Speaker 1: All right, good morning, Crystal. How are you today?
Speaker 2: Very well? How are you doing? Emily? Lovely to see
Speaker 2: you as always.
Speaker 1: It's great to see you. We have a girl show.
Speaker 2: That's right. Sager out sick today, getting some needed rest,
Speaker 2: and he will be back hopefully next week. So thank
Speaker 2: you for filling in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anytime. I'm not sure I believe that Sager's actually sick.
Speaker 3: I think he's off. I don't know, Crystal, he could
Speaker 3: be doing anything.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll find out, report back to you guys. In
Speaker 2: the meantime. We have a great show plan for you today,
Speaker 2: a lot to get into. We actually have a US
Speaker 2: court that just found Biden may be in fact aiding
Speaker 2: a genocide, but also saying there's nothing they can really
Speaker 2: do about it, so we'll get into that. We're also
Speaker 2: waiting on details of a potential hostage deal that's been
Speaker 2: in the making possibly all week. We've got some new
Speaker 2: swing state polls with more bad news for Joe Biden
Speaker 2: in terms of his reelection prospects. Republicans are now looking
Speaker 2: to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security this over immigration.
Speaker 2: There was a raucous tach hearing yesterday that we have
Speaker 2: many highlights and low lights from that we can share
Speaker 2: with you and Emily and I also have to talk
Speaker 2: about the way that Republicans have absolutely lost their damn
Speaker 2: minds over Taylor Swift. I'm actually really interested to hear.
Speaker 2: I want you to explain this to me because I
Speaker 2: just can't really wrap my head around it. I'm also
Speaker 2: taking a look at how CNN caught Israel in a
Speaker 2: blatant lie over their desecration of cemeteries. This is a
Speaker 2: wild story that you almost have to see do believe.
Speaker 2: So let's say get to this morning. Let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and start with the updates out of Israel. Put this
Speaker 2: up on the screen. So this was actually quite surprising
Speaker 2: that militia that was responsible for killing three of our
Speaker 2: service members and wounding dozens of others, they're saying they're
Speaker 2: basically backing down and that they're not going to attack
Speaker 2: us anymore. In a surprise move, this article says the
Speaker 2: most powerful A runbacked militia in a rock katab Husbla,
Speaker 2: announced on Tuesday the suspension of its military operations against
Speaker 2: US forces in the regions, two days after a drone
Speaker 2: attack killed US service members and wounded dozens of others
Speaker 2: in that state. They say they will continue to defend
Speaker 2: our people in Gaza, but in other ways, and we
Speaker 2: recommend to the brave Mujahadeen of the Free hausbal A
Speaker 2: Brigades to carry out passive defense temporarily if any hostile
Speaker 2: American action occurs towards them. They also, in this statement
Speaker 2: Emily attempted to distance themselves from Iran, saying basically, like listen,
Speaker 2: they didn't have anything to do with this.
Speaker 1: This was all.
Speaker 2: Us, they said, I quote in the Islamic Republic. They
Speaker 2: do not know how we worked jihad, and they often
Speaker 2: object to the pressure and escalation against the American occupation
Speaker 2: forces in Iraq and Syria. And the Iraqi government is
Speaker 2: taking credit for this move. We've talked before, there's some
Speaker 2: negotiations going on behind the scenes. Basically, the Iraqi government
Speaker 2: wants us the hell out of their country, and so
Speaker 2: what they're trying to push for is negotiations in which
Speaker 2: we would leave, which in my opinion, would be a
Speaker 2: good thing, and in exchange, this militia has been pushed
Speaker 2: to back down from additional attacks on our service members.
Speaker 2: So surprise potential result from this attack, which you know
Speaker 2: tragically unbelievably tragically killed three of our service members and
Speaker 2: wounded dozens of others.
Speaker 3: Well, and to your point about having troops based there,
Speaker 3: Ryan and I were talking about this yesterday. I mean
Speaker 3: that puts US in danger constantly, and not just people's
Speaker 3: lives in danger, but then also the entire world at
Speaker 3: risk of a greater conflict the more targets that you
Speaker 3: have essentially there.
Speaker 1: So you have to start asking the cost benefit question.
Speaker 3: Is it worth the risk to have people stationed there
Speaker 3: when this is the potential outcome at any given moment,
Speaker 3: basically of escalation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when at this point the US government can't
Speaker 2: even really explain what our troops are even doing there,
Speaker 2: you know, you'll just say them vague things, Oh, they're
Speaker 2: fighting terrorism, but no specifics whatsoever. At a time when
Speaker 2: ISIS has basically been destroyed, we also are waiting to
Speaker 2: hear what the US response to that attack is going
Speaker 2: to be. They've signaled something like it's going to be
Speaker 2: multi par et cetera, et cetera. It's good to see
Speaker 2: that Iran is trying to distance themselves from these attacks.
Speaker 2: It's been good to hear the US administration say, hey,
Speaker 2: we don't want war with Iran. Hopefully this doesn't spill
Speaker 2: into an even broader conflict. I knew you and Ryan
Speaker 2: were covering the total gas lighting from US fokespeople trying
Speaker 2: to claim like, oh, there is no broader war, it's
Speaker 2: contained to Gaza. How can you say that at a
Speaker 2: time when are service members not just these three, but
Speaker 2: the two US Navy seals who died, the five who
Speaker 2: died in a training exercise, the over one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty attacks that our service members have been facing, what's
Speaker 2: going on in the Red Sea, what's going on with
Speaker 2: regard to Israel, saying that a full on war versus
Speaker 2: Hesbla and Lebanon is imminent, and you're still telling us
Speaker 2: with a straight face that this is contained to Gaza.
Speaker 2: It's complete insanity.
Speaker 1: It's complete insanity.
Speaker 3: It's just proven if you look at you know, if
Speaker 3: we were able to map out everything that's happened, you
Speaker 3: would see it literally as a broad spread out war
Speaker 3: across the Middle East. And so it's just the administration
Speaker 3: is having I think a really tough time giving direct
Speaker 3: answers about that. Not surprising in the midst of a
Speaker 3: broader war, but actually I think a real political challenge
Speaker 3: for Biden going.
Speaker 2: Forward to Yeah, well, I mean and it call comes
Speaker 2: from their unwillingness to push for a ceasfire. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's where all of these attacks or have any clear policy. Well,
Speaker 2: that's true too. Well, the policy is unconditional support for Israel.
Speaker 2: I don't think it is actually muddled as quite clear.
Speaker 1: That's the thing.
Speaker 3: Like they go back and forth, like they were talking
Speaker 3: yesterday about recognizing a Palestinian state. You know, they just
Speaker 3: they have they're trying to please everybody without actually saying
Speaker 3: what they're doing.
Speaker 2: They want to do lip service to you know, their
Speaker 2: liberal supporters who are a little uncomfy with the fact
Speaker 2: that they feel Joe Biden is aiding and abetting a genocide.
Speaker 2: And a majority at this point of Biden voters of
Speaker 2: Biden twenty twenty voters believe that Israel is committing a
Speaker 2: genocide against the Palestinian people, and an additional thirty percent
Speaker 2: aren't sure. So eighty percent of Biden voters feel like
Speaker 2: this either is a genocide or could be a genocide.
Speaker 2: We're obviously directly involved in it. So on the one hand,
Speaker 2: while you know, the policy to me is very clear,
Speaker 2: it's unconditional support for Israel's rushing through the weapons shipments.
Speaker 2: It's you know, backing them in their total opposition to
Speaker 2: the ICJ. It's cutting the funding for UNRUN. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're doing everything from a policy perspective that Israel would
Speaker 2: want them to do, combined with a little bit of
Speaker 2: lip service to try to give them some sort of
Speaker 2: cya with regard to their to their liberal base, you know,
Speaker 2: just to remind you of the you know, very personal
Speaker 2: stakes here, because obviously, you know, the big concern is
Speaker 2: this broader conflurgation that we're already seeing and where this
Speaker 2: escalatory chain could lead. But three families just lost their
Speaker 2: son and two daughters. Biden called the family of one
Speaker 2: slave service member. This is a specialist, Kennedy Leyden Sanders.
Speaker 2: She was twenty four year old Georgian. And we have
Speaker 2: a little bit of a video of her parents and
Speaker 2: her family having to take that phone call from the
Speaker 2: President of the United States. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 4: I I know there's nothing anybody can say or do.
Speaker 5: It is the pain.
Speaker 6: I've been there.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, we understand.
Speaker 4: I just want you to know that, I uh, You're
Speaker 4: in my prayers. My heart. I know you don't want
Speaker 4: the press that they returned the body, but uh, with
Speaker 4: your permission, I'd like to be.
Speaker 5: There, which is as okay, we would love for you
Speaker 5: to be there.
Speaker 4: Well, you know. Uh and by the way, we're reported,
Speaker 4: we're promoted her posthumously to sergeant.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, that.
Speaker 1: Is the bus news i've heard today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You don't know how much that means to us.
Speaker 4: Oh well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 6: It means A lot, a lot to me.
Speaker 2: You know, these three, Emily, all three young black service members,
Speaker 2: Army reservists from the state of Georgia. You know, they
Speaker 2: signed up thinking, Okay, this is something I can do
Speaker 2: one weekend a month, I can get benefits. They're deployed
Speaker 2: to a region that's not a war zone they were
Speaker 2: thinking in Jordan, and now they're dead. They're gone.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: And it is the direct result of Biden's failed policy
Speaker 2: of their unwillingness to push Israel in any way towards
Speaker 2: ending this conflict. I mean, all of these attacks stem
Speaker 2: from that one core conflict and the thing that's really
Speaker 2: I mean, it's all outrageous. But they know that they've
Speaker 2: been telling the press we understand that the hostilities and
Speaker 2: the tensions in the region and these attacks are all
Speaker 2: coming because of Israel's assault on Gaza, and yet they're
Speaker 2: willing to put our service members at risk for what
Speaker 2: are we accomplishing here?
Speaker 3: I think that's the real like if even from a
Speaker 3: bipartisan perspective, I think that's the real problem. What are
Speaker 3: we accomplishing here? Because again we've talked about this many times.
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris can't even answer a question of about whether
Speaker 3: the Biden administration is pro one state solution or two
Speaker 3: state solution the United States, and you know, she says
Speaker 3: two state solution, but she can't answer the question about
Speaker 3: why the United States is funding this war at an
Speaker 3: extreme level through munitions and financial assistance when net Yahoo
Speaker 3: says anything except a one state solution is absolutely unacceptable.
Speaker 3: It's a bizarre It's a bizarre tension between two people
Speaker 3: that are prosecuting the war. There's no question that we're
Speaker 3: hear it from Israeli officials that we are essential to
Speaker 3: the prosecution of this war. And we have two dramatically
Speaker 3: different ends. One end is a two state solution. One
Speaker 3: end is a one state solution. And I think what
Speaker 3: you end up seeing in these policy discrepancies is all
Speaker 3: downstream of that. And to say with a straight face
Speaker 3: that this is not a broader war when you're calling
Speaker 3: the families of service members who lost their lives in Jordan,
Speaker 3: I think is particularly despicable.
Speaker 2: It sounds despicable is the right word for it. Is
Speaker 2: truly outrageous. It's an insult to those families. It's an
Speaker 2: insult to the entire intelligence of this country in the world.
Speaker 2: You remperence this before. This is kind of an interesting development.
Speaker 2: I'm curious your reaction to it. Emily put this up
Speaker 2: on the screen. So we're now getting this report from
Speaker 2: Axios that the State Department is going to conduct a
Speaker 2: review about options for potential recognition of a Palestinian state.
Speaker 2: Let me read a little bit of the details here
Speaker 2: and then I'll get Emily's reaction. I'll tell you what
Speaker 2: I think about it. So Biden administration is linking possible
Speaker 2: normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia to the creation of
Speaker 2: a pathway for the establishment of Palestinian state as part
Speaker 2: of its post war strategy. This initiative is based on
Speaker 2: the administration's efforts pring to October seventh to negotiate a
Speaker 2: mega deal with Saudi that included a peace agreement between
Speaker 2: the Kingdom and Israel. They say there are several options
Speaker 2: here for US action on the issue, including by laterally
Speaker 2: recognizing the state of Palestine, not using our veto for once,
Speaker 2: to block the UN Security Council from admitting Palestine as
Speaker 2: a full UN member state, or encouraging other tries to
Speaker 2: recognize Palestine and so Tony blank and asked the State
Speaker 2: Department to connect a review and present potential policy options
Speaker 2: on those possible paths. This is according to two US
Speaker 2: officials briefed on the issue. What do you make of
Speaker 2: this development, Emily?
Speaker 1: First of all, post war strategy, what do you mean?
Speaker 3: I thought this war was to eradicate Hamas, So there
Speaker 3: will be no post war strategy because that is not
Speaker 3: a war that can end. So, first of all, what
Speaker 3: are they talking about. But that's a great example of
Speaker 3: how even when you were reading the headline, they're looking
Speaker 3: at potential options.
Speaker 2: Maybe they'll put it together a white people proper at
Speaker 2: some point in the future on possibly potentially recognizing Abi Meto. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and maybe we'll just push other countries to do it
Speaker 2: and not do anything ourselves.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: No, it's exactly what you were saying earlier, that the
Speaker 3: political dynamics for Joe Biden are really really bad on
Speaker 3: this question. And so this is, you know, strategically, you
Speaker 3: can see why somebody's sitting in the West wing was like, well,
Speaker 3: let's talk to Axios about this, let's get this in
Speaker 3: the press.
Speaker 1: I don't think it means much.
Speaker 2: I totally agree with that. I think that this is
Speaker 2: the new version of the like Biden behind the scenes
Speaker 2: is very upset with Netanyahu, and they're pushing him really
Speaker 2: hard behind the scenes, I promise, and they feel like
Speaker 2: the civilian death is too much. Are they willing to
Speaker 2: do anything about it? No, but we're willing to leak
Speaker 2: to the press that were uncomfortable. I think they'd played
Speaker 2: that hip one too many times where everyone was just
Speaker 2: rolling their eyes when these new you know, handwringing missives
Speaker 2: would be leaked to the press about how deeply concerned
Speaker 2: they are blah blah blah, when it was never ever
Speaker 2: backed up by any sort of action, use of any
Speaker 2: sort of leverage to actually push baby Netnyaho and his
Speaker 2: government in another direction. So I feel like they felt
Speaker 2: like that that ship had been played a few too
Speaker 2: many times.
Speaker 1: This was their backup, So this is.
Speaker 2: The new like, oh, we're really serious about a two
Speaker 2: states illusion, guys, And yeah, I know this is awful,
Speaker 2: and you know twenty some thousand Palestinians civil millions have
Speaker 2: been massacred and ten more than ten thousand children and
Speaker 2: the entire Gaza strip destroyed. But afterwards, I promise we're
Speaker 2: going to get to a two state solution. And it's like,
Speaker 2: at this point, your words are completely meaningless, completely meaningless,
Speaker 2: because we know Natan Yahoo does not want a two
Speaker 2: state solution. He's told said that publicly a million times,
Speaker 2: not just post October seventh, but again reiterating post October seventh, like, hey,
Speaker 2: I am the guy who's blocked to two state, blocked
Speaker 2: to Palestinian state. I will continue to be the guy
Speaker 2: that will block a Palestinian state. This will never happen
Speaker 2: under my watch. And by the way, there's a reason
Speaker 2: why he adopts such a hardline posture at this point,
Speaker 2: and it's because it's popular in Israel. So if we
Speaker 2: aren't willing to push hard in the direction of a
Speaker 2: Palestinian state, there's no way it's going to happen. So
Speaker 2: my question is, Okay, that's nice that you theoretically support
Speaker 2: a two state solution, which has been the official US
Speaker 2: government policy under every administration for decades. Now, that's nice
Speaker 2: that you have that theoretical position on a piece of paper.
Speaker 2: What will you do to achieve it? And based on
Speaker 2: what we've seen during this war effort, we know the
Speaker 2: answer is absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: Even by their own logic.
Speaker 3: I mean, so if they had said after October seventh,
Speaker 3: on October eighth, that we are going to, you know,
Speaker 3: really start looking into recognizing Palestine, you would have bipartisan,
Speaker 3: not by Partison, you'd have centrist Democrats saying that's a reward.
Speaker 3: You're rewarding an act of terrorism with recognition of Palestine.
Speaker 3: So I just don't understand how Biden's even going to
Speaker 3: defend that within the Democratic Party, not just if it
Speaker 3: actually came to pass, which I don't think it would,
Speaker 3: but I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. It
Speaker 3: sounds so clearly like it was engineered for a media
Speaker 3: leak as a backup, like you were saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I understand why people would say that
Speaker 2: and why they would feel that way. You know, in
Speaker 2: the wake of the atrocities of October seventh, there was
Speaker 2: clearly a desire for revenge. But if you're actually serious
Speaker 2: about solving this problem and the interest not just of
Speaker 2: the Palestinians, but in the interest of Israeli security, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is never going to be resolved. There will be
Speaker 2: endless cycles of horrific violence until there is some sort
Speaker 2: something approaching a just solution. So I mean, ultimately, this
Speaker 2: is the only end game. Whether or not the Biden
Speaker 2: administration sees it that way, whether they're willing to lift
Speaker 2: a single finger outside of a theoretical potential maybe white
Speaker 2: paper coming out of the State Department to achieve it,
Speaker 2: that's another matter. At the same time, Netanyahu is facing
Speaker 2: a lot of domestic political pressure over a potential hostage deal,
Speaker 2: and you know, within Israeli society, basically everybody supports the war.
Speaker 2: The numbers are very clear that Israelis are not very
Speaker 2: few are uncomfortable with the level of destruction and killing
Speaker 2: of Palestinians millions. But the question of how to approach
Speaker 2: the hostages and what to do to try to secure
Speaker 2: their release has been a major dividing line, not just
Speaker 2: within Israeli society, but within the net Yahu government coalition
Speaker 2: as well, So put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 2: occurs as there have been you know, leaks about negotiations
Speaker 2: occurring in Paris where they're trying to put together this
Speaker 2: three phase hostage release deal that ultimately the goal would
Speaker 2: be to end with all of the hostages being released
Speaker 2: and a cessation of Israeli attacks for something like two months,
Speaker 2: with all of the details to be worked out in
Speaker 2: the future. Hard to say yet whether Hamas is accepting
Speaker 2: those details. And this article gets into the political divide
Speaker 2: within Netnyahu's coalition and some of the political dynamics that
Speaker 2: he is having to consider. So this says analysis Netna
Speaker 2: who's current coalition will not survive a hostage deal with Hamas.
Speaker 2: Israeli Prime minister is nearing a critical decision point to
Speaker 2: accept the deal with heavy concessions and criticism from many Israelis,
Speaker 2: or reject it as demanded by far right ministers Ben
Speaker 2: Gavere And'smotrich, risking the departure of centrist ministers. Meanwhile, he's
Speaker 2: resorting to vague semi denials. So at one on the
Speaker 2: end of the spectrum, you've got Smotrich and Ben Gavier,
Speaker 2: who do not want any sort of a deal. They
Speaker 2: do not want the war and the devastation to stop.
Speaker 2: They are threatening to leave the governing coalition if he
Speaker 2: does pursue a deal of the type that is being
Speaker 2: discussed here. On the other side, you have more use
Speaker 2: the term centrist loosely. All of these people are, you know,
Speaker 2: extremely right wing, but people like Ben Gantz who want
Speaker 2: to see the hostage deal because Emily at this point,
Speaker 2: I mean the idea that you're going to secure the
Speaker 2: release of hostages through military means, that has been completely disproven.
Speaker 2: It hasn't worked a single time. The only time hostages
Speaker 2: have been released in the context of this assault was
Speaker 2: when there was a temporary six day cease five. That's
Speaker 2: the only time they've had success in bringing hostages home.
Speaker 2: Of course, they horrifically murdered their own hostages, thinking that
Speaker 2: they were Palestinians as.
Speaker 1: Well, and that was the military approach.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's the military approach has been a complete failure.
Speaker 2: So people who are interested in seeing the hostages safely
Speaker 2: returned or saying well, you've got to negotiate, this is
Speaker 2: the only path forward in order to try to bring
Speaker 2: our people home. But the hardliners and the coalition are
Speaker 2: threatening to leave, and net Nyahu, of course has a
Speaker 2: very narrow margin in terms of keeping his governing coalition
Speaker 2: together and is dramatically unpopular as a person within Israeli
Speaker 2: society as well well.
Speaker 3: And a lot of that is actually coming from what
Speaker 3: families of hostages have been saying after meeting with him
Speaker 3: when they are not meeting with him. I mean, these
Speaker 3: have been devastating blows because they touch on some very
Speaker 3: real problems in the conversations about the hostages that have
Speaker 3: been happening. The hostages themselves, rescued hostages themselves have said
Speaker 3: that they didn't like there was precision strikes going on. Basically,
Speaker 3: you can know where the hell we were or where
Speaker 3: we were was the quote.
Speaker 1: From one of them. We didn't feel like you knew
Speaker 1: that we were there.
Speaker 3: All of those different reflections on how there was bombing
Speaker 3: all around them and they felt like they were a
Speaker 3: danger constantly. That's coming from the hostages, some of the
Speaker 3: recovered hostages themselves, So that's been really difficult for Netanya who.
Speaker 3: I know, we're about to talk about the politics and
Speaker 3: just a bit, but it's when you think about layering
Speaker 3: the political challenges that Biden is facing on top of
Speaker 3: the political challenges that Netanya who is facing as somebody
Speaker 3: who typically in wartime, you get a surge of support
Speaker 3: and you get you remember George W. Bush after nine
Speaker 3: to eleven, even Democrats were rallying around George W. Bush
Speaker 3: after you know, he had stolen an election from their perspective,
Speaker 3: he got so much widespread support that has not lasted
Speaker 3: in Israel after October seventh. So then layer the sort
Speaker 3: of pickle politically that net Yahoo's in with the problems
Speaker 3: that Biden is facing. Politically, it's like an impossible situation.
Speaker 3: It's completely untenable for both of them.
Speaker 2: Well, and here's the thing. It's very clear, and actually
Speaker 2: there was one of a democratic center. It might have
Speaker 2: been Van Holland I'm not sure that was saying. Look
Speaker 2: at this point, Smoe Church and Benevier have way more
Speaker 2: influence over net Nyahu than Biden or the US does.
Speaker 2: And there's a reason why, because they're willing to actually
Speaker 2: threaten things and actually use what leverage they have and say, listen,
Speaker 2: if you if you take these actions, we're going to
Speaker 2: leave the coalition. Whereas the US the only thing we're
Speaker 2: willing to do is like, you know, leak again to
Speaker 2: Axios and pretend like after this is all over, maybe
Speaker 2: we're going to be a little bit more pushy about
Speaker 2: a two state solution. So of course we're going to
Speaker 2: get thoroughly ignored in this. And in the meantime, you know,
Speaker 2: our service members are at risk, and the whole world
Speaker 2: is at risk of this igniting a broader conflict, which
Speaker 2: is in the direct interests of net Nyahu, who only
Speaker 2: holds on to power so long as this war continues,
Speaker 2: which is exactly why they're signaling they want to expand
Speaker 2: the war to Lebanon. They want to do in Berout
Speaker 2: what they did in Gaza. They want to go after
Speaker 2: has Belah, because the longer this war goes on, the
Speaker 2: more it expands, the more chance, more of a fighting
Speaker 2: chance Netanya, who has and other ministers in his cabinet,
Speaker 2: by the way, who also share the blame for the
Speaker 2: failures of October seventh, the more of a chance they
Speaker 2: have to holding onto power. So still very unsettled whether
Speaker 2: this hostage deal is or isn't going to come together,
Speaker 2: Still very unsettled what the exact terms would be and
Speaker 2: what the time period would be. As I said before,
Speaker 2: the reporting suggests we're looking at a three phase deal
Speaker 2: where you know, in the initial phase you would have
Speaker 2: a certain set of hostages released, then you would have
Speaker 2: basically military age men and idea of soldiers released. Then
Speaker 2: you would have the bodies of Israelis. Because that's the
Speaker 2: other piece with this hostage situation is you know, it's
Speaker 2: not theoretical that the hostages are or as some of
Speaker 2: them have been killed and in according to Hamas have
Speaker 2: been killed by Israeli military actions, which you certainly is
Speaker 2: very plausible given the level of destruction that we've seen
Speaker 2: in the Gaza strip. So ongoing questions there about what
Speaker 2: comes next and whether this hostage deal will ultimately come
Speaker 2: to fruition. At the same time, this was pretty interesting,
Speaker 2: So there was a core case. It hasn't gotten a
Speaker 2: lot of attention, but here working its way through the
Speaker 2: US courts accusing Biden of complicity in genocide. And we
Speaker 2: actually just got a ruling yesterday that is pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: So a federal judge just ruled the Biden administration does
Speaker 2: appear to be supporting a genocide. They go on to say,
Speaker 2: but he must dismiss the case under the political question doctrine,
Speaker 2: despite preferring otherwise. So this judge is saying, basically like,
Speaker 2: because of the political quotes doctrine, I can't actually do
Speaker 2: anything here. But he backs up the ICJ ruling which
Speaker 2: found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 2: Let me read you a little bit of the judgment
Speaker 2: here so that you guys can hear the way that
Speaker 2: this judge lays us out.
Speaker 1: They say.
Speaker 2: Similarly, the undisputed evidence before this court comports with the
Speaker 2: finding of the ICJ indicates that the current treatment of
Speaker 2: the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military
Speaker 2: may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law.
Speaker 2: Both the uncontroverted testimony of the plaintiffs and the expert
Speaker 2: opinion profit at the hearing on these motions, as well
Speaker 2: as statements made by various officers of the Israeli government,
Speaker 2: indicate the ongoing military siage in Gaza is intended to
Speaker 2: eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the
Speaker 2: international prohibition against genocide. It is every individual's obligation to
Speaker 2: confront the curren siege in Gaza. But it also is
Speaker 2: this court's obligation to remain within the meets and bounds
Speaker 2: of its jurisdictional scope. In conclusion, the judge rights, there
Speaker 2: are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is inaccessible
Speaker 2: to the Court. This is one of those cases. The
Speaker 2: Court is bound by precedent and the Division of our
Speaker 2: coordinates branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in
Speaker 2: this matter. Yet, as ICJ has found it is plausible
Speaker 2: that Israel's conduct amounts to genocide, this Court implores defendants
Speaker 2: that would be Joe Biden to examine the results of
Speaker 2: their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians
Speaker 2: in Gaza. So basically, you know, this is kind of
Speaker 2: a mixed bag emily for the Biden administration. On the
Speaker 2: one hand, that just says, listen, I can't do anything
Speaker 2: because of the political questions doctrine. But to have an
Speaker 2: American judge rule that the ICJ is correct and implore
Speaker 2: Biden directly to cease his aid of what may well
Speaker 2: be a genocide of the Palestinian people is nonetheless a
Speaker 2: pretty extraordinary outcome.
Speaker 3: And a refresher on the political questions doctrine. I pulled
Speaker 3: up ballot PDIA here they write, the traditional expression of
Speaker 3: the doctrine refers to cases that courts will not resolve
Speaker 3: because they they involve questions about the judgment of actors
Speaker 3: in the executive or legislative branches, and not the authority
Speaker 3: of those actors, so Biden himself. People who are making
Speaker 3: decisions at the Pentagon, they say, for example, cases involving
Speaker 3: foreign policy or impeachment often raise political question concerns. So
Speaker 3: foreign policy, which is so heavily controlled and influenced by
Speaker 3: unelected people at the Pentagon, at the Department of Defense
Speaker 3: more broadly, by people in the executive branch right fall
Speaker 3: under the political questions doctrine, which is pretty interesting in
Speaker 3: this context where you have a court decision by the
Speaker 3: ICJ that's in question, it makes sense, and that it
Speaker 3: doesn't make sense because again you have a court decision
Speaker 3: that you're talking about. So is an interesting really for sure,
Speaker 3: And this doesn't make anything better for Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and theyre have another challenging situation that's going to
Speaker 2: unfold this week, which is the ICJS set to rule
Speaker 2: on another case, this one not about Israel, about Russia
Speaker 2: and Ukraine, and so the US has they I mean, again,
Speaker 2: the level of gas lighting from this administration is outrageous.
Speaker 2: First of all, they tried to say, well, you know,
Speaker 2: the ICJ didn't find that Israel was guilty of committing
Speaker 2: a genocide. Well no, shit, that wasn't the question that
Speaker 2: was before them right now. So they've completely tried to dodge.
Speaker 2: They said, oh, actually the ICJ backs up our position
Speaker 2: on you know, Israel and Gaza, and that which is
Speaker 2: you know, insane. If you read the ruling, it's the
Speaker 2: total opposite of what the US has been claiming and
Speaker 2: the support that the US has been giving to Israel.
Speaker 2: But put this up on the screen. So judges at
Speaker 2: the World Court are going to hand down a judgment
Speaker 2: this week in a case in which Ukraine accused Russia
Speaker 2: of violating an anti terror treaty by funding pro Russian forces,
Speaker 2: including malicious who shot down a passenger jet. And the
Speaker 2: reason this is uncomfortable emily for the US obviously is
Speaker 2: you can't, on the one hand, be like yay, ICJ,
Speaker 2: I agree with your ruling when it comes to Russia.
Speaker 2: But Boo, ICJ, I disagree with your rule and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to abide by it. When it comes to Israel.
Speaker 2: You don't get to pick and choose, of course, I
Speaker 2: mean you shouldn't be able to pick and choose, but
Speaker 2: of course they will pick and choose. And it just
Speaker 2: becomes blatantly obvious the level of hypocrisy and how they
Speaker 2: just use international law for their own ends. When it's convenient,
Speaker 2: they oh, yes, the international rules based order, and when
Speaker 2: it's not convenient, then they just ignore it. And even
Speaker 2: beyond ignoring it, the fact that in the wake of
Speaker 2: the ICJ saying Israel must increase humanitarian aid to Gaza,
Speaker 2: people are starving to death and you must do better,
Speaker 2: and our response on that very same day is to
Speaker 2: cut funding to the number one aid agency on the
Speaker 2: ground in Gaza to the benefit of the Palestinian people.
Speaker 2: It's not just in we're going to ignore the ruling,
Speaker 2: it's we are actively going to flout and some our
Speaker 2: nose that they're ruling.
Speaker 3: And I think this is where we were talking about
Speaker 3: this yesterday. When you're picking and choosing from the international
Speaker 3: rules based order, and you're also doing it with that
Speaker 3: sort of uh sanctimony that is seen, especially in a
Speaker 3: lot of the Arab world as that kind of hubris
Speaker 3: Western hubris.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that I think is where it gets.
Speaker 3: I find it extremely grating and I can only imagine
Speaker 3: how people experience it in other parts of the world,
Speaker 3: because it is, I mean, it's what fosters animosity towards
Speaker 3: the United States that on the one hand have this
Speaker 3: arrogance about the international rules based order and then on
Speaker 3: the other hand, and we see this happening also, like
Speaker 3: it happens with climate stuff too, that you know, the
Speaker 3: West benefited from all these fossil fuels and all of that,
Speaker 3: and then no, well we're cutting it off when it
Speaker 3: gets to you know, people in different parts of the world,
Speaker 3: Like it's just the arrogance and the hubris. We've had
Speaker 3: decades now of experiencing what kind of animosity that fosters
Speaker 3: in other parts of the world, and it's really it's
Speaker 3: a lesson that's so obvious, but it has not been
Speaker 3: internalized whatsoever. They still have that sanctimony. They still think
Speaker 3: that what they're doing is totally like totally above board
Speaker 3: and if you criticize it, you're just a hater and
Speaker 3: a bigot.
Speaker 2: Well, and this is why when it came to Russia
Speaker 2: and Ukraine and the Biden administration was all, you know,
Speaker 2: talking about the international rules based order every other day,
Speaker 2: and you know, making these grand appeals to ideals and
Speaker 2: to democracy and Mike doesn't make right, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And they were very clear they back then they knew
Speaker 2: what a war crime was. They were able to call
Speaker 2: it out. They were comfortable calling it out. There's a
Speaker 2: reason why most of the world looked at that very
Speaker 2: skeptically and were like, you don't care about these grand
Speaker 2: principles that you claim to be supporting. That's not what
Speaker 2: this is ultimately about. And now that you see our
Speaker 2: support for Israel and all this, you know, at the podium,
Speaker 2: whether it's Matthew Miller or John Kirby or whoever, the
Speaker 2: you know, propagandist spokesperson spin master of the day is
Speaker 2: when they get asked about very specific incidents of hey,
Speaker 2: you know, how do you feel about people going in
Speaker 2: soldiers going in dressed as women, in as medics and
Speaker 2: point blank assassinating wounded people in the hospital, Like, how
Speaker 2: do you feel about that? It's all this, you know, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: We don't know.
Speaker 2: We call on them to follow the rules of war,
Speaker 2: they can't say when it comes to Israel, And so
Speaker 2: you see this gigantic, glaring hypocrisy. And doctor Tree de
Speaker 2: Parsi has been pointing out that, you know, there's a
Speaker 2: reason why in recent months I don't talk so much
Speaker 2: about the international rules based order anymore, because it's just
Speaker 2: so clear that they only accept it, and they only
Speaker 2: use it when it serves them, when it serves their interests,
Speaker 2: and when it's inconvenient. It's like it doesn't exist at all.
Speaker 3: Well, the hospital thing is a great example of where
Speaker 3: if you think that you should flo out the international
Speaker 3: rules based order, criticize the international rules based order.
Speaker 1: Don't pretend and lie and say you're upholding the Internet
Speaker 1: sal like. Just criticize it.
Speaker 3: But they won't because it's used as a weapon and
Speaker 3: a bludgeon, as a way to bludge in other countries
Speaker 3: in a very useful way for the West. So they
Speaker 3: won't criticize it because they know as soon as they criticize.
Speaker 1: It, it means it won't be useful down the lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. At the same time, I don't want
Speaker 2: to lose sight of the big picture of what's unfolded
Speaker 2: in Gaza. And we have a new investigation in The
Speaker 2: Guardian did a great job in terms of satellite analysis
Speaker 2: of the level of devastation and the you know, unprecedented
Speaker 2: bombing campaign that has leveled so much civilian infrastructure in
Speaker 2: the Gaza Strip. We can put this up on the screen,
Speaker 2: so they have colored in red here buildings that have
Speaker 2: been destroyed or damaged, and I mean you can see
Speaker 2: the entire north of Gaza is basically destroyed.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it's not more, to be honest, I mean.
Speaker 2: It's it's insane, this level of devastation. You know, there
Speaker 2: have been other analyzes that have found this is more,
Speaker 2: you know, by square footage than the bombing campaigns in
Speaker 2: Dresden and other sort of like historically massive bombing campaigns.
Speaker 2: They found between half and sixty two percent of all
Speaker 2: buildings in the entire Gaza Strip have likely been damaged
Speaker 2: or just destroyed. You can see, we can we have
Speaker 2: a couple of neighborhood zoom in's that you can see
Speaker 2: to see some of the additional you know, devastation just
Speaker 2: on a block by block nature you can see even farmland, greenhouses,
Speaker 2: things of that nature have been destroyed as well. This
Speaker 2: is one of the denser areas of destruction that you
Speaker 2: can see in the Gaza Strip. And so you know,
Speaker 2: already at this point, even if it ended today, the
Speaker 2: idea that people could just go back to their homes,
Speaker 2: there's there's nowhere to go back to. You have the
Speaker 2: almost the entire population of the strip that has been
Speaker 2: displaced at this point. The bulk of the population lived
Speaker 2: in northern Gaza, which is where Gaza City was, and
Speaker 2: you know, there's there is very very little to go
Speaker 2: back to, whether it is apartment blocks, whether it's schools,
Speaker 2: whether it's refugee camps, universities, the Parliament building, hospitals, et cetera.
Speaker 2: There's been a sort of totality level of destruction of
Speaker 2: civilian life, and at the same time time the devastation continues.
Speaker 2: This is something Ryan had really highlighted from the beginning
Speaker 2: and had Zion from the beginning. The potential spread of
Speaker 2: communicable diseases because of the crowded circumstances and the lack
Speaker 2: of sanitation and critically the lack of food, and the
Speaker 2: fact that eighty percent of the starving people in the
Speaker 2: world right now are in this tiny, crowded enclave of
Speaker 2: the Gaza Strip. You have a un official once again
Speaker 2: sounding the alarm about the number of people who are
Speaker 2: in crisis with regard to their food levels. Let's take
Speaker 2: a listen to that.
Speaker 8: Well, first, let's see what's going on with the Pastidian people.
Speaker 8: Every single person in Gaza is hungry. One quarter of
Speaker 8: the population is starving, and famine is imminent. We've never
Speaker 8: seen a population go hungry so quickly and so completely.
Speaker 8: And the reason is, first of all, humanitarian aid is
Speaker 8: being blocked. It's not reaching people in Gaza quickly enough
Speaker 8: and to an adequate amount. It's just trickling in. Second,
Speaker 8: to follow up on your point, the food system is
Speaker 8: being destroyed. What we know is that Israel has destroyed
Speaker 8: of twenty two percent of agricultural land in northern Gaza,
Speaker 8: and as Israeli forces move south, they're destroying more and
Speaker 8: more agricultural land, greenhouses and orchards. Seventy percent of fissure
Speaker 8: boats have been destroyed, so people don't have access to
Speaker 8: the sea, and this is a long standing problem. There
Speaker 8: was a sixteen year blockade, so Gozzins were experiencing food
Speaker 8: and security before the war, so it was already a
Speaker 8: precarious situation. And civic infrastructure has been destroyed. People don't
Speaker 8: have the necessities of life. Their homes are destroyed, hospitals
Speaker 8: are destroyed, All civil infrastructure is being destroyed. And you
Speaker 8: combine all of this, and this is why we have
Speaker 8: this profound risk of famine in a way that we
Speaker 8: haven't seen before.
Speaker 2: Dozens are eating grass and drinking contaminated water in a
Speaker 2: desperate attempt to survive. At this point is the context
Speaker 2: in which the US is now cut funding to the
Speaker 2: main on the ground AID organization, along with some twelve
Speaker 2: or thirteen other countries around the world, and in which
Speaker 2: also the Israeli government has been allowing these protests to continue.
Speaker 2: There are blocking AID trucks, the few small trickle of
Speaker 2: AID trucks that are even allowed to go into the
Speaker 2: Gaza strip, they've been blocking them from being able to
Speaker 2: go in. So it is a desperate situation on the ground.
Speaker 3: A desperate situation, and as we discussed yesterday, you have
Speaker 3: hamas returning to northern Gaza.
Speaker 1: So from any metric, this has not.
Speaker 3: Been a successful operation. That's the tragedy of it. There
Speaker 3: are still hostages who have not been rescued. There is
Speaker 3: Hamas activity in the area that was supposed to have
Speaker 3: been devastated for the purpose of quote eradicating Hamas. And
Speaker 3: we are barely what four months, not even four months
Speaker 3: past October seventh, and Hamas is back in northern Gaza.
Speaker 3: So all of this has been unsuccessful. That's the big tragedy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that is one of the tragedies of
Speaker 2: this situation. Of course, I would say the goal was
Speaker 2: never really eradicate Hamas, which has always been a ludicrous
Speaker 2: idea that that would even be possible through any sort
Speaker 2: of military solution. I mean, you had Tony Blinkin himself
Speaker 2: saying there is no military solution to Hamas. So I
Speaker 2: would submit that this devastation was actually the goal, and
Speaker 2: the grander goal, which is laid out very clearly. I'll
Speaker 2: be taking a look a closer look at this in
Speaker 2: my monologue today. By people likes Mootrich, by people like
Speaker 2: Ben Givie is keep pushing people south in the Gaza strip.
Speaker 2: Now they're all effectively some million plus people clustered in
Speaker 2: Ratha right on the Egypt border, and eventually try to
Speaker 2: push them entirely out through quote unquote voluntary migration, which
Speaker 2: is I'm going to start with you in bomb your
Speaker 2: house house until you're forced to.
Speaker 1: Leave, like you said, just a completely desperate situation.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and get to some domestic
Speaker 2: politics here. We've got some new polls to chew on,
Speaker 2: which obviously ties into some of what we're talking about
Speaker 2: here with the Biden administration policy towards Israel. So put
Speaker 2: this up on the screen. Some new Morning consulted polling
Speaker 2: of swing states. Trump is leading Biden across every single
Speaker 2: swing states. The swing state they polled here seven different states.
Speaker 2: You've got North Carolina Trump's up by ten, Nevada, Trump's
Speaker 2: up by eight, Georgia, Trump's up by eight, Wisconsin Trump
Speaker 2: is up by five, Michigan Trump is up by five,
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania Trump is up by three, Arizona Trump is up
Speaker 2: by three. Biden, of course, winning all of those states
Speaker 2: last time save for one, save for the state of
Speaker 2: North Carolina. And I mean, there's a lot that goes
Speaker 2: into this, Emily, you can't pinpoint one particular factor, but
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any doubt that the fact that
Speaker 2: Biden's policy towards Israel is so dissonant from the Democratic base.
Speaker 2: And I'm not just talking about young people, and I'm
Speaker 2: not just talking about Arab Americans or Muslim Americans who
Speaker 2: you know overwhelmingly went for Biden. All three of those
Speaker 2: groups overwhelmingly went for Biden last time. But as I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, you have a majority Biden twenty twenty voters
Speaker 2: who say this is a genocide. There is an overwhelming
Speaker 2: majority of Biden voter's, actually an overwhelming majority of voters
Speaker 2: period in the country who say we want a ceasefire,
Speaker 2: and yet the policy continues. So you have that, you
Speaker 2: have you know, all of the continued upset concerns about
Speaker 2: like Ken this man even live through another four years.
Speaker 2: That doesn't help his case. There's concerns, you know, from
Speaker 2: some swing voters about immigration, we'll talk about that. There's
Speaker 2: huge concerns about the economy and where things are heading there,
Speaker 2: and just a complete sense of both despair and malaise
Speaker 2: and outrage over some of the policies that have really
Speaker 2: dragged him down and made it so that even someone
Speaker 2: who is as hated and disliked as Donald Trump as
Speaker 2: a real shot to.
Speaker 3: Beat him, which again is a great explanation for the
Speaker 3: Axios post that we talked to out with them flirting
Speaker 3: with the idea of maybe at some point recognizing a
Speaker 3: pouse Dadi R eight earlier they show and those numbers
Speaker 3: are very interesting because in a state like Wisconsin, you
Speaker 3: have the sort of urban areas that are Democratic strongholds.
Speaker 3: So a place like Madison, huge college town, place like Milwaukee,
Speaker 3: you can see and you could understand why the administration
Speaker 3: and the campaign is probably freaking out about these numbers
Speaker 3: right now because exactly what you just said. If Goza
Speaker 3: becomes a priority for voters and voters think so, those
Speaker 3: two things have to happen. If it's a priority for
Speaker 3: people when they go to the pull the lever cast
Speaker 3: their vote, then that's a problem because step B is
Speaker 3: that the polling finds that a lot of the Democratic
Speaker 3: voters are really unhappy with the Biden policy to the
Speaker 3: point where they would consider it a facilitation of genocide.
Speaker 1: So when you combine those two.
Speaker 3: Things and you see some of these Midwestern swing states
Speaker 3: that rely heavily on a college vote for Democrats. If
Speaker 3: you want to win a swing state, you need that
Speaker 3: college vote to come out good for you. That happened
Speaker 3: for Democrats in twenty twenty two. They got young voters
Speaker 3: to come out in states like Pennsylvania. Ryan crunched them
Speaker 3: the numbers on that and it was really convincing. States
Speaker 3: like Wisconsin, you have the cities that tend to be
Speaker 3: Blue strongholds.
Speaker 1: That's going to be where you're losing support over the war.
Speaker 3: The war in general though, for voters, independent voters, not
Speaker 3: even just like reliable Democratic voters who might be upset
Speaker 3: or just stay home.
Speaker 1: That's another thing people can do. In college towns.
Speaker 3: Those reliable or those independent voters are looking what's happening
Speaker 3: in the Middle East and whether or not they agree
Speaker 3: with the genocide designation. Three service members were just killed
Speaker 3: in Jordan, and the administration says that there's no broader war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a sense of chaos and the world
Speaker 2: on the brink. And it's not just a sense. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that is the absolute reality.
Speaker 3: Two hot wars Ukraine. This will be the first presidential
Speaker 3: election since that hot war broke out, and now the
Speaker 3: same other in Pausen.
Speaker 1: You have the same thing under Biden's watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and here's the thing. I'm under no illusion that
Speaker 2: the majority of voters are going to be basing their
Speaker 2: vote on what is happening and what our policy is
Speaker 2: with regard to Israel. But it kind of reminds me
Speaker 2: of one of these litmus test issues that are highly
Speaker 2: motivating for a small group of voters. And when you're
Speaker 2: talking about in any national election now between the two parties,
Speaker 2: it's going to be razor thin. That's just how our
Speaker 2: polarization works at this point. So when you're talking about
Speaker 2: these small margins, you know a few percentage point of
Speaker 2: young people saying I cannot support a man who is
Speaker 2: backing a genocide, or I'm just going to stay home,
Speaker 2: or I'm going to vote third party. That in and
Speaker 2: of itself could be the difference in a number of
Speaker 2: swing states. You'll recall, I mean, Biden had a pretty
Speaker 2: decent electoral college margin over Trump last time, but if
Speaker 2: you look into these dates like Georgia that was a
Speaker 2: very thin victory, Arizona very thin victory. It does not
Speaker 2: take many votes going in the other direction to totally
Speaker 2: flip those results. And that was at a time when
Speaker 2: Trump was in office and everybody had a daily reminder
Speaker 2: of how terrible and chaotic and like stressful his administration
Speaker 2: was so even though it's kind of ironic because usually
Speaker 2: incumbency confers certain advantages. Actually, I think for Trump, not
Speaker 2: being an incumbent is an advantage because you can it's
Speaker 2: easy for people to forget on a visceral basis what
Speaker 2: it feels like to have this man in charge of
Speaker 2: our government every single day, or.
Speaker 1: They can also compare it to Biden.
Speaker 3: So like on the right, there are a lot of
Speaker 3: people who are now like, screw it, mean tweets, I'll
Speaker 3: take the mean tweets over whatever else. And I you know,
Speaker 3: that's not my rationale because I think you can't really
Speaker 3: disconnect the crazy, chaotic mean tweets from the policy. Right,
Speaker 3: he was making policy with the tweets, So I don't
Speaker 3: necessarily buy into that bifurcation.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people have been sort of like
Speaker 1: using that refrain on the right.
Speaker 3: Whether that starts to land with independence and Democrats, I doubt.
Speaker 3: But if you're voting on the economy, if you're voting
Speaker 3: on the Middle East, Donald Trump is going to have
Speaker 3: a huge political tool which is going out and talking
Speaker 3: about how and it's a separate this is just about
Speaker 3: the politics. Yeah, the strategy of the policy itself. He's
Speaker 3: gonna be able to talk about how he facilitated the
Speaker 3: Abraham Accords and how peace in the Middle East was
Speaker 3: imminent when Donald Trump was president, and that's going to
Speaker 3: be really powerful if people are thinking about foreign policy,
Speaker 3: because it's hard for Joe Biden to respond because his
Speaker 3: administration was touting the success of the Abraham Accords right
Speaker 3: before October seventh.
Speaker 1: They said, what was the Jake Salivan quote.
Speaker 3: He was like, peace in the Middle East is stronger
Speaker 3: than it has been in years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's when we're stable or something like that than
Speaker 2: it's been in years. I mean, listen, I could sit
Speaker 2: here all day and say Trump increased the drone war.
Speaker 2: He you know, bombed Syria, went beyond obom bomb Syria.
Speaker 2: That the Abraham Accords, by the way, were central to
Speaker 2: leading Hamas to launched October seventh, assassinating Costum Soulamani and
Speaker 2: risking a direct hot war with the run getting on
Speaker 2: of the Iranian nuclear deal, which also brought things to
Speaker 2: the brink with I run like, I could go through
Speaker 2: that every single day and intellectually people could understand that.
Speaker 2: But you're right that it's a very potent talking point
Speaker 2: to say, Hey, these wars didn't have about on my watch.
Speaker 1: I made it.
Speaker 2: This is all on this guy. And you know, the
Speaker 2: other thing is Biden's political strength was always his sense,
Speaker 2: this sense of listen. I may not agree with him
Speaker 2: on every they may not be like a real firecracker
Speaker 2: in this there at this point, but I feel like
Speaker 2: he's a good guy. I feel like he's an empathetic guy.
Speaker 2: I feel like he's basically decent and trying to do
Speaker 2: the right thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, when you have half of your own voters like
Speaker 2: you're facilitating a genocide and another thirty percent who were
Speaker 2: like you may be facilitating a genocide, I think you're
Speaker 2: probably going to get knocked down a few points on that.
Speaker 2: I'm a decent guy sense, which really was his political strength,
Speaker 2: especially versus Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Well, and he also was pledging to bring civility and
Speaker 3: normalcy back to American politics. A great point to you,
Speaker 3: two hot wars have broken out on his watch, which
Speaker 3: is I mean, devis stating for the theory that Joe
Speaker 3: Biden is going to restore the world to stability and
Speaker 3: stability that you're just going to make everyone feel happy.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember the mean girls quote like the
Speaker 3: I wish I could bake a cake of rainbows and
Speaker 3: unicorns like we did in middle school. That was basically
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's twenty twenty campaign and everyone could get along
Speaker 3: like we did in middle school. And that has clearly
Speaker 3: not happened. People have dealt with even if it's going
Speaker 3: down right now, what they feel are staggering levels of inflation.
Speaker 3: He sort of baited people with student loan debt relief
Speaker 3: and then took it away, knowing it was going to
Speaker 3: be taken away. I mean, this was going through the
Speaker 3: court system. But he knew what was going to happen
Speaker 3: with his student loan decision and did it anyway and
Speaker 3: then didn't really stand by it. Hasn't taken, as you
Speaker 3: guys have covered really well, hasn't taken all the steps
Speaker 3: he could as an executive to push it through, even
Speaker 3: if the courts are so.
Speaker 1: I mean, those things are not normal.
Speaker 3: They don't feel stable and normal to voters, and that's
Speaker 3: a devastating blow for Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: So what they're counting on is, let's put this next
Speaker 2: graphic up on this score from Bloomberg. They're counting on
Speaker 2: potentially a legal verdict going against Donald Trump, and they're
Speaker 2: counting on Roe versus Wade, and they're also counting on
Speaker 2: some sort of amnesia about how much everyone is horrified
Speaker 2: by the Israel policy. So the headline here is Trump
Speaker 2: risks losing more than half of swing state voters if
Speaker 2: he's found guilty of some federal crime. Even more voters
Speaker 2: say they will not support him if he is sent
Speaker 2: to prison during this time. I've always been a little
Speaker 2: bit like, I think you should take these type of
Speaker 2: polls where you're asking people how they would theoretically feel
Speaker 2: in the future of if some theoretical event comes to pass.
Speaker 2: I think you should take those with a major grain
Speaker 2: of salt. But it seems to me reasonable that a
Speaker 2: lot of normy voters would be like, all right, you're
Speaker 2: found guilty of a federal crime, You're facing potential prison sentence. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I may be upset with Joe Biden, I may think
Speaker 2: he's too old, whatever, but I just this is just
Speaker 2: a bridge too far from me. So I think they're
Speaker 2: counting on that, and I think they're also counting, like
Speaker 2: I said, on Roe versus Way, and also just this
Speaker 2: general sense of these people. And we'll talk about this
Speaker 2: with the Taylor Swift block. But like, these people have
Speaker 2: kind of lost their minds in a variety of directions,
Speaker 2: like stop the steal on abortion, on you know, excusing
Speaker 2: Trump for literally anything. And even though I may not
Speaker 2: be happy with the Democratic Party, like these people just
Speaker 2: seem too insane and too extreme for me to get behind.
Speaker 3: So and I think also with Trump in particular, one
Speaker 3: of the reasons those hypotheticals are I think reason there's
Speaker 3: a lot of reason to be skeptical of those hypotheticals
Speaker 3: is that it was the same thing we heard before
Speaker 3: the law Fair started, that as soon as Trump gets
Speaker 3: hit with these indictments, he's dead in the water. Like this,
Speaker 3: the DeSantis campaign was pushing that very hard. They believed
Speaker 3: that as the law Fair started to come that voters
Speaker 3: would say, this is a bridge too far, it's a distraction,
Speaker 3: it's going to needlessly tar him in the general election.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with the Santas And what we're
Speaker 3: seeing is Trump not just in the primary with Republican voters,
Speaker 3: but also if you're looking at his match up polls
Speaker 3: with Biden, right, he has not been devastated. He hasn't
Speaker 3: been given the Scarlett Letter by the indictments at all,
Speaker 3: He's hanging in there, and in some polls he's actually
Speaker 3: still beating Joe Biden in the general election hypothetical matchup
Speaker 3: at this point. So I do agree that you can
Speaker 3: imagine a lot of normy voters just being like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is way too far, Like this guy might be
Speaker 3: going to prison. I don't want my president in prison.
Speaker 3: I don't want to vote for somebody who's in prison.
Speaker 3: It just feels wrong to people. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: if the other choice is Biden, that's how the celebrity
Speaker 3: apprentice host beats the former secretary of State. If the
Speaker 3: other choice is that bad, it can work.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: True.
Speaker 2: I mean, look to state, the most obvious thing on
Speaker 2: the planet. Both of these dudes have a lot of problems,
Speaker 2: and I just, you know, while when I focus in
Speaker 2: on one of them, I'll oh, there's no way that
Speaker 2: dude can win, And then when I think about the
Speaker 2: other one, I'm like, there's no way that guy can win.
Speaker 2: It Obviously one of them is going to win. So
Speaker 2: I have a lot of humility this election cycle about
Speaker 2: making any predictions about how this is all going to go.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, you can look at these swing
Speaker 2: state polls and go seven states and they're all going
Speaker 2: for drum. Don't look good for you, buddy. I did
Speaker 2: see another poll this morning that have Biden up six
Speaker 2: points in a national general election head to head. But
Speaker 2: then you look at these special election results and you
Speaker 2: look at them term election results, and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: that seems to cut in the other direction. So I
Speaker 2: just genuinely don't know. I'm just trying to lay out
Speaker 2: some of the factors that may be at play as
Speaker 2: we get closer to the actual general election. Speaking of
Speaker 2: Biden and swing states and the impact of his Israel policy,
Speaker 2: He's headed to Michigan today. White House spokesperson Cream Jean
Speaker 2: Pierre was asked what Biden's message is to Arab Americans
Speaker 2: as he visits that state, where the Arab American vote
Speaker 2: could be could easily be the determining factor on whether
Speaker 2: or not he is able to carry that state again.
Speaker 2: Sacer and I had interviewed the dearborn Michigan mayor, who
Speaker 2: is a longtime Democrat and said I cannot commit to
Speaker 2: voting for j O'biden today, who refused to even meet
Speaker 2: with his campaign manager. That is reflective of how many
Speaker 2: Arab Americans in the state are feeling at this point.
Speaker 2: Here's what Kareem Jean Pierre had to say when asked
Speaker 2: this question about what his message is to Arab Americans.
Speaker 2: Take a listen.
Speaker 4: He's placed a lot of criticism in Michigan from.
Speaker 3: The Arab American beauty.
Speaker 2: What does he say that what's his message to them?
Speaker 4: Are those who feel dis chanted by the dodge of operation.
Speaker 9: But what I would want to say is that you know,
Speaker 9: the President has met with Americans with varying opinions about
Speaker 9: the conflict that we're seeing sadly in Israel and Hamas.
Speaker 9: Officials at the White House have had numerous conversations and
Speaker 9: in regular contact with Muslim and a members Americans. Americans
Speaker 9: look the President's going to continues to believe that Israel
Speaker 9: has a right to defend himself. They have a right
Speaker 9: to defend itself as long as they continue it is
Speaker 9: done in accordance of humanitarian international humanitarian law. So we
Speaker 9: will continue to have those conversations with them. At the
Speaker 9: same time, at the same time, he is heartbroken, heartbroken
Speaker 9: by the suffering of innocent Palestinians.
Speaker 2: So their message to Arab Americans. Is Israel has a
Speaker 2: right to defend itself. How's that going to go? Right?
Speaker 1: It's a winning message, Crystal that they just sealed. Maybe
Speaker 1: a job she did you see the East Palestine question yesterday? Yes?
Speaker 3: So the chaffeld Wegman asked if Biden would drink the
Speaker 3: water in East Palestine because he's not visiting so Ohio
Speaker 3: and other state and he's probably not going to.
Speaker 1: Be competitive in Ohio.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's the anniversary of East Palestine coming up
Speaker 3: in a couple of days. And Korean John Pierre called
Speaker 3: that a political stunt, which I mean, she's really really
Speaker 3: struggling on some of these questions. And if their message
Speaker 3: to Arab Americans is shrug, Yeah, Israel has right to
Speaker 3: defend itself.
Speaker 2: He's gonna lose Michigan.
Speaker 1: Well, Michigan.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing is this was fly by Ken Clipstein
Speaker 2: put this up on the screen. This was like in
Speaker 2: a political larger article but kind of buried in there.
Speaker 2: It's almost they almost seem to have given up on
Speaker 2: winning back the Arab American population in Michigan. What they
Speaker 2: say here is biden support for Israel's hurt the campaign
Speaker 2: badly with the sizeable Arab American population in Michigan, his
Speaker 2: team is scrambling to find other paths to victory in
Speaker 2: the battleground state. According to two campaign advisors granted an
Speaker 2: anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak publicly about strategy,
Speaker 2: so they basically are in a place right now where
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, that should be sailed. We're not winning
Speaker 2: them back. It's done. And this is a group I
Speaker 2: believe he won sixty five percent of last time. He
Speaker 2: was like an overwhelming margin last time around, and they're like,
Speaker 2: h we can't win with them, So who else is
Speaker 2: out there that maybe we could win over?
Speaker 3: So I was just going to whip out a super
Speaker 3: hot take about the electoral college. It is like, actually
Speaker 3: interesting here. When you have this pocket of Arab Americans
Speaker 3: around Dearborn, around Detroit that's really powerful in Michigan but
Speaker 3: doesn't represent like a wide swath of the American population,
Speaker 3: they become like disproportionately powerful in the popular vote with
Speaker 3: the electoral college because they're Michigan and Michigan's an incredibly
Speaker 3: important swing.
Speaker 1: State, and that's one of the benefits.
Speaker 2: I'm sort of if it was Dearborn, Kentucky no one
Speaker 2: would care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, I mean I go back and forth in electoral
Speaker 3: college myself, but I do think examples like this, where
Speaker 3: you have pockets of really, really really powerful voting blocks,
Speaker 3: are always compelling and interesting in that sense. Because even
Speaker 3: if Biden in this campaign, as that Politico article just showed,
Speaker 3: are giving up, that's stupid. They're path I mean, they
Speaker 3: should be working day in and day out. They should
Speaker 3: have people on the ground in Dearborn talking to people.
Speaker 3: I don't know how that would go, probably not great
Speaker 3: for them, but they should be trying, because their map
Speaker 3: to the two seventy without Michigan is very, very tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and listen, I think the core of the issue
Speaker 2: is just the policy itself needs to change, you know,
Speaker 2: that's the bottom line. And they may be right that
Speaker 2: it's too late that at this point, even if they
Speaker 2: did change course and put pressure on Israel and you know,
Speaker 2: secure a long time a long term cease fire and
Speaker 2: actually start making some movements towards recognition of Palestinian share
Speaker 2: or whatever, I think they are probably correct that in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways the ship has sailed because it's
Speaker 2: already gone way too far. I mean, many people in
Speaker 2: Dearborn know people who have had family members who have killed,
Speaker 2: who have family members who are in Gaza who have
Speaker 2: been killed. I mean, this is deeply personal, and so
Speaker 2: you know, this little bit of lip service they're giving
Speaker 2: to it. Maybe will theoretically do a white paper about
Speaker 2: possibly recognizing Palestinian state is certainly going to be insufficient.
Speaker 2: They also are video just went viral, which is really
Speaker 2: not a great look for them of a campaign organizer
Speaker 2: outside of a Kamala Harris. I believe event fundraiser is
Speaker 2: something of that. To that effect, kicking two women wearing
Speaker 2: jobs out of the event, keeping them, barring them from
Speaker 2: going into the event even though they had received invites.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what the campaign is saying about it afterwards,
Speaker 2: but I think we could all agree not a great
Speaker 2: look for them. Let's take a look at this.
Speaker 5: We are choosing who's going in and out of the event.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, why are you choosing us the game when
Speaker 2: we have an invite?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 2: You specifically single us out?
Speaker 1: That's racist? Is it because we have the jobs?
Speaker 10: I'm happy to talk to.
Speaker 2: So it is because it is.
Speaker 6: Out of everybody when we have an invitation, just like
Speaker 6: everyone else.
Speaker 2: What is the problem by.
Speaker 11: A man who's in the LGBT community too, You're going
Speaker 11: after another group?
Speaker 1: Can they come in?
Speaker 2: They were already?
Speaker 1: Why not? It's not It is because why we have
Speaker 1: an invitation.
Speaker 2: Here and I don't have no here. Don't come up
Speaker 2: with excuses because I am a.
Speaker 1: Woman and you're coming up with it. I'm well, I didn't. Yes,
Speaker 1: I did give you an excuse.
Speaker 11: Clearly, I'm letting you know that you've been disinvited from
Speaker 11: the event.
Speaker 2: Why so, she says, you can choose to leave at
Speaker 2: this point, you've been disinvited from the event. The camp
Speaker 2: is saying, oh, these women were involved in previous protests,
Speaker 2: which speaks also to the fact that you know, every
Speaker 2: Joe Biden event, every Kamala Harris event. Nancy Pelosi obviously
Speaker 2: has been hounded by process like they really can't go
Speaker 2: anywhere without having some sort of disruption, some sort of
Speaker 2: protests over their Israel policy. But what that leads to
Speaker 2: is the sense that they may be just like out
Speaker 2: and out racially profiling anyone who shows up with a
Speaker 2: head job or looks Arab, American or Muslim, banning them
Speaker 2: from the event because it appears that these were basically
Speaker 2: like the only two women with h jobs and it's like,
Speaker 2: you guys can't come in. Like I said, not a
Speaker 2: great look.
Speaker 1: And it leads to social media posts.
Speaker 3: So even if someone's not outside a fundraiser, you know,
Speaker 3: watching what's happening now, this is going to go absolutely everywhere.
Speaker 3: And I actually, by the way, I love the idea
Speaker 3: that this might have been a Kamala Harris fundraiser, because yeah,
Speaker 3: can you imagine Kamala Harris making people want to donate
Speaker 3: to the biding camp. When I hear her talk, I say,
Speaker 3: give me my checkbook.
Speaker 2: I must admire this.
Speaker 1: You guys are going to win. I mean, it's just outrageous.
Speaker 3: But this is a terrible, terrible look for the campaign
Speaker 3: and it's not going to stop.
Speaker 1: That's the other.
Speaker 3: Part of this for him is that this is going
Speaker 3: to keep on going. We just got word that here
Speaker 3: in d C there's pretty massive protests outside like the
Speaker 3: State Department Union station here in d C with traffic
Speaker 3: being blocked. So short of a huge policy change, this
Speaker 3: is from now till November going to be blasted on
Speaker 3: young people's tiktoks and Instagram feeds. So the vote in
Speaker 3: those college towns, those younger, bluer urban areas, is in
Speaker 3: really tough shape for Joe Biden. Let's talk about the
Speaker 3: impeachment of Alejandro Majorcis, obviously the Secretary of the Department
Speaker 3: of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Late at night on Tuesday, there was a markup of
Speaker 3: the impeachment articles that Republicans have drawn up for Homeland
Speaker 3: Security Secretary. Alejandro majorcis al a longtime target of this
Speaker 3: Republican majority and the Republican majority before it under the
Speaker 3: Biden administration. The move is to pass those articles, which
Speaker 3: they did end up passing late in the night, so
Speaker 3: early yesterday morning, the articles moved out of committee, and
Speaker 3: that means they will now be set for a full
Speaker 3: vote in front of the House. So the House of
Speaker 3: Representatives will be voting on whether to impeach the Secretary
Speaker 3: of Homeland Security. And actually, there's an interesting statistic. This
Speaker 3: would be like the first time in one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty years that a cabinet secretary faced impeachment, like the
Speaker 3: second time ever.
Speaker 1: This was from the New York Times.
Speaker 3: You know what the first one. I don't know who
Speaker 3: the first one was, but now I'm really curious. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you go over to the Google figure that one out.
Speaker 1: But it's not a common thing.
Speaker 3: I feel like we're almost sort of numb to this
Speaker 3: happening now from the Trump administration. And that's kind of
Speaker 3: what Republicans are. Why Republicans are arguing that they're doing
Speaker 3: it is you know, they're not saying that aloud, but
Speaker 3: behind closed doors. It's an idea that you fight fire
Speaker 3: with fire, and that if they're going to impeach Donald
Speaker 3: Trump two times, then you go ahead and impeach one
Speaker 3: of them. We know, obviously they started looking into impeachment
Speaker 3: and they've opened that inquiry into President Biden, but now
Speaker 3: they're going after Mayorcis along similar lines. But the problem
Speaker 3: about these impeachment articles, and I think Mayorkus is doing
Speaker 3: a horrible job. The problem is an interesting one. So
Speaker 3: let's start playing some clips of the debate in the
Speaker 3: committee which get to sort of the heart of what's
Speaker 3: going on. I'll start with this tweet from Mike Johnson.
Speaker 3: This is his statement. We'll put this up on the screen.
Speaker 3: The speaker, Mike Johnson, since the moment he was confirmed
Speaker 3: Secretary of Americus, has wilfully and consistently refused to refused
Speaker 3: to comply with federal immigration laws. Feeling the worst border
Speaker 3: catastrophe in American history, he said, I commend the Household
Speaker 3: Land Security Committee for conducting a thorough and exhaustive investigation
Speaker 3: into Secretary of Majorcas's failed leadership of the department.
Speaker 1: He also says that Mayorkus.
Speaker 3: Quote violated his oath of office and obstructed lawful oversight
Speaker 3: of DHS. So pin those two things because they're important
Speaker 3: to these articles of impeachment. And let's roll this next clip,
Speaker 3: which I believe is Representative Eric Swallwell, Democrat, talking during
Speaker 3: this debate that went into again the early hours of
Speaker 3: the morning yesterday.
Speaker 6: In any shortcomings that my Orcus may have, frankly are
Speaker 6: your fault. He's asking for authorities to do more, to
Speaker 6: have more border agents, to have more resources, and so
Speaker 6: his limitations are caused by you. You put him in place,
Speaker 6: you won't let him do it.
Speaker 3: So Marjorie Taylor Green was sitting just across the room
Speaker 3: from him. Let's roll a clip of MTG laying into Mamericas.
Speaker 7: Congress has the responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable
Speaker 7: when they fail to uphold their oath of office, abuse
Speaker 7: their authority, and or are dishonest with the American people.
Speaker 7: This is essential and a constitutional republic built on and
Speaker 7: separation of powers. And it's twenty twenty three ruling in
Speaker 7: United States versus Texas. The Supreme Court left the House
Speaker 7: of Representatives with little choice, little choice but to pursue
Speaker 7: impeachment articles against Secretary Mayorkists. Secretary of maw Orkists must
Speaker 7: be impeached for his failure to uphold his oath of
Speaker 7: office and for willfully breaking federal immigration laws.
Speaker 1: So again you heard right there.
Speaker 3: Oath of office and for his failure to willfully uphold
Speaker 3: the federal immigration laws.
Speaker 1: Crystal. Before we get your thoughts, it's rule.
Speaker 3: This clip of chip Roy again getting at the heart
Speaker 3: of the impeachment articles, and that's what we'll open up
Speaker 3: for discussion right after you hear this exchange between chip
Speaker 3: Roy and ma Yorkists.
Speaker 1: And if you're watching this.
Speaker 3: You'll see the date it's twenty twenty two on your screen,
Speaker 3: so pay attention to that as well.
Speaker 12: Will you testify under oath right now?
Speaker 6: Do we have operational control?
Speaker 5: Yes or no?
Speaker 13: Yes we do, and we have operational control of the borders.
Speaker 10: Yes we do. In congressmen, we are working too, least.
Speaker 12: So would operational control defined in this section, the term
Speaker 12: operational control means the prevention of all on lawful entries
Speaker 12: into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other on
Speaker 12: lawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contramand do
Speaker 12: you stand behind your testimony that we have operational control
Speaker 12: in light of this definition?
Speaker 2: And Congressman, I think the Secretary of foam Land Security
Speaker 2: would have said the same thing in twenty twenty and
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: So Republicans have been using a clip of a deputy
Speaker 3: of Maericus who has said, obviously, we don't have operational
Speaker 3: control of the border, and testified to prove that mayarkis
Speaker 3: lied when he said that they had operational control of
Speaker 3: the border. Americas said he was using a different definition
Speaker 3: of operational control with a lower standard of what constitutes
Speaker 3: operational control. But the articles of impeachment accused him of
Speaker 3: violating provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which we
Speaker 3: were talking before the school. They require that migrants quote
Speaker 3: shall be detained pending a decision on whether or not
Speaker 3: they should be removed. So if they're claiming asylum, you
Speaker 3: typically if you have a normal immigration system. That's what
Speaker 3: would happen, but that has not been upheld in years
Speaker 3: and years and years. It's basically impossible. I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't know how that would be possible. It's why the
Speaker 3: Trump administration also didn't do it, because it's not possible
Speaker 3: with the number of people that you have going So
Speaker 3: the oath of office, the knowingly made false statements. These
Speaker 3: are the articles of impeachment. And if your argument is
Speaker 3: that we need to impeach my orcus because they impeach Trump,
Speaker 3: actually is probably more and we know it's not going
Speaker 3: to go anywhere because we're just the House of Representatives, right,
Speaker 3: It's never going to pass the Senate.
Speaker 1: It's more of a symbolic impeachment.
Speaker 3: If that's your argument, it actually is probably stronger than
Speaker 3: the legal constitutional case for impeachment here because I don't
Speaker 3: think it quite meets the bar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's theater. I mean, I don't even
Speaker 2: want to really dig into what they're claiming and what
Speaker 2: he said. And operational if that's your definition of operational control,
Speaker 2: literally that has never happened in the history of the
Speaker 2: United States, and it will never happen in the history
Speaker 2: of the United States.
Speaker 1: That you have.
Speaker 2: You know, every single person that comes in, there's going
Speaker 2: to be at least one who gets by. Then you
Speaker 2: don't have operational control. So I mean, there's a reason
Speaker 2: I looked up who was the last cabinet secretary to
Speaker 2: be impeached?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, who was it?
Speaker 2: May eighteen seventy six Secretary of War William bell Knapp,
Speaker 2: who apparently this is kind of funny, this is from
Speaker 2: Senate dot gov. So they say it issue was the
Speaker 2: behavior of William bell Knapp. He was part of the
Speaker 2: administration President Ulysses's grant. Former Iowa state legislator in Civil
Speaker 2: War General, he held his cabinet post for nearly eight
Speaker 2: years in the rollicking era that Mark Twain dubbed the
Speaker 2: Gilded Age. Bell Nap was famous for his extravagant Washington
Speaker 2: parties and is elegantly attired first and second wives. Many
Speaker 2: question how he managed such a and lifestyle on his
Speaker 2: eight thousand dollars government salary. By early eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: answers began to surface. A House of Representatives committee uncovered
Speaker 2: evidence supporting a pattern of corruption blatant even by the
Speaker 2: standards of the scandal. Tarnished Grant administration. Now, it's interesting history.
Speaker 2: I also do think it's relevant here, though, because it's
Speaker 2: not like he was impeached for, you know, the policy
Speaker 2: that he was implementing, because he was impeached based on
Speaker 2: his personal conduct and allegations of corruption, which apparently had
Speaker 2: quite a bit of merit judging by the addresses of
Speaker 2: his first and second wives. So does anyone really believe
Speaker 2: that Secretary of Mayorcis is the locus of the issues
Speaker 2: in terms of immigration, Like we have been having debates
Speaker 2: and struggles over immigration and border security and how to
Speaker 2: handle immigrants that come in and claim asylum. We've been
Speaker 2: having these debates for decades. They did not start with
Speaker 2: Secretary may Orcus. They did not end what will not
Speaker 2: end with Secretary may Orcus. I have no opinion on
Speaker 2: this man's conduct and whether he's been a good or
Speaker 2: bad secretary, how he is, whether he's common at his job,
Speaker 2: but he's clearly trying to implement the policy that's been
Speaker 2: directed to him by the President. And I actually think
Speaker 2: Swallow's point is a reasonable one of the biggest There's
Speaker 2: a lot of issues, but the biggest issue in terms
Speaker 2: of our immigration policy is this massive three million case
Speaker 2: asylum backlog, which means exactly like you said, people come
Speaker 2: because they know that they can say I'm claiming asylum
Speaker 2: and it will be years before it's adjudicated. The best
Speaker 2: thing you could do to deal with that problem is not,
Speaker 2: you know, as the House, as the sorry Senate Negotiated
Speaker 2: Bill contemplates, just okay, we're just going to close the
Speaker 2: border and end do process. No, the biggest thing is
Speaker 2: to have a massive scale up in resources so that
Speaker 2: you actually have a shot to be able in a
Speaker 2: timely fashion to adjudicate these asylum claims and say yes,
Speaker 2: this one meets the definition and no, many of these
Speaker 2: other ones don't, so you can handle it in some
Speaker 2: sort of judicious manner. May Arcis is not a magician.
Speaker 2: He can't, like, you know, magically make all of that
Speaker 2: happen or magically make the three million case backlog go
Speaker 2: away without support for Congress. So when you couple that,
Speaker 2: their response is this show trial and these you know,
Speaker 2: fake impeachment articles of impeachment that they know aren't going
Speaker 2: to go anywhere. With their rejection of the Senate Negotiated Package,
Speaker 2: which I oppose because it's too draconian, but which is
Speaker 2: consistent with the things they claim to care about and support.
Speaker 2: It's just very clear to me that they like immigration
Speaker 2: as a political issue. They like the images of migrants
Speaker 2: at the border, they like the narrative of no operational
Speaker 2: control and chaos under Joe Biden, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But they don't actually even support the things that they
Speaker 2: claim to support, which I don't support. Again, but they
Speaker 2: don't even really back up their words and the things
Speaker 2: that they claim to believe with any sort of governance
Speaker 2: or action. They just like it as a political issue.
Speaker 3: Establishment Republican insurance, hell don't. I mean, you'll hear Mitch
Speaker 3: McConnell talk all day about the border, and then you
Speaker 3: know the we have completely different takes on the Senate bill,
Speaker 3: because that one would still like from my perspective, it
Speaker 3: doesn't even crack down until you're like one point eight
Speaker 3: million people. Like five thousand people a day is when
Speaker 3: it starts to the standard sets in for when you
Speaker 3: have automatic detention and removal of migrants. And it's just
Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell all day. He'll use the border as a
Speaker 3: political issue. He won't take a vote on anything hard ever, never,
Speaker 3: he would never do that because there's a lot of
Speaker 3: cheap labor to be had, and we could get into
Speaker 3: that whole debate. I know we probably disagree on some
Speaker 3: of those things, but I share the frustration of this,
Speaker 3: like basically just being a political wedge issue for the
Speaker 3: political establishment to bash over and over again. And honestly,
Speaker 3: I think Mamericus has done a terrible job. I think
Speaker 3: Biden has done a terrible job. I think it's frightening
Speaker 3: what we don't know about how many people are here.
Speaker 3: I think it's frightening for people's safety, how many are
Speaker 3: living in the shadows of our society in sanctuary cities
Speaker 3: where they're like in danger. They come over here in
Speaker 3: debt to cartels. It's just horriffic. Many of them have
Speaker 3: been raped, s actually assaulted on the way and then
Speaker 3: are still in debt to cartels. And I wonder, actually
Speaker 3: if there was a much better avenue for impeachment over
Speaker 3: the people who have died crossing the river, over the
Speaker 3: people who have come here in debt to cartels and
Speaker 3: been victims of violence, over the people who have been victimized.
Speaker 6: Me.
Speaker 3: It was like thirty five thousand arrests last year or
Speaker 3: removals last year of people who had been in the
Speaker 3: country illegally with a criminal record.
Speaker 1: Why not any of that?
Speaker 3: And it kind of gets to your point that the
Speaker 3: human element of this gets lost in the political element
Speaker 3: of it, because it's more fun to just use this
Speaker 3: stuff as a weapon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Sager and I covered the other day
Speaker 2: Center Langford, who was sort of adorable in his shock
Speaker 2: that the Republicans in the House were not going to
Speaker 2: accept this deal because it's not just this deal, which
Speaker 2: again I don't support because I don't think the answer
Speaker 2: to we don't have enough resources to go through a
Speaker 2: due process, the answer to that is more resources so
Speaker 2: that you can deal with the flow and get it
Speaker 2: under control, so that there isn't the sense of, oh,
Speaker 2: I can just show up and claim asylum and it's
Speaker 2: going to be years and years before this is adjudicated.
Speaker 2: But he was sort of like, I thought, you guys
Speaker 2: like agreed with me on this. And also, by the way,
Speaker 2: you all were the ones who pushed for this to
Speaker 2: be paired with Ukraine AID and Israel Aid. You know,
Speaker 2: the whole idea was like we're not going to give
Speaker 2: any money to care about Ukrainian borders before we deal
Speaker 2: with our borders. So Democrats are like, okay, we'll, you know,
Speaker 2: combine these things together. And when the rubber meets the road,
Speaker 2: some of them were out and out like, no, we're
Speaker 2: not going to quote unquote give Joe Biden a win.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Again, on the other side of this, I don't think
Speaker 2: that this is good politics for the Biden administration either.
Speaker 2: Anytime that the policy discussion is focused on immigration and
Speaker 2: where the narrative and the argument is all on the
Speaker 2: side of we need harsher policies and we need to
Speaker 2: shut down the border, et cetera, you are not going
Speaker 2: to out immigrates hardline Donald Trump. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: So if you are making this the center of political conversation,
Speaker 2: if you're accepting that framing of like the thing we
Speaker 2: need to really do is be harsh and crack down
Speaker 2: at the border, that is not going to be a
Speaker 2: winning argument for you. And you've already lost progresses young people.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of constituencies in the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: based on your support unconditional support for Israel. Now you're
Speaker 2: antagonizing them on this issue as well, so you're further
Speaker 2: demoralizing your own base. You're not winning any immigration hardliners
Speaker 2: over so I think it's foolish from their political perspective
Speaker 2: as well. But yeah, I mean, when it comes to
Speaker 2: this impeachment situation, like bottom line to me is it's
Speaker 2: a political stunt. It's symbolic of the fact that most
Speaker 2: of Washington revolves around political stunts at this point, you know,
Speaker 2: outside of any like real genuine attempt to try to
Speaker 2: address the problem, even if you don't one hundred percent
Speaker 2: agree with the solutions and fine cammigratin, No, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's all about what can I do for the cameras,
Speaker 2: What can I do to spur my own fundraising base?
Speaker 2: You know, how can I own a lib and have
Speaker 2: a viral moment that's going to help me raise money
Speaker 2: for my own campaign. That's what all of our politics
Speaker 2: centers around, and this whole impeachment situation I think fits
Speaker 2: squarely in that mold.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's frustrating because I think Biden's critics really do
Speaker 3: have as much as I disagree with the Republican Party
Speaker 3: and the Democratic Party, but as much as I disagree
Speaker 3: with them, this is one of these issues where they
Speaker 3: should have the moral high ground.
Speaker 1: People are dying, people are being abused.
Speaker 3: Our government is literally helping the un hand out debit
Speaker 3: cards and the Darien gap which people die crossing. It's
Speaker 3: not good, it's horrible, and this just seems like such
Speaker 3: a small ball excuse to even do the political theater.
Speaker 3: So some real political theater happening yesterday in front of
Speaker 3: the Senate Judiciary Committee where they actually had to subpoena
Speaker 3: some of these tech executives to get them to testify
Speaker 3: in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: Not all of them.
Speaker 3: Some of them actually did have to be brought by
Speaker 3: subpoena though, and we have a lot of video from
Speaker 3: this hearing. They grilled these tech executives. We can go
Speaker 3: ahead and put the first element up on the screen here.
Speaker 3: They grilled them about the safety of their platforms. So
Speaker 3: this was the CEO's of TikTok, of Snap, of X
Speaker 3: and Meta. So you had Zuckerberg was there, I think
Speaker 3: the guy from Discord, he was one of the people
Speaker 3: that actually had to be subpoenaed was there as well,
Speaker 3: and they were answering some really tough questions. This is
Speaker 3: kind of an interesting subject, Crystal, because we're going to
Speaker 3: roll a lot of these clips, and one thing you'll
Speaker 3: hear in some of the clips is pimping of legislation
Speaker 3: that they want to pass that they think, you know,
Speaker 3: this is the necessary legislation that will save the children
Speaker 3: from your horrible apps. Well, the problem is a lot
Speaker 3: of this legislation is seriously flawed from speech and civil
Speaker 3: rights perspective, and that's one of the scary things about
Speaker 3: We talked about all of the issues with TikTok, and
Speaker 3: there are many, many serious issues with TikTok. The solution
Speaker 3: that was devised by people in the Senate was a
Speaker 3: huge power grab that would wildly infringe on civil rights,
Speaker 3: and that's what some of those legislation is as well.
Speaker 3: So keep that in mind as you're watching these clips.
Speaker 3: That to the point we were talking about in this
Speaker 3: last segment about the border. A lot of politics is
Speaker 3: stunt making for the sake of power grabs. Now there
Speaker 3: are going to be some real questions. So let's play
Speaker 3: this first clip of Mark Zuckerberg. He's addressing parents that
Speaker 3: were in the room behind whose children had been lost
Speaker 3: to suicide and other problems. There were parents from Snap
Speaker 3: there whose kids had bought drugs very easily over Snap
Speaker 3: let's roll this of Zuckerberg addressing those parents when Josh
Speaker 3: Holly kind of demands it of him.
Speaker 2: Have you apologized to the victims?
Speaker 13: Would you like to do so?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 6: Well they're here, You're on national television. Would you like
Speaker 6: now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed
Speaker 6: by your product? Show them the pictures?
Speaker 14: Would you like to apologize for what you've done to
Speaker 14: these good people.
Speaker 2: And starts involved in your incredible and.
Speaker 14: Knowing that actually go through the things.
Speaker 15: That your families have suffered, and this is why we
Speaker 15: invested so much doing industry being efforts to make sure
Speaker 15: that no one has to go through some.
Speaker 6: Types of things that your family's.
Speaker 15: Will touch us up.
Speaker 3: So it was kind of hard to hear, but he
Speaker 3: was just saying, you know, nobody should have to go
Speaker 3: through what you're going through, and that's why Facebook is
Speaker 3: working really hard, Crystal to solve these problems. And actually,
Speaker 3: interestingly enough, I don't know if you've noticed this, but
Speaker 3: in some of the like Axio This Morning newsletters, Instagram
Speaker 3: has been the lead sponsor for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: interesting and saying that they support the legislation that is popular.
Speaker 3: Some of the pieces of legislation that are popular, which
Speaker 3: is very, very very interesting. It's sort of like how
Speaker 3: they supported Section two thirty reform as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think listen, everyone wants our kids
Speaker 2: to be safe. Everyone understands that social media in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways has had a really deallyterious impact, especially
Speaker 2: on mental health among teenage girls in particular, but teenagers
Speaker 2: in general. Like it is a very valid topic of concern. However,
Speaker 2: these solutions that are proposed by these people almost all
Speaker 2: of the time just lead to encouraging tech platforms to
Speaker 2: do more censorship and be even more aggressive in taking
Speaker 2: down a whole range of content, not just the things
Speaker 2: that are genuinely bad that you would genuinely like to
Speaker 2: see taken down, and beyond that, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of these little like regulatory band aid type things as well.
Speaker 2: They're also not really getting at the core of the issue,
Speaker 2: which is that these companies are gigantic monopolies. They profit
Speaker 2: off of the attention economy, always going to push in
Speaker 2: the direction of keeping you and your kids on the
Speaker 2: app longer. There was a lot that was revealed about
Speaker 2: how Facebook does that, how they even were happy to
Speaker 2: degrade the experience of their website where people felt bad
Speaker 2: using it if it meant that their eyeballs stayed on
Speaker 2: there longer. So you know, as long as that is
Speaker 2: the core driving incentive that and like you know, selling
Speaker 2: off all of your data and like not caring at
Speaker 2: all about your privacy, as long as that is the
Speaker 2: business model, you're going to end up with a lot
Speaker 2: of negative impacts on young people and on everybody in general.
Speaker 2: So you know, there was a lot of like this
Speaker 2: clip of Zuckerberg apologizing really got a lot of play
Speaker 2: and went viral or whatever. It's like, this is not
Speaker 2: going to do anything. Like I enjoy big tech humiliation
Speaker 2: as much as anyone else.
Speaker 3: It was good watching Zuckerberg be like like he had
Speaker 3: just been sent on a time out.
Speaker 1: Yeah fine.
Speaker 2: But the bottom line of this higher hearing is that,
Speaker 2: not to oversimplify, but this really is sort of like
Speaker 2: the big takeaway in a whole variety of directions from
Speaker 2: the left and the right and the center and whatever.
Speaker 2: They're pushing for more censorship. That's what they want, and
Speaker 2: they want to use which issues that are genuinely emotional
Speaker 2: issues to try to continue pushing that agenda.
Speaker 3: So let's look at Mike Lee talking to Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 3: also about sexually explicit content on Instagram ConTroll those.
Speaker 16: Instagram recently announced that it's going to restrict all teenagers
Speaker 16: from access to eating disorder material, suicidal ideation themed material,
Speaker 16: self harm content. And that's fantastic, that's great. What's odd.
Speaker 16: What I'm trying to understand is why it is that
Speaker 16: Instagram is only restricting It's restricting access to sexually explicit comment,
Speaker 16: but only forteen's ages thirteen to fifteen. Why not restrict
Speaker 16: it for sixteen and seventeen year olds as well?
Speaker 15: Senator, My understanding is that we don't allow sexually explicit
Speaker 15: content on the service for people of any age.
Speaker 10: The how is that going?
Speaker 15: You know, our prevalence metrics suggest that I think it's
Speaker 15: ninety nine percent or so of the content that we
Speaker 15: remove we're able to identify automatically using AI system. So
Speaker 15: I think that our efforts in this wall, they're not perfect.
Speaker 15: I think are industry leading.
Speaker 3: Industry leading could mean a lot if the standards of
Speaker 3: the industry could mean very little when the standards of
Speaker 3: the industry are very raw, which is exactly what is
Speaker 3: true in this case, and.
Speaker 2: It baally comes from the monopoly power too, like they
Speaker 2: don't have to really.
Speaker 3: Care exactly, and the crowd breaking out until laughter. I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed speaking of the sort of pleasure to be
Speaker 3: derived from tach humiliation. That was pretty good. Let's roll
Speaker 3: this clip. So Lindsay Graham was on one yesterday. You
Speaker 3: may have noticed, Crystal. Let's roll this clip of Lindsey Graham.
Speaker 7: TikTok, your representative Israel quit the company because TikTok is
Speaker 7: being used in a way to basically destroy the Jewish state.
Speaker 2: TikTok is being used to destroy the Jewish state. Definitly,
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: One of the interesting things about that is a lot
Speaker 3: of Republicans and centristems were really upset about the research
Speaker 3: showing that in the aftermath of October seventh, content on
Speaker 3: TikTok that was pro Palestine versus pro Israel was wildly disproportionate.
Speaker 3: If you're listening to this, I'm making like a bar
Speaker 3: graph with my hands, because that's exactly what the charts showed.
Speaker 1: And attributing that.
Speaker 3: To Beijing is because of the control of by dance
Speaker 3: and TikTok, which we'll get into in just a second,
Speaker 3: but attributing that to Beijing instead of the organic sentiments
Speaker 3: of actually like eighteen to twenty plus year olds that
Speaker 3: is not.
Speaker 1: Born out by the data at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, from everything we know, this isn't completely and by
Speaker 3: the way, one of the people that thinks that they
Speaker 3: probably are manipulating this and probably are having an impact
Speaker 3: on public opinion, but this is maybe on the margins
Speaker 3: on this issue.
Speaker 1: This is organic. This is you can blame tech all
Speaker 1: you want, this is where young people are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a whole moral panic about TikTok. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of layers to this. In part, there's
Speaker 2: just like, you know, these are old people who don't
Speaker 2: use TikTok, who don't understand it, so it feels like
Speaker 2: foreign and scary to them. There's like that very human
Speaker 2: level of it. And then there's also the panic at
Speaker 2: a loss of control because we've covered here, you know,
Speaker 2: the way that the sort of traditional corporate media, the
Speaker 2: way that they cover Israel Palestine and how manipulated it is.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a Wall Street Journal reporter was like
Speaker 2: in the IDF, it was just like no wondering, Yeah,
Speaker 2: just laundering IDF propaganda in the pages of a Wall
Speaker 2: Street journal, which is supposed to be this respected outlet.
Speaker 2: There have been all these now of the incredibly visceral
Speaker 2: and emotional language that's used to describe, rightly used to
Speaker 2: describe Asraeli death that is denied to Palestinians, to try
Speaker 2: to deny them humanity. And so the fact that you
Speaker 2: have this alternative source where people can see, you know,
Speaker 2: the videos of Idea soldiers publicizing themselves doing war crimes
Speaker 2: and bragging about it, where you can see the horrors
Speaker 2: of the kids who are being buried under rubble or
Speaker 2: going through you know, horrible amputations with no anesthesia, where
Speaker 2: you can see these things directly. And then you already
Speaker 2: have a generation that was very inclined to see these
Speaker 2: this conflict in wildly different terms than older generations, and
Speaker 2: there is a genuine freak out about what that loss
Speaker 2: of control means for them, for their narrative, for their
Speaker 2: you know, political agenda and view of the world. And
Speaker 2: so I think that's very reflected when Lindsay Graham makes
Speaker 2: it just outrageous, insane comments like TikTok is being used
Speaker 2: to destroy the Jewish state.
Speaker 3: And it also kind of reminds me of what Dems
Speaker 3: and like never Trump Republicans do with the Trump phenomenon.
Speaker 3: Is they just like like this is Russia. Russia made
Speaker 3: Donald Trump win.
Speaker 2: We're closely the people the saying ceasefire protesters are on
Speaker 2: Putin's message and I need to look into their financing
Speaker 2: or that they need to go back to their headquarters
Speaker 2: in China like they just I mean, it's total conspiracy,
Speaker 2: brain worms, insanity. And I think this Lindsay Graham's comments
Speaker 2: fit in that category. Very nice.
Speaker 3: And if you don't grapple with the authentic sentiments of voters,
Speaker 3: you are not. It might work in the short term,
Speaker 3: it doesn't work in the long term. So and here's
Speaker 3: another clip. This is Tom Cotton. This one Crystal and
Speaker 3: I might have a different take on. Let's let's roll
Speaker 3: Tom Cotton talking to the CEO of TikTok.
Speaker 14: Of what nation? Are you a citizen Singapore? Are you
Speaker 14: a citizen of any other nation?
Speaker 10: No, Zenata.
Speaker 14: Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship?
Speaker 10: Senator, I serve my nation in Singapore, No, I did not.
Speaker 14: Do you have a Singaporean passport?
Speaker 10: Yes, and I served my military for Since.
Speaker 14: You have any other Do you have any other passports?
Speaker 10: Any other names. No, Senator.
Speaker 14: Your wife is an American citizen. Your children are American citizens,
Speaker 14: that's correct. Have you ever applied for American citizenship?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 10: Not yet.
Speaker 14: Okay. Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist.
Speaker 10: Party, Senata, I'm Singaporeon.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 14: Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese
Speaker 14: Communist Party?
Speaker 10: No, Senator again, I'm Singapoleon.
Speaker 14: Let me ask you some hopefully simple questions. You said
Speaker 14: earlier in response to their question that what happened at
Speaker 14: tenem And Square in June of nineteen eighty nine was
Speaker 14: a massive protest. Anything else happened in Tianaman Square.
Speaker 10: Yes, I think, as well documented it was a messica.
Speaker 2: Clearly, Cotton there is trying to get a like make
Speaker 2: him uncomfortable, like, oh, you can't say this because you're
Speaker 2: being handled by the Chinese Communist Party, And he has
Speaker 2: no problem saying whatsoever. And in my opinion, Cotton just
Speaker 2: looks like a total and complete idiot there and whatever
Speaker 2: point he's trying to make, I think is very badly
Speaker 2: served by this line of question, in which he seems
Speaker 2: to not understand that Singapore is a completely different country
Speaker 2: from China.
Speaker 3: He had asked these questions leading up to that exchange,
Speaker 3: which were interesting about him formerly being the CFO Byte Dance,
Speaker 3: which is based in Beijing and is the parent company.
Speaker 3: And then the CCP was given a board seat on
Speaker 3: the Byte Dance board and the next day Tchue was
Speaker 3: made the CEO of TikTok, which is American based company,
Speaker 3: And so he was talking about how he had lived
Speaker 3: in Beijing for those five years and that's where it
Speaker 3: was leading up to that exchange with Conton, which I
Speaker 3: think does make it more interesting that he did.
Speaker 1: There is a CCP, like.
Speaker 3: Many many companies, and this is what the TikTok CEO
Speaker 3: says to Cotton, Like many companies, basically any company operating
Speaker 3: in China, there's a branch of the CCP that is
Speaker 3: made up of TikTok employees that operates I'm sorry, Byte
Speaker 3: Dance employees that operates within the Byte Dance headquarters in Beijing,
Speaker 3: which again is totally normal in China. Although when you
Speaker 3: have vast power over an American company and Cotton gets
Speaker 3: him to concede that because of the National Security Law
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen, technically by dances able or would be
Speaker 3: compelled to give data over to the Chinese Communist Party,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. Now, the Tianaman Square thing a
Speaker 3: little bit of a different story. There was evidence that
Speaker 3: they were like suppressing that, but they haven't been for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 1: Ostensibly.
Speaker 2: I mean, I used to be sympathetic to these security
Speaker 2: concerns with regard to TikTok and China. I would say
Speaker 2: I was skeptical, but somewhat sympathetic. I'm just not anymore
Speaker 2: because there's a variety of reasons. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 2: once again, it's these people's job to regulate tech companies.
Speaker 2: So if you want to regulate TikTok, then you're a
Speaker 2: United States senator. This is an American company. You can
Speaker 2: do that. That's number one. Number two, no one could
Speaker 2: ever spell out for me, like what is the super
Speaker 2: scary possible outcome that we should all be so terrified of?
Speaker 2: That is different with tikto talk. Then you know the
Speaker 2: outcomes of invasion of privacy and failing our kids and
Speaker 2: all of those things that we already have to deal
Speaker 2: with all of the tech platforms. And I've never heard
Speaker 2: a good answer for that, especially because you know the
Speaker 2: data that is being collected on TikTok users. This is
Speaker 2: data that is open for purchase on like the free market.
Speaker 2: So there's not anything like extra special, super secret that
Speaker 2: TikTok is collecting here that's not already available. And again
Speaker 2: I think that Cotton's line of questioning here sort of
Speaker 2: exposes that a lot of the concern is really mostly
Speaker 2: just like a genda moral panic, where you know, it's
Speaker 2: people who are China hawks that want to say anything
Speaker 2: that China touches is bad and scary and we should
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with it, without laying out to
Speaker 2: any sort of conclusion of what we should genuinely be
Speaker 2: frightened of. And again, Tom Cotton is one of the
Speaker 2: most you know, I don't throw these terms around lightly,
Speaker 2: but he's one of the most like authoritarian, what's the
Speaker 2: right word. He's like, has the most authoritarian instincts, but
Speaker 2: of any senator in the United States Senate. And so
Speaker 2: what this ultimately amounts to is just cracking down on
Speaker 2: a platform that again a lot of these people are
Speaker 2: panicked about because they don't understand it, and their kids
Speaker 2: are on it, and oh my god, what are the
Speaker 2: kids doing these days? And by the way, they're trying
Speaker 2: to destroy the Jewish state, et cetera, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: I just I don't really have I don't I no
Speaker 2: longer have the sympathy for these concerns that I once entertained.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't worry so much about the data as
Speaker 3: I do. Like the very subtle explosion of Chinese propaganda.
Speaker 3: That would be really scary if there were like a
Speaker 3: hot war over Taiwan, and not to get into what
Speaker 3: the right move would be, I don't want that to happen.
Speaker 3: It does seem like some hawks on the left and
Speaker 3: the right do want that to happen, or like Nikki
Speaker 3: Hayley like it feel like.
Speaker 1: She wants that to happen.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you say the same thing about you know,
Speaker 2: like Rumble absolutely got banned in Brazil and France because
Speaker 2: I think in one of those instances it was because
Speaker 2: they had r T on there. And it says almost
Speaker 2: the Russian propaganda and RT getting banned from YouTube or whatever,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this foreign government's propaganda.
Speaker 3: But basically nobody watches our t and TikTok is like
Speaker 3: super super popular.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I'm just saying that that argument is
Speaker 2: used in a lot of different ways and I don't
Speaker 2: support it because I do think that it's important to
Speaker 2: be able to hear what foreign governments are saying. Agree,
Speaker 2: totally agree, And it's only ever used against the like
Speaker 2: official battie countries too, by the way, like the ones
Speaker 2: that the US has an issue with, they're the ones
Speaker 2: that get subjected to this level of censorship. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I view this this whole genre of concerns about TikTok
Speaker 2: at this point, I basically view as sort of like
Speaker 2: an anti China moral panic.
Speaker 3: I want you and soccer to have a like cage match,
Speaker 3: like WWE stuff find about this.
Speaker 1: I think that would be really fun.
Speaker 2: To Well, he's still sick, so I've got an.
Speaker 1: If he's sick, we don't know that, haven't confirmed it.
Speaker 3: He says he's sick, but against we haven't seen the test.
Speaker 3: I think he's smoking weed. That's my favorite joke about Snager.
Speaker 3: I use it too much, but it never gets old
Speaker 3: on my mind. Speaking of important political issues, Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2: The most important political issues we have to talk about
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift. Indeed we do. Yeah, so there's a lot
Speaker 2: going on. I really need you to explain this to me, Emily,
Speaker 2: because I can't say that I really understand, but okay,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you guys are aware. Taylor Swift is dating
Speaker 2: this football player and it's become this whole thing, and
Speaker 2: there was whole freak out over their relationship and the
Speaker 2: fact you'd be on camera at his games. And this
Speaker 2: has sparked some next level conspiracy theories. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 2: not really confined to like one or two right wing influencers.
Speaker 2: This is like really taken route and it has sparked
Speaker 2: an entire genre of Taylor Swift, deep state Joe Biden
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories. In some ways, it was kicked off by
Speaker 2: Viveke Ramaswamilus put this up on the screen. So he says,
Speaker 2: I wonder who's going to win the Super Bowl next month?
Speaker 2: Because the Kansas City Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl,
Speaker 2: and that's the one the team that Taylor Show's boyfriend
Speaker 2: Travis Kelsey plays for. And I wonder if there's a
Speaker 2: major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped up
Speaker 2: couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here. Let's
Speaker 2: see how it ages over the next eight months. Okay,
Speaker 2: So the theory here is that the Super Bowl will
Speaker 2: be rigged to benefit Taylor Swift, who already has been
Speaker 2: an A list pop star for like a decade at
Speaker 2: this point. At least at least a decade at this point. Okay, So,
Speaker 2: and somehow that's going to enable a Joe Biden endorsement,
Speaker 2: which is going to be a real game changer, because, yeah,
Speaker 2: celebrity endorsements really seem to make a huge difference in politics.
Speaker 2: That's the theory is being floated here by Vivek. But
Speaker 2: he was far from alone. As I mentioned, there's been
Speaker 2: a whole raft of additional common terry in theories about
Speaker 2: what's really going on here. We've got a smattering of
Speaker 2: this commentary for you to sample. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 11: America's pop star celebrity Sweetheart joins forces with the top
Speaker 11: dog in the NFL, playing for the team that's going
Speaker 11: to the Super Bowl. I mean, let's be real here,
Speaker 11: this is Breton circuses on steroids. Major League Sports in
Speaker 11: and of itself, is nothing but a syop. Get kids
Speaker 11: plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps,
Speaker 11: playing sports for their school.
Speaker 2: And go into games.
Speaker 11: Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in
Speaker 11: various sports, only to be cut from the team, at
Speaker 11: which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because
Speaker 11: they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will
Speaker 11: probably never have it. So then they become obsessed with
Speaker 11: some grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every
Speaker 11: year to throw a ball around while promoting poison death
Speaker 11: shots and child slave labor through various brand deals and endorsements.
Speaker 11: So sad imagine being so brainwashed by sport to actually
Speaker 11: show up to your team stadium to shovel snow for
Speaker 11: free so you can watch a bunch of grown men
Speaker 11: who are overpaid tackle each other.
Speaker 13: Sure seems like something that is like concocted in order
Speaker 13: to accelerate the fame of these two people. Get them
Speaker 13: to the super Bowl, the largest screens on earth. Get
Speaker 13: maybe a get, maybe like a proposal after the get
Speaker 13: is my this is what I think is gonna happen.
Speaker 13: There's gonna be like some type of proposal.
Speaker 17: Or maybe she just bought into all the lies about
Speaker 17: Conservatives and Republicans, that they're racist and sexist and homophobic
Speaker 17: and xenophobic and transphobic and islamophobic, that Republicans and conservatives
Speaker 17: want dirty air and water and a total ban on
Speaker 17: all abortion with no exceptions. If she believes all that,
Speaker 17: she is believing a lie because those talking points are
Speaker 17: simply untrue. Now, I'm just saying, maybe she wants to
Speaker 17: think twice before making a decision.
Speaker 2: About twenty twenty four, that was just, you know, the
Speaker 2: tip of the ice. But there was a lot more
Speaker 2: that That. Dude Benny Johnson, who we had a low
Speaker 2: clib of, he also put out this tweet that I
Speaker 2: have to read for you because it really does check
Speaker 2: every box. He says. By now everyone knows Taylor Swift
Speaker 2: is the government sigh off, and this is exactly why
Speaker 2: corporate media is having a meltdown about it. By the way,
Speaker 2: you all seem to be the ones having the meltdown.
Speaker 2: And just like say, four years ago, the Pentagon Psychological
Speaker 2: Operations Unit pitched NATO about turning Taylor Swift into a
Speaker 2: social influence asset. In twenty nineteen, George Soros bought her
Speaker 2: entire music catalog. In twenty twenty, she came out as
Speaker 2: a raging liberal Joe Biden supporter after previously being politically neutral.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty three, her air Is tour raked in
Speaker 2: higher revenue than the GDP of fifty countries. In twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, she helped register over thirty five thousand new
Speaker 2: voters with a single Instagram post. And now she's dating
Speaker 2: a Pfizer and bud Light agent in the NFL age
Speaker 2: Apparently agent yeah, agent apparently does like ads for them
Speaker 2: or whatever, And that was part of the freakout the
Speaker 2: most washed live sport in America. Even the NYT wrote
Speaker 2: a story in how Biden is courting her friend and
Speaker 2: horseman and how he wants to appear on stage with
Speaker 2: our Emily. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorists
Speaker 2: to put it all together. You just have to be
Speaker 2: paying attention.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite part. You just have to be paying attention.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean I know Benny Benny is actually
Speaker 3: has a lot of support and he's like very popular
Speaker 3: on the right. So I can't excuse this one in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways, do you know? You know like this,
Speaker 3: it is legitimately true that sometimes the media will take
Speaker 3: it's called nutpicking. We'll take quotes from a crazy leftist
Speaker 3: or a crazy like hardcore conservative and paint the entire
Speaker 3: movement that way and say conservatives and mass are freaking
Speaker 3: out about Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: This is actually so.
Speaker 3: Widespread among people on the right that we have a
Speaker 3: big story up at the Federalists today with the headline
Speaker 3: that has simply stopped trying to make Taylor Swift as
Speaker 3: a syop happen, telling people like, there's actually something very
Speaker 3: conservative about Taylor Swift, who has rocketed to astronomical degrees
Speaker 3: of fame, foll love with this, like middle American football
Speaker 3: player who if people know about the Kelsey's, are still
Speaker 3: like pretty humble. His brother Jason is just like a
Speaker 3: total bro. And I have a friend that Sager knows
Speaker 3: who I was talking to him the other day about
Speaker 3: this and he was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Why conservatives are so upset. The bros are.
Speaker 3: Back, Travis Kelcey, Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: The bros are back. The bros have never been back
Speaker 1: so hard.
Speaker 3: It is time for the bros like reclaim their territory
Speaker 3: because Travis Kelcey is.
Speaker 1: Like the ultimate bro and he just got the ultimate girl.
Speaker 3: And there's something you know in a way, as conservatives.
Speaker 1: Have now rebutted the other conservatives saying.
Speaker 3: You know, let them be you know, happy, and if
Speaker 3: they want to get married, because there's been leaks about
Speaker 3: an engagement, like all all power to for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're supposed to support marriage, right, that's supposed
Speaker 2: to be like a conservative family value situation. I actually
Speaker 2: think that part of why there's a freak ount is
Speaker 2: because a lot of conservatives feel like she should have
Speaker 2: been one of them. She's like yeah, and you know football.
Speaker 2: They feel like culturally this is this is one of
Speaker 2: the few cultural areas where we have some sort of
Speaker 2: traction very popular in Middle America, etc. And she originally
Speaker 2: had I mean, first of all, she became a star
Speaker 2: at such a young age, and she did just stay completely.
Speaker 2: She didn't say anything political. She came on the scene
Speaker 2: as more of like a country star and out of
Speaker 2: Nashville and whatever. And then she politically came out in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen when she opposed Marsha Blackburn or Senate in Tennessee.
Speaker 2: And I mean her politics are very like plain vanilla
Speaker 2: resistance to live exactly like some ninety percent of Hollywood.
Speaker 2: There's nothing she's not been particular. I mean, she really
Speaker 2: has been fairly non political. She very occasionally will weigh in.
Speaker 2: She did endorse Biden last time around, But the panic
Speaker 2: and the freak count over this is also preposterous to
Speaker 2: me because there's some I don't I feel like the
Speaker 2: Biden people are deluding themselves about this too, that a
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift endorsement is going to mean absolutely anything, Like
Speaker 2: if we learn nothing from Hillary Clint, she every celebrity
Speaker 2: endorser doing concerts with Jay Z and Beyonce. What did
Speaker 2: that matter is Hillary Clinton? Was she president of the
Speaker 2: United States? No, So the idea that Taylor Swift's endorsement
Speaker 2: is going to be the game changer for the election
Speaker 2: is also to me so incredibly silly. So that's there's
Speaker 2: so many levels of this genuine freak out that I
Speaker 2: can't understand. And then I do have to go back
Speaker 2: to that Allison's angle clip that we played where she
Speaker 2: was like that is not only is Taylor Swift a saya.
Speaker 2: Professional sports are a syap. Youth sports that you put
Speaker 2: your kids in, you know, the parks and rec league
Speaker 2: or whatever that your kids are playing, and that's a
Speaker 2: syop too. I can't imagine messaging that is more poisonous
Speaker 2: to just like regular Americans going about their lives. If
Speaker 2: they heard that would be like, what the hell is
Speaker 2: wrong with you? What are you on? And I want
Speaker 2: nothing to no part of whatever your political project is here.
Speaker 1: Weren't you like a youth sports champion?
Speaker 2: I was a swimmer, Yes, so back in my day
Speaker 2: you spoke like somebody who was.
Speaker 3: Brainwashed by the youth sports right, And well the other.
Speaker 1: Thing there's I mean, there's just we could go on
Speaker 1: forever about this. I think you're right about.
Speaker 3: People thinking that Taylor Swift was one of them. Taylor Swift,
Speaker 3: a lot of people forgot. She had a song where
Speaker 3: she originally the lyric was that's fine, I'll tell mine
Speaker 3: that you're gay about like friend y.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it was picture to Burns. It was like
Speaker 3: her first or second record, and she said I think
Speaker 3: at one point that she was Republican. She did given
Speaker 3: signaling in the other direction and then got really famous
Speaker 3: and you know, did the Welcome to New York, moved
Speaker 3: to New York thing, kind of the small town girl
Speaker 3: archetype moving to New York City and seemed to like
Speaker 3: be liberal. So people could project all of that onto
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift. As she got wealthy, she became more liberal.
Speaker 3: And maybe there's something to that because the arc potentially,
Speaker 3: like of her signaling where she was politically might follow that.
Speaker 1: But that's not just Taylor Swift. That's very common.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't find her politics to be
Speaker 3: that compelling. I think she's been like very snobbish about
Speaker 3: her politics, honestly, and I've written about that before. But
Speaker 3: but all that is to say the real there was
Speaker 3: data behind the fact that when Taylor Swift posted a
Speaker 3: link to a voter registration drive, I think it was
Speaker 3: like in Tennessee, voter registrations among young people like actually
Speaker 3: were huge. She actually legitimately drove voter registrations, and people
Speaker 3: are really scared of that politically.
Speaker 1: And maybe you vote.
Speaker 3: Maybe you're right that Joe Biden is even like to
Speaker 3: the Biden campaign and Democrats are even too willing to
Speaker 3: buy into that that Taylor Swift can like swing the
Speaker 3: election for them. But but if you're conservative, it's true,
Speaker 3: like a lot of the country is sick of the
Speaker 3: cameras panning to Taylor Swift when Travis Kelsey plays it
Speaker 3: is like I find it incredibly annoying. I understand especially
Speaker 3: why a lot of people who aren't Taylor Swift fans
Speaker 3: or don't care about pop music find it really annoying.
Speaker 3: But this woman sold out tours like revitalized local economies.
Speaker 2: Didn't she like cause earthquakes with her tour? I mean
Speaker 2: it was like so gigantic, and here's the enormously popular.
Speaker 3: So the way to address the idea of Taylor Swift
Speaker 3: driving voter registration is not to attack Taylor's Swift.
Speaker 1: I mean that's insane, Like she's beloved.
Speaker 3: So going after Taylor Swift does a syop is not
Speaker 3: the way to like win your election.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna help you.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna help you again. I mean, I'm just
Speaker 2: skeptical that these, even the biggest celebrity endorser, really makes
Speaker 2: any difference in the grand scheme of things Democrats typically get,
Speaker 2: you know, the overwhelming majority of the celebrity endorsements. I
Speaker 2: did love Jack to Zovic when he was talking about
Speaker 2: his theories on this and Taylor being a Siab and Wine.
Speaker 2: He's like, we got you know, Kid Rock and.
Speaker 1: John bo Wait and Ted Nugent don't forget and Ted NuGen.
Speaker 2: So you know, we're good. We don't need we don't
Speaker 2: even need her, we don't even need her. That's the
Speaker 2: other layer that has been really interesting, Emily is the
Speaker 2: number of conservatives also who are out there like I
Speaker 2: don't even think she's like good looking at all, Like
Speaker 2: she's not even my tie, she's mid. Yeah, come on.
Speaker 2: This whole trend of pretending like incredibly beautiful women are
Speaker 2: actually not that attractive and mid is extremely annoying. And
Speaker 2: so there's also that level of a bunch of dudes
Speaker 2: who know they could never get Taylor Swift or anyone
Speaker 2: approaching her level, being like I wouldn't even want her anyway,
Speaker 2: She's not even attractive whatever. Who even cares about this woman?
Speaker 2: But to your point about her success, Like if you
Speaker 2: have a problem with Taylor Swift being everywhere and being
Speaker 2: so successful and NFL panning to her and you know,
Speaker 2: more tickets being sold to the Kansas City Chiefs or
Speaker 2: whatever because she's there, your problem is with capitalism, Like
Speaker 2: they're trying to get more eyeballs that make a buck,
Speaker 2: that's what. There's no conspiracy, that's just capitalism. That's just
Speaker 2: like marketing. And she has a very broad appeal across
Speaker 2: a wide demographic who are interested in her and her
Speaker 2: songs and are more likely I guess, apparently to watch
Speaker 2: a football game when her face is up there, you know,
Speaker 2: or when her boyfriend dynamics are on display. So that's
Speaker 2: that's the real scio p here. I guess is capitalism.
Speaker 3: My colleague Mark Hemingway, Well, actually a lot of people
Speaker 3: in the sort of k new right would agree with that.
Speaker 3: They'd be like, hell, yeah, the problem's capitalism. But my
Speaker 3: colleague Mark Hemingway, when he was writing about this on
Speaker 3: The Federalist this morning, is like, the right desperately needs
Speaker 3: to stop letting very online people control the sort of
Speaker 3: conservative message and discourse. And in a sense, you know,
Speaker 3: it's great that people who are marginalized as enfranchised don't
Speaker 3: have a foothold in Washington, d C. Have a voice,
Speaker 3: and those aren't always going to be like perfectly packaged
Speaker 3: cable news voices, and that's totally fine. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: there's some like legitimate cranks that are a will just
Speaker 3: like spout off about absolutely insane stuff and it builds
Speaker 3: on each other. Yeah, because people are so scared of
Speaker 3: getting piled on on Twitter that they don't just say.
Speaker 1: Like, dude, you gotta cut this out. It's not good.
Speaker 1: I know, the guy did commercials for Pfizer.
Speaker 3: But like, this isn't part of a grand scheme to
Speaker 3: like tip the election for Joe Biden. So it's just
Speaker 3: snowballs in a really unfortunate way.
Speaker 2: The Internet has its own set of incentives, you know,
Speaker 2: corporate media has a sent of incentives. The Internet. It
Speaker 2: has its own set of incentives that has helped to
Speaker 2: perpetuate and pour gasoline on the flames of the Taylor
Speaker 2: Swift as a sie of conspiracy theory.
Speaker 3: Yay, just an absolute delight, Crystal. You have a really
Speaker 3: important story to cover right now. Tell us what you're
Speaker 3: thinking about today.
Speaker 2: Well, after all these months of horse things that once
Speaker 2: shocked and ignited global debates now pass with barely a word.
Speaker 2: Tax on hospitals once covered and is really justifications for
Speaker 2: what is almost always a war crime where fiercely can tested.
Speaker 2: Now scores of hospitals have been attacked. The media doesn't
Speaker 2: even keep track anymore. As Israeli atrocities have become impossible
Speaker 2: to defend, the easier path for liberal Zionists has been
Speaker 2: simply turn away, like their eyes and their ears, harden
Speaker 2: their hearts to the horror. Even for those of us
Speaker 2: who can't or won't look away. How can any person
Speaker 2: truly fully grasp the absolute heartbreak and agony represented by
Speaker 2: images such as this. This map is a result of
Speaker 2: a Guardian investigation showing the sheer level of complete destruction
Speaker 2: of the Gaza strip. The red areas you see there
Speaker 2: that dominate the map, vividly illustrating the impact of a
Speaker 2: bombing campaign that even Joe Biden has described as indiscriminate.
Speaker 2: Each red pixel representing a house where a family gathered
Speaker 2: to celebrate a birth, or a death, or just the normal,
Speaker 2: beautiful humdrum of life. A school where children's dreams were nurtured,
Speaker 2: a hospital where countless newborns took their first breasts, and
Speaker 2: the loving arms of their parents. And now it's all
Speaker 2: painted in red and reduced to rubble. Somewhere under these
Speaker 2: red pixels are all so these solemn places where Palestinans
Speaker 2: said goodbye to their loved ones, buried them according to
Speaker 2: sacred traditions, laid them to rest with what they hoped
Speaker 2: would be eternal dignity. Even these graveyards places of mourning,
Speaker 2: symbolizing the link across generations. Even these were destroyed by
Speaker 2: the Israeli military.
Speaker 18: Today, the Israeli military acknowledged that they rolled into a
Speaker 18: cemetery took bodies out of graves as part of what
Speaker 18: they say as a search for Israeli hostages remains. But
Speaker 18: as the Israeli military put out that statement, we were
Speaker 18: completing our investigation into the Israeli military's desecration of cemeteries,
Speaker 18: and what we found is sixteen cemeteries across Gaza damaged
Speaker 18: or destroyed. I do want to warn our viewers that
Speaker 18: they may find some of these images the serving.
Speaker 5: In Gaza. Even the dead cannot escape the indignities of war.
Speaker 5: More than a dozen cemeteries like this one in Jabalia
Speaker 5: desecrated by the Israeli military. Gravestones destroyed, soil up to
Speaker 5: turned tread marks, leaving little left for the living to
Speaker 5: honor their dead. This is that same graveyard before the war.
Speaker 5: One month later, a series of treadmarks can be seen
Speaker 5: on the northwestern edge. It is no exception. A CNN
Speaker 5: analysis of videos and satellite imagery found that sixteen cemeteries
Speaker 5: have been damaged or destroyed by the Israeli military since
Speaker 5: it launched its ground offensive.
Speaker 2: So sixteen cemeteries, as I said, there were identified by
Speaker 2: CNN as having been desecrated in every way imaginable, and
Speaker 2: some truly beyond the imagination. Bodies, zoom tombs, destroyed, military
Speaker 2: outpat post established on top of grave sites. Now, it
Speaker 2: would be easy to overlook the destruction of these places
Speaker 2: and violation of these bodies, after all, they're already dead,
Speaker 2: and the scale of suffering the living understandably takes prece sense.
Speaker 2: But in the desecration of cemeteries we catch a glimpse
Speaker 2: of the true goals of this operation, and it has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with hunting Hummas or with Destroyingmas tunnels.
Speaker 2: In truth, Israel seeks the total annihilation of Palestinian life.
Speaker 2: In fact, eighty percent of the tunnel system remains intact,
Speaker 2: and while some Hammas fighters yes have been killed, the
Speaker 2: commitment to violent resistance that's the life flood of Hamas
Speaker 2: has probably never been stronger in practical terms of organization
Speaker 2: and power as well. Hamas is apparently regrouping and retaking
Speaker 2: civilian control of northern Gaza as the idea has moved south.
Speaker 2: In fact, Israel's shifting justifications for desecrating the cemeteries are
Speaker 2: so thin that even CNN is calling bullshit so in
Speaker 2: that initial report that I just showed, the IDF claimed
Speaker 2: you heard Jeremy Diamond say there that they raise the
Speaker 2: cemeteries to search for hostage remains. In a follow up investigation, though,
Speaker 2: the Israelis changed their story, attempting to claim that they
Speaker 2: had no choice but to destroy at least one cemetery
Speaker 2: because of Hamas tunnels located underneath of it, having already
Speaker 2: seen too much. However, CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond does not
Speaker 2: buy it back whether are worldly now.
Speaker 19: Week after a CNN investigation into the Israeli military's destruction
Speaker 19: of cemeteries in Gaza, the IDF invited seen aast Jeremy
Speaker 19: Diamond to what they say was a Hamas tunnel underneath
Speaker 19: a Gaza cemetery. Then they refused to show him exactly
Speaker 19: where the tunnel entrance was in the crater that was
Speaker 19: once a graveyard.
Speaker 5: This is no ordinary quarry. It's where the living once buried.
Speaker 5: They're dead. Gaza's Bonnie Sehala cemetery hollowed out by Israeli excavators.
Speaker 14: These were all grapes.
Speaker 5: This was a cemetery.
Speaker 18: But the military says that they were forced to come
Speaker 18: in here because they discovered a Hamas tunnel running right
Speaker 18: underneath that cemetery, but.
Speaker 5: The Israeli military failed to prove that stunning claim during
Speaker 5: a three hour tour of the area.
Speaker 2: So in the segment, they go on to show an
Speaker 2: Israeli general leading Jeremy Diamond through a tunnel network, including
Speaker 2: a so called command center that he claims the general
Speaker 2: claims runs underneath of the cemetery, But the entrance that
Speaker 2: Diamond is let into and Anna is not really close
Speaker 2: to the cemetery. And when Diamond presses for visual confirmation
Speaker 2: of the tunnel system actually being below the cemetery, the
Speaker 2: general gets really squirrely and it's ultimately caught in a
Speaker 2: complete lie.
Speaker 18: We're asking the general if we can actually see the
Speaker 18: shaft to the tunnel, but the answer is no.
Speaker 8: So there's all kind of the.
Speaker 14: Machinery which I want you just to take pictures of
Speaker 14: the security, Mark Forcemith. What about if we don't film it,
Speaker 14: we just look with.
Speaker 5: Our eyes and when you might fall in all think
Speaker 5: and collapse.
Speaker 4: Well, you have to walk to the edge.
Speaker 5: The edge is not secured, can collapse this machinery. So on,
Speaker 5: that's not something I'm going to take.
Speaker 6: A risk on sorry.
Speaker 5: The Israeli military later provided this drone footage showing the
Speaker 5: tunnel shaft we entered and another one nearby. CNN GEO
Speaker 5: located the footage using this satellite image. This outline shows
Speaker 5: where the cemetery one stood, and these are the two
Speaker 5: tunnel entrances, clearly outside the graveyard. As for the tunnel
Speaker 5: they say they found here where the cemetery once stood,
Speaker 5: the military never provided any evidence.
Speaker 18: And Jake, we pressed the Israeli military multiple times for
Speaker 18: that evidence, but instead they released a press release today.
Speaker 5: That actually poked more holes in their story.
Speaker 18: The story that General Goldfust told us when we were
Speaker 18: in that underground command center.
Speaker 5: He said that we were just below the cemetery.
Speaker 18: But the press release, a map that the Israeli military
Speaker 18: release today actually places that command center well outside the
Speaker 18: bounds of that cemetery.
Speaker 5: More questions than answers, Actually, I.
Speaker 2: Think you pretty clearly got your answer, and if you
Speaker 2: need more answers, I'd recommend you listen to the detailed
Speaker 2: plans and grand visions which were laid out at the
Speaker 2: massive conference that a dozen ministers from Netanyahu's government just attended. Here,
Speaker 2: they don't hide behind lies about tunnels, honey amas or
Speaker 2: human shields. The goal of annihilation is out in the open,
Speaker 2: and that goal isn't highly consistent with the military operation
Speaker 2: that we have witnessed, the imposed starvation and the new
Speaker 2: attacks on vital aid agencies. According to Haretz, the crowd
Speaker 2: at this resettlement conference was most rapturous when hearing calls
Speaker 2: for genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: The biggest response came for videos of soldiers in Gaza
Speaker 2: calling for the Strip to be resettled, shouting out that
Speaker 2: there are no innocence, or photographing themselves with banners for
Speaker 2: the Katif block that's the former Gaza settlements. The crowd
Speaker 2: responded to these with deafening cries and whistles. An attorney
Speaker 2: who was there distributed pamphlets positing a legal rationale for
Speaker 2: what he openly called Knockba two point zero. A rabbi
Speaker 2: claimed the only righteous course of action was to conquer
Speaker 2: the territory and quote the destruction and expulsion of anyone
Speaker 2: who opposes the rule of the Jewish people. Now, this
Speaker 2: genocidal philosophy explains the rationale behind the utter destruction of
Speaker 2: civilian life in Gaza far better than any preposterous hunt
Speaker 2: for hamas narrative.
Speaker 1: The attack on.
Speaker 2: UNRA, the UN agency devoted to Palestinian aid, also fits
Speaker 2: perfectly with this actual objective. It serves two purposes in
Speaker 2: the goal of annihilation. The first is quite obvious. At
Speaker 2: a time when Palestinians and gods are eating grass and
Speaker 2: drinking polluted water and literally starving to death, Defunding UNRA
Speaker 2: means war, suffering, more death, more pressure on the population
Speaker 2: to flee out of the strip entirely, never to return,
Speaker 2: just as those conference attendees are very clear that they
Speaker 2: ultimately want. As BB's Communications minister put it at the
Speaker 2: Ethnic Cleansing Conference, quote, voluntary immigration is at times a
Speaker 2: situation you impose until they give their consent. But it
Speaker 2: is also an assault on the very idea of Palestinians
Speaker 2: as a people with any right to self determination. Because
Speaker 2: unra's mission is to serve Palestinian refugees, which necessarily means
Speaker 2: that Palestinians are a people, that they deserve a state,
Speaker 2: and that they will remain refugees with the right of
Speaker 2: return until such time as a just land settle occurs
Speaker 2: for the Israelis. This is unacceptable. Palestinians their families, their
Speaker 2: aspirations are places of worship and education and daily life,
Speaker 2: and even cemeteries should be crushed into oblivion until as
Speaker 2: a people they just simply give up. All the idea
Speaker 2: of lives are really in service of hiding this true goal.
Speaker 2: And even the dead aren't left in peace. What chance
Speaker 2: do the living stand? And Emily, this is one of
Speaker 2: those stories.
Speaker 13: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 13: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: Emily, thank you so much for stepping in today and
Speaker 2: doing a great job today and as always, thanks for
Speaker 2: having me my pleasure. And you guys enjoy great weekends.
Speaker 2: We've got some content posting for you over the weekend
Speaker 2: and we'll be back with the full show on Monday.
Speaker 2: We'll see you then,