release all the remaining hostages and end the war.
Speaker 8: This is something that has a lot of support in Israel.
Speaker 8: The government is refusing to do it. There is no
Speaker 8: real external pressure on a TANIAO to do it because
Speaker 8: Trump so far has not crossed the rublicon of actually
Speaker 8: applying pressure on a TANIAU in this direction. And you
Speaker 8: showed my post from a few days ago where I
Speaker 8: noted that he used those words for the first time,
Speaker 8: you know, and the brutal war. Those were the words
Speaker 8: that Trump used in a post on x That was
Speaker 8: the first time he even wrote it or said it.
Speaker 8: So the movement on this is slow, and as a result,
Speaker 8: a lot of people feel depressed and feel helpless because
Speaker 8: they want the war to end, the hostages to come
Speaker 8: back in this nightmare to be done with. And there
Speaker 8: have been demonstrations, some of them very large, and you know,
Speaker 8: it's hard to keep momentum all the time, but people
Speaker 8: have out again and again into the streets, and yet
Speaker 8: N'tagnell completely ignores this, and it's not clear that there
Speaker 8: is external pressure that would lead in a different direction,
Speaker 8: and that leads to a sense of despair and hopelessness.
Speaker 8: And I really hope we'll get some news out of
Speaker 8: this visit by President Trump that would change the momentum
Speaker 8: take it in a different direction. I do believe that
Speaker 8: he and Witkock can do it. I think they have enough,
Speaker 8: you know, especially after this visit and after he does released.
Speaker 8: They have a strong public standing in Israel that most
Speaker 8: of these really public would one hundred percent support such
Speaker 8: a move if they decided to go for it, And
Speaker 8: even if there was some kind of a confrontation that
Speaker 8: evolved as a result of it, I don't know that
Speaker 8: they're there yet.
Speaker 4: Well, and just my question that is, what are you
Speaker 4: looking to see from Donald Trump now? He is in
Speaker 4: Calor today, we're just talking about color, he was in Riod.
Speaker 4: Are there particular Are there particular interactions or statements other
Speaker 4: than kind of the obvious as you were just mentioning
Speaker 4: that you might expect to see from Trump that would
Speaker 4: give you more hope, Amir.
Speaker 8: I think it's very important that he keeps staying out
Speaker 8: loud in a very clear way. What he wrote on
Speaker 8: sund I think it was on Sunday regarding this. You
Speaker 8: know that all the hostages in the war, and I
Speaker 8: think it's important to put a proposal like that on
Speaker 8: the table and create broad support for it. And that
Speaker 8: will be easy because this is what the Saudis want,
Speaker 8: this is what the Qataris want, this is what the
Speaker 8: Immiratis want, this is what all the world wants, really,
Speaker 8: and you can create strong momentum toward it. That would
Speaker 8: also create a momentum in Israel for people to come
Speaker 8: up and say, Okay, let's do it. And I want
Speaker 8: to remind you that Trump really one of his biggest
Speaker 8: goals before he embarked on the strip was to expand
Speaker 8: the Abraham Accords and add Saudi Arabia to the normalization
Speaker 8: a pact with Israel. Well, the only reason this isn't
Speaker 8: happening is because of the war in Gaza. And the
Speaker 8: Saudis are willing, are interested, they want to do it,
Speaker 8: but they can't do it while bombs are dropping and
Speaker 8: people are dying in Gaza. That's something that they just
Speaker 8: can't do because of their own domestic public opinion. And
Speaker 8: this is something that is also I think, you know,
Speaker 8: in Trump's clear interests to get this problem out of
Speaker 8: the way. But of course it will involve a direct
Speaker 8: confrontation with Ntaniel, who doesn't want to do it. And
Speaker 8: it's up to President Trump and mister Wick to the
Speaker 8: side that they're willing to go that distance and to
Speaker 8: actually do it. They're the only ones who can. I mean,
Speaker 8: you're hearing other countries, you know, Britain, Germany, France, everybody's
Speaker 8: saying it's time to end the war and are using
Speaker 8: very strong language. You know. McCrone yesterday said, and this
Speaker 8: was an interesting choice of words, by the way, he said,
Speaker 8: what the Nataniel government is doing in Gaza is beyond shameful.
Speaker 8: And he didn't say Israel even he sent Antanniau government,
Speaker 8: because I think he's been briefed that today most people
Speaker 8: in Israel want things to go in a completely different direction,
Speaker 8: want a hostage deal and an end to this. We're
Speaker 8: not hearing anything like that yet from the White House.
Speaker 3: There's some interesting tea leaves in his Rio odd speech yesterday,
Speaker 3: and I want to play a little clip and you
Speaker 3: tell me if I'm reading too much into this because
Speaker 3: sometimes I'm prone to do that.
Speaker 6: But let's roll c seven here.
Speaker 7: The transformations have been unbelievably remarkable before our eyes. A
Speaker 7: new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of
Speaker 7: tired divisions of the past and forging a future where
Speaker 7: the Middle East is defined by commerce not chaos, where
Speaker 7: it exports technology not terrorism, and where people of different nations, religions,
Speaker 7: and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other
Speaker 7: out of existence.
Speaker 8: We don't want that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know, if you notice that, that last
Speaker 3: part looked to me like an ad lib, like he's
Speaker 3: reading off the teleprompter, and then he goes to, we
Speaker 3: don't want people bombing other people's out of existence.
Speaker 6: We don't want that.
Speaker 3: Like that that that felt like something he added in
Speaker 3: who else can you be talking about? Like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess Irun? Yeah, I think that was a real
Speaker 3: out of existence.
Speaker 8: I think that was the reference to Iran. I think
Speaker 8: on Iran. Trump is more kind of, you know, willing
Speaker 8: to go beyond the limitations of the classic you know,
Speaker 8: specifically in the Republican Party, you know, the politics around
Speaker 8: this issue. He's willing to push it more on that
Speaker 8: in order to get a deal. And I think one
Speaker 8: of the reasons is reflected in the difficulties that he
Speaker 8: found out once the bombing campaign against the ruth Is
Speaker 8: went into its fourth or fifth week, that the Americans
Speaker 8: were bombing every night, again and again, and the hoof Is,
Speaker 8: despite taking the hits, continued to cause a lot of problems.
Speaker 8: And they actually managed to take down several American drones
Speaker 8: that were very expensive and almost shot down from what
Speaker 8: I read in the news, you know, advanced American planes.
Speaker 8: And you had these, you know, weird accidents on the
Speaker 8: Harry Truman Air Force carrier. So I think at some point,
Speaker 8: you know, Trump said okay, let's cut the losses and
Speaker 8: get a deal here. And I think going into a
Speaker 8: war with Iran would pose even greater complications. You know,
Speaker 8: of course America can bomb he runs nuclear facilities. That's obvious. Okay.
Speaker 8: The United States has the ability to do it technically,
Speaker 8: it's not even a question. There is a question whether
Speaker 8: Israel can do it alone. I don't know the answer,
Speaker 8: but it's clear that the United States can do it.
Speaker 8: But then what happens next. Let's say you bond it
Speaker 8: for four or five straight days, What happens on day six,
Speaker 8: What happens on day seven, if they attack Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 8: if they attack the Emirates, if they attack American military basis,
Speaker 8: if they carried terror attacks against Americans in the region,
Speaker 8: what do you do then? And I think that's, you know,
Speaker 8: perhaps something that the campaign in Yemen brought to Trump's thinking.
Speaker 8: You know that there are also limitations to the use
Speaker 8: of power in these situations, especially when you're fighting against
Speaker 8: people who are religious extremists, who don't really care to
Speaker 8: die in some situations, who have a messianic worldview. And
Speaker 8: I think that is also influencing his thinking right now
Speaker 8: about the Iran negotiations.
Speaker 4: So yeah, my last question for you a mirror is
Speaker 4: basically how this dynamic where potentially the Israeli far right
Speaker 4: is realizing the limitations of the deep entanglement with the
Speaker 4: United States. I've seen that sort of cheered in some corners,
Speaker 4: especially here in the United States, as a good thing.
Speaker 4: And obviously these really far rights these this is potentially
Speaker 4: a good thing, and probably not even just the far right.
Speaker 4: You can understand why because in a sense, it looks like, Okay,
Speaker 4: Israel can do what Israel wants to do in the
Speaker 4: United States doesn't have to be you know, if you're
Speaker 4: ISRAELI doesn't have to be the kingmaker anymore. Israel can
Speaker 4: serve do what's in its best interest without having to
Speaker 4: get permission from another country. And the arguments for this
Speaker 4: are myriad, and I'm just curious though, if you could
Speaker 4: maybe give us what the I mean. There's a downside
Speaker 4: to it too, and the downside might be actually an
Speaker 4: unleashed nets in Yahoo, an unleashed israelly far right that
Speaker 4: could make the problems that are already there even worse.
Speaker 5: What do you make of that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I understand the argument, but I'm not convinced by yet,
Speaker 8: because I think Israel needs the United States for many
Speaker 8: many reasons, and the relationship with the US is one
Speaker 8: of a kind for Israel. There is no replacement for it.
Speaker 8: There is no other country in the world that can
Speaker 8: replace the US. From the Israeli perspective, I don't know
Speaker 8: another country that would be willing to offer Israel such
Speaker 8: generous military assistance and intelligence sharing and to make the
Speaker 8: defense of Israel from its regional enemies part of its
Speaker 8: own national security strategy. In some cases, There's nothing like it.
Speaker 8: Anywhere else in the world. And there is no country
Speaker 8: in the world where you have such a large part
Speaker 8: of the population expressing such positive views towards Israel as
Speaker 8: you have in the United States, with Christian Evangelicas and
Speaker 8: large parts of the Jewish community and more broadly than
Speaker 8: American public. And I think the real question for Israel
Speaker 8: is what you're seeing politically right now in the United States.
Speaker 8: Maybe not with the Trump administration. Maybe there it's a
Speaker 8: little early, you know. I'm on the side of caution
Speaker 8: about this Trump versus bb narrative. I see, like I
Speaker 8: told you, I see it in some places. I don't
Speaker 8: see it on Gazza yet. But I want to give
Speaker 8: you something that was amazing for me. Over the weekend,
Speaker 8: Tom Friedman wrote an article in The New York Times
Speaker 8: that was very critical of Natania. Not for the first time, obviously,
Speaker 8: but the language was pretty strong. He basically appealed to
Speaker 8: President Trump and said NATANIAO is not your ally. And
Speaker 8: that article began spreading amongst some corners of the American
Speaker 8: right until no other than Steve Bannon shared it on
Speaker 8: his own social media network, basically writing fact in capital letters.
Speaker 8: I don't remember Steve Bannon sharing an article by Tom
Speaker 8: Friedman that's like hell freezing over right, yes too, kind
Speaker 8: of two distinct corners of the American media ecosystem. And
Speaker 8: to have them in agreement on this statement that NETANIAO
Speaker 8: is not an ally of President Trump's agenda. That's something
Speaker 8: that should be concerning to his readise and it shows
Speaker 8: how the political winds are shifting in a direction that
Speaker 8: in the long term, could be very bad for Eastrael.
Speaker 3: And before we let you go, I wanted to ask
Speaker 3: you about the kind of Israeli journalism community and how
Speaker 3: it's been responding to the unprecedented number of killings of
Speaker 3: Palestinian journalists. And this was brought to mind just yet yesterday.
Speaker 3: I guess it was two nights ago, we got the
Speaker 3: news that hassansala A, you know, one of the most
Speaker 3: prominent journalists in Gaza and all all of Palestine as
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, was killed in the burn unit
Speaker 3: of the Naser Hospital complex. And he was he was
Speaker 3: in the burn unit because his tent had been struck
Speaker 3: in April outside of the Naser Hospital complex, which killed
Speaker 3: killed two journalists and badly severely wounded him. People will
Speaker 3: probably remember those the horrifying images from that strike of
Speaker 3: the journalist burning alive. So the one the man who survives,
Speaker 3: is then targeted in his burn in his bed in
Speaker 3: the hospital and was not collateral damage like the IDF
Speaker 3: came out and said, he's a terrorist, and you know
Speaker 3: he was with other terrorists.
Speaker 6: And we targeted him.
Speaker 3: Their evidence for that was a photo that he had
Speaker 3: taken with Sinoar at one point, which all of his
Speaker 3: colleagues have talked about for years. This was many, many
Speaker 3: years ago, and Sinwar had been kind of underground for
Speaker 3: a while, out of out of public view, and came
Speaker 3: to a public event and he saw Hassan there, and
Speaker 3: Hassan being one of the most famous journalists.
Speaker 8: And the pictures that he gives him a kiss or something.
Speaker 3: He gives him a kiss, and Hassan told her a
Speaker 3: lot of his friends he was deeply unhappy about that.
Speaker 3: But as you know, you've been around, you know, public officials.
Speaker 8: I think Ryan that specifically in this case, and I'm
Speaker 8: not fasting judgment, but I do want to bring these
Speaker 8: rarely perspective on this. There was also the issue that
Speaker 8: there were images of him that became very famous in
Speaker 8: Israeli and all over you know, the region on October seven,
Speaker 8: kind of embedded with the mass forces that attacked Israel.
Speaker 8: And I think there was this picture like next to
Speaker 8: a burning tank, and that was I think how most
Speaker 8: Israelis came to know him and identify him. And that's
Speaker 8: why when the Idea you know, announced this attack, a
Speaker 8: lot of people kind of said, oh, this is the
Speaker 8: journalist from October seven.
Speaker 3: Right, And I think that's what That's what struck me too,
Speaker 3: because you know, he was freelancing for the Associated Press
Speaker 3: and others at the time he went over the fence
Speaker 3: about an hour after the attack, and yeah, a lot
Speaker 3: of the images that we have a lot from that day.
Speaker 6: We're taking through, you know, came came from him.
Speaker 3: Which is but that's that's that's the job of a journalist,
Speaker 3: like a journalist documents scenes. So yeah, he was being
Speaker 3: there saying, oh, he's being a secret terrorist by but
Speaker 3: covering it as a journalist.
Speaker 8: If you're going to be a terror, there are Their
Speaker 8: argument was that he was. Their argument was that he was,
Speaker 8: you know, knowledgeable about it. Part of it I don't know, okay,
Speaker 8: because that's not you know, I can't pass judgment on this.
Speaker 8: I do want to say that we have seen and
Speaker 8: a lot of cases during the war where you had
Speaker 8: journalists being hurt. And I want to say, one person
Speaker 8: that I really appreciate who's spoken out about this is
Speaker 8: Trey Yings from Fox News, who you know, works for
Speaker 8: an outlet that is obviously very supportive of Israel most
Speaker 8: of the time, but on this issue of Palestinian journalists,
Speaker 8: he's spoken out again and again on the need to
Speaker 8: protect them. And from my point of view, you know,
Speaker 8: I don't want to litigate every terrible thing that happens
Speaker 8: right now. I'm speaking about the need to end war
Speaker 8: and to put an end to it, and to bring
Speaker 8: the hostages and to end all of these turble because
Speaker 8: if we start litigating this case, in that case, so
Speaker 8: I'll bring you the Israeli perspective and what the idea
Speaker 8: is saying, you'll bring me the other perspective, and we
Speaker 8: can go on for hours, and I don't think we
Speaker 8: even have the time for those hours. What we really
Speaker 8: need is to say, how do we put an end
Speaker 8: to this? How do we situation It's a.
Speaker 3: Good point in the time you would spend discussing the
Speaker 3: details of it. Thirty more Pala Sinians would be killed
Speaker 3: in another in another strike, and the and.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we got to find a way. We got to
Speaker 8: find a way to put an end to this. And
Speaker 8: it's really in the hands of President Trump more than
Speaker 8: any other person right now.
Speaker 3: All right, Amir Tabone journalist with Auretz, thank you so
Speaker 3: much for joining us.
Speaker 8: Thank you guys for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Author of The Gates of Gaza, by the way, terrific book.
Speaker 8: Thank you Ryan, thanks for mentioning that.
Speaker 4: Congressional Republicans are scrambling this week to try and finally
Speaker 4: hammer out the details of the big, beautiful reconciliation bill
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump has staked part of the success of
Speaker 4: his trade war on and also his legacy. That Trump
Speaker 4: tax cuts being made permanent would be a significant campaign
Speaker 4: promise coming to fruition, but also is seen by the
Speaker 4: President and his allies as a necessary sort of counterweight
Speaker 4: to that ten percent global tariff. At the very least,
Speaker 4: and whatever reciprocal tariffs may be hammered out in the
Speaker 4: days and months ahead. They're hoping to use it as
Speaker 4: something of an industrial policy to attempt to juice the
Speaker 4: market and get some companies reshoring to the United.
Speaker 5: States, we will see.
Speaker 4: But the Houseways and Means Committee, literally I think it
Speaker 4: was eighteen hours. They just ended a couple like an
Speaker 4: hour before. We're taping this right now. On Wednesday morning,
Speaker 4: they had a marathon session marking up the bill throughout
Speaker 4: the evening and last night, and we have video here
Speaker 4: actually are ready of this bill getting protested in the
Speaker 4: Rayburn House office building yesterday.
Speaker 5: You can see on your screen this.
Speaker 4: Is someone sarcastically said like Boomer January six, although the
Speaker 4: original January so it was kind of Boomer January six
Speaker 4: Medicaid cuts, potential Medicaid cuts in the bill. So they
Speaker 4: were trying to get into the hearing and we're being
Speaker 4: an insurrection, Yes, an insurrection. We have a motorized scooter insurrection.
Speaker 3: The Republic is secure from that insurrection attempt. We should
Speaker 3: make sure the public is aware.
Speaker 4: Yes, everything is okay. And they were able to work
Speaker 4: till what like eight in the morning.
Speaker 6: Can because of the terrorists outside there.
Speaker 5: It would have been too hard.
Speaker 4: But you know, this is a really interesting bill because
Speaker 4: with reconciliation bills, obviously you end up with these fascinating
Speaker 4: negotiation processes and they become you know, the smoke fell
Speaker 4: background deals, and we're just seeing the early stages of
Speaker 4: that played out playing out now, Ryan, we're seeing kind
Speaker 4: of what some of the pieces might be. But Mike Johnson, Speaker,
Speaker 4: Mike Johnson has a long way to go. Obviously, sen
Speaker 4: Up majority leader John Thune has a long way to go.
Speaker 4: But Johnson particularly is in a very difficult position. He
Speaker 4: has a razor thin margin in the House of Representatives,
Speaker 4: and already his conference is divided deeply, not just over
Speaker 4: things like salt, which we'll get to, the state and
Speaker 4: local tax deduction, which we'll get to in a minute,
Speaker 4: but also just spending in general. So I want to
Speaker 4: start with one of the more interesting ideas. This is
Speaker 4: from the Senate side that Senator Ted Kruz has come
Speaker 4: up with for the bill. We're going to go ahead
Speaker 4: and roll D one. This is the Magababy investment idea
Speaker 4: from Senator Cruz.
Speaker 14: The idea is simple, which is that we're going to
Speaker 14: create an investment account for every newborn child in America
Speaker 14: at birth, and that investment account the federal government will
Speaker 14: seed with one thousand dollars, but that account can receive
Speaker 14: every year up to five thousand dollars in contributions from
Speaker 14: friends and family members and from employers, and those contributions
Speaker 14: grow on a tax deferred basis, and they can take
Speaker 14: it out after they turn eighteen. What it does is
Speaker 14: it takes every child in America and it gives them
Speaker 14: number one, the miracle of compound growth, the ability to
Speaker 14: accumulate wealth, which is transformational. But number two, it makes
Speaker 14: some stakeholders. It gives them a stake in the American
Speaker 14: free enterprise system. And you ask how much they can save.
Speaker 14: If you have a baby that is born this year,
Speaker 14: that starts with the initial one thousand dollars seed contribution
Speaker 14: over the next eighteen years, if five thousand dollars a
Speaker 14: year is contributed at seven percent growth, by the time
Speaker 14: they're eighteen, they have one hundred and seventy thousand dollars
Speaker 14: in this account. By the time they're thirty five, they
Speaker 14: have seven hundred thousand dollars in the accounts.
Speaker 4: Rin I actually think this is a brilliant idea. I'm
Speaker 4: curious what you make of it. So if you I
Speaker 4: think the ustman is there's like three point six million
Speaker 4: babies born in the United States per year roughly, according
Speaker 4: to the Census Bureau so compared to other things we
Speaker 4: spend ridiculous amounts of money on, it's relatively cheap to
Speaker 4: seed an account with one thousand dollars per baby.
Speaker 5: This is in the bill.
Speaker 4: It is somewhat hilariously called like the Money Account for
Speaker 4: Growth and Advancement, so MAGA account, which is an appeal
Speaker 4: obviously to Donald Trump. I think this could be a
Speaker 4: very interesting negotiating trip maybe with the Salt.
Speaker 5: The Salt Conference.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you want take the money from the babies, if.
Speaker 3: You I'm not against it. Free free money for babies, fine,
Speaker 3: like having a if people think that that's going to
Speaker 3: change the calculation on whether to have a baby when
Speaker 3: it comes to them, Like just you know, your first
Speaker 3: five minutes in the hospital is going to cost you
Speaker 3: more than that aside from all the other costs those
Speaker 3: who are having a baby. But if you're going to
Speaker 3: try to help kids out, help parents out, go for it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: have fun.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it would be a fun negotiating chip
Speaker 4: with the Salt guys. You're like, oh, you want your
Speaker 4: state and local tax deduction tripled. Okay, well you're gonna.
Speaker 3: Have to get rid of the babies to like you'll
Speaker 3: be fine with that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well see, yeah, they would be fine with They absolutely
Speaker 4: would be fine with it, and sets up an interesting
Speaker 4: also an interesting one of those conversations about listen, why
Speaker 4: should those of us who aren't having children subsidize the
Speaker 4: people who are having children? And which could become a
Speaker 4: pretty interesting debate as.
Speaker 6: Well, which yeah, I'd be happy to have.
Speaker 3: Like what are you going to do when you're old,
Speaker 3: Like you want to live in a society, but you
Speaker 3: don't want children, Like get out of here, Like it's
Speaker 3: not how it works.
Speaker 4: Children want the means to yeah, like have productive lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and also like just productivity in general, Like
Speaker 3: everything you do requires people to help you do it.
Speaker 3: And you know, if somebody isn't raising those children into people,
Speaker 3: how you're just gonna do everything yourself, even when you're ninety, Like,
Speaker 3: get out of here. That's not serious now the broad
Speaker 3: structures here, right? Correct me if I'm wrong that the
Speaker 3: Trump initially said that he might like go with some
Speaker 3: slightly higher taxes on the rich, and then he had
Speaker 3: this bizarre truth post where he says, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: kind of for it, but I can see arguments against it.
Speaker 3: So you guys do what you want, and House Republicans
Speaker 3: are like, okay, cool, then we are definitely cutting taxes
Speaker 3: on the risk. Ye, it's up to us.
Speaker 6: More tax breaks for the rich.
Speaker 3: And then we have to break Trump's other promise, which
Speaker 3: is I'm definitely not going to cut medicaid, and so
Speaker 3: in order to pay for the tax cuts for the rich,
Speaker 3: you have to then cut a bunch of medicaid. And
Speaker 3: then to say, well, we're gonna get a give a
Speaker 3: thousand dollars every baby, yep, while cutting eight hundred billion
Speaker 3: or whatever from medicaid is kind of insulting to people's intelligence,
Speaker 3: I would think, right.
Speaker 4: So to be clear, the baby part of that is
Speaker 4: actually in the bill, and the bill was it passed
Speaker 4: out of the committee just again like an hour ago
Speaker 4: after I think eighteen hours of deliberation on a twenty
Speaker 4: six to nineteen vote. So that's a party line vote.
Speaker 4: It's going to the House Budget Committee. Now. It's about
Speaker 4: a four hundred paid, four hundred page bill, and there's
Speaker 4: all kinds of stuff being crammed into it, not just
Speaker 4: the baby stuff, but also Ryan somebody that you're paying
Speaker 4: very close attention to, the nonprofit status revocability from the
Speaker 4: Treasury Department.
Speaker 5: Many people paying close attention to that one.
Speaker 4: By the way, not just left leaning nonprofits, but potentially
Speaker 4: conservative nonprofits who could end up getting absolutely wrecked should
Speaker 4: a democratic administration turn that on them, as they did
Speaker 4: even before a law like that existed during the IRS controversy,
Speaker 4: the Lowest Learner controversy, which is more nuanced obviously than
Speaker 4: a lot of people on the right, remember, but was
Speaker 4: still nonprofits being targeted by the government. Is it's a
Speaker 4: slippery slope no matter what.
Speaker 6: Do you think they'll pull this out?
Speaker 3: Actually, yes, drop Site is a nonprofit. Yep, I thought,
Speaker 3: and be annoying to allow that's the Secretary of the
Speaker 3: Treasury just just be like, actually, don't don't we don't
Speaker 3: think so we don't like drop site yep, yep.
Speaker 4: That could absolutely happen, which is why again I don't
Speaker 4: think this sends up in the bill. And another thing,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to skip ahead here, but D four
Speaker 4: this is about AI. So there was a little provision
Speaker 4: inserted into the bill. Matt Stoller pointed this out. It
Speaker 4: bans regulation of social media. He also mentions it's AI regulation.
Speaker 4: And one thing I heard yesterday is that some members
Speaker 4: might not have even been aware that this was dropped in.
Speaker 4: I mean again, we're talking about a orange page bill
Speaker 4: and it's being flagged.
Speaker 5: But you know, this is one.
Speaker 4: Of the more interesting divisions in Trump's Republican Party is
Speaker 4: whether or not AI should be sort of unleashed or
Speaker 4: should be closely monitored because it is an apocalyptic threat
Speaker 4: to Western civilization. And all of that comes to a
Speaker 4: head in a question about these regulations going forward.
Speaker 5: Now back to the broader problems. This is dtwo not.
Speaker 3: Going to make it. I don't know, Come on, maggot.
Speaker 4: I genuinely don't know. I would be more confident that
Speaker 4: the nonprofit one gets cut than that one. Also, taxing
Speaker 4: university endowments, fantastic populist left and right type horseshoe idea
Speaker 4: that's in the bill. We'll see how much that stuff
Speaker 4: survives at these colleges and universities have powerful lobbyists, and
Speaker 4: they are lobbyist lobbyists.
Speaker 5: Did the up. I'm trying to do.
Speaker 4: The mobbed up with lobbyists, But that's the best that
Speaker 4: I could come up with. D two is from Representative
Speaker 4: trip Roy Freedmacaucus guy, very much a leader in that
Speaker 4: space on the policy front. So he's saying there will
Speaker 4: be enormous pressure to quote get in line to support
Speaker 4: the bill because it does a number of things we
Speaker 4: support regardless of the merits. Though if we object, we
Speaker 4: will be called grand standards and we must comply by
Speaker 4: influencers in some elected officials. I won't care about the pressure,
Speaker 4: he says. He asks, does the bill meaningfully reduce the
Speaker 4: deficit getting to one point five trillion in supposed savings
Speaker 4: plus the tax policy. It's good, he says, but it
Speaker 4: still leaves more than twenty trillion dollars an additional debt
Speaker 4: in ten years, and most of the quote unquote cuts
Speaker 4: are beyond the Trump years, so beyond three point five
Speaker 4: years out, which is a fun way to do the
Speaker 4: math to get it to work out for you in
Speaker 4: CBO projections, And actually those Congressional Budget Office projections are
Speaker 4: something I think Republicans are planning to push back against
Speaker 4: really hard. Republicans and Democrats both do that ass Does
Speaker 4: the bill offer any transformative changes on Medicaid or otherwise currently? No,
Speaker 4: it ignores the policy changes that matter. Meanwhile, Senator Josh
Speaker 4: Hawlly is saying, do not touch Medicaid.
Speaker 5: It is what Bannon has made this point many times.
Speaker 4: It is medicaid is what Maga is surviving off of,
Speaker 4: basically like this matters to working class populist Maga. But
Speaker 4: Senator Ron Johnson wrote not bed in the Wall Street
Speaker 4: Journal just yesterday, this is D five saying that it
Speaker 4: doesn't make enough cuts, sounding exactly the same note as
Speaker 4: Chip Roy. And this is probably a bill they're planning
Speaker 4: to get they would like to have passed around July.
Speaker 4: So we are a month and a half out, which
Speaker 4: may seem like a long time. But trying to get
Speaker 4: Ron Johnson and Josh Holly on the Senate side together
Speaker 4: and then Chip Roy and Mike Johnson and the centrist
Speaker 4: Republicans together on the House side when you have such
Speaker 4: a thin.
Speaker 5: Margin, good luck. D six.
Speaker 4: This is a political article from yesterday from one of
Speaker 4: the caucus.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this is Nikol Lootas saying, quote, the bill is
Speaker 4: dead and absolutely blasting Jason Smith, who's the chairman of
Speaker 4: the Ways and Means Committee. Lo Lotas said actually on Monday,
Speaker 4: quote the bill is dead effectively on the floor. The
Speaker 4: Salt Caucus has been having an absolute meltdown. So the
Speaker 4: Johnson Bill as of right now triples.
Speaker 6: Let's tell people what the salt situation is.
Speaker 4: So the state local tax deduction is a wonky thing
Speaker 4: that is actually a fascinating glimpse into how the Washington
Speaker 4: establishment works.
Speaker 5: They get their way all the time because they pitch
Speaker 5: a fit.
Speaker 4: It's people in blue states and particularly Republicans who talk
Speaker 4: a big game about fiscal responsibility, wanting their constituents to
Speaker 4: get a deduction from their state and local taxes in
Speaker 4: high tax states.
Speaker 5: So those are typically blue states.
Speaker 3: Right, So let's let's say you live in New Jersey
Speaker 3: and you pay, you know, seventy five thousand dollars a
Speaker 3: year in state and local taxes before Trump's reform back
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. You could take that seventy five thousand
Speaker 3: dollars that you gave to the state and the local
Speaker 3: government and count it basically towards your federal tax obligation.
Speaker 3: And so obviously, in order to pay that amount of
Speaker 3: money in state and local taxes, you have to make
Speaker 3: an awful lot of money.
Speaker 6: So it applies to like the one percent, like the
Speaker 6: very top.
Speaker 3: As you get lower, then it starts hitting more people
Speaker 3: top two percent, three percent, ten percent. Right now, the
Speaker 3: cap is is it thirty or is it ten? No, ten,
Speaker 3: Right now, it's ten.
Speaker 5: But in the bill it's thirty, which is a tripling.
Speaker 3: Right now, you can get if anything over ten thousand
Speaker 3: that you pay to the state and local government, you
Speaker 3: can't write that off of your federal taxes.
Speaker 6: So what Republicans were arguing.
Speaker 3: Is that that would push these blue states and these
Speaker 3: towns to reduce their taxes because they'd be pressured by
Speaker 3: their constituents.
Speaker 6: Yep, that hasn't really happened.
Speaker 3: So anyway, So that now they're just trying, they're trying
Speaker 3: to go back and get a higher exception.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they shouldn't even be getting this tripling of it,
Speaker 4: but they have the audacity. There was some reporting from
Speaker 4: like hell people last night that they had to blow
Speaker 4: up with Nicole Malliatacas of New York, who has basically
Speaker 4: said she's okay with the tripling the thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: She said that she's okay with that. That was a
Speaker 4: compromise number that Johnson landed on.
Speaker 3: Anywhere, it's a huge issue in a lot of these
Speaker 3: congressions discs. It's a huge issue because they'll get thrown out.
Speaker 3: It's thousands of dollars per wealthy household. And people are
Speaker 3: going to be mad at me when I say wealthy because,
Speaker 3: like you know, in a lot of these cost areas, Yeah,
Speaker 3: families making four hundred thousand dollars a year are like,
Speaker 3: they don't feel wealthy. Families who make fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a year are like, fu, you make ten times what.
Speaker 5: I do exactly.
Speaker 4: And when you hit a thirty thousand dollars deduction, we're
Speaker 4: not just talking about the people making four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, to.
Speaker 4: If you're unhappy with a thirty thousand dollars deduction, you're
Speaker 4: doing really good. Yeah, you're not middle class at that point,
Speaker 4: no matter how expensive it is to live in these
Speaker 4: high tax states. So Nicole Malatakish's okay with the tripling
Speaker 4: was prevented from entering a meeting by the people who
Speaker 4: want that to go higher to forty thousand dollars because
Speaker 4: they said, quote unquote, she's against us. They didn't want
Speaker 4: her to go into the meeting with Mike Johnson. So
Speaker 4: I confirm that with a source. And that's how brutal
Speaker 4: that this is getting just over the issue of salt.
Speaker 4: We're not even getting to the stuff about the Baby
Speaker 4: Investment Fund or Medicaid quote unquote reforms which we will
Speaker 4: be framed as cuts because in some cases they absolutely
Speaker 4: will beat cuts. They won't just be reforms, they will
Speaker 4: absolutely be cuts. And Josh Hawley recognizes that in substance
Speaker 4: and in style, that that's sort of a disaster for MAGA. Now,
Speaker 4: Trump was asked questions about this on Air Force One.
Speaker 5: Here's D seven.
Speaker 4: This is a clip of Trump talking about the American
Speaker 4: healthcare system.
Speaker 9: I would fight so hard to get a half a
Speaker 9: point and I actually had it down half a point
Speaker 9: for one year. And I was so proud of myself
Speaker 9: because that never happened before. It was always going up.
Speaker 9: Drugs only went in one direction, that's up. And now
Speaker 9: after studying the industry, it's a very complex industry, but
Speaker 9: I figured it out, and I said, it's not going
Speaker 9: to happen. But the Democrats fought very hard to keep
Speaker 9: the prices of drugs very, very high. They really are
Speaker 9: to blame for this because they should have done something
Speaker 9: about it.
Speaker 4: Okay, So he says it's a very complex, complex industry,
Speaker 4: but he thinks he's figured it out.
Speaker 2: D eight.
Speaker 4: This is him talking about zempic. And this is a
Speaker 4: little off topic, Ryan, but delightful and funny enough that
Speaker 4: we had to roll it.
Speaker 9: A friend of mine who's slightly overweight, to put it mildly,
Speaker 9: went to a drug store in London and he was
Speaker 9: able to get one of the fat shots. I caught
Speaker 9: the fat shots, So Janet, you lose weight.
Speaker 3: A lot of people laugh at that.
Speaker 8: Some people got offended by I don't get offended by an.
Speaker 9: I'm just glad I didn't use his name. He's actually
Speaker 9: a very rich guys are very successful, and he's glad he.
Speaker 8: Didn't use his name.
Speaker 9: No, he's very happy. He knows exactly who I was
Speaker 9: talking about. He called, he said that was interesting. He
Speaker 9: said he was very concerned that I might use his name.
Speaker 8: It might slip.
Speaker 9: Now he doesn't have to worry. But he went to
Speaker 9: London and he bought.
Speaker 8: This uh ozempic will go over you one of those.
Speaker 9: Yes, yeah, I'm not sure which one, but he bought
Speaker 9: he bought one of them, maybe a zeppich.
Speaker 4: Okay, we had to include it the serious it's relevant.
Speaker 3: It's relevant to the point, right, Yeah, I know that
Speaker 3: people oversees pay a lot less for pharmat suiticles, then
Speaker 3: we pay here. Trump's The framework of Trump's idea is solid,
Speaker 3: basically saying to a drug company, if you sell something
Speaker 3: for X price in another country, you have to sell
Speaker 3: it for that that low price here in the United States.
Speaker 3: Where he falls on his face is that you can't
Speaker 3: do this by executive order. Drug companies have lawyers. They'll
Speaker 3: take it to court, they will win. But you can
Speaker 3: do it through Congress. Rocanna and Bernie Sanders have offered
Speaker 3: to introduce his idea as legislation.
Speaker 5: They can put it in this bill.
Speaker 3: By the way, he and you save a bunch of
Speaker 3: money then through Medicare and Medicaid, then you don't do
Speaker 3: the cuts. He's lying when he says that Democrats did
Speaker 3: everything they could to keep drug prices high. For the
Speaker 3: first time in decades, Democrats during the Biden there were
Speaker 3: actually taking on big pharma in a serious way. They
Speaker 3: could have done a lot more. I would have liked
Speaker 3: to see him do a lot more, but pharma caught
Speaker 3: a bunch of l's and so keep that momentum going.
Speaker 3: Or is Trump going to do what he did in
Speaker 3: the first time, just talk a big game, write some
Speaker 3: executive orders, and then watch them get ripped up by
Speaker 3: the courts and then move on and just tell tell
Speaker 3: everyone that you uh, you know, did wonderful things on
Speaker 3: drug pricing, which is the kind of lie that doesn't
Speaker 3: land with your base because they buy drugs.
Speaker 6: They know it, Like you can't. You can lie about
Speaker 6: some things.
Speaker 3: You can't lie about what it costs to fill your
Speaker 3: prescriptions because every single day that you're going to the
Speaker 3: drug store, you know. So like, you know, we'll be
Speaker 3: nice to Trump and say we'll see if he actually
Speaker 3: takes it to Congress. What do you think, Willie? No,
Speaker 3: never mind, No, I don't think so well.
Speaker 4: I think part of it is that they are continuously
Speaker 4: trying to make this point about executive power, so.
Speaker 3: Well this is this will like make the opposite point
Speaker 3: because it's girls to be like, no, I can't do this,
Speaker 3: you need a law.
Speaker 6: And guess what, we have a whole building.
Speaker 3: It's this beautiful domed building is right down the street
Speaker 3: and strolled by Republicans on both sides of it, and
Speaker 3: there's only two sides so boomed, and you've got a
Speaker 3: bunch of Democrats saying that they're happy to do it,
Speaker 3: so just do it well, you said you're not scared
Speaker 3: to farm a lobbyist, Just go do it.
Speaker 4: The problem is a lot of the people have to
Speaker 4: vote on the bill, are so let's tie.
Speaker 5: On all this.
Speaker 3: He's final to hang out with al Qaeda, but drug
Speaker 3: lobbyists is.
Speaker 4: Not going to take them take that ten million dollar
Speaker 4: bounty off Golani's head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but so anyway, and.
Speaker 6: We didn't make this point in the Seria block. He's
Speaker 6: from the goal on Heights.
Speaker 3: His name is gnom to gare Is is like a
Speaker 3: derivative of that money. And in his deal with Trump,
Speaker 3: he's just basically handing the goal on heights Israel.
Speaker 6: What an arc.
Speaker 5: Yes, it is true.
Speaker 3: The people who said that the CIA was backing this
Speaker 3: thing whole time are undefeated so far.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Trump posted on true Social when I return from
Speaker 4: the Middle East, where great things will happen for America,
Speaker 4: we will work together on any and all outstanding issues,
Speaker 4: but there shouldn't be many. The bill is all caps great,
Speaker 4: We'll have no alternative.
Speaker 5: We must win.
Speaker 4: But now with the tremendous drug and pharmaceutical cuts plus
Speaker 4: massive incoming tariff money, our great, big, beautiful bill just
Speaker 4: got much bigger and better. So he's making the direct
Speaker 4: connection between what we were just talking about, the drug
Speaker 4: in and pharmaceutical cuts, the planned drugon pharmaceutical cuts, and
Speaker 4: the bill itself, and the tariff war. The gold nature
Speaker 4: of America will soon be upon us. Make America great again.
Speaker 4: So all that is to say, where Donald Trump is
Speaker 4: trying to say the bill is great, Chip Roy is
Speaker 4: already signaling that he is conditioning and is conditioning himself,
Speaker 4: is conditioning his constituents in Texas and other budget hawks
Speaker 4: to be immune to Trump Like efforts to say this
Speaker 4: is a great bill, we need.
Speaker 5: To pass it no matter what.
Speaker 4: In the Tip Roy post, he's talking about how some
Speaker 4: of these cuts are fantastic. Tax part portion of the
Speaker 4: bilit he sees as excellent, but the bill is still
Speaker 4: irresponsible enough in terms of spending that he doesn't want
Speaker 4: to get behind it. And by the way, if you
Speaker 4: are a Chip Roy and you look at the fact
Speaker 4: that Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency,
Speaker 4: you have every right to be frustrated with a bill
Speaker 4: that jams in some of these priorities without making what
Speaker 4: you see as important generational cuts. Doge is what at
Speaker 4: one hundred and sixty billion allegedly in cuts. So it's
Speaker 4: not making the two trillion or one trillion in cuts
Speaker 4: that they saw as something that would be a booster
Speaker 4: to this tax bill and a booster to the trade
Speaker 4: war in general, because you wouldn't necessarily need as much
Speaker 4: revenue coming in from reciprocal tariffs whatever else. So this
Speaker 4: is a huge, huge mess for Republicans. Everyone predicted that
Speaker 4: it would be. It's not a surprise to Mike Johnson
Speaker 4: or not, like they're caught off guard by what a
Speaker 4: mess this is actually sort of untangling this not for
Speaker 4: them in the next six weeks with such thin with
Speaker 4: such than margins in Congress, needing to get a Chip
Speaker 4: roy on board, Thomas Massey on board, and then the
Speaker 4: moderate Salt people on board, then needing to get a
Speaker 4: Ron Johnson on the same page as a Josh Hawley.
Speaker 4: Obviously the stakes are really high for them, But holy smokes, Ryan,
Speaker 4: this is going to be an incredible roller coaster, And
Speaker 4: as obvious as it sounds that they'll end up getting
Speaker 4: something done, I'm not sure that that's even the case.
Speaker 4: I think this is going to be a really bitter, bitter.
Speaker 3: Fight, or maybe they'll just continue the tax cuts as
Speaker 3: they are and not through the rest of it. But
Speaker 3: before we leave, before we leave, let's just put up
Speaker 3: D four one more time, just because just to underline
Speaker 3: is how completely crazy this is. This was D four
Speaker 3: where they say, in general, accept as provided in paragraph too,
Speaker 3: no state or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law
Speaker 3: or regulation regulating AIDS, AI systems or automated decision systems
Speaker 3: during the ten year period beginning on the date of
Speaker 3: the enactment of this Act. That's just completely insane.
Speaker 5: Yep, it is.
Speaker 3: And you know that people say, if you want to
Speaker 3: know who your ruler is, ask who you're not allowed
Speaker 3: to criticize.
Speaker 6: If you want to know who your ruler is, ask
Speaker 6: who you're not allowed to regulate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, this is the type of thing that they
Speaker 4: drop into the bills. I think the same thing with
Speaker 4: the nonprofit They drop into these bills when the sausage
Speaker 4: is being made to then negotiate down from a crazy position.
Speaker 3: Well, let's hope. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, as long as people flag it and catch
Speaker 4: this stuff, I guess four hundred pages isn't that long
Speaker 4: of a bill all things consider, And yeah.
Speaker 3: Fight, I'm narrow wide margins.
Speaker 5: We'll see where it goes.
Speaker 4: Right, Let's move on to the roiling controversy over Jake
Speaker 4: Tapper and Alex Thompson's forthcoming book. It's not even out yet,
Speaker 4: excerpts are dropping original sin that details this cover up
Speaker 4: over Joe Biden's health of the course of the last.
Speaker 5: Couple of years.
Speaker 4: It is going crazy, like in political circles and dem circles.
Speaker 4: Just on the way here, I was listening to David
Speaker 4: Axelrod being questioned about it on NPR and still trying
Speaker 4: to you know, he's sort of blaming the Biden family
Speaker 4: and the people around Biden, which is interesting for David Axlrod, who,
Speaker 4: by the way, was one of the earlier voices expressing
Speaker 4: some concern. I think it was back in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: Axlrod was expressing some concern about it, which.
Speaker 6: Is why he never liked Biden.
Speaker 5: Never liked Biden.
Speaker 4: I think this is some of the problems that we're
Speaker 4: going to get into with Tappers. I guess I would
Speaker 4: call it revision this history. Maybe Ryan I will talk
Speaker 4: a bit about that. Here's a clip of Tapper on
Speaker 4: his own network tasing one of the critical details in
Speaker 4: the book, which is that biden staffers considered putting him
Speaker 4: in a wheelchair while he was president, and.
Speaker 15: An excerpt published by Axios that AIDS were privately discussing
Speaker 15: putting President Biden in a wheelchair for his second term
Speaker 15: because of his physical deterioration. Sources telling Me and Alex
Speaker 15: Thompson to Biden's team thought it was, of course politically
Speaker 15: untenable to have the president in a wheelchair during his
Speaker 15: reelection bid. They took steps to try to protect him
Speaker 15: in the images of his halting gait, including finding shorter
Speaker 15: walking paths, adding handrails to steps, using a smaller staircase
Speaker 15: to board air First one. AIDS would also accompany Biden
Speaker 15: across the White House lawn to Marine one or from
Speaker 15: Marine one, not only to disguise what was going on,
Speaker 15: but in case he felt President Biden's doctor, a White
Speaker 15: House physician, Kevin O'Connor, warned behind the scenes that if
Speaker 15: Biden had one more serious fall, he might need to
Speaker 15: be in a wheelchair for his recovery. Doctor O'Connor had
Speaker 15: long worried about the toll the job had taken on
Speaker 15: Biden's health, and joked behind the scenes that Biden's staff
Speaker 15: members were trying to kill him while he was trying
Speaker 15: to keep him alive.
Speaker 4: The New Yorker published a very long excerpt of the
Speaker 4: book yesterday day that included some quotes from David Ploff,
Speaker 4: George Clooney, and Jon Favreau. And if we start with Pluff,
Speaker 4: we can put this up. This is E three Ploff
Speaker 4: speaking actually Ryan of Biden, of Obama advisors that really
Speaker 4: never got on the Biden train, at least maybe.
Speaker 5: Behind closed doors at the time.
Speaker 4: Ploff says in this book quote, we got so screwed
Speaker 4: by Biden as a party and just said it was
Speaker 4: He's just going off basically on how Biden was. Would
Speaker 4: you say, I think the vacation is selfishly runs for
Speaker 4: president and Pluff seems to have always been irked by it.
Speaker 4: But it seems also like we're getting most of this
Speaker 4: from a book being published a year after the president.
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of these Obama boys really never liked Biden.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he says, he totally fucked us and it's all Biden.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they didn't like him from the very beginning,
Speaker 3: Like they picked it was either him or Evan By,
Speaker 3: if you remember, because they wanted to.
Speaker 4: Considered Joe Lieberman at one point.
Speaker 5: No, that was McCain, That was right.
Speaker 3: Yes, they wanted a white right leaning, like a white
Speaker 3: conservative working who would appeal to working class whites in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight who were afraid of having a
Speaker 3: black president. Like that was the rationale. And so it
Speaker 3: was a there was it was a DEI pick. It
Speaker 3: was a diversity pick. They only considered white men. This
Speaker 3: is like, nobody would dispute any of this. And because
Speaker 3: of I guess the caliber of the candidates, it was
Speaker 3: Dad like Biden and by and they went with went
Speaker 3: with Biden, and they then made it very difficult for
Speaker 3: him to run in twenty sixteen, such that he did
Speaker 3: not end up pulling the trigger. I think they they
Speaker 3: made so many interesting mistakes along the way the Democratic Party,
Speaker 3: just tactical ones like by Biden beats Trump in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: I think because there's just the Biden, the onion guy
Speaker 3: who like you know, likes to like wash his car
Speaker 3: in the White House driveway. Yeah, like that guy peels
Speaker 3: enough working class votes away from Trump that Trump doesn't
Speaker 3: win that fluke twenty sixteen because Trump lost by three
Speaker 3: million votes to Hillary Clinton. Oh, Biden is also he
Speaker 3: won this fluke, people like Obama would have crushed. This
Speaker 3: is what's crazy about our politics. Obama would have annihilated Trump,
Speaker 3: like Obama would probably still be president if it weren't
Speaker 3: for term limits, which is amazing, like all of this
Speaker 3: political chaos we've had because because you know, Obama can't
Speaker 3: run for reelection. I'm not an Obama fan. I'm just
Speaker 3: saying objectively speaking, like he would have won. I think
Speaker 3: Biden would anyway. So they didn't want him to run
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen. They did not rally around him in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty until it was either him or Burney, and
Speaker 3: then they're looking like, well, we definitely don't want Erney,
Speaker 3: so we might as well in that case, again, tactical
Speaker 3: decision Democrats are probably much better off if Trump wins
Speaker 3: reelection in twenty twenty and then he has to be
Speaker 3: the one that handles all of COVID and he doesn't
Speaker 3: have four years to stew. Obviously, he never would have
Speaker 3: done January sixth because he would have won, so he
Speaker 3: didn't have to do it. And then he's and then
Speaker 3: he's out. He's probably unpopular because of the way hales
Speaker 3: COVID or whatever or he's popular whatever, but he can't
Speaker 3: run again in twenty twenty four. And now we have
Speaker 3: I don't know who knows we have now we don't
Speaker 3: have this, well, we don't democrats would like. It's hard
Speaker 3: to imagine a world where Democrats are worse off than
Speaker 3: they are today.
Speaker 4: Let's look at the Clooney quote as well. So this
Speaker 4: is E four and this is all again from the
Speaker 4: big splashy New Yorker publication of an excerpt from the
Speaker 4: book Yesterday. Coloney says, it was not okay of that
Speaker 4: big fundraiser that became it's now a sort of an
Speaker 4: infamous chapter in the twenty twenty four cycle. Even publicly
Speaker 4: could see something was wrong with Joe Biden. I believe
Speaker 4: there was some quote unquote cheap fake coverage afterwards where
Speaker 4: the media was criticizing the right for sort of ginting
Speaker 4: up a conspiracy theory with you know, clipped clips that
Speaker 4: were selectively edited.
Speaker 5: Allegedly.
Speaker 4: Coloney goes on to say, that thing, the moment where
Speaker 4: you recognize someone you know, especially famous person who's doing
Speaker 4: a fucking fundraiser for you, it was delayed, it was uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: And this is actually according to a Hollywood VIP, not
Speaker 4: Clooney himself, and an aid had to go into Joe
Speaker 4: Biden and say George Clooney, and then Biden goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: hi George. And the quote from the book is quote
Speaker 4: Clooney was shaken to his court. The president had recognized
Speaker 4: him a man he had known for years. So it
Speaker 4: sounds like what happened is Joe Biden is introduced and said, Hey,
Speaker 4: this is George And because you don't want to say Clooney,
Speaker 4: by the way, because that makes you look you know, hey,
Speaker 4: mister president, we have George here. He's holding this massive
Speaker 4: fundraiser for you. And Biden is sort of like, hey,
Speaker 4: how are you in a way that doesn't reflect a
Speaker 4: like friendship that he's had for I guess a couple
Speaker 4: of decades with Biden, and Biden and Clooney have done
Speaker 4: some work together over the years.
Speaker 5: Apparently I was just learning that.
Speaker 4: But then he gets a sort of nudge, being like
Speaker 4: it's George Clooney and is like startled into recognition that
Speaker 4: you actually know this person. And this is a man
Speaker 4: who is not a candidate for president of the United States.
Speaker 4: He is the sitting president of the United States.
Speaker 5: Let's put E five.
Speaker 6: In July twenty twenty four. George Clooney does his gut.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, go ahead, no, no, no, I think that's an
Speaker 4: important point. That is July twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: So this is he writes his New York Times guest, Essay,
Speaker 3: I love Joe Biden, but we need a new nominee, George.
Speaker 5: Clooney, because George Clooney behind just witnessed this.
Speaker 3: Yes, so good for George Clooney to be like, he
Speaker 3: saw something in private and he immediately shared it with
Speaker 3: the public.
Speaker 5: That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaker 3: But imagine that idea, sharing sharing what you know privately
Speaker 3: with the public.
Speaker 6: But he read democracy well.
Speaker 4: So sure, but he didn't do it until after the debate,
Speaker 4: So he didn't come out and say.
Speaker 3: That until Yeah, when was that event?
Speaker 4: That event I believe was a couple of weeks before
Speaker 4: the debate. So it's yeah, the LA fundraiser. I'm going
Speaker 4: to make sure that I'm right on that right now.
Speaker 4: But we can also put E five on the screen.
Speaker 4: This is John Favreau quote. This is obviously people know
Speaker 4: Favreau is the host of Potsa of America.
Speaker 5: This is from the book.
Speaker 4: This is how they describe it, with Favreau obviously being
Speaker 4: the source. That night. To Favreau, Biden seemed to have
Speaker 4: aged fifty years in sixteen months. This is when he
Speaker 4: met up with Biden. He was incoherent. His stories were
Speaker 4: meandering and confusing. Something about I Rock, what exactly was
Speaker 4: the point of this? He told one story twice. After
Speaker 4: the President left the group, Favreau asked the staffer about
Speaker 4: his demeanor. Oh no, oh, no, big deal. The staffer said,
Speaker 4: the president must have been tired. It was nighttime at
Speaker 4: the end of a long week. This is again the
Speaker 4: sitting president of the United States. It was nighttime at
Speaker 4: the end of a long week. And I think Dave
Speaker 4: Wigel made a really good point. He says, the Favreau anecdote,
Speaker 4: which shows a sharp Biden in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 4: a lost Biden in twenty twenty four, is the emerging
Speaker 4: dem conventional wisdom. Basically that he started fading badly after
Speaker 4: the midterms, not unrelated.
Speaker 5: To Hunter's trouble.
Speaker 4: And I just want to say I agree that this
Speaker 4: is the emerging dem conventional wisdom. It feels like a
Speaker 4: concerted effort to rewrite history, and it is utter bullshit.
Speaker 5: You go back to twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: Nate Silver back in twenty nineteen, I remember story about
Speaker 4: this yesterday, so I was peeling back all of this coverage.
Speaker 4: Twenty nineteen, Nate Silver said he thought Biden's age was
Speaker 4: probably the biggest handicap in his candidacy, and.
Speaker 3: Astro said that, yes, yeah, well.
Speaker 4: This is the Democratic candidates in twenty twenty were dancing
Speaker 4: around it, sort of like people criticized Bernie Sanders for
Speaker 4: dancing around Hillary Clinton's various liabilities in twenty sixteen. Nobody
Speaker 4: would just come out and say it back then, but
Speaker 4: everyone knew that it was a huge vulnerability for Biden
Speaker 4: because he was constantly messing up. I think at one
Speaker 4: point on the twenty twenty campaign trail he said he
Speaker 4: was proud to be running for United States Senate. I mean,
Speaker 4: he had some real eye popping gaffes that were obviously
Speaker 4: I think age related. And it's subjective, but obviously age related.
Speaker 4: August twenty nineteen quote, this is in the hill. Biden
Speaker 4: has a tendency to make blenders late in the day.
Speaker 4: His allies say, his allies, you know it. This was
Speaker 4: Jamal Bowie in twenty this twenty nineteen, did I hallucinate
Speaker 4: last night because the Biden I saw was meandering and
Speaker 4: visibly tired by the end of a debate. He was
Speaker 4: acting weird back of.
Speaker 3: That day, just looking at September twenty ninth, my article
Speaker 3: about his debate performance calls him quote staggeringly incoherent. YEP,
Speaker 3: this is twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: And to be clear, that June fifteenth fundraiser we were
Speaker 4: just talking about that is before the debate. And Clooney
Speaker 4: writes his New York Times upbed after the debate, which
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 5: Think is just like, is cowardly.
Speaker 4: Maybe people at the time thought that they were better
Speaker 4: off expressing this through private channels. There's perhaps an argument
Speaker 4: to be made for that, but I think that argument
Speaker 4: is much more reasonable if you're just talking about a candidate.
Speaker 4: You're not talking about the sitting president of the United
Speaker 4: States who is running for reelection. So there's all kinds
Speaker 4: of frustrating stuff going on here. This is Chuck Schumer
Speaker 4: e six. Chuck Schumer is now and a lot of
Speaker 4: prominent Democrats are going to continue to get questions about it.
Speaker 4: And just before we tee this up. Casey Hunt is
Speaker 4: talking to Chuck Schumer on CNN here, and I love
Speaker 4: that she is now suddenly playing the role of a
Speaker 4: very aggressive journalist.
Speaker 5: And I love that Jake Tapper is doing the same thing.
Speaker 4: And Alex Thompson posted some clips of himself and Tapper
Speaker 4: asking critical questions about Biden's age and his mental capacity
Speaker 4: in the months and maybe the last couple of years
Speaker 4: roughly of the Biden presidency, when to be fair to
Speaker 4: people like John Favreau, it did seem to be getting
Speaker 4: like precipitously worse, but it.
Speaker 5: Started from a low point already.
Speaker 4: All that is to say, yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 4: this is one of those times where it's suddenly really
Speaker 4: easy because Biden is out of power, his family is
Speaker 4: out of power, to lean into this narrative and bolster
Speaker 4: your sort of tough bipartisan journalistic bona fides. But to me,
Speaker 4: it just means so so little, given that there was
Speaker 4: a significant twenty fifth Amendment conversation to be had. For
Speaker 4: I would say, like literally every year of the Biden presidency,
Speaker 4: day and day out, this is sitting president of United States,
Speaker 4: Nobody talked about it.
Speaker 5: Until he was back on the ballot.
Speaker 4: There was a freaking primary that could have been dramatically different.
Speaker 4: They could have actually been a competitive Democratic primary if
Speaker 4: the media was asking DNC leaders, was asking Chuck Schumer
Speaker 4: serious questions about this all of the time, not just
Speaker 4: every once in a while. So here's Casey Hunt talking
Speaker 4: to Chuck Schumer. Yesterday.
Speaker 16: You sat next to Biden in the Oval office February
Speaker 16: twenty seventh, twenty twenty four, just a handful of months
Speaker 16: before the president took that debate stage, and it was
Speaker 16: later reported that you and other Democratic leaders were talking
Speaker 16: before the debate about having a plan, you and Hakim Jeffries,
Speaker 16: Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama. I understand you later denied that
Speaker 16: that ever happened, but I am curious. I'm interested to
Speaker 16: know whether the man that you saw us sitting there
Speaker 16: on that couch on that day you were in there,
Speaker 16: you saw him up close and personal, did you really
Speaker 16: not have any idea that he was not fit to
Speaker 16: serve a second term?
Speaker 10: Casey, we're looking forward. We have the largest medicaid cut
Speaker 10: in front of us, We have the cult federal government.
Speaker 16: Because you lost a presidential election, and is that not
Speaker 16: Joe Biden's responsibility for deciding to run again.
Speaker 10: We're looking forward.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 10: That's it.
Speaker 4: Okay, Ryan, here's Jake Tapper in twenty twenty three. You're
Speaker 4: talking to Franklin four, who had just written that book
Speaker 4: about Joe Biden. Ford claimed that Biden would pass a
Speaker 4: quote mental acuity test, and Tapper goes, right, he's sharp mentally.
Speaker 4: I think the question is physical, right. More so this
Speaker 4: is twenty twenty three, he said of In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: he said of Biden's memory while talking to Adam shiff
Speaker 4: it doesn't seem great.
Speaker 5: It's not horrible.
Speaker 4: He does have issues here and there. It's not disqualifying,
Speaker 4: but he does have some memory issues. It's just again
Speaker 4: he's asking shifts, some tough questions in that interview, but
Speaker 4: had to couch it in that way because people were
Speaker 4: terrified of the White House. Their access was being threatened,
Speaker 4: significantly being threatened.
Speaker 5: The Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 4: Published a piece about that in what June of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four, and it's just crazy. We look back on
Speaker 4: that piece as an exception. Should have been again coverage
Speaker 4: about that every single day, the commander in chief, guy
Speaker 4: with the nuclear codes declining every day in front of us,
Speaker 4: and I'm almost sympathetic to the point Chuck Schumer makes
Speaker 4: now saying we're moving forward, casey, because guess what, it's
Speaker 4: easy for the media to litigate this now and to
Speaker 4: look tough. And I get why they're covering it now
Speaker 4: because they can look tough. They can look like they're
Speaker 4: turning the screws to Democrats. And it's still important. But
Speaker 4: it's like, yeah, at this point, we now have Donald
Speaker 4: Trump as president. The world is like changing rapidly every
Speaker 4: single day. It's not the stasis of the Biden years anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, in the Democrats defense, they their leadership,
Speaker 3: Pelosi in particular, moves faster than the media. This was
Speaker 3: not a that's true like Biden's aids and allies remaining
Speaker 3: ones will say this was a media driven thing or
Speaker 3: there was this relentless media push for weeks. No, that's
Speaker 3: not that's not right. It was a Pelosi driven thing.
Speaker 3: And because Pelosi kept driving it, then the news media
Speaker 3: kept covering it. But the media followed Pelosi and everything
Speaker 3: kind of followed the debate where he had a medical
Speaker 3: episode in front of the entire world. Yep, yep.
Speaker 5: No, it's just really frustrating.
Speaker 4: The two pieces of revisionist history, one that this somehow
Speaker 4: started in twenty twenty two, and two that there were
Speaker 4: corners of the media that were really tough on this
Speaker 4: the entire time, you know, Tapper said yesterday and CNN,
Speaker 4: he was asked by someone on the network who was
Speaker 4: giving an interview about the book, what was you know,
Speaker 4: why did why was all of this kept from the press?
Speaker 5: Basically? And his answer was really interesting.
Speaker 4: The person who was talking to him was like, why
Speaker 4: didn't we hear more about this in the media, And
Speaker 4: Tapper says, the bottom line is that the White House
Speaker 4: was lying not only to the press, not only to
Speaker 4: the public, but they were lying to their own cabinet.
Speaker 4: So he also says a lot of our sources wouldn't
Speaker 4: talk to us until after the election.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's totally true.
Speaker 4: But you could see it in public, yes, like everyone
Speaker 4: saw it, and you were running stories about cheap fakes.
Speaker 4: Like again, there were bullshit videos circulating by Republicans, absolutely,
Speaker 4: but to blow it up into a big narrative is
Speaker 4: different than just covering the bullshit videos that were being
Speaker 4: selectively edited. They blew it up into a big thing,
Speaker 4: literally taking the White House's press points when they knew
Speaker 4: because they were hearing off the record that the White
Speaker 4: House was lying. Yeah, it's ridiculous, and I don't think
Speaker 4: anybody's falling for it.
Speaker 3: No, And if Breaking Points was the dominant news coverage
Speaker 3: of the world, nobody would have been surprised at all.
Speaker 6: We were covering it regularly.
Speaker 4: Again, it's one of those weird moments when the media's
Speaker 4: relationship with the Democratic Party's establishment actually hurts Democrats because
Speaker 4: they if there had been good coverage of this, if
Speaker 4: the press wasn't so scared of the White House and
Speaker 4: the DNC and Pelosi world, they would have at the
Speaker 4: time they would have been covering the story much differently,
Speaker 4: and there probably would have been a robust Democratic primary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there should have been.
Speaker 4: There would have been a lot more pressure on Democrats
Speaker 4: to hold a serious primary process and to not mess
Speaker 4: with it so and for people to not just get
Speaker 4: in line, yeah and bind it. Do a damn debate.
Speaker 4: He wouldn't even do a debate despite all of this.
Speaker 4: All right, let's move on to the Diddy trial, which
Speaker 4: was incredibly as you could imagine grim yesterday. Cassie Ventura
Speaker 4: victim and we can say, we don't even have to
Speaker 4: say alleged victim at this point because we have the videotape.
Speaker 4: More of the videotape from the Intercontinental in Los Angeles
Speaker 4: has come out over the course of this trial. Let's
Speaker 4: roll this recap of day two. So the trial so
Speaker 4: it starts on Monday. This is day two being recapped
Speaker 4: on Fox News yesterday.
Speaker 6: F one.
Speaker 17: Cassie Ventura, who was still on the stand, has testified
Speaker 17: that she was a fan before meeting Sean Ditty Combs,
Speaker 17: describing him.
Speaker 4: As larger than life.
Speaker 17: She says when they were finally introduced, he began to
Speaker 17: control her life and every aspect of it. So Ventura,
Speaker 17: who was now married with kids and due to give
Speaker 17: birth soon, testified she was nineteen and there was a
Speaker 17: seventeen year age gap when she met Ditty and signed
Speaker 17: with his record label. She said their relationship turned sexual
Speaker 17: when she was twenty one. The pair was in a
Speaker 17: relationship for a decade.
Speaker 4: She says.
Speaker 17: At first it was private because Ditty was publicly with
Speaker 17: someone else and worried about optics. She says the rapper
Speaker 17: introduced her to freakoffs, which are at the center of
Speaker 17: the case. According to prosecutors, who described them as drug
Speaker 17: fueled sex performances with male escorts that Ditty coerced women
Speaker 17: into having while he watched. Cassie testified that freakoffs became
Speaker 17: something she did not want to do.
Speaker 4: But felt like she had to to keep him happy.
Speaker 17: She told jurors one of these encounters was happening when
Speaker 17: Combs was caught on camera assaulting her in this disturbing
Speaker 17: twenty sixteen Los Angeles hotel surveillance video obtained exclusively and
Speaker 17: released by CNN last year. Did He apologized in a
Speaker 17: since deleted Instagram post. She also said did He had
Speaker 17: mood swings and was often violent towards her, leaving physical marks,
Speaker 17: and that instead of music, freakoffs became a job for her.
Speaker 17: She testified that the longest of these sexual performances lasted
Speaker 17: four days.
Speaker 4: So that video of Ditty basically dragging, punching, kicking Cassaventura
Speaker 4: in the Intercone hallway in twenty sixteen, as we mentioned,
Speaker 4: there was more of that really one of the things
Speaker 4: that broke this Ditty story wide open when it came
Speaker 4: out and CNN, I think it was the first to
Speaker 4: have that video. The man, the security guard Israel Floras
Speaker 4: is testifying. Testimony from him I today included allegedly the
Speaker 4: claim that Diddy offered him a lot of cash from
Speaker 4: his thumb to his pinky to not tell anybody what
Speaker 4: he saw. The defense tried to say, he's now including
Speaker 4: details that he didn't include at the time about how
Speaker 4: Cassie Ventur had a purple eye. Anyone who watches that
Speaker 4: video can see be very reasonable that she had a
Speaker 4: mourturple eye. Yeah, she's pregnant by the way, which is
Speaker 4: you know, makes it extra awful to have to testify
Speaker 4: about all of this, So, I mean, just completely awful.
Speaker 4: Mark chuck co It's a former federal prosecutor who's done
Speaker 4: human trafficking cases, told Rolling Stone yesterday that the prosecutors
Speaker 4: are doing basically a shock and awe strategy.
Speaker 5: That's his quote.
Speaker 4: He says, they're they're trying to dismantle any quote, positive
Speaker 4: feelings as soon as possible. They really want to create
Speaker 4: an impression about him.
Speaker 5: Right out of the gate.
Speaker 4: So you know, he goes on to say the thing
Speaker 4: about videos, you can't really cross examine video, and that's
Speaker 4: the importance of the Intercontinental Security camera footage and also
Speaker 4: the testimony by the way of Israel Floras, the security
Speaker 4: guard who's called there to help a quote woman in distress,
Speaker 4: and is now saying actually on the stand that he
Speaker 4: was bribing. He was being bribed by Ditty to stay quiet.
Speaker 4: And the reason that detail, I think is really important, Ryan,
Speaker 4: I mean, there are a million reasons that's really important.
Speaker 4: But this is a trial not just about Ditty. This
Speaker 4: is a trial about the massive business empire that popped
Speaker 4: up around Ditty that included in all likelihood a whole
Speaker 4: lot of complicity, a whole lot of people knowing over
Speaker 4: the years what was going on and staying quiet to
Speaker 4: remain in proximity to power money. And so, just to
Speaker 4: be clear, he is accused of sex trafficking by forced
Speaker 4: transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy as part
Speaker 4: of that federal indictment that was originally filed in September
Speaker 4: of last year. He's also on two additional indictment superseding indictment,
Speaker 4: and is pleading not guilty to absolutely everything and completely
Speaker 4: denying this. Again, as the former federal prosecutor tells Rolling Stones,
Speaker 4: this is a video. In the case of the twenty
Speaker 4: sixteen assault on Ventura. So it's just in the context
Speaker 4: of the actual charges against Tavey Weinstein, and actually this
Speaker 4: happened with the Bill Cosby case as well. Does look
Speaker 4: like there were shortcuts taken by federal prosecutors too, because
Speaker 4: they felt it was almost born of a hubris that
Speaker 4: these guys are obviously horrific in evil and the public
Speaker 4: wants a scalp. But if you take those those shortcuts,
Speaker 4: you can end up with people getting released against Something
Speaker 4: that happened with Bill Cosby might happen with Harvey.
Speaker 5: And that's why I think just.
Speaker 4: The broader context here around a very high profile case
Speaker 4: like this is uh to be on the lookout for
Speaker 4: things like that. It doesn't mean that these people aren't
Speaker 4: awful criminals. Of course, there's a difference between criminal behavior
Speaker 4: and deeply unethical, abusive, horrific behavior in some cases, not always,
Speaker 4: but I think that's something to kind of keep an
Speaker 4: eye on in this trial because it's it's like those
Speaker 4: two trials as well.
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, Harvey one seemed to think, do you
Speaker 3: think he'll ever get out?
Speaker 4: It's genuinely a question because there was some stuff that's
Speaker 4: just it's funny business that you do when you feel
Speaker 4: really confident about a case. And it's samely with the
Speaker 4: Bill Cosby thing. So yeah, it's it's not impossible that
Speaker 4: he gets out, so we'll see.
Speaker 5: I mean, the backlash of that would be swift.
Speaker 4: But you know, and I'm not in any way whatsoever, yeah,
Speaker 4: old and I'm not in any point whatsoever endorsing like
Speaker 4: the Candice Owen's effort here, but the trial itself is
Speaker 4: like that. You cannot take shortcuts in these trials because
Speaker 4: there's this public momentum against a certain character.
Speaker 3: I have public mood swing, so you got to make
Speaker 3: sure you're buttoned up right exactly.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen that in the Diddy case so far,
Speaker 4: but it's just this one is again, it's really easy
Speaker 4: because there's literally video. It's just easy to see the
Speaker 4: momentum building and the snowball rolling down the hill. It
Speaker 4: looks like it's a pretty tight case so far. But
Speaker 4: that is definitely and Cassie testifying, by the way, for
Speaker 4: what she's supposed to be on the stand again today,
Speaker 4: I think she might literally be taking the stand right
Speaker 4: now while we're taping this. Uh. I mean, that's we're
Speaker 4: going to be incredibly powerful as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he epic fumble of a billion dollar bag.
Speaker 4: Seriously by Diddy here, not even like just a fumble,
Speaker 4: but a you know, decades long criminal enterprise.
Speaker 3: It is hard to be a billionaire and get held
Speaker 3: accountable for anything. You have to You have to go
Speaker 3: pretty far.
Speaker 4: You sure do, you sure do? All right? Well, Ryan,
Speaker 4: that does it for us today. We will continue to
Speaker 4: follow that trial obviously because again it's just in the
Speaker 4: context of a massive criminal enterprise that involved complicity on
Speaker 4: many fronts. Important to keep an eye out on. It's
Speaker 4: a theme actually of the American elite is just you know,
Speaker 4: wanting to be a seen as an important political player,
Speaker 4: moral player, charitable person, and then in your own personal
Speaker 4: life either staying quiet when you witness people doing awful
Speaker 4: things or doing those awful things yourself. So important trial
Speaker 4: definitely to continue following, which we will do. Thank you
Speaker 4: to everybody, by the way for being a premium subscriber
Speaker 4: the Friday shows. If you're a premium sub over at
Speaker 4: breakingpoints dot com, you get the second half of those shows,
Speaker 4: and as we keep saying, that's right, we're saving the
Speaker 4: good stuff for the second half. So thank you Breaking
Speaker 4: points dot Com. We appreciate it, and if you can't subscribe,
Speaker 4: we totally understand. Like the videos, comment the videos, subscribe
Speaker 4: to the YouTube channel, subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker 5: Appreciate that as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes we do. And I think I'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 5: You're here tomorrow with Crystal.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, so Sager is on his paternity leave. More
Speaker 4: needs to come on on that front, I'm sure, but
Speaker 4: Ryan and I will be seeing a lot more of
Speaker 4: us in the weeks to come.
Speaker 3: Lucky you see you later.