Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show
Speaker 2: for everybody today, extra amazing.
Speaker 3: Crystal is back. What do we have to do?
Speaker 4: Oh, it's nice to be back in the chair.
Speaker 1: Although I watched You and Ryan show yesterday fantastic as always.
Speaker 1: So lot to get to you this morning. So we've
Speaker 1: got the very latest on Israel's likely response to those
Speaker 1: Iranian strikes and whether or not we are going to
Speaker 1: be dragged into a much larger regional war. We also
Speaker 1: have a little update for you on which politicians stand
Speaker 1: to make the most money off of said war. Trump
Speaker 1: was in court yesterday, is the first day of his
Speaker 1: hush money trial, his first criminal case, so we'll break
Speaker 1: that down for you. Some interesting note from him, apparently
Speaker 1: little drowsy in that courtroom long day, you know, older
Speaker 1: guy's talk about that. At the same time, truth social
Speaker 1: stock prices continue to plummet. There's an interesting report of
Speaker 1: some of the significant small holders of that stock and
Speaker 1: how they are feeling about their investment at this point.
Speaker 1: We've got some major updates in Israel as settlers went
Speaker 1: on a violent rampage in the occupied West Banks.
Speaker 4: Will update you on that.
Speaker 1: We also have a number of Gosens who are trying
Speaker 1: to return north under Israeli fire. RFK Junior saying that
Speaker 1: he was asked to be Trump's VP, and also saying
Speaker 1: that he is no longer seeking the Libertarian Party nomination.
Speaker 1: That could be actually quite consequential. We have a criminal
Speaker 1: investigation now opened into the circumstances surrounding the bridge collapse
Speaker 1: in Baltimore. Very important updates there. And we've got a
Speaker 1: little Ryan Grim's scoop for you. He was able to
Speaker 1: get his hands along with Jeremy Skahill on the New
Speaker 1: York Times internal memo giving their writers guidance on how
Speaker 1: they should be talking about Israel's war Gaza, and it
Speaker 1: is quite something. It is actually pretty shocking, even given
Speaker 1: you know, my very low expectations for the New York Times.
Speaker 1: But before we get to any of that, Sager, well,
Speaker 1: personal news here.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2: You maybe may be able to see something right over here.
Speaker 4: Real there it is gold plat.
Speaker 3: It only took what ten months to get it? Not
Speaker 3: really sure. Apparently it's the shortage.
Speaker 4: In the factory allegedly, Oh is that what happened?
Speaker 3: Who knows?
Speaker 2: Okay, took a lot of emails, took some tweets, took
Speaker 2: some badgering, but the YouTube plaque is here. It feels
Speaker 2: somewhat anti climactic since we qualified for it, like I said,
Speaker 2: about eight to ten months ago.
Speaker 4: About two and fifty thousand subscribers.
Speaker 2: Roughly round one point twenty five million subscribers currently quarter
Speaker 2: of our way to the next one million.
Speaker 3: But hey, we'll take it. We're glad it's here.
Speaker 2: Which wanted to say thank you to everybody who is
Speaker 2: out there who helped build We've helped build two channels
Speaker 2: now to one million, which many people can say that
Speaker 2: they've done, which is really all entirely because of all
Speaker 2: of you. So thank you to those of us who
Speaker 2: have been with us from the very beginning or who
Speaker 2: have just joined, you guys are the one who make
Speaker 2: this possible and if you can help us out breakingpoints
Speaker 2: dot Com.
Speaker 1: Who knew supply chain snaffoos would even hit the gold
Speaker 1: plaque industry.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's what they said was happening. I'm I'm still
Speaker 3: a little bit. I'm a little dubious.
Speaker 4: Kyle got his like later weeks later.
Speaker 2: I know people who have hit one million and they
Speaker 2: get it like two days later. And you know, when
Speaker 2: I was rolling around in India, I even saw guys
Speaker 2: there who had their plaques that they had gotten within
Speaker 2: a couple of days. So somehow Google logistics are better
Speaker 2: in India than in America.
Speaker 3: But hey, whatever, it's here now and that's what counts.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: We'll take it and a permanent fixture of the set.
Speaker 2: So thank you YouTube for finally getting into us. All right,
Speaker 2: why don't we go ahead and start with Iran as
Speaker 2: Crystal set kind of a hard turn in terms of
Speaker 2: what is currently on the horizon. So yesterday we brought
Speaker 2: everybody the news that the Israeli government had vowed to
Speaker 2: retaliate against the Iranians. There was some question as to
Speaker 2: us their President Biden and his pressure on the Israelis
Speaker 2: not to militarily retaliate. He said, take the win, you
Speaker 2: got the win, don't widen this into a broader war.
Speaker 2: There does now, though, seem to be in a change
Speaker 2: the US government now saying that any response is up
Speaker 2: to the Israelis. This was John Kirby, the White House spokesperson,
Speaker 2: talking about this from the podium yesterday.
Speaker 3: Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 4: Is the administration presenting alternatives to NYA.
Speaker 5: This is an Israeli decision to make whether and how
Speaker 5: they'll respond to what Iran did on Saturday, and we're
Speaker 5: going to leave it squarely.
Speaker 3: With them their decision to make. But are you making suggestions?
Speaker 5: We are not involved in their decision making process about
Speaker 5: a potential response.
Speaker 2: So it's up to the Israeli government for what some
Speaker 2: sort of potential response is. The crystally the US government
Speaker 2: now has completely changed it's tune. First it was take
Speaker 2: the win, don't do anything. The Israeli war cabinet immediately
Speaker 2: there were some deliberations. Both two members, Benny Gantz and
Speaker 2: Yoef Galant, the Defense minister, both immediately advocated for retaliatory strike.
Speaker 2: Apparently Netanyahu said we got to hold off until I
Speaker 2: talk to President Biden. President Biden tells them not to
Speaker 2: do it. However, in the interim twelve to twenty four hours,
Speaker 2: there's now been a change from the Israelis where all
Speaker 2: is being telegraphed from the IDF to the US government,
Speaker 2: and now in the change of rhetoric where we're like
Speaker 2: expecting some sort of military retaliation. Yesterday they had said
Speaker 2: at a time and place of their choosing, it is
Speaker 2: now expected, not necessarily imminently, but somewhere within a shorter period,
Speaker 2: maybe less than a week they set up to a month.
Speaker 3: But you know, we shouldn't forget crystal.
Speaker 2: It did take the Iranians about a week to retaliate
Speaker 2: on the embassy. There is we need to dispel this
Speaker 2: notion that in a quote unquote immediate retaliation is just
Speaker 2: going to happen in the moment. That's not really how
Speaker 2: these things work. It can be a slower burn, but
Speaker 2: it is still you know, still accelerated on a timeline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to pause, since it's my first
Speaker 1: chance to react to this and reflect on the fact
Speaker 1: that we are truly on the brink right now. There's
Speaker 1: no denying it. We'll go through. We're getting some contradictory
Speaker 1: reports out of Israel about what response might look like,
Speaker 1: what the scale might be. But Joe Biden is to
Speaker 1: blame with his policy for the fact that we have
Speaker 1: come to this place of potential broader escalation, potentially pulling
Speaker 1: us directly into a hot, wider regional war. And let's
Speaker 1: be clear, I mean we've been saying this for months.
Speaker 1: The Biden administration's goal of keeping this contained to goz
Speaker 1: I mean, that has long been over. You can see
Speaker 1: what's happened in Syria, you can see what's happened in Iraq,
Speaker 1: you can see what's happened with the Huthis in Yemen.
Speaker 1: And now obviously this direct conflict with Iran, it is
Speaker 1: because Joe Biden has given net Yahoo no limits whatsoever
Speaker 1: and allowed him to have carte blanche and consistently said, Okay,
Speaker 1: while I might hand ring a little bit, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: And so once again that's the message that we hear
Speaker 1: coming from John Kirby. Hey guys, it's up to you
Speaker 1: do whatever you want. As if we aren't directly implicated,
Speaker 1: as if we aren't the ones who is involved in
Speaker 1: you know, shooting down these missiles and drones that were
Speaker 1: coming at Israel as if we don't have service members
Speaker 1: who are stationed.
Speaker 4: In the Middle East. It's complete insanity.
Speaker 1: And for what So that BB can continue, his genocide,
Speaker 1: can continue, his ethnic cleansing, can hold on to power
Speaker 1: when you know you've got a democratic president who supposedly
Speaker 1: is opposed to a lot of what Bibe Netanya who
Speaker 1: stands for. It is so utterly insane at every step.
Speaker 1: I mean, even think about some of the things we
Speaker 1: talked about before soccer, like this policy of Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna directly combat the hoothies and what they're doing in Yemen,
Speaker 1: pretending like we don't understand that if this war just end,
Speaker 1: if we actually had a cease fire, all of that
Speaker 1: would stop with an acknowledgment. We know that the policy's
Speaker 1: not going to work, and yet we pursue it anyways.
Speaker 1: I think that's perfectly emblematic of how absurd, dangerous, and
Speaker 1: insane this policy has been all the way along. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to lose sight of that, even as
Speaker 1: we get into the specifics of what the likely response is,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. There was no reason that we
Speaker 1: would all have to be sitting here today with baited breath,
Speaker 1: waiting to see whether the world is about to blow up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you for reiterating that it's absolutely true.
Speaker 3: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: The Israelis are reporting from their own domestic media that
Speaker 2: the War Cabinet quote has decided to hit back forcefully
Speaker 2: at Iran for the Saturday missile attack. In this unsourced report,
Speaker 2: they say that the War Cabinet has made the decision
Speaker 2: clearly and forcefully. The response will be designed to send
Speaker 2: the message that Israel quote will not allow an attack
Speaker 2: of that magnitude against it to pass without a reaction.
Speaker 2: The response will then be designed to make plain that
Speaker 2: Israel will not allow the Iranians to establish the equation
Speaker 2: that they have sought to assert.
Speaker 3: In recent days.
Speaker 2: Now, this is basically about who is establishing mutual deterrence
Speaker 2: because the Israelis, let's not forget, began this entire episode
Speaker 2: whenever they struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus. They claim
Speaker 2: that it was an IRGC military outpost. Doesn't necessarily change
Speaker 2: the fact that it was still an embassy in Damascus,
Speaker 2: and the subsequent fallout from that. Then a week later
Speaker 2: was in the Iranian response directly on Israel, the first
Speaker 2: in the Iranian and Israeli history in terms of that attack.
Speaker 2: So then the question is now, what are the Israelis
Speaker 2: going to do? The Iranians said, we consider this matter closed.
Speaker 2: We have established our deterrence. We have showed the world
Speaker 2: that we can if we want to launch strikes from
Speaker 2: our territory directly onto Israel. The Israelis say, well, we've
Speaker 2: had a ninety nine percent shootdown rate. We'll get to
Speaker 2: that in a little bit in terms of how much
Speaker 2: the US military actually did. But now the response appears
Speaker 2: to be that the Israelis want to establish a scenario
Speaker 2: where they are allowed to carry out this activity and
Speaker 2: bear no attack upon the Iranians, to establish the deterrence
Speaker 2: from their end. So here is the chief of Staff
Speaker 2: of the IDF actually speaking at a military base in
Speaker 2: Israel in English. Keep in mind, which is directly calibrated
Speaker 2: for all of us about what their response is going
Speaker 2: to look like.
Speaker 3: Let's take a.
Speaker 6: Listen assessing the situation. We remain at our highest level
Speaker 6: of readiness. Iran will face the consequences for its actions.
Speaker 6: We will choose our response Accordingly, the idea remains ready
Speaker 6: to counter any threat for Miran and it still proxies
Speaker 6: as we continue our mission to defend the state of visity.
Speaker 2: So did everybody pay very close attention to what was
Speaker 2: behind the idfchiev staff there? That was an F thirty
Speaker 2: five and that base Actually where this talk occurred is
Speaker 2: where Israel keeps its F thirty fives?
Speaker 3: Which where do you think they got them? And who
Speaker 3: exulted to them?
Speaker 2: The question and the big thing that we have to
Speaker 2: look at now is what that signifies for the response.
Speaker 2: So we're not looking necessarily at the launch of what
Speaker 2: the Iranians did, which were unmanned drones and re cruise missiles.
Speaker 2: Will this include a direct F thirty five lightning strike
Speaker 2: on on Iranian military facilities. We're seeing a report this
Speaker 2: morning that is a little bit all over the map.
Speaker 2: It just says that the US officials expect the Israeli
Speaker 2: response to Iran to be limited, But what exactly does
Speaker 2: that mean. They say that both strikes are anticipated quote
Speaker 2: against Iranian military forces and Iranian back proxies outside of Iran.
Speaker 2: So the question then is if they hit proxies outside
Speaker 2: of Iran. That's one thing we've seen that happen many times.
Speaker 2: The IDF has been striking Hesbelunzeidisyria for probably eight years.
Speaker 2: But a direct Israeli military strike and IDF strike on
Speaker 2: Iranian military targets inside of Iran, that is unprecedented in
Speaker 2: the same way that the attack was and is very
Speaker 2: much in the realm of where we could see an escalation.
Speaker 2: We also see a response from the Iranians saying that
Speaker 2: they will respond immediately. Is such a thing where to
Speaker 2: happen in which we could see the escalation ladder begin again?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and bb wants this conflict.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems sort of insane, but from his
Speaker 1: psychotic political calculus, it actually makes sense. Because number one,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about a million times before, wildly unpopular
Speaker 1: bb Ntyahu is within Israel. There is an increasing realization
Speaker 1: among the Israeli public that the assault on Gaza has
Speaker 1: not gone the way that he said that it would.
Speaker 1: They are nowhere close to accomplishing the stated objective of
Speaker 1: eradicating Hamas. That's why he also has to hold down there. Oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to go into Rafa. That's going to be
Speaker 1: the thing that's really going to take us over the top,
Speaker 1: so we can claim this victory. But there was an
Speaker 1: up ed in Haretz it Israeli newspaper, saying, listen, admit
Speaker 1: it this we've lost. This has been a catastrophe for us,
Speaker 1: not only because we failed to come anywhere close to
Speaker 1: accomplishing the objectives of eradicating Hamas or bringing the hostages home.
Speaker 1: And Israel's more isolated internationally than ever before and has
Speaker 1: this pariahs status, so conflict with Iran directly gives Biebe
Speaker 1: another shot at some sort of ability to claim a
Speaker 1: quote unquote victory. It keeps the war going, so it
Speaker 1: keeps his rip on power. And also, you know, while
Speaker 1: the news media is talking about this potential large regional war,
Speaker 1: what are they not talking about the conditions for Gozans
Speaker 1: who continue to starve to death, continue to suffer. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of indications that the Israeli promises about increasing
Speaker 1: humanitarian aid were basically.
Speaker 4: False, and that hasn't come to fruition.
Speaker 1: So the intense media pressure that was beginning to be
Speaker 1: applied in the wake, especially of that World Central Kitchen,
Speaker 1: the aid workers being assassinated by Israeli forces, suddenly that's
Speaker 1: all gone, and the US and other region Middle Eastern
Speaker 1: regional allies rallied to Israel's defense and the Gazo assault
Speaker 1: and the humanitarian crisis there sort of fades into the background.
Speaker 1: So for him, as utterly psychotic and insane as this
Speaker 1: all seems to us watching it unfold, he has every
Speaker 1: incentive to escalate, every incentive to try to drag us
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 4: So, you know, the the.
Speaker 1: Fact that there's at least one report out there from
Speaker 1: NBC News that potentially this retaliatory strike, whichhouldn't happen at
Speaker 1: all by the I mean, they started this whole situation
Speaker 1: to begin with with the strike on Iran's embassy, but
Speaker 1: that it may be limited in scope is very hopeful,
Speaker 1: in very good news. But you know, we really have
Speaker 1: to wait and see what happens because I'm not convinced that'
Speaker 1: where they're.
Speaker 3: Having this is.
Speaker 2: The other problem is that what does that mean? It's
Speaker 2: all in the eye of the beholden. Ryan and I
Speaker 2: talked a lot about this yesterday, which is that you
Speaker 2: could look at the Iranian attack two ways. The Israeli
Speaker 2: right wing is like, no, it was calibrated for mass death.
Speaker 2: It's just how happened that the defense was really good,
Speaker 2: or you could say they telegraphed it for hours ahead.
Speaker 3: It was kind of a symbolic gesture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, both seem like in the realm of possibility, and
Speaker 2: only the Iranians actually know the truth to what that is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think you give seventy two hours
Speaker 1: advance warning if you're trying to you know, calculated for
Speaker 1: mass But the right in Israel concertainly spin it how
Speaker 1: they want because they are desperate and have long been
Speaker 1: itching for this conflent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, but their response is just like, listen,
Speaker 2: you know, there's missiles and owns and all that came
Speaker 2: into our skies and that's terrifying.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't even disagree.
Speaker 2: But my point is that you can look and draw
Speaker 2: from it whatever you want. What could be limited to
Speaker 2: Israel and to the US. That may not be limited
Speaker 2: to the IRGC. Isran has its own major political military
Speaker 2: factions which are all at war with each other. There's
Speaker 2: a huge contingent of the Iranian regime which is incredibly
Speaker 2: angry that they haven't done more on the Israel and
Speaker 2: situation with response to gaz that they already feel like
Speaker 2: they've been totally screwed by the US and they want
Speaker 2: a full on war.
Speaker 3: Are they gonna win out?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one of those where the Ayatola himself,
Speaker 2: how much power does he really have. We talked about
Speaker 2: this with Tree Taparsi yesterday about the Iranian Military Council,
Speaker 2: So don't you know, don't forget that they have their
Speaker 2: own internal domestic politics. In a very similar way. There's
Speaker 2: also let's put this up there for what they've currently
Speaker 2: said in terms of their response. Yesterday, their foreign minister
Speaker 2: spoke with the British Foreign Minister David Cameron said that
Speaker 2: Iran does not want escalation of tension in the region,
Speaker 2: but stress if that is hi else seeks adventure, our
Speaker 2: next response will be quote immediate, stronger, and more extensive.
Speaker 2: So the immediate, the stronger, the more extensive. So, as
Speaker 2: you said, we may not get then in this case,
Speaker 2: a change in the notification policy to the United States.
Speaker 2: There's also a big question around the Iron Dome and
Speaker 2: the amount of interceptor missiles that they remain. How much
Speaker 2: more US military force is going to have to be
Speaker 2: employed in order to do something like this, How much
Speaker 2: is going to cost the single defense Saturday's attack costs
Speaker 2: one point five billion. What if it's bigger, it's going
Speaker 2: to cost ten billion, twenty billion. We simply have no idea.
Speaker 2: There's also, of course, now if there's a reckoning Crystal,
Speaker 2: as you said, as to the actual what instigated this
Speaker 2: entire thing with the bombing of the embassy. So there
Speaker 2: was a fascinating interview here with the Foreigner Prime Minister
Speaker 2: and current Foreign Minister David Cameron on Sky News in
Speaker 2: the UK where they pressed him on what Britain would
Speaker 2: do if one of their embassies was bonned.
Speaker 3: Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 1: Is it bad judgment or good judgment to hit Iranian
Speaker 1: sovereign territory in Damascus?
Speaker 7: Was that's something the Israelis decided to do.
Speaker 8: We haven't made ac I know, well, let me un
Speaker 8: answer the question, which is I can completely understand the
Speaker 8: frustration the Israelis feel when they look at the Iranian
Speaker 8: Revolutionary Guard and they look at the terrible things that
Speaker 8: they have done all over the world, including the support
Speaker 8: they give to Hermas and of course her mass were
Speaker 8: responsible for October the seventh, and that is where all
Speaker 8: of this begins. So you can completely understand the frustration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what about Iran's frustration at part of its
Speaker 2: sovereign territory being flattened.
Speaker 8: Well, I would argue there is a massive degree of
Speaker 8: difference between what Israel did in Damascus and as I said,
Speaker 8: three hundred and one weapons being launched by the State
Speaker 8: of Iran at the State of Israel for the first time,
Speaker 8: a state on state attack, one hundred and one ballistic missiles,
Speaker 8: thirty six cruise missiles, one hundred and eighty five drones.
Speaker 7: That is a degree of difference.
Speaker 8: And I think a reckless and dangerous thing for Iran
Speaker 8: to have done. And I think the whole world could
Speaker 8: see all these countries that have somehow wondered where you know,
Speaker 8: what is the true nature of Iran. It's there in
Speaker 8: black and white.
Speaker 4: What would Britain do, the hostile nation flatten one of
Speaker 4: our constituents.
Speaker 7: Well, we would take you know, we would take the
Speaker 7: very strong action.
Speaker 4: And Iran would say that that's what they did.
Speaker 7: Well, what they did, as I said, was a massive attack, so.
Speaker 4: They were a right to respond, but they overreacted.
Speaker 8: Is what I'm saying is that the attack, the attack
Speaker 8: they carried out was on a very large scale, much
Speaker 8: bigger than people.
Speaker 4: Except to respond.
Speaker 8: What countries have a right to respond when they feel
Speaker 8: they've suffered an aggression, of course they do. But look
Speaker 8: at the scale of that response. Had those weapons not
Speaker 8: been shot down, but there could have been thousands of casualties,
Speaker 8: including civilian casualties. I think that's a really important point
Speaker 8: to take into account.
Speaker 2: Well, we would have a massive response. I agree, And look,
Speaker 2: I'm not justifying any of this. I don't want missiles
Speaker 2: flying all over the place in Damascus or in Israel
Speaker 2: because I don't want to be involved in it. And
Speaker 2: it's our troops that are ones that are shooting down
Speaker 2: most of these missiles, which we'll get to in a
Speaker 2: little bit. But this is part of the problem, and
Speaker 2: we talked about this yesterday. A huge number of the
Speaker 2: American commentariat and US senators were like, this is an
Speaker 2: unprovoked attack. That is insane, ridiculous. Is it is like
Speaker 2: this did not happen inside of a vacuum. And this
Speaker 2: is part of the issue. The embulgening of Neta Nahu
Speaker 2: and of the Israeli military because we told them very specifically,
Speaker 2: do not hit the Iranians without clearing or telling us
Speaker 2: about it, And what do you think they did? They
Speaker 2: did it, and they didn't even tell us. Then no
Speaker 2: heads up to the United States. We found out on
Speaker 2: social media whenever this happened. And now, who do you
Speaker 2: think is responsible in paying the bill for shooting down
Speaker 2: all these damn missiles? And whose troops tens of thousands
Speaker 2: are all across the region, who are sitting ducks waiting
Speaker 2: to take the shot if and when that this does
Speaker 2: expand and the US military inevitably is involved.
Speaker 3: That's what drives me the craziest about all.
Speaker 1: And I loved this like attempted intellectual debate in the
Speaker 1: New York Times and other places. Is it actually a
Speaker 1: violation of the Vienna Convention and international law.
Speaker 4: To hit an embassy? Of course?
Speaker 1: Of course, if a US embassy was hit anywhere around
Speaker 1: the world, whether it was you know, the embassy itself
Speaker 1: or an adjacent consular building, do you think we'd be
Speaker 1: having the slightest bit of debate.
Speaker 3: A bik about that. I wouldn't say. I would say
Speaker 3: that we shouldn't.
Speaker 2: If you kill CIA officer in US embassy, We're going
Speaker 2: to blow the shit out of you, and we shall.
Speaker 4: It's entirely predictable.
Speaker 1: I mean, and not only is it predictable, this is
Speaker 1: the response that the Israelis wanted. They recording this response
Speaker 1: because as I just said before, Babe wants this conflict.
Speaker 1: He for his political ass needs this conflict, and so
Speaker 1: of course Iran was going to hit back.
Speaker 4: We're lucky that.
Speaker 1: They showed the restraint that they did, that they provided
Speaker 1: the notice that this appears to have been more of
Speaker 1: a you know, domestic political show for the Iranians to say, listen,
Speaker 1: you're not going to just hit our embassy and kill
Speaker 1: one of our top military leaders with no response. We're
Speaker 1: lucky that the response was that limited. But it just
Speaker 1: the two things that drove me so insane watching this
Speaker 1: all unfold is Number one, the Israeli's immediately playing the victims,
Speaker 1: Oh how dare you? And so much of the American
Speaker 1: political class and media class going right along with this, pretending,
Speaker 1: like you said, Saga, that it was quote unquote unprovoked.
Speaker 4: Polease get out of here.
Speaker 1: Another thing that has driven me insane is you know
Speaker 1: you saw you now the attacks on embassies like it's
Speaker 1: open season that is over, because what could the US
Speaker 1: ever say about it?
Speaker 4: Again?
Speaker 1: When you didn't condemn Israel when they attacked the Iranian
Speaker 1: embassy in Syria.
Speaker 4: That's over it.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing that I mentioned to you
Speaker 1: that made me completely insane is Israel immediately, Oh, we need,
Speaker 1: we need a meeting of the UN Security Council. Well,
Speaker 1: you don't care about the UN when they're condemning you,
Speaker 1: when they're demanding a ceasefire or a ceasefire resolution gets
Speaker 1: passed through the UN Security Council, you don't have.
Speaker 4: Anything to say about that.
Speaker 1: But now Sun, oh we need the UN Security Council.
Speaker 1: What about a resolution against you for hitting the embassy?
Speaker 4: How about that? Would you listen to that? Of course not.
Speaker 1: So just so much of this drove me absolutely bonkers
Speaker 1: and is so typical of the incredibly one sided way
Speaker 1: that we view anything through the media and political class
Speaker 1: when it comes to Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's it's just it is so perfect.
Speaker 2: And let's put this final piece up report from Ken Klippenstein,
Speaker 2: and it just confirms every suspicion that I had in
Speaker 2: the immediate afternoon because the Israelis and the IDF kept
Speaker 2: bragging about a ninety nine percent interception rate and if
Speaker 2: people want to you can go back and roll the tape,
Speaker 2: and I said, I would love to know how much
Speaker 2: that the US shot down and the IDF did, because
Speaker 2: I was willing to bet that it was America and
Speaker 2: not them that shot down most of those drones and missiles.
Speaker 2: And lo and behold the intercept here now reporting the US,
Speaker 2: not Israel's shot down most Iranian drones and missiles. American
Speaker 2: forces did most of the heavy lifting, and responding to
Speaker 2: Iran's retaliation for the attack, the United States shotdown more
Speaker 2: of the missiles and drones, and Israel did. More than
Speaker 2: half of the weapons were destroyed by US aircraft and
Speaker 2: missiles before they ever reached Israel. In fact, commanding a
Speaker 2: multinational air defense operation and scrambling American fighter jets. This
Speaker 2: was a US military triumph. The extent of that military
Speaker 2: operation is currently unbeknownst to the American public.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you want to know why?
Speaker 2: Because Sentcom, the US military, and the Pentagon refused to
Speaker 2: release the number of missiles that they and drones that
Speaker 2: they shot down. They have only released the names and
Speaker 2: the units and the type of aircraft and the missile
Speaker 2: guided missile destroyers that are the ones that actually engage
Speaker 2: and this just gives away the whole plot, which and
Speaker 2: this is part of the issue. Some response Crystal that
Speaker 2: I got from saying that the US military should which
Speaker 2: by the way, was one of the biggest freak outs
Speaker 2: that I've invited in quite a long time. I said,
Speaker 2: modest proposal, the US military should defend America and not
Speaker 2: foreign nations that want to drag US into a war.
Speaker 2: And people were like, you don't understand. By US defending Israel,
Speaker 2: we prevented a larger war. But here's the thing. The
Speaker 2: Israelis would not feel so emboldened to blow up the
Speaker 2: Iranian embassy if they knew that they would also have
Speaker 2: to defend their own territory. This is part of the thing.
Speaker 2: They socialize the risk to all of us, and we're
Speaker 2: the ones, God bless us who have the military capability
Speaker 2: to shoot down said missiles if we want to. By
Speaker 2: actually putting this blanket security onto Israel and saying you
Speaker 2: guys can do whatever we want and we were still
Speaker 2: going to defend you, we actually embolden this situation. So
Speaker 2: if we had created a situation where they were going
Speaker 2: to bear the ultimate risk of the behavior that they
Speaker 2: carry out, they would be a lot more cautious. But
Speaker 2: they don't feel cautious because they don't have to be.
Speaker 2: And this is the exact proof that we doe.
Speaker 4: You're one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 1: If they knew they were on their own, truly on
Speaker 1: their own, they's no way they would have taken that action.
Speaker 1: And you can actually see it now in the nervousness
Speaker 1: around a larger scale response, because there were at least
Speaker 1: some indications from the Biden administration that hey, you are
Speaker 1: on your own for this if you take this further.
Speaker 1: So I think to the extent that there's any sort
Speaker 1: of hesitation on BB's part, it's from a lack of
Speaker 1: confidence that the US will fully be behind them if
Speaker 1: they proceed any further.
Speaker 4: But yeah, and it's not just with regard to their defense.
Speaker 1: It's obviously at every turn whenever BB has crossed a line,
Speaker 1: there might be a little bit of tut tutting, there
Speaker 1: might be a little bit of leaks to you a
Speaker 1: favored reporter, but there isn't actually any sort of consequences.
Speaker 1: Whether it's attacking hospitals, whether it's attacking refugee camps, whether
Speaker 1: it's mass slaughter ofvillions, two thousand pound bombs dropped, killing
Speaker 1: aid workers.
Speaker 4: None of it is really met with.
Speaker 1: Any sort of actual consequence, actual policy change. We got
Speaker 1: a little rhetoric take change every now and again, but
Speaker 1: in terms of actual policy changed nothing. So why would
Speaker 1: he think that this was going to be any different.
Speaker 1: Hey knows that Biden will just go wherever maybe leads
Speaker 1: him along to and so that's how you end up
Speaker 1: with this completely insane and outrageous situation and incredibly dangerous situation.
Speaker 1: It's because Biden has allowed this scenario to unfold, and
Speaker 1: it was incredibly predictable. I mean from how we've been
Speaker 1: talking since day one about the possibility of the spiraling
Speaker 1: into a wider war, this was always an incredibly dangerous
Speaker 1: and fraud situation. This was always a very real possibility
Speaker 1: on the table. The Biden administrations people, by the way,
Speaker 1: knew it too. It's not like they were unaware that
Speaker 1: this was a possible outcome. They just didn't do anything
Speaker 1: in order to forestall it and in fact enable exactly
Speaker 1: this dangerous scenario.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely right, and it's a dangerous moment.
Speaker 3: I actually went back and checked.
Speaker 2: I had a tweet, and we did multiple segments about
Speaker 2: wider war on October twenty third of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: So don't let anybody say that it is not possible
Speaker 2: to have predicted all of us. It was eminently predictable.
Speaker 2: It may not happen as quickly. People seem to think
Speaker 2: that international relations and all this just happens like day
Speaker 2: after day after day. But when you go back and
Speaker 2: read history, you can see it takes a month, some
Speaker 2: times two months and all this to happen. But we
Speaker 2: can go back and see very clearly this led to this,
Speaker 2: led to this, led to this. In the moment, we
Speaker 2: have too much of a recency bias. This was inevitable.
Speaker 2: It's only been six months now that we're in this conflict,
Speaker 2: and already we're in a totally different scenario. Imagine where
Speaker 2: if this keeps going, imagine we're going to be a
Speaker 2: year from now. It could be a total nightmare. Why
Speaker 2: is there so much war fever here in Washington. Well,
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Something a little pretty interesting here from our friend over
Speaker 2: at Unusual Whales. Here's every US politician who's stock portfolio
Speaker 2: will benefit from a conflict in the Middle East between
Speaker 2: Iran and Israel. I've aggregated a list of their stocks, Raytheon,
Speaker 2: Lockheed Martin and more. Many are making millions, and as
Speaker 2: you can see, there's quite a bit of red and
Speaker 2: blue that is on there. You've got Kevin Hearn, Mark Green,
Speaker 2: Tommy Tuberville, Nancy Pelosi, Michael McCall, Marla Salazar, Alan Lowenthal, Lowis, FRANKL.
Speaker 2: Patrick Fallon, Diana Harshirshberger, Mike Kelly, Carol Miller, Dwight Evans.
Speaker 3: That's just in the top ten.
Speaker 2: So you can go through and read the entire report
Speaker 2: that he's put together. But what he gets at is
Speaker 2: that it's not only the politicians that we're going to
Speaker 2: be making a ton of money based on this. It's
Speaker 2: that the defense companies here in the US are salivating
Speaker 2: over a broader conflict. Put this up there, please on
Speaker 2: the screen, because this is the perfect evidence that you need.
Speaker 2: Lockheed Martin stock was actually upgraded and rated as a
Speaker 2: buy by Major Wall Street. How is over the missile
Speaker 2: heavy weekend in Israel. They say Lockheed Martin has climbed
Speaker 2: early Monday, receiving an upgrade from JP Morgan. Meanwhile, defense
Speaker 2: stocks are all rising after US, British and Israeli defense
Speaker 2: forces on Saturday knock down a barrage of missiles and
Speaker 2: drones launched by Iran against Israel. The upgrade of the
Speaker 2: stock to overweight from neutral and park hiked its price
Speaker 2: target to five hundred and eighteen dollars from the current
Speaker 2: four hundred and seventy five dollars price hike. On top
Speaker 2: of that, the defense industry is currently receiving the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four budget where they are scheduled to get even
Speaker 2: more of an increase from the US government, not to
Speaker 2: mention Crystal. Literally, as you and I speak here in Washington,
Speaker 2: there is an effort to try and pass foreign aid
Speaker 2: and get the Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan bill through the
Speaker 2: House of Representatives, which would be another one hundred billion dollars,
Speaker 2: the vast majority of that coming right back here to
Speaker 2: US defense companies. Yep.
Speaker 1: And think of the quote unquote choices we have in
Speaker 1: our democracy. You know, Trump or Biden, they're both for
Speaker 1: this same disgusting, depraved system. They're both for continuing to
Speaker 1: fuel this. I mean, I think it's disgusting that people
Speaker 1: become wildly wealthy off of war. And you wonder why,
Speaker 1: why are we constantly involved in multiple wars at the
Speaker 1: same time, and you'd be hard pressed to find a
Speaker 1: better answer than this right in front of our face.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of money to be made off
Speaker 1: of these conflicts. There is a lot of money to
Speaker 1: be made off of death and destruction. And you know,
Speaker 1: I actually I got to interview Medea Benjamin Code Pink,
Speaker 1: you know, legendary anti war activists going all the way
Speaker 1: back to Vietnam War, but really coming in to prominence
Speaker 1: founding Code Pink during the.
Speaker 4: Iraq War days.
Speaker 1: And we asked her, what is the thing like if
Speaker 1: you had to point to what is the root of
Speaker 1: the reason why we are constantly getting involved in and
Speaker 1: starting and stoking and escalating these wars.
Speaker 4: And she had a one word answer is money. It's money.
Speaker 1: It's really what it comes back to and why this
Speaker 1: thing continues to turn and why we continue to face
Speaker 1: these situations. So, you know, you've got the congress members
Speaker 1: who are this should be completely illegal, who stand to
Speaker 1: benefit from defense stocks spiking as they are right now,
Speaker 1: You've got the fact that you know, you've got military
Speaker 1: industrial complex facilities and bases in congressional districts around the country.
Speaker 1: So you have a direct tie in in all of
Speaker 1: these congressional districts across the country. You have the donor
Speaker 1: class that makes millions of dollars every time we get
Speaker 1: involved in one of these wars. And then you wonder
Speaker 1: when you go to the ballot box, why is my
Speaker 1: choice between two candidates effectively who have basically the same
Speaker 1: views when it comes to keeping us involved in these conflicts.
Speaker 4: This is really what it all comes back to.
Speaker 3: Absolutely well said.
Speaker 2: And let's put that final thing up there from CNBC,
Speaker 2: the JP Morton upgrade, which is it's just funny the
Speaker 2: way that they say.
Speaker 3: They say upgrading.
Speaker 2: Lockie Martin say it is an under owned defense stock
Speaker 2: and may find a bid in this dangerous world.
Speaker 4: I know that's like a I guess a Wall Street
Speaker 4: text is, but what the hell does that mean?
Speaker 2: I mean under owned as it's probably not enough parts
Speaker 2: of managed portfolios. I don't speak enough Wall Street ease
Speaker 2: in order to translate, but all we could say is
Speaker 2: that the people on Wall Street their job is to
Speaker 2: make money, and they know how to make money.
Speaker 3: They're really good at it.
Speaker 2: In fact, I just saw a report from the Goldman
Speaker 2: Snacks that there were up some twenty seven percent, driven
Speaker 2: entirely by investment banking profits from just the last quarter.
Speaker 2: So don't underestimate these people's ability to sniff out a dollar.
Speaker 2: And what they see very clearly here is that the
Speaker 2: quote unquote trend of where things are going is all
Speaker 2: towards funding this conflict, the Ukraine situation. Let's not forget
Speaker 2: the main case that they make right now, the neocons.
Speaker 2: They realize none of you actually want to continue to
Speaker 2: fund Ukraine's failed war and to continue to send people
Speaker 2: into the gauntlet and be killed for no reason. So
Speaker 2: their new argument is actually good for the US economy
Speaker 2: because all this money is just going back to US
Speaker 2: defense companies.
Speaker 3: And let's just say this.
Speaker 2: Here's the other thing too, and part of the reason
Speaker 2: why we need to ban stock ownership really by members
Speaker 2: of Congress.
Speaker 3: We just need to have confidence.
Speaker 2: It's like, if you're so crazy that you believe that ideologically,
Speaker 2: I need to know one hundred percent that you're not
Speaker 2: being motivated by the multimillions of dollars that you have
Speaker 2: in your portfolio to benefit from a situation like this.
Speaker 2: Because all the names that I listed there, including Michael
Speaker 2: McCall and others, these people are worth two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars. And that's the chairman of the Homeland
Speaker 2: Security Committee, right. He's one of the chief proponents of
Speaker 2: Ukraine AID. You literally have a financial stake here. Maybe
Speaker 2: you believe what you believe that in fact it's very possible,
Speaker 2: but you have to give confidence to the American people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the other question is like, what you
Speaker 1: know that we don't know that you get to benefit
Speaker 1: off of when you're trading stock.
Speaker 4: It is a truly sick and a brave system that
Speaker 4: we have.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just the bottom line of these people
Speaker 1: who are war profiteers and the way this has become
Speaker 1: completely normalized around our society and especially here in Washington.
Speaker 1: You know whose stockholdings are not doing so well?
Speaker 7: Though?
Speaker 4: Right now?
Speaker 3: Who is Donald Trump?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Wow, that's right, we're here.
Speaker 4: Talking about that in a minute.
Speaker 1: But first let's start with he was in court yesterday.
Speaker 1: So the first of his criminal trials to actually begin
Speaker 1: is the quote unquote hush money one having to do
Speaker 1: with paymous sister Mey Daniels to try to keep quiet
Speaker 1: an affair that he allegedly had with her previously. Remember
Speaker 1: the Catch and Kill National inquirer all of this stuff
Speaker 1: from the past. That's what this one has to do with.
Speaker 1: He was in court yesterday. After the session, he came
Speaker 1: out and had some things to say about how this
Speaker 1: all went down.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 9: We had some amazing things happened today.
Speaker 10: As you know, my son has graduated from high school level.
Speaker 10: Looks like the judgment not that he goes through the
Speaker 10: graduation of my senders worked very very hard. He's Grace Goods,
Speaker 10: so proud of the fact that he did so well.
Speaker 10: And I was looking forward for years to have his
Speaker 10: graduation with his mother and father there. And it looks
Speaker 10: like the judges aren't.
Speaker 9: Going to allow beings to escape the scam.
Speaker 7: It's a scam trial.
Speaker 9: In addition, as you know, next Thursday were before the
Speaker 9: United States Supreme Court and our big hearing on immunity,
Speaker 9: and this is something that we've been waiting for a
Speaker 9: long time.
Speaker 10: And the judge, of course, is not going.
Speaker 3: To allow us.
Speaker 9: He's a very conflicted judge and he's not going to
Speaker 9: allow us to go to that.
Speaker 10: He won't allow me to leave here for half a day,
Speaker 10: go to EC and go before in the United States
Speaker 10: Supreme Court because he thinks he's superior. I guess they
Speaker 10: the Supreme Court. So I just want to thank you
Speaker 10: very much. But that I can't go to my son's graduation,
Speaker 10: or that I can't go.
Speaker 9: To the United States Supreme Court, that I'm not in
Speaker 9: Georgia or Florida or North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Campaigning like I should be.
Speaker 9: It's for the radical level of exactly what they want.
Speaker 10: This is about election interference as well.
Speaker 1: It's about behind so, as with many Trump statements, not
Speaker 1: entirely true, but it does contain a grain of truth.
Speaker 4: Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So he specifically with regards to Baron's graduation, the judge said,
Speaker 1: we'll see.
Speaker 4: Was not ruled out.
Speaker 1: However, he is supposed to be in the courtroom every day,
Speaker 1: four days a week for the duration of the criminal trial.
Speaker 1: The judge said, if you don't show up, there will
Speaker 1: be an arrest. This trial, you know, slated to last
Speaker 1: somewhere around eight weeks. Obviously, campaign season is heating up.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is surprisingly actually going out and doing some
Speaker 1: rallies and campaigning to try to show a contrast with
Speaker 1: a week in Pennsylvania and speaking to voters while Trump is,
Speaker 1: you know, trapped in a courtroom litigating all of these things.
Speaker 1: You know, we're in the phase of the tread is
Speaker 1: obviously the very early phases where you're dealing with jury
Speaker 1: selection and some sort of like pre trial decisions about
Speaker 1: what type of evidence is going to be allowed. So,
Speaker 1: for example, they're going to allow in information about the
Speaker 1: access Hollywood tape, but my understanding is they're not going
Speaker 1: to actually be able to play the tape. So those
Speaker 1: are the sorts of things that are being decided. With
Speaker 1: regard to the jurors, there are apparently dozens of them,
Speaker 1: basically half of the first jury pool that were like,
Speaker 1: I can't be impartial in this case, Like what are
Speaker 1: you talking about here? I already have very strong feelings
Speaker 1: about this man and the things that he's done, which,
Speaker 1: you know, who can blame them. The idea of being
Speaker 1: able to find a jury pool that doesn't have some
Speaker 1: sort of preconceived notions about Trump very difficult.
Speaker 4: But I will say, you.
Speaker 1: Know, the jury of our peers has done a good
Speaker 1: job of trying to put their own biases aside and
Speaker 1: evaluate the evidence in front of them. But the details
Speaker 1: here from Axios, they said over two dozen of the
Speaker 1: jurors who said they can't be impartial in the case
Speaker 1: were white women, one Hispanic woman. For women of vas descent,
Speaker 1: fourteen were white men, one man of Asian descent. Six
Speaker 1: other jurors were of unknown gender and racial descent. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that gives you a sense of some of the machinations
Speaker 1: that are going on right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I do think it is absolutely nuts
Speaker 2: that he is going to be arrested if he's not
Speaker 2: allowed in the courtroom, because that is I mean, as
Speaker 2: a campaign blow that is huge, gigantic, and it's just
Speaker 2: this is the most political of all of the trials
Speaker 2: in my opinion, just because it's such a dumb criminal charge.
Speaker 2: It's an extraordinary interpretation of the law. It's still open
Speaker 2: question of whether you'll stand if there is some sort
Speaker 2: of a conviction. In terms of the politics and all that,
Speaker 2: it is the least relevant, I think, to any of
Speaker 2: the things that people are concerned about Trump, and then
Speaker 2: it is going to keep him off of a campaign trail.
Speaker 2: You know, as I was reading Crystal, they didn't even
Speaker 2: choose any jury people yesterday.
Speaker 4: Not one juror I selected.
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot about juries and how all
Speaker 2: this stuff works. But given how the amount of what,
Speaker 2: there's all this bickering over what can be introduced and
Speaker 2: what can't be introduced, that he has to be present
Speaker 2: for all of that. I'm not, again, not an expert
Speaker 2: on New York criminal law. I had seen that they're
Speaker 2: often they don't necessarily have to be present for at
Speaker 2: least all of it or some of it or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's as you said, it's completely up to the judge.
Speaker 2: But I do think, just politically, I think it looks
Speaker 2: absolutely terrible to keep him chained into a courtroom for
Speaker 2: four to five days a week whenever his opponent is
Speaker 2: out there actively campaigning. I mean right now today he's
Speaker 2: headed to Pennsylvania's really going to be there all week
Speaker 2: is and be holding rallies. Trump just got off the
Speaker 2: campaign trail as well, so it isn't a huge blow
Speaker 2: to him. A question two is that's the other thing
Speaker 2: I wanted to comment on about half the jury pool
Speaker 2: so they couldn't be impartial.
Speaker 3: The other half are just lying because can you possibly
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to be impartially good. I've met
Speaker 3: the man before. I'd be like, look, I have my
Speaker 3: own personal bias.
Speaker 2: It's different if you're coming up on somebody that you
Speaker 2: know nothing about, and you could probably know weigh evidence
Speaker 2: and all of that. But how can you possibly go
Speaker 2: into this and say I could be completely impartial when.
Speaker 3: Judging this either pro or agance. I don't think it's possible.
Speaker 1: With the fink your best bet would be to find
Speaker 1: jurors who hate both Biden and Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true, that would be your That's a good point.
Speaker 4: That would be your best bet.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I think people are capable to some extent,
Speaker 1: putting aside their political preferences to look at just the
Speaker 1: facts of this particular case. But you know, putting that
Speaker 1: aside and the challenges of fighting an impartial jury. There
Speaker 1: was another thing that caught a lot of people's attention,
Speaker 1: given especially all the conversation about Joe Biden, his age,
Speaker 1: and his sinility, which I think is all very much
Speaker 1: quite merited and warranted. Apparently Trump was having trouble staying
Speaker 1: awake during some of the proceedings yesterday. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to Maggie Haberman commenting on that.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I have to ask you, guys, have been at
Speaker 11: the times, have been live blogging this event, and forty
Speaker 11: minutes ago you wrote an observation that I was very
Speaker 11: surprised Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping
Speaker 11: down and his mouth goes slack.
Speaker 7: Tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Well, Jakie appeared to be asleep.
Speaker 12: Then you know he redeevidly.
Speaker 5: His head would would fall down.
Speaker 12: There of another moments in other trials, like the eg
Speaker 12: Harrell trial, which was.
Speaker 3: Around the corner in January.
Speaker 12: Where he appeared very still and it seemed as if
Speaker 12: he might be sleeping. But then then he would move
Speaker 12: this time and give me pay attention to a note that.
Speaker 3: His lawyer Todd glance past him.
Speaker 12: His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth
Speaker 12: kept going slack. Now, you know, sometimes people do fall
Speaker 12: asleep during court proceedings, but it's notable given the intensity
Speaker 12: of this morning and a lot of what was being markeding.
Speaker 11: Knowing, yeah, that's rather surprising, I mean fell asleep.
Speaker 4: Of course.
Speaker 1: You can imagine what they would make of this if
Speaker 1: it was If it was Biden, I will say, listen,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I don't even blame him. I probably fall asleep too.
Speaker 3: I'd be bored.
Speaker 4: Maybe, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like if I was in a criminal trial,
Speaker 1: I'd feel pretty amped up about that. You know, I'd
Speaker 1: probably be wanting to pay pretty close attention to what
Speaker 1: was going on, even though I was notorious in like
Speaker 1: back in school days, I couldn't stay awake, especially if
Speaker 1: they like put up a projector when I.
Speaker 3: Was over, So I can relate you're done.
Speaker 4: In one sense.
Speaker 1: On the on the other hand, like it was pretty
Speaker 1: extraordinary first day of your criminal trial, and you're there
Speaker 1: like dozen off, can't keep it together. So we'll probably
Speaker 1: see more of that. Apparently at other times he was
Speaker 1: very animated in terms of his facial expressions, as Trump
Speaker 1: certainly can be. Maggie Haberman and some of for other
Speaker 1: colleagues at the New York Times, she, of course very
Speaker 1: well sourced, had a report on the way that he
Speaker 1: hopes to spin this trial. Let's put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen, so the headline here in the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four race, Trump's trial is about to take center stage.
Speaker 1: The race for president will shift much of its focus
Speaker 1: to a Manhattan courtroom. This looks like no other presidential
Speaker 1: campaign in the history of the country. When Republican Folster
Speaker 1: said that is undeniably true, and basically he is telling
Speaker 1: his advisors that he wants as much media coverage as
Speaker 1: he can possibly get centered around his court appearances. You know,
Speaker 1: you see him speaking to the cameras afterwards. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we're going to get much more of that. He wants
Speaker 1: his supporters defending him on TV. He wants all of
Speaker 1: his the like you know, pro Trump media ecosystem, many
Speaker 1: of them have actually gone to Manhattan to be part
Speaker 1: of this whole scene. He is really counting on all
Speaker 1: of that and hoping that independents have a similar reaction
Speaker 1: to his legal trouble as his own base has. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's undeniable that his legal problems at the very least
Speaker 1: didn't hurt him with a Republican base, and I think
Speaker 1: pretty clearly helped him with a Republican base. As we
Speaker 1: predicted Zager, that would help him sort of coalesce support,
Speaker 1: get everyone lockstep around him. Any idea of hey, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm flirting with Ron DeSantis, maybe I'm flirting with Nikki
Speaker 1: Haley or whoever else that was sort of quashed and
Speaker 1: it was all right, we got to be with our guy.
Speaker 4: I think it's much.
Speaker 1: Less likely that the rest of the electorate is going
Speaker 1: to have the same response. And even with regard to
Speaker 1: this case, I completely understand, and we've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: that it is the least serious of the charges. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of polling suggests that Americans find this to
Speaker 1: be the least consequential of the charges. But it's not
Speaker 1: like it's not without its own tawdry details. And the
Speaker 1: danger for Trump is that some of this stuff has
Speaker 1: faded from memory. And you made a comment Saga about
Speaker 1: how this isn't part of the core of like what
Speaker 1: people don't like about Trump. I'm not sure I agree
Speaker 1: with that, because part of the negative Trump factor is
Speaker 1: like the chaos, the insanity, right, this.
Speaker 4: Sort of I mean, this is the details here grows.
Speaker 1: He had an affair with a porn star, and then
Speaker 1: he tried to hide it not only from his wife
Speaker 1: but from the entire country.
Speaker 4: You know, use these payments.
Speaker 1: And manipulated, like lied about what the payments were for
Speaker 1: to get the story killed before election day. It's not
Speaker 1: like that's a nothing story in the context of all
Speaker 1: the other stuff that he did. It's a nothing story.
Speaker 1: But in the grand scheme of like political scandals, it
Speaker 1: is actually pretty significant. And at the time when voters
Speaker 1: were first learning about it, they actually found it to
Speaker 1: be quite significant. So the danger for him is that
Speaker 1: people are reminded like, oh, yeah, this actually was really gross,
Speaker 1: and this actually is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: don't really like this man, and I don't think he
Speaker 1: should be in the Oval office.
Speaker 2: Again, Look, it's possible. The only reason I say it
Speaker 2: is I think it's just so baked in with Trump.
Speaker 2: It's like when people were going after them, like he
Speaker 2: didn't pay his taxes. I'm like, you're telling me a
Speaker 2: man who filed for bankruptcy and was notorious for stiffing
Speaker 2: his contractors didn't pay his taxes.
Speaker 3: Wow, I'm shocked.
Speaker 2: You're telling me the person who has created a tabloid
Speaker 2: sex star image of himself had an affair with.
Speaker 3: A porn star. Who would have guessed it.
Speaker 2: It's not like he flaunted it all over television and
Speaker 2: wrote it to fame. At a certain point, I just
Speaker 2: think it's baked into his image. I don't think people
Speaker 2: particularly care. Again, I could be wrong at this point, though.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, we do have some electoral evidence. Let's
Speaker 2: not just think about polls. Let's think about the elections
Speaker 2: at the height of the Stormy daniels maniay, eighteen, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: that's when Republican Party identification was sky high, right before COVID,
Speaker 2: When though, did with Trump really suffer eighteen really around
Speaker 2: the issue of healthcare? In twenty twenty he suffers because
Speaker 2: of COVID, And in twenty twenty two he suffers from
Speaker 2: Stop the Steal and general chaos. So I think abortion,
Speaker 2: stop the Steal, and twenty eighteen we're talking about healthcare
Speaker 2: and the tax cuts, some Jobs Act. In general, those
Speaker 2: four have an electoral track record of being pretty successful
Speaker 2: in terms of mounting attack on Trump. This one, I
Speaker 2: don't see electoral evidence that it particularly matters.
Speaker 4: I think that's fair.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen from the Washington
Speaker 1: Post just to give you a sense of what I
Speaker 1: was just referring to, Like when this first was breaking,
Speaker 1: you can see kind of like a little bit below
Speaker 1: halfway down this list. December twenty eighteen, hush Money. They asked, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you think about this? Do you think what
Speaker 1: he did is illegal? Do you think it's not illegal
Speaker 1: but unethical, or do you think that there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with it? And actually of all of these various Trump scandals, from.
Speaker 13: Russiagate to the tax issue that you just referred to,
Speaker 13: to the Ukraine perfect phone call, to the twenty twenty
Speaker 13: election efforts, and the marl Lago docs, this was the
Speaker 13: one where the smallest percentage of people actually said there
Speaker 13: was nothing.
Speaker 1: Wrong here, because in a certain sense, the facts of
Speaker 1: it are very difficult to actually outright defend. Like with
Speaker 1: Russia Gate, there was clearly a defense there. You know,
Speaker 1: even with the election efforts, he has spun some sort
Speaker 1: of a defense to make it kind of ambiga. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just exercising my free speech. With the documents, he's
Speaker 1: made these claims about you know, presidential immunity, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, so you actually have a little bit more
Speaker 1: ground to stand on, whereas with this people may not
Speaker 1: find it as serious as those allegations. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to just defend on the merits like paying
Speaker 1: off this gross publication and paying off this porn star
Speaker 1: to hide this affair that had happened. So that's why
Speaker 1: I'm not totally convinced. I also just think there is
Speaker 1: something to the normally reaction of seeing someone in a
Speaker 1: courtroom on trial.
Speaker 4: You know, we heard it from our.
Speaker 1: Own focus group respondence in the Republican focus group when
Speaker 1: they were asked, Okay, if he is actually indicted of anything,
Speaker 1: if he's actually found guilty of any of these things
Speaker 1: that he's been indicted for, you're.
Speaker 4: Still with him, And they're like, m I just can't.
Speaker 4: I just can't.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that this situation is without risk
Speaker 1: for him, and I certainly don't buy his analysis that
Speaker 1: he can actually turn this to his benefit.
Speaker 4: I just don't see.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 1: Listen, I've been wrong about many things in the past,
Speaker 1: and he's an extraordinary political actor and gets away with
Speaker 1: things and pulls things off and turns things to his
Speaker 1: advantage that no other politician really could. But I think
Speaker 1: having to spend eight weeks in a Manhattan courtroom talking
Speaker 1: about cover ups and porn stars and extramarital affairs and
Speaker 1: what's being billed as election interference from back twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: it's not a good set of.
Speaker 4: Facts for him.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it's good, and I think it
Speaker 2: will It could be.
Speaker 3: This is the thing with Trump that could be.
Speaker 2: Several compounding courtrooms, all of this that stacks up and
Speaker 2: it creates an image of somebody who is, you know,
Speaker 2: against the law. The normy reaction of seeing him convicted
Speaker 2: very very possible. Also, just not forget this. It's death
Speaker 2: by a thousand cuts to a certain extent. We've got
Speaker 2: all the money that he's going to spend on his
Speaker 2: legal bills, he's got all of his attention.
Speaker 3: Now he's off of the campaign trail.
Speaker 2: You know, he can never really argue the counterfactual of
Speaker 2: what it would look like if he wasn't burdened by
Speaker 2: all of these things. And it's just the first of several.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it won't hurt him at all. I'm
Speaker 2: saying this particular one in the bigger one, I don't
Speaker 2: think it will be as consequential nearly as let's say,
Speaker 2: the January sixth trial.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing.
Speaker 2: Who knows if those are ever actually coming to trial.
Speaker 2: That's the best part.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I would say politically is, you know,
Speaker 1: the Biden people, which you can tell from the fact
Speaker 1: that he's not laying out an affirmative agenda for anything,
Speaker 1: they really want this to be a rougherendum on Trump
Speaker 1: and Trump chaos, on Trump extremism, on abortion, on what Trump,
Speaker 1: what America would look like under a second Trump term,
Speaker 1: and so the more that Trump is the center of
Speaker 1: news and in a very unflattering light and reminding people
Speaker 1: of some of the things they really didn't like about
Speaker 1: him last time around, where you know, since he's been
Speaker 1: kicked off of Twitter, he's been a little bit in
Speaker 1: the background, some of those memories have faded, some of
Speaker 1: his term is being.
Speaker 4: Viewed through a bit of rose colored glasses.
Speaker 1: It definitely benefits the Biden camp to have this be
Speaker 1: the center of news and it be about, you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and his various travails. So I think for
Speaker 1: them they have to feel like, you know, this pushes
Speaker 1: the campaign in the direction that they ultimately wanted to go.
Speaker 1: How much of an impact it will have when weighed against,
Speaker 1: you know, the very serious issues.
Speaker 4: Joe Biden has as well in terms.
Speaker 1: Of the polls, I think is another question altogether. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and take a look at how Trump
Speaker 1: is performing financially. At this point, we had another put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen, huge collapse in terms of truth.
Speaker 1: Social Trump Media is the official name of the company,
Speaker 1: closed down more than eighteen percent. This has been attributed
Speaker 1: to the company apparently filed an official document they want
Speaker 1: to issue millions of additional shares of stock. This appears
Speaker 1: to appears to have spooked investors who worry that, you know,
Speaker 1: flooding the zone with a bunch of new stock issuances,
Speaker 1: then that is going to cause a further collapse in
Speaker 1: the price. So this has been a real problem for him.
Speaker 1: The share price has fallen more than sixty two percent.
Speaker 1: It originally opened at seventy dollars and ninety cents. Now
Speaker 1: it's down to around twenty seven dollars. So since Trump
Speaker 1: has such a significant chunk of this company, of course
Speaker 1: when the stock takes a beating, it is.
Speaker 4: A huge problem for him and his now worth.
Speaker 1: It also makes it less likely that this is going
Speaker 1: to be a real bailout for him in terms of
Speaker 1: being able to pay the cash that he needs to
Speaker 1: pay for that civil fraud suit that he's dealing with
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. Let's put this up on the screen. We
Speaker 1: also had a report from the Washington Post about some
Speaker 1: of the people who have really you know, these are
Speaker 1: ordinary people who have invested much of their savings into
Speaker 1: truth Social stock, which guys, please don't do that I
Speaker 1: don't care how you feel about Donald Trump, please don't
Speaker 1: do that. So the headline here is small time investors
Speaker 1: in Trump's truth social reckon with stock collapse. Some Trump
Speaker 1: supporters who invested in social media company have seen their
Speaker 1: shaff values plunge and.
Speaker 4: See it as a test of faith.
Speaker 1: So they talk to one gentleman who you can see
Speaker 1: on the screen if you're watching, Jerry Dean McLean. He
Speaker 1: has bought hundreds of shares for twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: He describes that as pretty much his whole nest egg.
Speaker 1: That DAG is now lost more than half its value.
Speaker 1: Of course, at this point he owns a tree removal
Speaker 1: service outside Oklahoma City. He says he's not worried. If anything,
Speaker 1: he says he wants to buy more. Quote, I know
Speaker 1: good and well it's in Trump's hands and he's got plans.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt it's going to explode some time.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, individuals like mister McLain who have
Speaker 1: boosted the stock price way beyond anything that would be
Speaker 1: you know, rationally justified by the market. This is a
Speaker 1: company that lost tens of millions of dollars last year
Speaker 1: and the revenue side was poultry. It was a few
Speaker 1: million dollars that they even brought in in revenue, and
Speaker 1: that was dwarfed by the losses. So, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's really sad to me the way that so many
Speaker 1: of Trump's supporters have been financially hurt by their support
Speaker 1: for him and his various causes and other you know,
Speaker 1: grifting enterprises that have popped up around the whole.
Speaker 2: Trump unis absolutely and if you see what he said,
Speaker 2: He's like, well, I want to buy more because Trump
Speaker 2: has got big plans.
Speaker 3: I'm like, look, we don't give financial advice.
Speaker 2: I would just say in generally, shouldn't be putting your
Speaker 2: money in single stocks, and probably not single stocks that
Speaker 2: are going to go wildly fluctuate in value, especially whenever
Speaker 2: it's your entire nest egg. He says that Trump's true
Speaker 2: social steak has now currently shranked by three billion after
Speaker 2: the stock is tanked. Shares are down by sixty percent
Speaker 2: from the peak of trading over the last three weeks,
Speaker 2: five point five million dollars in sale, forty million dollars
Speaker 2: in losses and operations. There are no path to profitability
Speaker 2: that is currently on the horizon at least been released
Speaker 2: by the company, so you can make your own decisions.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a free country.
Speaker 2: I guess if people want to do it, but I
Speaker 2: do think it is absolutely morally wrong and it does
Speaker 2: demonstrate also this is a financial nestag that Trump will
Speaker 2: continue to try and to prop up to leverage because
Speaker 2: it is his bailout from a lot of the financial
Speaker 2: problems that he has right now. Now from what I
Speaker 2: was reading, Crystal, he can still the company can still
Speaker 2: do stock buybacks, stock splitting. There's various different financial techniques
Speaker 2: to get Trump to the lock up period out of
Speaker 2: that where you can crop up the share price to
Speaker 2: a certain point where he is allowed to sell, and
Speaker 2: then he can cash out at least a certain percentage
Speaker 2: of this in order to boost his overall net worth
Speaker 2: and to make himself a lot more liquid into whether
Speaker 2: the storm and if he does do that, I mean,
Speaker 2: just imagine the optics of propping up a stock based
Speaker 2: upon your own I mean they even call it DJT
Speaker 2: in terms of its stock ticker. And then you think
Speaker 2: about what that means about the ordinary investors that have
Speaker 2: put their money in this, and that he was basically
Speaker 2: financially taking advantage of them based upon their.
Speaker 1: Network ordinary investors bailing on a billionaire. That's what's basically happening.
Speaker 1: And it's to talk about this as like a business enterprise.
Speaker 1: Was just think about where it is at this point.
Speaker 1: So there was at least somewhat of a logic to
Speaker 1: it when it launched. Because Trump was kicked off of Twitter.
Speaker 1: Twitter was like liberal coded under Jack Dorsey in the
Speaker 1: sense was like all conservatives are being censored here. So
Speaker 1: there was at least somewhat of a business case of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Trump is going to go over to this other quote
Speaker 1: unquote free speech platform and many conservatives may follow him there. Well,
Speaker 1: now you have Twitter owned by Elon Musk. It's now
Speaker 1: like coded right wing and conservative, and there's no longer
Speaker 1: the same like anti liberal grievance around the what's going
Speaker 1: on at Twitter, and so that has really sort of
Speaker 1: collapsed the whole business case for True Social And we
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of insight into their metrics, but
Speaker 1: what insight we have suggests that their user base is poultry.
Speaker 1: Plus it's just really boring to be on a platform
Speaker 1: where everyone is just like you know, has the exact
Speaker 1: same ideological worldview and supports Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: That's what part of what makes Twitter and other.
Speaker 1: Platforms that are successful so interesting is that you have
Speaker 1: this whole cocktail of a variety of why divergent views
Speaker 1: and that back and forth is what makes it so
Speaker 1: addictive and why people, even when they want to quit,
Speaker 1: can't quit. So, you know, and not to mention that
Speaker 1: the big revenue driver for all of these platforms, and
Speaker 1: part of why you get all the content moderation, the
Speaker 1: policies that you do very consistent across these platforms is advertisers.
Speaker 4: Well, what advertisers really want to jump over to a
Speaker 4: true social.
Speaker 1: Very few, right, very few who are ready to just
Speaker 1: be locked into this like sort of like right wing
Speaker 1: conservative lane because they want to appeal to a much
Speaker 1: broader set of individuals. And plus they don't have much
Speaker 1: of a user based on true social to start with.
Speaker 1: So the business case is not great. The only thing
Speaker 1: it's really had going for it is the fact that
Speaker 1: Trump has so many diehard supporters who see buying this
Speaker 1: stock as being faithful and loyal to Trump and have
Speaker 1: some sort of you know, faith in him. As this
Speaker 1: gentleman does that he's going to figure it out, and
Speaker 1: he's going to make it a success one way or another.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's effectively all that the stock really
Speaker 1: has had going for it. So at the same time,
Speaker 1: we didn't want to lose sight of some significant developments
Speaker 1: both in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: What you are looking at here is a violent pogrum
Speaker 1: against Palestinians in the West Bank. As Israeli soldiers stand
Speaker 1: by and watch this latest violence, which you saw a
Speaker 1: car set on fire. You're seeing fires set on buildings, cars,
Speaker 1: all sorts of civilian infrastructure here in the West Bank,
Speaker 1: farms attacked and in the occupied West Bank as well.
Speaker 1: The source of this violence initially was a fourteen year
Speaker 1: old Israeli boy who was found dead. Settlers blamed that
Speaker 1: death on Palestinians, but they have not allowed anyone in
Speaker 1: to evaluate what actually happened there, and so this sparked
Speaker 1: these violent attacks. You can see here this is a
Speaker 1: home that was set on fire. Two Palestinians, according to
Speaker 1: Al Jazeera and other reporters on the ground, were killed
Speaker 1: in that rampage, and many war who were injured as
Speaker 1: a result of the violence. We do have a State
Speaker 1: Department statement from Matthew Miller. Let's put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. So they say, we condemned the killings of
Speaker 1: fourteen year old Israeli ben Yamine Ikimayer and two Palestinians
Speaker 1: a twenty five year old Jihad Abu Aliyah and seventeen
Speaker 1: year old Omar Ahmad Abdul Ganihamed in the West Bank
Speaker 1: in recent days. This violence must stop and civilians must
Speaker 1: be protected. So very sort of both sides condemnation here
Speaker 1: from the State Department and very anesthetic language. Can put
Speaker 1: this next piece up on the screen, just a little
Speaker 1: bit of background on how consistently we've seen these violent
Speaker 1: attacks from settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. This
Speaker 1: is from nine to seven to two magazine from a
Speaker 1: while ago, back when Biden initially levied these sanctions against
Speaker 1: four settlers, and then some of those sanctions were rolled back.
Speaker 1: But in any case, they say, meet the settlers targeted
Speaker 1: by Biden sanctions, and they're victims. Palestinians and Israelis who
Speaker 1: have experienced the settlers attacks first hands see the move
Speaker 1: as positive but wholly insufficient step toward accountability. And one
Speaker 1: of the things to really understand here is number one
Speaker 1: that this settler violence and you know, widespread attacks on
Speaker 1: Palestines the West Bank, This has been on the rise
Speaker 1: for years that they were very much emboldened by the
Speaker 1: Netnyahu government and especially some of the Coalition partners who
Speaker 1: you know are settlers themselves and are very encouraging and
Speaker 1: directly inciting of this violence. But if we're being honest,
Speaker 1: I mean it has been official government policy to basically
Speaker 1: back this encroachment onto Palestinian land and violence against Palestinians
Speaker 1: for years, which is why many of these attacks.
Speaker 4: When we showed you the video.
Speaker 1: Where you've got Israeli soldiers just standing by while the
Speaker 1: car is being set on fire. The reason why one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why the response on October seventh was
Speaker 1: so poor is because IDF soldiers had been restationed to
Speaker 1: be in and near the West Bank rather than near
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip, leaving that part of Israel completely unprotected,
Speaker 1: because they wanted to be there to back up these
Speaker 1: violent settlers. So, you know, the other piece of this
Speaker 1: is there's a lot of desire to pretend like history
Speaker 1: started on October seventh, but the reality is in the
Speaker 1: months leading up to October seventh, you had an escalation
Speaker 1: in violence. You already had one of the most violent
Speaker 1: years on record when it comes to Palestinians, and since
Speaker 1: October seventh you have had an even larger escalation in
Speaker 1: terms of the number of attacks. So armed settlers and
Speaker 1: the Israeli army have killed four hundred and sixty Palestinians
Speaker 1: in the occupied West Bank since October seventh and uprooted
Speaker 1: hundreds of people from their land.
Speaker 4: So this the latest program.
Speaker 1: Which the other thing to say about the saga is
Speaker 1: even in the worst instances, So there was a horrific
Speaker 1: program in Hawara. You'll recall one of the net Yahoo
Speaker 1: coalition partners that it should be wiped off the map.
Speaker 1: You had a huge attacks and many injuries and killed
Speaker 1: as well, zero accountability, No one was even no one
Speaker 1: was indicted, no one was found guilty, nothing happened. So
Speaker 1: they operate with impunity because they know they can not
Speaker 1: only get away with it, but that they're actually backed
Speaker 1: by the israel government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's been hundreds of attacks, hundreds of killed actually
Speaker 2: that have been killed since October seventh. It's been the
Speaker 2: biggest spike in settler violence. Actually basically in modern times.
Speaker 2: And part of the issue with all of this is
Speaker 2: that this is separate from what's happening in Gaza, but
Speaker 2: it underscores the settler activity and its endorsement by the government,
Speaker 2: the lawlessness. And it also is a blind spot for
Speaker 2: US policy because for years and even now there are
Speaker 2: currently sanctions that are on people who have been instigating
Speaker 2: part of this settler of violence at the same time
Speaker 2: that it is in opposition to official US policy, and
Speaker 2: it is something that is just demonstrating, you know, very
Speaker 2: clearly whether the Israeli government is advocating, you know, for
Speaker 2: this settlement, bolstering, providing weapons and then allowing this to occur.
Speaker 2: Even the Israeli center left is actually condemning a lot
Speaker 2: of the setter of violence and settler riots because they,
Speaker 2: I mean, this has been a long time contensious issue
Speaker 2: about what exactly is our end state and purpose and
Speaker 2: a huge part of this backing these people is a
Speaker 2: big part of Netsa na Who's coalition, part of the
Speaker 2: reason you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Smocher said of Hawara, we need to
Speaker 1: wipe it off them. It needs to be wiped out.
Speaker 1: There was one civilian who was killed there and one
Speaker 1: hundred other Palestinians who were injured for critically and as
Speaker 1: I said, zero accountability. You know, you have a Biden
Speaker 1: administration coming out, oh, we're going to sanction four settlers,
Speaker 1: which is you know, pathetic in the context of number one,
Speaker 1: how widespread this you know, this violence, is how frequent
Speaker 1: the attacks are, and number two, it really sort of
Speaker 1: pretends like, oh, this is just these one off bad.
Speaker 4: Apples when you've got idea of soldiers.
Speaker 1: Standing by, you have a system of impunity and zero
Speaker 1: accountability for this violence, for the theft, for the assaults,
Speaker 1: for the fires that are set, and no criminal punishment
Speaker 1: for that whatsoever. So it's clearly a government policy and
Speaker 1: there's zero acknowledgement of that from the Biden administration. But
Speaker 1: to your point, it is really of a piece with
Speaker 1: what is happening in Gaza. And you know the other
Speaker 1: part of this, let's put this up on the screen
Speaker 1: to the point of the official government policy. We covered
Speaker 1: this previously. Remember, Israel just announced the largest West Bank
Speaker 1: land grab since Oslo, and it happened while our own
Speaker 1: Secretary of State.
Speaker 4: Tony B. Lincoln was there in the region.
Speaker 1: So you know, the policy of pushing Palestini off of
Speaker 1: their land. It's been sort of a slow motion ethnic
Speaker 1: cleansing for years and years and years, and basically October
Speaker 1: seventh gave this Israeli government an excuse to accelerate it.
Speaker 4: So that's why these things are connected.
Speaker 1: And remember the West Bank, I mean, they had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with October seventh, and yet you've seen huge
Speaker 1: escalation and violence, hundreds of Palestinians who have been killed,
Speaker 1: and you know, in these attacks from settlers and also
Speaker 1: in attacks directly from the IDF.
Speaker 4: So we didn't want to lose sight of that.
Speaker 1: Another major development here is apparently there were some rumors
Speaker 1: in Gaza that Palestinese could return to the north. Remember
Speaker 1: Gaza City, of course, was previously the densest city in
Speaker 1: the entire Gaza strip. So you had over a million
Speaker 1: people are displaced from northern Gaza. Many of them are
Speaker 1: now in rough after being you know, also chased out
Speaker 1: of Communis and so there were rumors that, oh, we
Speaker 1: may be able to get back north, especially with the
Speaker 1: idea of withdrawing some of their forces. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to a news report from Al Jacira's handout cutter
Speaker 1: about Palestinine's trying to return to the north.
Speaker 14: A couple of meters away from Wadi Has, the area
Speaker 14: that separates the north of Gaza with the South of Gaza.
Speaker 4: Earlier today in.
Speaker 14: The morning, a couple of families had the opportunity to
Speaker 14: go back to the north.
Speaker 4: It was very surprising.
Speaker 14: People started coming from all parts of the southern areas
Speaker 14: to this area where they're saying that they want to go.
Speaker 4: Back to the north.
Speaker 14: As you see, people are holding their bags, are holding
Speaker 14: all of what they own and have, and they are
Speaker 14: walking to that checkpoint hoping they could cross back to
Speaker 14: the north. But on the other hand, people know that
Speaker 14: in the north there is starvation, there's famine.
Speaker 4: They won't find food.
Speaker 14: They know that the situation in another I Gozzels ship
Speaker 14: is very dire and it's unlivable, But they still want
Speaker 14: to go back to their houses.
Speaker 4: They want to check up on their beloved ones.
Speaker 14: Most of these families have their beloved ones still trapped
Speaker 14: under the rubble.
Speaker 4: They want to go.
Speaker 14: And see their families, see their houses, if they're still
Speaker 14: standing or not. We have been talking to more than
Speaker 14: one family and they said that they do not have
Speaker 14: anything to lose, and all they want right now is
Speaker 14: to go back to their houses.
Speaker 15: We don't want to stay in Rafa. We want to
Speaker 15: go back to our home. There is nothing to do
Speaker 15: in Rafa. We're looking for peace enough of the situation. Look,
Speaker 15: people are running to go back. It will only get
Speaker 15: sick here if we stay.
Speaker 1: The ability to for palsting to return to northern Gaza
Speaker 1: has also been a key demand of Hamas in the
Speaker 1: ongoing seasfire negotiations, and of course people very fearful that
Speaker 1: they may never be able to allowed to return home.
Speaker 1: And of course we know there isn't a lot to
Speaker 1: return to at this point in northern Gaza given the
Speaker 1: level of destruction, but people still desperate to try to
Speaker 1: make it back north and see what remains of their
Speaker 1: life and of their possessions. Unfortunately, however, as these individuals
Speaker 1: were seeking to return to their homes, and we can
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen, they were fired upon
Speaker 1: by Israeli forces. You can see this video, this is
Speaker 1: from Middle East Monitor, and people are fleeing. You can
Speaker 1: see people, you know, ducking and covering. You can hear
Speaker 1: some of the audio the gunfire and people running here
Speaker 1: along the beach. We can go ahead and go to
Speaker 1: the next element. Guys, We've got a New York Times
Speaker 1: report indicating that, you know, according to an emergency worker
Speaker 1: and two people who were attempting to make the journey,
Speaker 1: is really troops shot into this crowd. Twenty three were
Speaker 1: wounded by Israeli gunfire and five people were killed. So
Speaker 1: as these individuals were trying to return home fired on
Speaker 1: by the IDF and a number of them killed and
Speaker 1: dozens of them injured, you know, And they say in
Speaker 1: this report, nearly two million Gosins have been displaced by
Speaker 1: the war between Hamas and Israel now and at six month,
Speaker 1: one of their biggest concerns is one and if they
Speaker 1: will be allowed to return to their homes or whether
Speaker 1: they will be permanently displaced as previous generations were. The
Speaker 1: IDF has since announced on social media that they are
Speaker 1: officially not allowing the return of residents. Quote for your safety,
Speaker 1: do not approach the forces operating there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is really really stunning because what we learn
Speaker 2: throughout all of this is that a lot of the
Speaker 2: things that they have said and that they have promised
Speaker 2: really just not materialized in terms of aid, in terms
Speaker 2: of what future governance in there all looks like the
Speaker 2: chaos vacuum inside of it. And actually, before the Iranian attack,
Speaker 2: this was getting quite a bit of attention, both inside
Speaker 2: Israel and throughout the international community. I even saw that
Speaker 2: Israeli journalist Barack Rube talking about the West Bank Paul
Speaker 2: Gramson about how devastating that was for the international situation.
Speaker 2: The Iranian question has kind of moved on past this.
Speaker 2: But part of the reason we're spending time here obviously
Speaker 2: because it's very significant to what the overall picture is
Speaker 2: going to look like, both in terms of whatever future
Speaker 2: that there is in Gaza and also what the how
Speaker 2: the Israeli government is going to manage both of the
Speaker 2: Palestinian territories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is you know, another thing that the
Speaker 1: US has claimed to care about.
Speaker 4: People being able to return to their homes.
Speaker 1: According to the IDF, operations have ended in northern Gaza, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's happening?
Speaker 2: Right, what's the whole what's next? And don't you want
Speaker 2: people to look you said you're going to invade Rafas
Speaker 2: or don't you want people to get out of Rafa?
Speaker 3: Which one?
Speaker 7: Is it?
Speaker 4: Exactly right? Exactly right?
Speaker 3: We will learn to let we will learn the answer
Speaker 3: to some of those questions very soon.
Speaker 2: I brought everybody yesterday some quotes from Trump's attack on
Speaker 2: RFK Junior, but we were able to track down the
Speaker 2: video and we just had to play some of it
Speaker 2: for you, as there's now a spat that's been open.
Speaker 2: RFK Junior responding, First, let's take a listen to what
Speaker 2: Trump had to say.
Speaker 16: RFK Jr. Is, as you know, the most radical left
Speaker 16: candidate in the race. He's more so than the Green Party.
Speaker 16: He's more so than even crookeet Joe Biden. But he's
Speaker 16: got some nice things about him. I happen to like him. Unfortunately,
Speaker 16: he is about the Green new scam because he believes
Speaker 16: in that, and a lot of people don't. They want
Speaker 16: to see our country become rich and wealthy and strong
Speaker 16: and powerful and lots of other things, and not waste
Speaker 16: money doing something that nobody wants and everybody knows doesn't work.
Speaker 16: I guess that would mean that RFK Junior is going
Speaker 16: to be taken away votes from Crooked Joe Biden, and
Speaker 16: he should because he's actually better than Biden. He's much
Speaker 16: better than Biden. If I were a Democrat, I'd vote
Speaker 16: for RFK Jr. Every single time over Biden because he's
Speaker 16: frankly more in line with Democrats. RFK Junior's running mate,
Speaker 16: Nicole Shanahan is also a very liberal person, but that's okay.
Speaker 16: She's got plenty of money from her ex husband. Kennedy
Speaker 16: is a radical left Democrat and always will be. But
Speaker 16: he's a better man than Joe Biden that I can
Speaker 16: tell you.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there was a lot going on there.
Speaker 2: Nicole Chanahan got a lot of money from her ex husband.
Speaker 3: He's been trying to sew dissension.
Speaker 2: Ryan and I were talking about this yesterday in terms
Speaker 2: of Trump endorsing the genocide Joe Chant and he's like,
Speaker 2: they're not wrong, they're not wrong. Everything for him is
Speaker 2: about calibration, trying to exploit some of this chaos inside
Speaker 2: the Democratic coalition.
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
Speaker 4: I don't really think this approaches that intelligent though.
Speaker 3: Because because transparent, not.
Speaker 1: Because it's transparent. But if he actually wanted Democrats to
Speaker 1: vote for RFK Junior, he wouldn't say anything nice about him.
Speaker 1: Like the fact that Trump says something nice about you
Speaker 1: is not a point in your favor if you are
Speaker 1: at all on like you know, left of center or
Speaker 1: somewhere in the potential old Biden voter universe. So if
Speaker 1: Trump was I think his smartest move would be to
Speaker 1: just aggressively attack him as you know, liberal and loves
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi and voter for Hillary Clinton whatever. That would
Speaker 1: probably be the smarter move because you know, so much
Speaker 1: of a politics it's just vibes. It's like which treat
Speaker 1: team are you on, and Trump is the central figure,
Speaker 1: and it's all about just how do you feel about
Speaker 1: Donald Trump?
Speaker 4: And how does Donald Trump feel about you.
Speaker 1: So if you're an enemy of Trump, regardless of where
Speaker 1: you may have positioned yourself in things that you might
Speaker 1: have said that Republicans may have at some point agreed with,
Speaker 1: you're on the wrong side of Donald Trump. That's all
Speaker 1: that matters. And conversely, for the quote unquote anti Trump coalition,
Speaker 1: you know, it's exactly the opposite of Trump hates you,
Speaker 1: then we like you. So I'm not sure that it's
Speaker 1: his smartest play.
Speaker 2: Frankly, absolutely, I know. I don't disagree necessarily. I just look,
Speaker 2: I don't know if any of this is going to
Speaker 2: have an impact. It's more just it's interesting and it's
Speaker 2: funny to just see how he is trying to calibrate
Speaker 2: with respect to RFK. Whether it's serious or not. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's just, you know, unfiltered what he actually thinks. But
Speaker 2: here's what Kennedy had to say, and actually pretty explosive claim.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: He says, President Trump calls me an ultra left radical.
Speaker 2: I'm so liberal that his emissaries asked me to be
Speaker 2: his VP. I respectfully declined the offer. I am against
Speaker 2: President Trump and President Biden can't win. Judging by his
Speaker 2: new website, it looks like President Trump knows who can
Speaker 2: actually beat him, So that is kind.
Speaker 4: Of interesting website.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like looking into this, let's see Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Let's go to actually the Donald Trump campaign and see
Speaker 2: exactly what he's talking about in terms of what I
Speaker 2: have though in front of me, it's just a donation button.
Speaker 2: I don't see anything about I'll never stop fighting for you.
Speaker 2: And if you're able to click out of that, it
Speaker 2: just says they're not after me, they're after you. I'm
Speaker 2: just the one who's standing in the way. So I'm
Speaker 2: not exactly sure what he's referring to. Maybe he's talking
Speaker 2: about er there RK Junior. Regardless, he says here that
Speaker 2: he turned down the VP at least from his emissary
Speaker 2: that I don't know. I mean, the Trump campaign hasn't responded.
Speaker 2: They haven't denied that it happened. So if it weren't true,
Speaker 2: you would assume that they would come out and say it.
Speaker 2: I predicted at the time that they were at least
Speaker 2: going to try, just because I knew how much Trump
Speaker 2: would relish having the Kennedy name, and of course it
Speaker 2: would have a lot of it would garner a lot
Speaker 2: of media attention and possibly could to unite two of
Speaker 2: these kind of more disparate groups of voters and bring
Speaker 2: them together. But the issue was always Trump has got
Speaker 2: other institutional people he's got to worry about. That's why
Speaker 2: we were talking previously. Who was it that they said
Speaker 2: would Trump would pick as his VP? And we were like,
Speaker 2: there's no way, Oh, Tulsi Galla think that's what it was.
Speaker 2: I was like, there's no way he's going to pick
Speaker 2: her because he's got like actual party people and donors
Speaker 2: and all these folks to please. He's got to pick
Speaker 2: somebody who's already an elected GOP person. Anybody more outside
Speaker 2: of the box is too risky, and it's just it
Speaker 2: would endanger some of the machinery. What I've been reading
Speaker 2: right now is Trump needs tons of money. He does
Speaker 2: not want to input any of his own personal money
Speaker 2: a lot. It's already going to legal bills and all
Speaker 2: these other issues. He's relying on big, big dollar donors.
Speaker 2: And one of the things he's looking for in a
Speaker 2: VP right now is somebody who can raise tons of
Speaker 2: money from bundlers and others.
Speaker 3: That's not somebody.
Speaker 2: That's not a reason to pick RFK Junior Tulsa Gabbard
Speaker 2: in Yeah, folks.
Speaker 1: The other thing I saw with his VP pick is
Speaker 1: that he is souring on any of the like governors
Speaker 1: from states that have extreme abortion policies.
Speaker 4: Well he should so like christin Noam.
Speaker 1: You know, I think they have a heartbeat bill in
Speaker 1: South Dakota, Dakota. So that's a bad fact for her
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, getting the Republican VP nod
Speaker 1: understandably because then you know, that becomes a center of
Speaker 1: focus of conversation. Trump understands how bad that issue is
Speaker 1: for him, So they've kind of slid down the list
Speaker 1: with regard to this.
Speaker 4: Kennedy tweet.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm probably parsing this too much, but there were
Speaker 1: a couple of things that I found noteworthy. First of all,
Speaker 1: with regard to how he phrases the VP offer, saying
Speaker 1: that his emissaries ask me, I find that credible. That's
Speaker 1: a little bit different than like, all right, the man
Speaker 1: himself was like, I've made my decision, and it's you
Speaker 1: will you join me? That's more of like a trial balloon.
Speaker 1: I can imagine Trump falling in love with the idea of.
Speaker 4: Having a Kennedy on it, you know, Trump Kennedy, Like you.
Speaker 1: Know, he's he's got that old man sensibility and like
Speaker 1: love of the Kennedys, is this political royalty and whatever.
Speaker 1: So I can definitely imagine him toying with the idea
Speaker 1: of having RFK Junior on the ticket and what that
Speaker 1: would mean for him and like how that would raise
Speaker 1: his esteem And so much of Trump's like modus operendies
Speaker 1: comes out of his own personal grievance about not being
Speaker 1: treated in the dignified way and fitting in with like
Speaker 1: the fancy people and whatever. And so if he's got
Speaker 1: a Kennedy on the ticket, like how can you deny
Speaker 1: how legit he is and his claim to political prowess.
Speaker 1: So I can definitely imagine them floating the idea, testing
Speaker 1: the waters with RFK to see if he was receptive.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. The other thing I noticed about
Speaker 1: this tweet is he says I am against President Trump
Speaker 1: and President Biden can't win. So it's not I'm against Biden,
Speaker 1: it's he can't win, which was interesting to me. That's
Speaker 1: almost like the Dean Phillips positioning right of like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I love I love Joe. Biden's great, but I just
Speaker 1: don't think he can win, or like, you know, even
Speaker 1: that's the way like Jan Kueger talked about it a lot,
Speaker 1: not he didn't do that. I love President Biden, but
Speaker 1: he was like, we have to win. President Biden can't win,
Speaker 1: so I'm the guy. So I did find that notable
Speaker 1: that that's the way that he chose to phrase that
Speaker 1: tweet when he certainly hasn't held a fire in terms
Speaker 1: of being directly critical of Biden. But it made me
Speaker 1: feel like because he softened that language, perhaps he does
Speaker 1: see his best lane in terms of accumulating the you know,
Speaker 1: the most votes as being a little bit friendly towards
Speaker 1: the Biden people and like trying to pick up more
Speaker 1: of the disaffected Biden voters.
Speaker 4: But I also could be way too much, no, no enough.
Speaker 2: I think there is something to it where he says,
Speaker 2: you know, President Biden can't win. That's kind of like
Speaker 2: whenever he was running in the Democratic primary. Let's go
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. This is
Speaker 2: important for ballot Access News from RFK Junior. He is
Speaker 2: ruling out a libertarian run. Kennedy says currently facing obstacles
Speaker 2: to get on the ballot in all fifty states, Getting
Speaker 2: on the libertarian ballot would have been an easy way
Speaker 2: to circuit this, but he says, we are not going
Speaker 2: to have problems getting on the ballot ourselves, so we
Speaker 2: are not going to be running as libertarian. This is
Speaker 2: something he confirmed to ABC News on Saturday when he
Speaker 2: was asked specifically about this. So currently we know that
Speaker 2: he has qualified right now for the ballot in Utah. Officially,
Speaker 2: there are other states where he has enough signatures, but
Speaker 2: they're currently in being contested.
Speaker 3: But this was a move of confidence on the.
Speaker 2: Campaign part where they are saying definitively we are going
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 3: On the ballot in all fifty states.
Speaker 2: Now, I remained skeptical of that, and it's not a
Speaker 2: denigration of his campaign. It's just that I know how
Speaker 2: rigged that the process is and how difficult it will
Speaker 2: be to get on all fifty. But clearly, maybe with
Speaker 2: Nicole Shanahan's money, they believe that they do actually have
Speaker 2: a very good shot at being on the ballot in
Speaker 2: the vast majority of states. That's the only reason that
Speaker 2: you would deny the Libertarian Party or.
Speaker 4: The Libertarians were like didn't want him.
Speaker 3: Like there was a lot of it.
Speaker 2: There was some consternation, say, you wouldn't have won, but
Speaker 2: actually I think he might have won.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I don't know either, but I'm just saying That's the
Speaker 1: other alternative explanation is it became clear that at least
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a clear cut path to Libertarian nomination.
Speaker 1: They weren't going to just anoint him, so it ends
Speaker 1: up being sort of too messy and distracting from the
Speaker 1: rest of his campaign goals. I think that's entirely possible
Speaker 1: as well. Listen, I continue to be skeptical about how
Speaker 1: many ballots he's going to be able to get on,
Speaker 1: because even in the places where he appears to have
Speaker 1: met the criteria, there remain question marks. I mean that
Speaker 1: he appears to have met the criteria, yet there's some
Speaker 1: question about what did you have a VP on this
Speaker 1: ticket at that point? So does that one count? He
Speaker 1: just announced that they qualified for Iowa ballot access. They
Speaker 1: had to hold some kind of a convention in the state.
Speaker 1: So they're saying, okay, well we did that, we checked
Speaker 1: that box, but it's still got to be certified by
Speaker 1: Iowa's Secretary of State.
Speaker 4: Are they going to find some kind.
Speaker 1: Of a little loophole of oh, well, you didn't check X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z on the form twenty seventeen and by
Speaker 1: the way, we just changed the rules anyway, so sorry,
Speaker 1: it doesn't count. There's so many tricks that they use
Speaker 1: and lawfair that they use also to try to block
Speaker 1: candidates from the ballot. I just it's not a slam
Speaker 1: dunk thing. It's not a slam dunk thing to get
Speaker 1: on and even a majority of states, let alone all
Speaker 1: fifty states, so they certainly have their work cut out
Speaker 1: for them. And I think this is one of the
Speaker 1: most important in terms of the horse race. I think
Speaker 1: this is one of the most important things to watch
Speaker 1: because we know that there's oftentimes double digit support for
Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy. So does he make it on the ballot?
Speaker 1: Who is he pulling more from? You know, who are
Speaker 1: the more disaffected voters who are migrating to him.
Speaker 4: I think these things.
Speaker 1: Could all be actually determinative in terms of the next
Speaker 1: president is. And by the way, I continue to be
Speaker 1: a little agnostic about what the answer is as to
Speaker 1: which side he pulls more from, because he still does
Speaker 1: have a much higher favorability with Republicans and so I'm
Speaker 1: just looking at that and I can't help but think
Speaker 1: that must mean something because it's not even close, like
Speaker 1: a majority of Republicans like him and overwhelmed like seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of Democrats hate him. So that has to
Speaker 1: mean something at the end of the day, is my guest.
Speaker 1: But you know, the pulling so far has been a
Speaker 1: little bit mixed as to what the impact is.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no, very true. All right, let's move on to
Speaker 2: the next part. This is where we wanted to continue
Speaker 2: to stay on top of this story. Just a quick
Speaker 2: update here with some pretty extraordinary news. Let's put it
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. There is now a Federal
Speaker 2: FBI investing gates into the Key Bridge crash from Baltimore.
Speaker 2: So what they are looking at is whether the crew
Speaker 2: left the port knowing that their vessel had serious system problems.
Speaker 2: This is after an initial review of the case.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: Authorities are reviewing the events leading up to the moment
Speaker 2: when the singing parent Poorian flagship lost power, leaving the
Speaker 2: Port of Baltimore, slamming into one of the bridge's support pillars,
Speaker 2: collapsing the entire bridge. Just after dawn on Monday, Actually,
Speaker 2: dozens of FBI officials, addressed in all black all began
Speaker 2: storming the ship, where the crew has actually remained since
Speaker 2: the crash, quote, pulling up to the ship's bow in
Speaker 2: numerous boats, climbing aboard using a ladder. The FBI now
Speaker 2: confirming that the agents are on board and authorities are
Speaker 2: conducting a quote court approved search. The criminal investigation, which
Speaker 2: is important here, is being handled by currently a US
Speaker 2: Attorney office in Maryland. Same day that quote, multiple private
Speaker 2: law firms have separately announced they are been retained to
Speaker 2: represent the Mayor's office and seven of the men who
Speaker 2: were working construction on the bridge when it collapsed. The
Speaker 2: signal an effort to seek accountability and determine what caused
Speaker 2: the crash that left six of the eight men who
Speaker 2: were on the bridge that were dead. Now, what's important
Speaker 2: also is that this came immediately after a report surface
Speaker 2: around the condition of the ship immediately after it left.
Speaker 2: Let's put it up there please on the screen. It
Speaker 2: says that the bridge collapse had the ship apparently had
Speaker 2: electrical issues while it was still docked hours before leaving
Speaker 2: the port. The container ship experienced electrical problems according to
Speaker 2: those who are officials who were involved in the process,
Speaker 2: that came out at the same time that the FBI
Speaker 2: actually boarded the ship. Now, what they say is that
Speaker 2: when the DOLLI the ship departed Baltimore early in the
Speaker 2: morning with its with all of its cargo and slammed
Speaker 2: into the bridge, it almost immediately experienced a similar electrical issue.
Speaker 2: So the criminal investigation that will take place here is
Speaker 2: did they know that the ship was experiencing electrical problems?
Speaker 2: Were they aware that or did they cover up either
Speaker 2: that had happened. Did they put some sort of shoddy
Speaker 2: fix that ended up shorting the entire ship that eventually
Speaker 2: led to the collapse and to the crash. So there's
Speaker 2: gonna be a lot of investigation, not just in the crew,
Speaker 2: but you know, possibly the higher ups, yeah, that were
Speaker 2: involved in telling them, Hey, you need to get out
Speaker 2: of there. We got to fix this as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: That's what I would really because that was the big
Speaker 1: question I had too, is Okay, if that all happened
Speaker 1: and they're hearing these alarms on the refrigerator unit saying okay,
Speaker 1: you've got this intermittent power supply, there's something wrong here.
Speaker 1: What sort of pressure may the crew have been under
Speaker 1: to proceed even under those very risky circumstances, Because obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean the people that it posed a great risk
Speaker 1: to as well was themselves being aboard a ship that
Speaker 1: may not have been seaworthy, and that apparently is the
Speaker 1: legal standard that they have to meet. So according to
Speaker 1: the law, you, uh, the dolly was, you have to
Speaker 1: indicate whether or not it was reasonably fit for the
Speaker 1: intended voyage. You may not send a vessel to see
Speaker 1: in a known unseaworthy condition.
Speaker 4: So that'll be the question.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that'll be you know, debated likely in court
Speaker 1: over whether or not it was in a known unseaworthy condition,
Speaker 1: and then you know, potential accountability flows from there. Something
Speaker 1: else that our friends over at lever News have been
Speaker 1: reporting on is the fact that the owner of this
Speaker 1: ship has been in court trying to limit their liability
Speaker 1: using this eighteen fifty one maritime law. It allows them
Speaker 1: to seek to limit that liability to the value of
Speaker 1: the vessel's remains after a casualty. So that would mean
Speaker 1: that their liability would be limited to something like forty
Speaker 1: three point six million dollars, which I mean, considering the
Speaker 1: damage that was caused and the lives that were lost,
Speaker 1: this is really peanuts. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: that the victims lawyers, the lawyers for the families, and
Speaker 1: the one individual who actually survived amazingly incredibly the fall
Speaker 1: off this bridge, that they're really taking issue with that.
Speaker 1: One of the lawyers said, imagine telling that to grieving
Speaker 1: families that while they're planning a funeral, the owner of
Speaker 1: the boat is in court trying to stop the city,
Speaker 1: state and victims from being able to file claims. There
Speaker 1: was also a detail in this because I've been wondering,
Speaker 1: how did that one man survive?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Apparently he escaped drowning, but he was inside of his
Speaker 1: work truck, and he was able to roll down his
Speaker 1: vehicle's window and fight through the frigid water, I mean
Speaker 1: it was cold that day, when the water is even colder,
Speaker 1: despite being unable to swim, and then he was able
Speaker 1: to cling to debris until he was rescued. So survived
Speaker 1: this huge fall inside of his work truck, is able
Speaker 1: to swim out through the window in spite of the
Speaker 1: fact that he can't swim and survive these you know,
Speaker 1: ice cold waters as really unbelievable miracle that he was
Speaker 1: able to survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an amazing story and it's one of those
Speaker 2: where again remember this is one of the worst you know,
Speaker 2: industrial accidents here in a long time in the United States,
Speaker 2: and a criminal investigation. Really, what it will reveal is
Speaker 2: what I had seen previously. I remember during the whole
Speaker 2: Captain Phillips thing, we were reading about why exactly that
Speaker 2: this kept happening. And part of the reason is because
Speaker 2: the shipping companies didn't want to spend money on the
Speaker 2: extra fuel that would have cost to go outside of
Speaker 2: pirate areas, so they're like cheaper to just pay the
Speaker 2: ransom and to risk it. You're like, wait what, And
Speaker 2: apparently that's the thing. You know, you if you're part
Speaker 2: of like I think, if you're a ship captain, you're
Speaker 2: held within a set amount of fuel that you're allowed
Speaker 2: to use. You need to call up and you need
Speaker 2: to get permission from authorities to burn extra fuel because
Speaker 2: it just costs a ton of money a certain point.
Speaker 2: Business wise, I do get it. I can understand to
Speaker 2: a certain extent. But sometimes these types of pressures, you know,
Speaker 2: to save money or to make make deadline and all that,
Speaker 2: it's going to run up against it's going to run
Speaker 2: up against safety, and it's going to lead to a
Speaker 2: catastrophic incident.
Speaker 1: Like we see this all the time, like in the
Speaker 1: mining industry, for example, line operators, especially the shadier ones,
Speaker 1: just skimping on safety at you know, cutting corners every
Speaker 1: step of the way, and you know games that the
Speaker 1: regulators play to give them heads up when they're coming
Speaker 1: to inspect the mine. And we've had a number of
Speaker 1: you know, deadly mine accidents because this unscrupulous owner wanted
Speaker 1: to save money at the risk of their workers' lives.
Speaker 4: And so we'll see what the details are here.
Speaker 1: You know, what was going on with the crew, with
Speaker 1: the crew, what they knew and what sort of pressure
Speaker 1: they may have been under from the higher ups. But
Speaker 1: will certainly certainly continue to pay attention to this story
Speaker 1: because it is so significant in terms of the collapse
Speaker 1: of this infrastructure and what it means for the entire
Speaker 1: sort of Eastern Seaboard going forward. Absolutely, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: At the same time, we have an incredible Ryan Grimm
Speaker 1: and Jeremy Scahill scoop. We can put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. They were able to get their hands on
Speaker 1: a leaked memo from the New York Times that instructed
Speaker 1: journalists covering Israel's war on Gaza to restrict the use
Speaker 1: of the terms genocide, ethnic cleansing, and to avoid using
Speaker 1: the phrases occupied territory when describing Palestinian land. According to
Speaker 1: a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept
Speaker 1: by the Way Soccer, the New York Times apparently just
Speaker 1: wrapped up their previous investigation into previous leaks to the Intercepts. Yes,
Speaker 1: right as they wrap that up, the Intercept gets this new,
Speaker 1: very revelatory leak. The memo also instructs reporters not to
Speaker 1: use the word Palestine except in very rare cases. That's
Speaker 1: a specific language from this memo to steer clear of
Speaker 1: the term refugee camps to describe areas of Gaza historically
Speaker 1: settled by internally displaced Palestinians who fled from other parts
Speaker 1: of Palestine during previous wars. The areas, of course, are
Speaker 1: recognized by the UN as refugee camps and house hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of registered refugees. You know that one is
Speaker 1: really significant because this is just such Israeli framing. You
Speaker 1: know that this is part of why Israel hates UNRA
Speaker 1: so much, is because it gives them the designation of refugees.
Speaker 1: And you know, Israel really hates that because they see
Speaker 1: this as continuing a justified Palestinian claim to the land.
Speaker 1: So really sort of buying into the Israeli framing here.
Speaker 1: The time memo goes on to outline guidance on a
Speaker 1: range of phrases in terms they say the nature of
Speaker 1: the conflict has led to inflammatory language and incendiary accusations
Speaker 1: on all sides. We should be very cautious about using
Speaker 1: such language, even in quotations, and they specifically talk about
Speaker 1: words like slaughter, massacre, and carnage, which they say often
Speaker 1: convey more emotions and information think hard before using them
Speaker 1: in our own voice. Which is funny because the intercepted
Speaker 1: previously published an analysis showing that they exclusively use that
Speaker 1: type of language when it comes to attacks on Israelis.
Speaker 1: So they found the intercept analysis, which we covered here
Speaker 1: I think I did a monologue on it, actually showed
Speaker 1: that major newspapers reserved terms like slaughter, massacre, and horrific
Speaker 1: almost exclusively for Israeli civilians. New York Times had described
Speaker 1: Israeli deaths as a massacre on fifty three occasions, and
Speaker 1: those of Palestinians just once. The ratio for the use
Speaker 1: of slaughter was twenty two to one, even as the
Speaker 1: documented number of Palestinians at that time was around fifteen thousands.
Speaker 1: They also go on to talk about the use of
Speaker 1: the word terrorism, so they don't characterize Israel's repeated attacks
Speaker 1: on Palestinian civilians as terrorism, but go on at great
Speaker 1: length to explain how it is appropriate to call hamas
Speaker 1: militi since on October seventh, terrorists, but the same similar
Speaker 1: attacks on civilians from the israelis not terrorism, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just very uh it's very illustrative of the double
Speaker 1: standards that are applied throughout the news media. And to
Speaker 1: see it all written out like this is pretty shordinary, right.
Speaker 2: And this is here's the thing. If you don't ever
Speaker 2: want to use a claim genocide, fine, don't use it.
Speaker 2: But when I google Russia genocide Ukraine NYT one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Speaker 2: stories just in the last year that have been published
Speaker 2: by The New York pop right.
Speaker 1: Up on your first Google search results.
Speaker 2: Very first thing, right, And if I read about terrorism
Speaker 2: and Russia, what's the same thing. This is again like
Speaker 2: if you want to say, well, it's terrorism because a
Speaker 2: non state actor, okay, cool, But whenever here we have
Speaker 2: an actual nation state, Russia, they're accusing them quote of
Speaker 2: terrorism inside of Ukraine. Now, it's all subjective, and it's editorial,
Speaker 2: and it's based upon the foreign policy views of the
Speaker 2: owners of the New York Times or the people who
Speaker 2: work at the New York Times, And that is why
Speaker 2: it's egregious and why it's stupid. Now, if you are
Speaker 2: a political person and you are trying to make these points,
Speaker 2: that's one thing. But if you're supposedly newspaper record and
Speaker 2: an a credible news organization that is actually trying to
Speaker 2: present some sort of picture of the truth that's a
Speaker 2: totally different one. And it is very clear here that
Speaker 2: for some reason they have decided to commit themselves entirely
Speaker 2: to presenting a view of the conflict. And at a
Speaker 2: certain point I think it's okay, But then they need
Speaker 2: to just be honest about where they are and not
Speaker 2: pretend that they don't have a massive bias, especially consider
Speaker 2: how this entire Intercept thing went down. They were revealed
Speaker 2: that their October seventh rape story was complete bullshit, like
Speaker 2: absolutely did not rise to the editorial standards something that
Speaker 2: we would publish here, let alone over at the New
Speaker 2: York Times. Well, they then launch an investigation into who
Speaker 2: leaked all of the background of their terrible reporting, And
Speaker 2: as Ryan has talked about here, part of the reason
Speaker 2: he believes that they won't retract it is because they
Speaker 2: want to win a Pulitzer Prize for the story they
Speaker 2: fully believe that they will do, And how insane would
Speaker 2: that be.
Speaker 1: I think they're also just they're like afraid of the
Speaker 1: fallout from it.
Speaker 4: They just I mean, even though remember.
Speaker 1: And we've covered this pretty extensively, but their own reporters
Speaker 1: at The New York Times had to write a story
Speaker 1: about how one of the central claims of their own
Speaker 1: Hamas rape story was not true, and yet they have
Speaker 1: not retracted the story. They put in a you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a like parenthetical after that part
Speaker 1: of the story, but they didn't even take that.
Speaker 4: Part of the story.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's what and that's just the
Speaker 1: tip of the iceberg with the problems of that story.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this gives you some real insight. And I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised that they said, don't use genocide. I'm not
Speaker 1: surprised that they'd say don't use ethnic but banning. You
Speaker 1: can't say refugee camps, you can't say Palestine, you can't
Speaker 1: say occupied territories. Like this is flying in the face
Speaker 1: of really standard acknowledged reality around the world, and they're
Speaker 1: censoring their own journalists to try to craft a view
Speaker 1: of the world that is the most friendly possible to
Speaker 1: the Israeli position.
Speaker 4: Like that comes across this could.
Speaker 1: Have been written by one of you know, Bebi's spokespeople,
Speaker 1: grules that we see across media. This is exactly how
Speaker 1: they would want this to be framed and so it
Speaker 1: was fine back in the immediate aftermath of October seventh
Speaker 1: for New York Times reporters to be talking about a
Speaker 1: massacre or a slaughter, et cetera, et cetera. But suddenly
Speaker 1: when the slaughter was all on the other side, is well,
Speaker 1: this language, this is too emotional. Why are we using
Speaker 1: these words? Well, why'd you use them back then? If
Speaker 1: you're going to not use the word massacre at all
Speaker 1: or slaughter at all? Why was it fine when it
Speaker 1: was Israeli's being slaughtered? But now there's Palestinians being slaughtered.
Speaker 1: Suddenly those words are too emotional and we should really
Speaker 1: think twice before we use them.
Speaker 2: Look, the Buka massacre, all right, and I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not putting, I'm not trying to minimize what happened there.
Speaker 3: That's four hundred and fifty eight people who were killed.
Speaker 2: I mean the death toll and Gaza is what minimum
Speaker 2: thirty k What are we doing here? Yeah, Buka is
Speaker 2: supposed to be one of those massive turning points of
Speaker 2: the that is what a day of fighting in Gaza?
Speaker 3: And I mean, let's okay, flip it around.
Speaker 2: Buka massacre October seven, that's about a third of the
Speaker 2: death toll on October seven. It's well, which one is
Speaker 2: a masker? And what's not is you know what's the cutoff?
Speaker 2: Is it indiscriminate killing?
Speaker 3: Is it not?
Speaker 2: You know what's this is just ludicrous the way that
Speaker 2: and again look think about the way that Buka Buka
Speaker 2: is literally the justification that they say for quote unquote
Speaker 2: committing genocide and why America should be you know, back
Speaker 2: the Ukraine means to the hills and shows sort of
Speaker 2: savages the Russians are and all this is just nothing
Speaker 2: compared to the scale of world events. I'm not minimizing
Speaker 2: what happened there. I'm just saying you have to put
Speaker 2: it in a context of broader like broader conflict and
Speaker 2: about what the barriers and what for US policy should
Speaker 2: be in response to certain events. And it's just some
Speaker 2: things are granted master status, some are not. Sometimes embassies
Speaker 2: are embassies sometimes are not.
Speaker 3: That that's the problem that.
Speaker 4: We un it's a genocide sometimes.
Speaker 1: Oh and let's be clear, like the case that this
Speaker 1: is a genocide is much more further advanced and much
Speaker 1: more grounded than the case against Russia in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, the ICJ finding it plausible you and Special
Speaker 1: Rappertoire saying reasonable grounds. Even in terms of public sentiment
Speaker 1: within the US, you have large and increasing majorities, almost
Speaker 1: a super majority at this point of Democrats who say yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a genocide. You have a plurality of independence, and
Speaker 1: you even have some number of republic especially judging by
Speaker 1: the ones who were chanting at Trump's rally the other day,
Speaker 1: who say it's a genocide. So yeah, you're right, Sara,
Speaker 1: if you don't like that word and you just don't
Speaker 1: want to use it anywhere. Okay, but that hasn't been
Speaker 1: the standard of your coverage at any point anywhere else
Speaker 1: that we can really point to. There was a really
Speaker 1: good point that was made by staffer who spoke to
Speaker 1: the Intercept about this memo about banning the use of
Speaker 1: the term occupied territories, and the staffer was particularly upset
Speaker 1: about that because they said, this obscures the reality of
Speaker 1: the conflict, feeding into the US and Israeli insistence that
Speaker 1: the conflict began on October seventh, and nothing prior to
Speaker 1: that context mattered whatsoever.
Speaker 4: Here's the quote. You are basically.
Speaker 1: Taking the occupation out of the coverage, which is the
Speaker 1: actual core of the conflict. It's like, oh, let's not
Speaker 1: say occupation because it might make it look like we're
Speaker 1: justifying a terrorist attack.
Speaker 4: So they're so fearful of.
Speaker 1: Giving any credence to legitimate palestine A grievances prior to
Speaker 1: October seve that they just obscure the reality of what
Speaker 1: this conflict is actually about at its core, and that
Speaker 1: means that they are failing as a news organization. If
Speaker 1: you are not able to make your readers understand what
Speaker 1: is actually happening here, why this is all unfolding, That
Speaker 1: this didn't just come out of nowhere, you know, it
Speaker 1: didn't fall on what Kami said, didn't fall on the
Speaker 1: poconut tree, that this exists in the context of all
Speaker 1: that came before. If you aren't able to talk to
Speaker 1: your readers honestly about that, like what are you even
Speaker 1: doing as a news organization?
Speaker 3: The whole thing is silly.
Speaker 2: Either treated fairly or don't or you know, declare your
Speaker 2: bias up front and then just tell people but trying
Speaker 2: to shape it and behind it all your.
Speaker 4: Israel coverage under the opinion section. How about that?
Speaker 3: Or publish a memo, publish your guidance seriously. Yeah, that
Speaker 3: actually that's a real justice.
Speaker 2: Be Like, listen, this is the way that we refer
Speaker 2: to stuff on the conflict period and the story, and
Speaker 2: you can read all of our stories and another editorial,
Speaker 2: but it has to leak to somebody else about the
Speaker 2: way that they cover it. That's actually what I find
Speaker 2: the most objectional about the entire thing.
Speaker 1: They have so disgraced themselves in their coverage. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is like WMD Caliphate level of failures from
Speaker 1: the New York Times. It really is where they have
Speaker 1: a narrative that they want and then they fill in
Speaker 1: the facts to match that narrative.
Speaker 4: That's what we've seen, you know.
Speaker 1: Not one hundred percent of the time, but pretty consistently,
Speaker 1: and especially when you see the analysis of the different
Speaker 1: language that was used and this memo that provides the
Speaker 1: guidance of how reporters have to talk about this this conflict.
Speaker 4: It just is all about hiding the ball.
Speaker 3: All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We
Speaker 3: appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for helping us with the gold plaque. It was
Speaker 2: very very kind of you guys to help us get
Speaker 2: to one million, even though it was quite a long
Speaker 2: time ago. Chris will be in on Counterpoints tomorrow and
Speaker 2: I will see you guys on Thursday.