Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 3: Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. Ryan is on spring break,
Speaker 3: so we are very lucky to have Crystal joining us,
Speaker 3: and Crystal actually also has a little bit of an
Speaker 3: announcement about something that's going to be on the channel tonight. Crystal,
Speaker 3: how you doing and what have you got for us?
Speaker 1: Doing good? Always a pleasure to be joining you on
Speaker 1: a Wednesday, Emily, although it does deeply confuse me in
Speaker 1: terms of what day of the week it actually rhythm
Speaker 1: all thanks, so yeah, really throw me off, but I'm
Speaker 1: very happy to be here. Yeah, so thank you for
Speaker 1: reminding me. Sager is actually moderating a debate tonight. It's
Speaker 1: via zero Hedge, but it's going to be live streamed
Speaker 1: on our channel as well. The topic is Israel always
Speaker 1: you know, a light, easy breezy, no major disagreements there.
Speaker 1: And on one side you're going to have Jane Huger
Speaker 1: and Dave Smith. On the other side you're going to
Speaker 1: have Batya Angar Saga and Dennis Praeger. So I'm personally
Speaker 1: looking forward to tuning into that and seeing how it goes.
Speaker 1: But that'll be on our channel tonight at seven pm,
Speaker 1: so make sure you don't miss that. We got a
Speaker 1: lot though in the show to get to this morning.
Speaker 1: We've got major speaker drama, We've got new sanctions being
Speaker 1: announced against a Ron, We've got a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: free speech issues. We want to get to some very
Speaker 1: consequential SCOTUS oral arguments that happened yesterday that could be
Speaker 1: very significant for a lot of J six defendants and
Speaker 1: also for Donald Trump himself. Looks like the DOJ is
Speaker 1: going to sue Live Nation and Bill Maher making some
Speaker 1: interesting comments and also comes in the context of this
Speaker 1: whole NPR liberal whatever's going on at NPR. You can
Speaker 1: help me understand that as well, Emily, and.
Speaker 4: Katie Kirk is back talking to Bill Maher. Just so
Speaker 4: much going.
Speaker 1: On, Yeah, Katie Kirk you know, I that'd be a
Speaker 1: fun one for us to interview. We should try to
Speaker 1: get her. We should try to get her on I
Speaker 1: have some questions for her.
Speaker 4: That's a great idea.
Speaker 3: The only other thing I want to say before we
Speaker 3: dive in is that the debate that Sager's modern tonight
Speaker 3: sounds like a Stefan joke on Saturday Night Live. It'll
Speaker 3: have every everything, Dennis Prager, Sager and Jetty conversations about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was saying to you, it's such a weird world.
Speaker 1: We didn't habit, but this is what counts for, you know,
Speaker 1: A good time in my book is tuning into this
Speaker 1: and seeing how it goes. But I know Soger will
Speaker 1: do a fantastic job playing the you know, even handed moderator. There.
Speaker 1: So interesting to see the sparks fly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, make sure to tune in seven pm. Right here.
Speaker 3: Let's start though, also just down the street with Congress
Speaker 3: here in Washington, d C. Where you're a weekly dose
Speaker 3: of Groundhog Day. Yes, Mike Johnson might be ousted now
Speaker 3: Thomas Massey has joined Marjorie Taylor Green's motion to vacate.
Speaker 3: They still need to do the parliamentary procedure privileging the
Speaker 3: motion to vacate if you want to get really nerdy
Speaker 3: to actually force a vote on the motion to vacate
Speaker 3: the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson over his foreign
Speaker 3: aid package. This time, Thomas Massey actually called on him
Speaker 3: to resign. We're going to break all down all the details,
Speaker 3: but let's start with a clip of Mike Johnson talking
Speaker 3: to reporters yesterday in the Capitol. Here's what he had
Speaker 3: to say about the possibility of him resigning. What is
Speaker 3: your response to Republicans who say this move should cost
Speaker 3: you your job and that if.
Speaker 1: You don't resign they will try to oust you.
Speaker 5: I am not resigning, and it is in my view
Speaker 5: an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion
Speaker 5: when we are simply here trying to do our jobs.
Speaker 5: It is not helpful to the cause, It is not
Speaker 5: helpful to the country. It does not help the House
Speaker 5: republic Pigan's advance or agenda, which is in the best
Speaker 5: interest to the American people here a secure border of
Speaker 5: sound governance, and it's not helpful to the unity that
Speaker 5: we have in the body.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So again, that was Speaker Mike Johnson, responding to push
Speaker 3: for him to actually just resign, and this came really
Speaker 3: from Thomas Massey. We can put Thomas Massey sweet up
Speaker 3: on the screen. This is a two he said. I
Speaker 3: just told Mike Johnson in conference that I'm co sponsoring
Speaker 3: the motion of a Kate that was introduced by Marjorie
Speaker 3: Taylor Green. He should pre announce his resignation as Bayner did,
Speaker 3: so we can pick a new speaker without ever being
Speaker 3: without a GOP speaker. Christy who might remember that reference
Speaker 3: to what John Bayner did as the writing kind of
Speaker 3: ended up on the wall with Mark Meadows and Jim
Speaker 3: Jordan all the way back in like twenty fifteen. That's
Speaker 3: what Thomas Massey is referencing there. And this all over
Speaker 3: a bill, the text of which actually has not yet
Speaker 3: been released, but Mike Johnson has signaled will include half
Speaker 3: the aid to U Ukraine, to Israel, to Taiwan with
Speaker 3: none of the border security measures that his fellow Republicans,
Speaker 3: especially the sort of Freedom Caucus and Freedom Coccus adjacent
Speaker 3: people like Thomas Massin, like Marjorie Taylor Green who was
Speaker 3: ousted from the Freedom Caucus. But we don't need to
Speaker 3: get into all of that have demanded it be paired
Speaker 3: with border security or some other offsets, and they are
Speaker 3: furious with Mike Johnson for essentially working with Democrats, who,
Speaker 3: as Politico is reported, seem to be open to potentially
Speaker 3: saving Mike Johnson from this motion to vacate in order
Speaker 3: to get their aid to Ukraine, their aid to Israel.
Speaker 3: This is a three A tweet from Jake Sherman over
Speaker 3: at punch Bowl. He broke some of this down. He said,
Speaker 3: House Republicans plan to try to pass four bills this
Speaker 3: week to send aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. According
Speaker 3: to four sources familiar with the plan, maybe he had.
Speaker 4: Like one per bill.
Speaker 3: The fourth bill will include a ban on TikTok, a
Speaker 3: bill to sell, a bill to sell ob seized Russian assets,
Speaker 3: a lend Lease Act for military aid, convertible loan for
Speaker 3: humanitarian relief, and other provisions. The GOP leadership will try
Speaker 3: to move this plan under one rule, the sources said.
Speaker 3: So four bills under one rule, and those are some
Speaker 3: of the details of what those bills might actually look like,
Speaker 3: and Crystal'll toss it to you. But let's first take
Speaker 3: this tweet from Matt Stoller, which is aimed actually at Democrats.
Speaker 3: He said, this move is responding to Jake Sherman, will
Speaker 3: require Democratic support and as a move to create a
Speaker 3: de facto war party caucus that is beyond partisan reach.
Speaker 4: I hope Dems vote no. Mike Johnson has a one
Speaker 4: vote margin in.
Speaker 3: The House of Representatives right now, so Stoller is absolutely
Speaker 3: correct that it will completely, no question about it, involve
Speaker 3: Democrats saving Mike Johnson to pass that bill.
Speaker 4: Stoller seems to me to be dead on Crystal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I completely stand with Matt Stoller in his stands there.
Speaker 1: I hate basically, I mean, I do hate all four
Speaker 1: of these bills. I don't want any of them to pass.
Speaker 1: I could rank them in terms of which ones I
Speaker 1: hate them, but the unconditional support for Israel probably reaches
Speaker 1: the top of the list, although you know, the banning
Speaker 1: TikTok stuff I also am opposed to. But just to
Speaker 1: explain the legislative machinations here and why someone like Thomas Massey,
Speaker 1: who I have plenty of disagreements with but I consider
Speaker 1: to be a genuinely principled and actually courageous actor in
Speaker 1: the United States Congress, why I think he's correct to
Speaker 1: be very upset about this maneuver. So they've long been
Speaker 1: trying to push through more Ukraine AID, more Israel AID,
Speaker 1: more Taiwan AID, and you know, there's will put the
Speaker 1: border security piece from the Republicans to the side for
Speaker 1: a moment. And it's been difficult because you've got Republicans
Speaker 1: who some number of whom are opposed to Ukraine AID,
Speaker 1: You've got Democrats, some number of whom are now opposed
Speaker 1: to the Israel AID, and so you know, the thing
Speaker 1: that passed through the Senate, which pushed all these things together,
Speaker 1: was unlikely to pass through the House. What Mike Johnson
Speaker 1: is doing is basically a sort of legislative trick where
Speaker 1: he's saying, okay, well, let's break these pieces apart. We
Speaker 1: have enough pro war bipartisan consensus on Ukraine to pass
Speaker 1: just Ukraine through the House. We have enough pro war
Speaker 1: bipartisan consensus on Israel to just pass Israel through the House.
Speaker 1: So if we do those two things and these other
Speaker 1: pieces separately, and then after the fact, combine them together
Speaker 1: so that it resembles basically what got through the Senate,
Speaker 1: then there you go. We get our uniparty bipartisan pro
Speaker 1: war consensus funded all across the board. And so what
Speaker 1: Thomas Massey is saying is, basically, this is the polar
Speaker 1: opposite of what was promised to us when you were
Speaker 1: you know, when you were elected Speaker of the House,
Speaker 1: You're to be honest with you, Emily, some of the
Speaker 1: previous speaker machinations back when it was Kevin McCarthy and
Speaker 1: Matt Gates and whatever, didn't really make a lot of
Speaker 1: sense to me, and seem to be more performative on
Speaker 1: the part of Matt Gates here, my understanding at least,
Speaker 1: was one of the key reasons that McCarthy was ousted
Speaker 1: in favor of Mike Johnson was Mike Johnson's supposed opposition
Speaker 1: to Ukraine aid. You also had the specter of him
Speaker 1: completely folding and reversing with regard to Faiza and you know,
Speaker 1: the deep state and surveilling Americans. So I actually, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, Thomas Massey stand here makes sense. Is entirely principled,
Speaker 1: and I am certainly cheering for the whole thing to fail.
Speaker 1: I'm not all that helpful that it's going to fail.
Speaker 1: But to Stoler's point, what he's referring to here is
Speaker 1: for these bills to even get to the floor, they
Speaker 1: have to pass this, you know, the rules through committee.
Speaker 1: Typically Democrats don't vote for Republican rules through those committees.
Speaker 1: That's sort of like the traditional way, but it would
Speaker 1: require Democrats in order to accomplish that. So that's why
Speaker 1: if Democrat that's decided they wanted to block this, they could.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem to me entirely likely that that is
Speaker 1: going to happen, though at this point it seems like
Speaker 1: once again we're on track, very likely for the pro
Speaker 1: war consensus to get their money, as they seem to
Speaker 1: always be able to accomplish.
Speaker 3: And to that point, Actually, the House Intelligence Committee put
Speaker 3: out a statement yesterday, a joint statement from Chairman Mike Turner.
Speaker 3: Obviously was a huge sort of it was just on
Speaker 3: his victory lap over the FAISA win that the UNI
Speaker 3: Party had last week.
Speaker 4: But they put out a.
Speaker 3: Joint statement Mike Turner and the ranking member Jim Hymes,
Speaker 3: a Democrat, and said we must pass Ukraine aid now
Speaker 3: today in a classified briefing.
Speaker 4: Where have you heard that before?
Speaker 3: Our committee was informed of the critical need to provide
Speaker 3: Ukraine military aid this week. No specifics, of course, that's
Speaker 3: just how they like to frame these things. The US
Speaker 3: must stand against Putin's war of aggression now as Ukraine
Speaker 3: situation on the ground is critical. So Mike Johnson actually
Speaker 3: is allowing the uniparty to attach Ukraine AID to Israel AID,
Speaker 3: knowing that a lot of Republicans who are opposed to
Speaker 3: Ukraine AID at this.
Speaker 4: Point support Israel AID.
Speaker 3: That was a red line for many of these people
Speaker 3: that said, this is the ultimate betrayal. You know, we
Speaker 3: don't know exactly what we expected from you, Mike Johnson,
Speaker 3: but we heard you say many, many times that you
Speaker 3: opposed tying Ukraine AID to Israel AID, that you oppose
Speaker 3: continuing to fund the war in Ukraine without funding American
Speaker 3: border security. So it just feels like a big stab
Speaker 3: in the back and to those members. And on top
Speaker 3: of that, now there is this real, I think, principled
Speaker 3: blacklash from people like Thomas Massey. I couldn't agree more
Speaker 3: with you, Crystel that he is courageous and genuinely is
Speaker 3: committed to the principles on this question to prevent from
Speaker 3: happening exactly what Stolar is predicting. And I feel like Crystal,
Speaker 3: that is a it's something that if I had to bet,
Speaker 3: I would probably say won't happened because the politics of
Speaker 3: it for Democrats are so difficult right now. But then again,
Speaker 3: the margin here is so small that it wouldn't take
Speaker 3: that many Democrats to break away. If you have Jim
Speaker 3: Hymes already putting on a statement.
Speaker 1: Like that, Yeah, no, I mean, it's unfortunately been my
Speaker 1: view from the beginning that some way, somehow they were
Speaker 1: going to push through their Ukraine money, they were going
Speaker 1: to push through their Israel money, because they always do so,
Speaker 1: whether it's through this particular legislative maneuver or the next one.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like somehow they always find some
Speaker 1: way to get this type of money through. And it's
Speaker 1: it's almost a cliche at this point, like there isn't
Speaker 1: all this legislative maneuvering and pressure and repeated attempts to
Speaker 1: get the minimum wage lifted, or to get healthcare to
Speaker 1: more Americans, or to get you know, affordable childcare, or
Speaker 1: any other number of things that would benefit us. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to making sure that their donors, many
Speaker 1: of you know, plenty of whom come from the defence industry,
Speaker 1: are going to get paid or their future jobs in
Speaker 1: the defense industry are going to be locked up, or
Speaker 1: you know that APAK is satisfied with, you know, with
Speaker 1: their return on investment for their donations. When it comes
Speaker 1: to those things, they figure out some way. And even
Speaker 1: people who like Mike Johnson, who claim to be opposed
Speaker 1: to some of these things, suddenly when the pressure's on,
Speaker 1: he flips on a dime and he's right there standing alongside,
Speaker 1: you know, Mitch mccondell and Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden
Speaker 1: and all of the worst warhawks in the entire country.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm so you actually think though, that
Speaker 1: there's a chance that these things will fail because of
Speaker 1: the consternation on the Republican and the Democratic side this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder because we haven't totally seen the pressure
Speaker 3: campaign ratchet up on Democrats yet. Does it look for Democrats,
Speaker 3: especially in the House side where a lot of them
Speaker 3: are up for re election, like they're saving a Republican speaker.
Speaker 4: Do they worry about that? I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think those dynamics are what people are thinking about
Speaker 3: over at the d TRIP and the DNC today, and
Speaker 3: we might see some we might get like spidy senses
Speaker 3: as to where they're pushing people as this continues on,
Speaker 3: But there is reporting that they've talked about being open
Speaker 3: to doing it. That's even that was even you know,
Speaker 3: rumored back when it was McCarthy on the chopping box.
Speaker 3: So who knows how real it is if it's just
Speaker 3: a tool to keep having these conversations. But to put
Speaker 3: a fine point on what you just said, Crystal about
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson, it's like he said, he went into the
Speaker 3: skiff where you know, you get those confidential briefings and
Speaker 3: of classified information, and on section seven of two Phizer
Speaker 3: Reform last week said, you know, he wanted to prevent
Speaker 3: another nine to eleven from what he heard in the skiff.
Speaker 4: That's what he was really worried about. And it was
Speaker 4: actually a joke.
Speaker 3: In some sort of like freedom caucasy circles before that
Speaker 3: that Mike Johnson would go to the skiff and completely
Speaker 3: flip flop on Fiza, and that's exactly what happened. And
Speaker 3: it's funny because that's the language that Mike Turner and
Speaker 3: Jim Heimesi in that joint statement that we got a
Speaker 3: classified briefing today about the urgency for passing Ukraine Aid
Speaker 3: this week I mean, it is always the same thing,
Speaker 3: and that FAISA reform is now looking to be an
Speaker 3: even worse bill that within you know, just a couple
Speaker 3: of days between when everyone saw it when it was
Speaker 3: passed that it already looked.
Speaker 4: Like so you're right. I mean, they always always, for
Speaker 4: the most part, get what they want and the rest
Speaker 4: of us just have to sit back and take it.
Speaker 1: Well, and that tactic is so incredibly typical, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there's something really scary that we can't tell you about,
Speaker 1: but I promise you it justifies completely trampling on your
Speaker 1: constitutional rights. Yet again, just trust us? Why should we
Speaker 1: trust you? And remember when we were originally beginning to
Speaker 1: talk about this PISA reform, remember they leaked to the
Speaker 1: press about these Russian news. Yeah, like that was the
Speaker 1: you know, Oh, we've got to find the scariest thing
Speaker 1: we can possibly sell to the American people about why
Speaker 1: we are, you know, taking away their right to privacy
Speaker 1: here and going to continue surveilling them with a without
Speaker 1: a warrant. So yeah, it's a classic tactic to use fear. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it works all too often. But at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: there is at least some bipartisan skepticism of the you know,
Speaker 1: surveillance state, and so there's a little bit more of
Speaker 1: a roadblock to just you know, rolling everybody with their
Speaker 1: Russian space nuke you're mongering or whatever else they're going
Speaker 1: to roll out. But yes, it's a classic tactic and
Speaker 1: it has worked plenty of times, and ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: they do all kinds of things that don't really have
Speaker 1: the backing of the American people, they find a way,
Speaker 1: and I think this latest gambit which weaponizes the fact
Speaker 1: that there's so much support for you know, just constantly
Speaker 1: unconditional support for Israel, uh, you know, sufficient amounts amongst
Speaker 1: both the parties, and sufficient amounts to continue the Ukraine
Speaker 1: war indefinitely in spite of the fact that there's no
Speaker 1: real plan at this point. I genuinely don't know what
Speaker 1: the plan is at this point to help secure victory
Speaker 1: for the Ukrainians. It seems like we're just going to
Speaker 1: kick the can down the road. Brian made a comment
Speaker 1: that I thought was really important, which is we've covered
Speaker 1: the fact that the Ukrainians are struggling to find people
Speaker 1: to fight this war, are pulling men off the street,
Speaker 1: including men who are disabled physically and mentally disabled to
Speaker 1: send to the front lines, and we're using our tax
Speaker 1: dollars to put guns in the hands of people who
Speaker 1: have no desire to fight. I mean, it's it's frankly
Speaker 1: unconsfortable and moral at this point, especially with no plan
Speaker 1: of what's going to happen. So so in any case,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a disgusting consensus that exists in Washington,
Speaker 1: and I figured at some point they would they would
Speaker 1: come up with the legislative mechanism to get their way
Speaker 1: and to you know, fulfill the fondest wishes of the
Speaker 1: all the folks who live inside the Beltway who make
Speaker 1: millions off of continuing these conflicts.
Speaker 3: And just to end on a pessimistic note, actually, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, the consensus is building against the uniparty, and
Speaker 3: we saw that in Mike Johnson himself, someone who was
Speaker 3: friendly with Republican leadership. You know, he wasn't in the
Speaker 3: Freedom Caucus, he wasn't sort of on the fringes. He
Speaker 3: was against the Pfiser reform at first, he was against tying,
Speaker 3: he was against Ukraine without border spending and changed on that.
Speaker 3: And that's where I think it is really like room
Speaker 3: for there's plenty of room for pessimism because if even
Speaker 3: somebody like him, who you know, was sort of against
Speaker 3: all of these like obvious uniparty priorities, gets into office,
Speaker 3: there's no question he's in a really difficult spot. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think, big picture, it's clear that Austin Kevin McCarthy,
Speaker 3: while I have no tears for Kevin McCarthy, was tactically
Speaker 3: in error. You know, we don't have to roll the clip,
Speaker 3: but Kevin McCarthy basically said recently that he's not in
Speaker 3: he's not speaker because of Matt Gates, and McCarthy was
Speaker 3: way more sympathetic in style to that sort of wing
Speaker 3: of his party that he needs to get these bills
Speaker 3: across than Mike Johnson is. And Mike Johnson is friends
Speaker 3: with those guys. So it just feels to them like
Speaker 3: a slap in the face. And I think they're right
Speaker 3: to have that feeling, because he's someone who understood them,
Speaker 3: who spent time with them, who said the right things
Speaker 3: to them. And again, he's in a difficult spot. He's
Speaker 3: got a one vote margin, he doesn't have George Santos anymore.
Speaker 4: That's a real tragedy for him.
Speaker 3: But it's the math is tough, and their perspective on
Speaker 3: that is, well, the math is tough, so don't cave
Speaker 3: to the uniparty. You don't have to so, and I
Speaker 3: think that argument is obviously correct.
Speaker 4: But we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3: We actually don't even have the text of this bill
Speaker 3: yet again, so that'll drop at some point this week.
Speaker 3: It could really happen at any time, but I don't
Speaker 3: know that they'll even try to bring these bills to
Speaker 3: the floor as they plan to now until later this week,
Speaker 3: maybe in early next week. But we could be looking
Speaker 3: at billions billions more to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. We
Speaker 3: could also be looking at even if after they passed
Speaker 3: that they could oust Mike Johnson. So could be some
Speaker 3: really big changes to foreign policy and Congress in the
Speaker 3: days ahead.
Speaker 4: Crystal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the last two things I'll say about this
Speaker 1: is I just want to note once again the way
Speaker 1: that Trump has also completely flipped in the way he's
Speaker 1: talking about Ukraine is you know, now, embrace this ido.
Speaker 1: We're going to give them a loan. It's not really
Speaker 1: just a blank check. It's actually alone. Of course, we
Speaker 1: would never it's the same thing, right, We would never
Speaker 1: see that money against a posterous notion, and he can't
Speaker 1: be stupid enough to think otherwise. So there's that. The
Speaker 1: other thing just with regard to the philosophy of Mike Johnson,
Speaker 1: and this was why I was always skeptical of him
Speaker 1: in this position, you know, apart from other major ideological
Speaker 1: differences I have, but of course I'm going to have
Speaker 1: those with any Republican. At this point, he is a
Speaker 1: true believer when it comes to Zionism and comes to Israel,
Speaker 1: and it comes from this religious, evangelical place. So I
Speaker 1: can't even say it's like the money or the corruption,
Speaker 1: like I think he is a fervent believer in we
Speaker 1: got to support Israel no matter what they do, no
Speaker 1: matter what the cost, no matter how many people are killed.
Speaker 1: And so the minute you have that on someone, then
Speaker 1: it's basically all right, well, if you want so badly
Speaker 1: to ship that aid to Israel, what are you going
Speaker 1: to be able to do for us on these other
Speaker 1: pieces in terms of Ukraine. And so I think that
Speaker 1: for him is a big part of the reason why
Speaker 1: he flipped so quickly on some of these items.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean after October seventh, the cause for Ukraine
Speaker 3: with voters became you know, maybe even it may have
Speaker 3: actually hurt how voters feel towards Ukraine because of exactly
Speaker 3: the dynamics you just outlined, Crystal.
Speaker 1: We're getting more of a look at how the US
Speaker 1: is going to respond to, you know, first Israel's attack
Speaker 1: on the Iranian embac and Damascus, and then the Iranian response.
Speaker 1: So no sanctions or accountability for Israel. However, we are
Speaker 1: going to levy even more sanctions on Iran. Apparently, let's
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. This is initially reported
Speaker 1: by Barack Ravid Treasury to greenlight new Iran sanctions after
Speaker 1: Israel attack. If you read his report, he says Treasury
Speaker 1: Secretary Janet Yellen preparing fresh sanctions for Iran, vowing that
Speaker 1: the US will not hesitate to inflict economic punishment in
Speaker 1: response to the Islamic Republic's unprecedented attack on ISRAELI goes
Speaker 1: on to say, why it matters present Biden is urging
Speaker 1: bb to exercise military restraint, but in the economic sphere,
Speaker 1: the administration is demonstrating a willingness to retaliate against Iran.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things obviously that has absolutely
Speaker 1: enraged me in the discussion of this, you know, Iran
Speaker 1: Israel incredibly dangerous escalation is the attacks on Israel were
Speaker 1: described by many as quote unquote unprovoked, when of course
Speaker 1: they were not unprovoked. They were very directly and by
Speaker 1: the way, very intentionally provoked by net Yahoo with that
Speaker 1: attack on the Iranian consular building in Damascus. So the
Speaker 1: US to avoid having to condemn Israel over that attack
Speaker 1: on the embassy, which you know is very clear cut
Speaker 1: violation of Vienna Conventions, violation of international law, just complete
Speaker 1: warding of all sorts of international norms, and by the way,
Speaker 1: makes our own embassy officials and consular employees less safe
Speaker 1: because it opens up this door to any state actor
Speaker 1: around the world. So to avoid condemning them, but also
Speaker 1: to avoid signing on to the notion that embassies are
Speaker 1: just like open season and fair game. At this point,
Speaker 1: the administration has been playing this game of pretending like
Speaker 1: they don't really know whether or not this was actually
Speaker 1: an Iranian consular building. Matthew Miller was pressed on this
Speaker 1: by the incomparable Matt Lee. Let's take a listen how
Speaker 1: that went down.
Speaker 6: Have you guys decided to get our minute determination about
Speaker 6: whether what Israel hit in Damascus was a diplomatic or not.
Speaker 1: We have not.
Speaker 2: We have not.
Speaker 6: So how long is this going to take?
Speaker 7: I can't answer that question. We're continuing to look into it.
Speaker 7: I don't have a time to but it's something that
Speaker 7: we need to. We need to gather enough information that
Speaker 7: will allow us to make a determination.
Speaker 6: You have no one on the ground in Syria.
Speaker 7: We have a range, as I said to you when
Speaker 7: the last time you engage with me on this question,
Speaker 7: we have a range of abilities, a range of ways
Speaker 7: to gather information. They're partner countries of ours who are
Speaker 7: on the ground. We have intelligence capabilities off obviously, and
Speaker 7: we're continuing to gather information, but we've not yet been
Speaker 7: able to determinate.
Speaker 6: I get it. But you were pretty quick into you know,
Speaker 6: condemning the you know, the invasion of the Mexican embassy.
Speaker 7: And that was a very clear, well established This is
Speaker 7: something that is taking a little bit more time. And
Speaker 7: that's not the question. The question was what is it
Speaker 7: is it was it an embassy or a consulate or not,
Speaker 7: And it was very clear, very clear in the case
Speaker 7: of the Mexican it's something that we're gathering information on
Speaker 7: and we continue to gather information, we don't have a determination.
Speaker 1: How hard is it to figure that out? I mean,
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is, of course they know
Speaker 1: they answer, because if it wasn't a consulate building or
Speaker 1: some sort of a diplomatic building, they would instantly have
Speaker 1: said so. But the fact that they're dragging their feet, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're doing an investigation, we promise, we'll get back to you,
Speaker 1: tells you everything that you need to know, and is
Speaker 1: yet another instance of how they completely ignore or dispatch
Speaker 1: with any sort of the previous norms that they claim
Speaker 1: to care about when it comes to Israel. So no
Speaker 1: sanctions forthcoming on Israel or their incredible provocation here that
Speaker 1: any country would be rightly outraged by, but they are
Speaker 1: going to apparently retaliate against Iran or responding to that provocation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the one thing that drives me absolutely
Speaker 3: crazy in the diplomatic conversations about these conflicts. It's that
Speaker 3: the sanctity of international law is obviously and this is
Speaker 3: not new, but it is used as just a blunt
Speaker 3: force object and tossed around like a football. But it's
Speaker 3: not serious, and we know it's not serious. Matthew Miller
Speaker 3: knows it's not serious. Republican administrations and democratic administrations know
Speaker 3: it's not serious. It's publicly very sanctimonious. But they know
Speaker 3: that they're using international law, that sort of shield of
Speaker 3: international law as a tool as a political weapon when
Speaker 3: it suits them, and then they drop it when it's inconvenient.
Speaker 3: And there are serious geopolitical implications for doing that, which
Speaker 3: is why they do it in fact. Actually, but I
Speaker 3: don't think that they've you know, even after all of
Speaker 3: these decades reckoned with how seriously it hurts the credibility
Speaker 3: of the United States.
Speaker 4: And again, you can go back years, you can go
Speaker 4: back to the Cold War.
Speaker 3: And have conversations about how we talk about international law
Speaker 3: and such, you know, rarefied terms when it suits us,
Speaker 3: and then drop it when it doesn't. And this is
Speaker 3: a pretty clear cut example, as Mattley was getting at,
Speaker 3: just their crystal of us doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it once again raises the question of how
Speaker 1: is any of this in our interests? Because, yeah, now
Speaker 1: our people who are at embassies around the world are
Speaker 1: less safe because we have allowed this door to be
Speaker 1: completely opened, and of course the storming of the Mexican embassy,
Speaker 1: you know, immediately after that is not an accident, and
Speaker 1: yes we had something to say about that, but it
Speaker 1: was not nearly the condemn nation that likely would have
Speaker 1: come without Israel's actions, because they know that they look
Speaker 1: like absolute hypocrites. And same thing with the language that
Speaker 1: was previously used about Ukraine, you know, the humanitarian language,
Speaker 1: language about international law, about atrocities, about genocide, eve and
Speaker 1: suddenly we don't hear anything about that because they know
Speaker 1: how hypocritical they sound. And how you know when it
Speaker 1: comes to Israel, Oh, is was it a war crime? Well,
Speaker 1: we don't know. We need to get a lawyer. I'm
Speaker 1: not a lawyer who can really say. When it was Russia,
Speaker 1: they could say right away and they knew right away
Speaker 1: what was going on. The Other thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention about that Matt Miller interaction is that is such
Speaker 1: a classic tactic of oh, we're doing an investigation, but
Speaker 1: you never hear the results of these investigations, right, they
Speaker 1: never come so and you know, there was an investigation
Speaker 1: into the murder of the young girl Hinn who was
Speaker 1: assassinated by the way. Washing Post has a new report
Speaker 1: on this while she was in a car waiting for
Speaker 1: medics to come rescue her. Also, her would be medic
Speaker 1: rescuers were also targeted and assassinated, even though they were
Speaker 1: coordinating directly with IDF deconflicted, giving them their coordinates, telling them,
Speaker 1: waited hours to respond, telling them where they moved. These
Speaker 1: investigations are apparently you launched by the State Department and
Speaker 1: never come to any sort of conclusion. Something else that
Speaker 1: by the way, matt Lee has pressed Matthew Miller on
Speaker 1: all these variety of you know, massacres and atrocities that
Speaker 1: supposedly they're looking into. That. Oh, we never get the
Speaker 1: results of those, We never hear anything more about it,
Speaker 1: and we just move on to the next outrage. Speaking
Speaker 1: of investigations into atrocities, the UN has been attempting to
Speaker 1: conduct an investigation into atrocities committed against Israelis on October seventh,
Speaker 1: and somewhat shocking, Lamb and I guess I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: completely surprised, but Israel has actually blocked and obstructed them,
Speaker 1: according to that UN panel, in their attempt to investigate
Speaker 1: the acts that occurred on October seventh. Let's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. So this is from the Jerusalem Posts.
Speaker 1: They say un Commission accuses Israel of obstructing in October
Speaker 1: seventh probe, one of the members of the commission said
Speaker 1: they saw active obstruction by Israel of our efforts to
Speaker 1: receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims. And I'll read
Speaker 1: you the quote from this individual, Chris Sadati. He says,
Speaker 1: so far as the government of Israel is concerned, we've
Speaker 1: not only seen a lack of cooperation, but active obstruction
Speaker 1: of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and
Speaker 1: victims the events that occurred in southern Israel. And he said,
Speaker 1: we have contact with many, but we would like to
Speaker 1: have contact with more. The Israeli's claim they say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: victims would never get any justice or the dignified treatment
Speaker 1: they deserve from the Commission of Inquiry and its members,
Speaker 1: which they describe as having a track record of anti
Speaker 1: Semitic and anti israel statements. Obviously the go to anytime
Speaker 1: you want to smear someone and you don't like what
Speaker 1: they had to say about you in the past, just
Speaker 1: throughout that they must be anti Semitic. But I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty extraordinary Emily that basically they've instructed witnesses and
Speaker 1: survivors inside of Israel not to cooperate with this investigation,
Speaker 1: not into Israel's actions now in the Gaza Strip, but
Speaker 1: into the atrocities that were committed by Hamas and other
Speaker 1: Islamic militant groups on October seventh, and Israel apparently doesn't
Speaker 1: want the details of that day to come out. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of logical conclusions as to why,
Speaker 1: or speculation that you could get into. One is that
Speaker 1: the Israeli IDF response was pathetic. You had many people
Speaker 1: who were desperately waiting for hours and hours for anyone
Speaker 1: to come and help them, and that help was not forthcoming.
Speaker 1: So that's a very unflattering light. And then we do
Speaker 1: have some of these instances which have been documented by
Speaker 1: the New York Times and Haratz and other outlets at
Speaker 1: this point where some of the victims, not a majority,
Speaker 1: not all. I'm not trying to downplay the atrocites of
Speaker 1: Hamas on that day, but some of the victims did
Speaker 1: come from quote unquote friendly fire from the Israelis on
Speaker 1: that day, and I'm sure they don't want a light
Speaker 1: shone on that either.
Speaker 4: And you know, this is one of the I agree
Speaker 4: with both of those points.
Speaker 3: And one of the complicated things of the UN in
Speaker 3: this region is that talking to Ryan about this last week,
Speaker 3: it's absolutely true that in such a concentrated and densely
Speaker 3: populated area like Gaza, it's really like for the UN
Speaker 3: to operate for aid, for humanitarian aid.
Speaker 4: For geopolitical diplomacy.
Speaker 3: For all of that to happen, you're you're going to
Speaker 3: have crossover between the population that is supportive of Hamas,
Speaker 3: maybe even some active supporters of Hamas and the UN
Speaker 3: and things like UNRA because Hamas is the de facto
Speaker 3: government and so for that from Israel's perspective, UNRA does
Speaker 3: have some real problems where if you're Israel and you
Speaker 3: look at you know, for example, the much publicized textbooks,
Speaker 3: you're going to be like, oh my gosh, why would
Speaker 3: I want to, you know, hand over all of this information,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But it gets back to what we were just talking about.
Speaker 3: That countries like the United States and Israel will use
Speaker 3: the UN when it's convenient and not use the UN
Speaker 3: when it's not. And I do again, I think that
Speaker 3: is a real problem. So on the one hand, I
Speaker 3: totally understand in some cases why Israelis are like, this
Speaker 3: is the most sensitive information. Uh, this is you know, victims,
Speaker 3: this is people's lives, people's deaths, And we don't trust
Speaker 3: the UN right now because of you know, some of
Speaker 3: these legitimately documented patterns at UNRA but and in other
Speaker 3: parts of the UN. But that's not consistent with the
Speaker 3: approach towards the UN. And I think it is, you know,
Speaker 3: in some ways more political, but it's it's an unfortunate
Speaker 3: situation all around because what we do want our answers
Speaker 3: on what happened about what happened on October seventh, that
Speaker 3: might make the Israeli government look pretty bad, yeah, or
Speaker 3: might make anybody you know look pretty bad. And we
Speaker 3: can't get that information from an investigation in a way
Speaker 3: that we can trust, because nobody trusts the investigators. So
Speaker 3: we're not getting any closer to the truth. And what
Speaker 3: we really need is the truth, but we're not in
Speaker 3: a position to get it right now.
Speaker 1: These Israelis are so funny when it comes to the
Speaker 1: UN because you know, when it comes to the nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight UN partition plan, well, that's that's set and stone.
Speaker 4: Right, that's the UN.
Speaker 1: It was the UN, and they didn't listen to the UN.
Speaker 1: How could you, right, Yes, when it comes to this
Speaker 1: ceasefire resolution that just passed the UN Security Council, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're just going to pretend that didn't happen at all.
Speaker 1: We're not going to listen to that whatsoever. When it
Speaker 1: comes to the report that was issued regarding the rape
Speaker 1: in the context of October seventh, well that they were
Speaker 1: very happy to embrace. When it comes to this report,
Speaker 1: which they expect would shine an unflattering light on them
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways, well, we're not going to cooperate.
Speaker 1: What's and we're going to claim that you're anti Semitic.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 1: When it comes to Iran's Israel attacking the Iranian Consulate, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear what the UN has to
Speaker 1: say about that. But when it comes to Iran responding,
Speaker 1: suddenly they want an emergency meeting of the UN Security
Speaker 1: Council to issue some sort of a condemnation. So it's
Speaker 1: just so incredibly naked. And then just the blanket calls
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism at every turn, are you know, I
Speaker 1: just don't think that they're landing By the way the
Speaker 1: same way that they once did. Because at this point
Speaker 1: even Joe Biden has been smeared as like pro Hamas.
Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous the number of things that have been
Speaker 1: labeled anti Semitic, pro hamas, pro terrorist, et cetera. So
Speaker 1: it starts to fall on deaf years, and that's a
Speaker 1: real loss because anti Semitism is a real problem, it
Speaker 1: is a real scourge. And when you casually throw around
Speaker 1: this language anti Semitism blood libel about accurately describing what
Speaker 1: happening in Gaza or about accurate or legitimate criticism of
Speaker 1: the Israeli government, the term becomes meaningless, and then it
Speaker 1: helps to fuel an actual, you know, legitimate rise in
Speaker 1: anti Semitism as well, it makes people more skeptical of
Speaker 1: that claim being made in every instance, speaking of you know,
Speaker 1: some of the mythology around October seventh that we know
Speaker 1: there were horrific atrocities. Those atrocities should be condemned by
Speaker 1: any decent person where they were committed against civilians. Yet
Speaker 1: we know there were some stories that were fabricated in
Speaker 1: order to serve as a real justification or barbarism against
Speaker 1: Palestinians in Gaza. You know, the beheaded babies, the baby
Speaker 1: baked in the oven. We've got a new example of that,
Speaker 1: although this one got shot down almost immediately. Put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. So you had a number of
Speaker 1: outlets reporting that among survivors the Nova Music Festival, which
Speaker 1: was one of the worst scenes of carnage on October seventh,
Speaker 1: there was a claim made that there had been almost
Speaker 1: fifty suicides among those survivors. Now, this claim on its
Speaker 1: face seems fairly outrageous and outlandish, but a number of outlets,
Speaker 1: including the Daily Beasts here report this just uncritically. Well,
Speaker 1: this was so sort of out there of a claim
Speaker 1: emily that it was almost immediately shot down, even by
Speaker 1: the Israeli health ministers. Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Head of the Israeli Health Ministry was asked about this
Speaker 1: and said directly that this was not true. He said,
Speaker 1: based on an examination connected with the Nova Community Association
Speaker 1: as well as with other parties, it emerged such data
Speaker 1: is unknown. But he also said directly that the rumors
Speaker 1: about number of suicides and hospitalizations are not true. So
Speaker 1: another attempt to you know, again, the atrocity on that
Speaker 1: day were enough, they were horrifying enough, but there's this
Speaker 1: constant desire to create the most horrifying, you know, visual
Speaker 1: imagery and notion of what occurred on that day in
Speaker 1: an attempt very directly to justify things that are even
Speaker 1: under the worst circumstances, not justifiable, being done against children
Speaker 1: and women and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza strip.
Speaker 3: This is I mean again, we're talking about the Jerusalem Post.
Speaker 3: It's not like this is and this is in where
Speaker 3: the Health Ministry pushed back on this, So it's not
Speaker 3: like this is just coming from this This pushback is
Speaker 3: just coming from the Israeli government either. I mean, this
Speaker 3: is media is actually focusing on it. I think that's
Speaker 3: worth noting too, that there's you know, a real again,
Speaker 3: I think, thirst for the truth on these questions, because
Speaker 3: you know, for Israelis, they're so sensitive and rightfully so,
Speaker 3: about the truth and about what really happened and about
Speaker 3: the victims here. And so I feel like, actually, Crystal,
Speaker 3: it's interesting even to see places like the Jerusalem Post
Speaker 3: looking critically at claims like this and as they should
Speaker 3: be and as all of us should be, and this
Speaker 3: particular one based on the Health Ministry, which I can't imagine.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think of what reason they would have
Speaker 3: to sort of actively push back on this if it
Speaker 3: were you know, plausible, if it were true. This narrative
Speaker 3: really had holes poked in it just about right away.
Speaker 3: And you know, to your point earlier about how there's
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot more skepticism than maybe there
Speaker 3: was in the past, I think this really goes along
Speaker 3: with that. With that argument, This totally confirms that.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 1: I don't want to lose cite of as we talk
Speaker 1: about what might happen between Iran and Israel and the
Speaker 1: US and sit here on the brink of you know,
Speaker 1: potentially terrifying further escalation, all of which is still very
Speaker 1: on the table, very much on the table. I don't
Speaker 1: want to lose sight of what continues to be the
Speaker 1: reality in Gaza, where you have millions of people continuing
Speaker 1: to starve, You have northern Gaza in famine. You had
Speaker 1: people that we covered yesterday trying to return to their
Speaker 1: homes in northern Gaza who were shot at The very
Speaker 1: latest report out of Gaza is that you had eleven
Speaker 1: children who were killed as they were playing at a
Speaker 1: playground in Rafa, of course being the place where there
Speaker 1: is a planned invasion where more than a million Palestinians
Speaker 1: have been pushed in are sheltering in imporrent conditions at
Speaker 1: this point. So they had built this playground for the
Speaker 1: children to help take their mind off of the horrors
Speaker 1: and the trauma that they've all experienced, and they came
Speaker 1: under fire and were killed by Israelis. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to a little bit of this report from Anjazira.
Speaker 9: Looking at a very horrific talk that just took place
Speaker 9: at a Maazi refuge account within the past forty five
Speaker 9: minutes or so and a drone fire, the missiles and
Speaker 9: a group of people.
Speaker 1: Later on, we learned.
Speaker 9: It from eyewitness in the area that this were a
Speaker 9: group of children at a playground that was set up
Speaker 9: near a camp for displaced families, and those children are
Speaker 9: regularly visiting displayground. And just as a father of three
Speaker 9: children understand how why displaced families would send their kids
Speaker 9: just for an hour or a couple hours, just to
Speaker 9: keep them entertained and release the release the old, the
Speaker 9: negative energy in them. Because right now, displaced families have
Speaker 9: the hardest time inside tents or inside other people's residential
Speaker 9: homes trying to stay protected and save, but it's as
Speaker 9: necessary as also stay in safe just to give space
Speaker 9: to those children. So eleven children have been killed in
Speaker 9: this attack, and just one wonder what spread these children
Speaker 9: have opposed to have the Israeli military fire and missilely
Speaker 9: drawn on them. Eleven reported killed, with more with dozens
Speaker 9: of injuries in the area. Those who had the scene
Speaker 9: of the attack describe horrific scenes of children torn apart
Speaker 9: by the massive explosion caused by the missiles.
Speaker 1: Just unimaginable and emily. I think the fact that there
Speaker 1: was starting to be more of a focus on both
Speaker 1: the humanitarian situation and the level of devastation annihilation that
Speaker 1: has been you know, committed in the Gaza strip. I
Speaker 1: think that's part of the reason for the timing of
Speaker 1: Israel's strike on the Iranian consulate was exactly to get
Speaker 1: these sorts of stories out of the news. They're starting
Speaker 1: to be, you know, a little bit of different language
Speaker 1: being used, especially after the World Central Kitchen Aid workers
Speaker 1: had been killed. That really structure the heart of a
Speaker 1: lot of liberals who personally know Jose Andres and you know,
Speaker 1: now a story such as this is not going to
Speaker 1: really get airtime much of anywhere, as everyone just focuses
Speaker 1: on and understandably the you know, the situation where Iran
Speaker 1: is very grave, we're obviously covering it here. But I
Speaker 1: think there was an intentional decision to try to push
Speaker 1: these stories out of the news and focus on something
Speaker 1: where you be felt he would be on stronger ground
Speaker 1: with the world community, and also to continue his grip
Speaker 1: on power in Israel, where he's deeply unpopular.
Speaker 3: Well, this brings us back to what we talked about
Speaker 3: earlier in the show in terms of US funding for
Speaker 3: this war. I mean, you could even make the argument
Speaker 3: about funding for the war in Ukraine that a lot
Speaker 3: of these decisions, by the way, I mean this invasion
Speaker 3: of Rafa, Apparently the Yahu said he has a date,
Speaker 3: but our government said they weren't sharing it with them,
Speaker 3: that the Israel was keeping that date private.
Speaker 4: They weren't sharing with the US government.
Speaker 3: Apparently they're afraid of leaks from the US government, intel
Speaker 3: leaks from the US government and from our intelligence community.
Speaker 4: That's what we heard.
Speaker 3: But the point is this conspiral so quickly and it
Speaker 3: can spiral on our dime without our oversight, not that
Speaker 3: our oversight would be that much better, mind you, but
Speaker 3: that at at least, you know, people making decisions in
Speaker 3: the US, even if they don't care about the American
Speaker 3: people as much as they should and don't prioritize the
Speaker 3: real interests of the American people as much as they should,
Speaker 3: are responsive to the American public.
Speaker 4: And we're in a position right now.
Speaker 3: I think the attacks over the weekend really and the
Speaker 3: attack in Damascus really have brought that into focus. You
Speaker 3: guys have covered this, You and Soccer have covered this
Speaker 3: so excellently. How precarious the situation is right now. Let's
Speaker 3: not forget there are other adversaries that are aligned with this.
Speaker 3: Russia are on China. All of the sort of recipes
Speaker 3: for a broader conflict, all of the necessary ingredients in
Speaker 3: that recipe of broader conflict are coming together. And I
Speaker 3: don't think anybody feels confident that the Abiden administration or
Speaker 3: that Yahoo are just firmly in control of mitigating any
Speaker 3: potential explosions. In fact, the Damascus to what happened in
Speaker 3: Damascus underlines that probably for a lot of people, Crystal
Speaker 3: and such a fragile geopolitical ecosystem right now.
Speaker 1: And where bb knew he could take such an extraordinarily
Speaker 1: provocative and honestly outrageous act and he could get away
Speaker 1: with it because he's gotten away with everything else. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, I mean, listen, Bibe has the lion's share
Speaker 1: of the blame. I would say Joe Biden is basically
Speaker 1: equally culpable for creating this incredibly dangerous situation, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, something they claim to want to avoid From
Speaker 1: the beginning of this conflict, they claimed they wanted to
Speaker 1: avoid this broader war. Well, even without this direct Iranian escalation,
Speaker 1: we had already seen this conflict spread beyond Gaza, talking
Speaker 1: about Yemen, a rack, Syria ra and troops coming under
Speaker 1: fire and in some instances being killed, So that cat
Speaker 1: is already out of the bag. Now what we're staring
Speaker 1: down is something even more terrifying, which you know, there
Speaker 1: was a report. I don't know if you saw this,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if this is true because
Speaker 1: it's from a new sources that I'm not particularly familiar with,
Speaker 1: But there was this report that the Biden administration got
Speaker 1: in touch with Iran after the you know, Iranian attack
Speaker 1: on Israel and said, hey, how about you just let
Speaker 1: Israel respond just like a little response and don't do
Speaker 1: anything like can you imagine can you imagine another country
Speaker 1: asking us like, hey, if they directly attack your country,
Speaker 1: could you just like not really care about that? Would
Speaker 1: that be fine with you? And according to the report,
Speaker 1: which again I don't know if this is accurate, but
Speaker 1: it was reported by a few different news sources, the
Speaker 1: Iranians will of course like piss off, like no, we're
Speaker 1: not going to listen to you, and just be fine
Speaker 1: if Israel directly attacks us back after they were the
Speaker 1: ones again with this initial provocation attacking our embassy and
Speaker 1: killing our people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3: It's like, not that it is surprising, but it is
Speaker 3: creepy and disturbing. How reports suggests that there's this almost
Speaker 3: stage managing of the conflict and saying you're allowed to
Speaker 3: know the reports are with Iran, with Israel, you're allowed
Speaker 3: to do something you know at this like that is
Speaker 3: proportional to this, and then they're allowed to do something
Speaker 3: that's proportional to that, as though this is going to
Speaker 3: totally mitigate the possibility of an explosion in this conflict, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, the safety of Israelis and Netanyah, who's
Speaker 3: popularity in israel I think speaks to this, or lack
Speaker 3: of popularity or his difficulty with his political coalition speaks
Speaker 3: to this. Obviously, israel Is we're not safer under net
Speaker 3: Nyahu because of October seventh. That's not to blame him
Speaker 3: for the actions of Hamas, but that is to say
Speaker 3: that he was in charge of the country and there
Speaker 3: are a lot of serious questions that need to be
Speaker 3: asked about the security of the Israeli people on October seventh,
Speaker 3: on October sixth, before October seventh, and going.
Speaker 4: Forward as well.
Speaker 3: Is he managing is he prosecuting a war in a
Speaker 3: way that protects the people of Israel as much as
Speaker 3: they deserve to be protected?
Speaker 4: Are we doing that? Are we? Are we keeping American
Speaker 4: lives out of the Middle East? Are we minimizing the
Speaker 4: possibility of boots on the ground in the Middle East
Speaker 4: right now? And our prosecution of this war and our
Speaker 4: funding of this war, same thing goes for Ukraine. I
Speaker 4: don't think anybody gone has confidence that the answer to
Speaker 4: that question is yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the last thing I'll conclude with and then
Speaker 1: we can move to other ways in which Congress you know,
Speaker 1: really has their eye on the ball with all of
Speaker 1: this and the you know, I think the free speech
Speaker 1: moment on the right being officially dead and gone. But
Speaker 1: it brings me back to that quote that was leaked
Speaker 1: to an Israeli news station where someone who's in the
Speaker 1: room said, you know, if Israelis were privy to the
Speaker 1: conversations that are going on in the war cabinet right
Speaker 1: now about how to potentially respond to Iran, there would
Speaker 1: be four million Israelis rushing to the airport trying to
Speaker 1: get out of this country. So shows you some of
Speaker 1: the insanity that is at least being contemplated from the
Speaker 1: Israelis right now, and which obviously directly implicates all of
Speaker 1: us in a way that should leave a genuinely fearful
Speaker 1: and quite wary of where this is all headed.
Speaker 3: In part because, by the way, there's similar insanity in
Speaker 3: Iran about what they want to happen to Israel. Like
Speaker 3: that's why the threat is so acute and so real,
Speaker 3: because these are deep religious and in some ways irrational
Speaker 3: conflicts that you can't stage manage out of existence, and
Speaker 3: that there are like actual desires among some radicals to
Speaker 3: wipe Israel off the face of the earth in the
Speaker 3: way that you know Israel wants a one state solution
Speaker 3: or something like that. There are also people like in
Speaker 3: Iran that don't want Israel to exist and in fact
Speaker 3: don't want Jews to exist. So the possibility for something
Speaker 3: that jeopardizes the safety of Jews in Israel, of Jews
Speaker 3: around the world is not nil. And you know, obviously
Speaker 3: not Yah who knows that. Obviously supporters of Netanyaho.
Speaker 4: Not in Yahoo know that.
Speaker 3: But whether you know the sort of bold like boisterous
Speaker 3: provocations are the best way to minimize that possibility is
Speaker 3: an open question at best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't really think it is an open question.
Speaker 1: But your right to point to the fact that BB
Speaker 1: has wanted this war with Iran for a long time
Speaker 1: and was deeply opposed to any sort of improvement in
Speaker 1: diplomatic ties with the US, deeply opposed to the Iranian
Speaker 1: nuclear deal as one example, you know, sort of made
Speaker 1: the initial split and made support for Israel more partisan
Speaker 1: by coming here under Obama. So yeah, there's a long end, complicated,
Speaker 1: intense history, there no doubt about it. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and move on to some of the things that the
Speaker 1: Congress is up to so in addition to passing yet
Speaker 1: another resolution on anti semitism, this one condemning the protest
Speaker 1: chant from the River to the Sea as being anti
Speaker 1: semit No word on whether it's the anti semitic when
Speaker 1: it comes from b B himself or from the LACUD
Speaker 1: party charter, from his son or whatever. Anyway. They also
Speaker 1: are convening yet another panel and calling forth yet another
Speaker 1: university president to speak on their actions to combat anti
Speaker 1: Semitism on campus. The Columbia University president is set to
Speaker 1: testify to that same Congressional panel that caused the whole
Speaker 1: uproar last time around, which we of course covered here
Speaker 1: and led to a number of them losing their jobs.
Speaker 1: That president is out with a Wall Street journal at
Speaker 1: ed to try to sort of set the stage for
Speaker 1: what they're going to say. The headline here at Columbia
Speaker 1: University President, what I plan to tell Congress tomorrow. Anti
Speaker 1: Semitism and calls for genocide have no place at a university.
Speaker 1: My priority has been the safety and security of our community,
Speaker 1: but at leaves plenty of room for robust disagreement and debate.
Speaker 1: Let me read you a little bit of this. Also,
Speaker 1: her notes were leaked about how she plans to talk
Speaker 1: about this issue, and very similar to what's laid out
Speaker 1: in the op ed here. But the op ed reads,
Speaker 1: while disagreement and debate are to be welcomed at a university,
Speaker 1: that should happen within specific parameters, calling for the genocide
Speaker 1: of a people, whether they are Israeli or Palestinians, Jews, Muslims,
Speaker 1: or anyone else, has no place in a university community.
Speaker 1: Such words are outside the balance of legitimate debate and
Speaker 1: unimaginably harmful. Second, well, there may be some easy cases,
Speaker 1: drawing the line between permissible and impermissible campus speech is
Speaker 1: enormously difficult, And then she continues and thinking about these
Speaker 1: boundaries of permissible speech. One idea we have adopted at
Speaker 1: Columbia is to define a designated space for protests. This
Speaker 1: approach allows for fewer limits on speech, usually a desirable
Speaker 1: value at a university because those who don't want to
Speaker 1: hear what is being said need not listen. It also
Speaker 1: means the core functions of university teaching and learning can
Speaker 1: continue uninterrupted. There's a few things about this. There's actually
Speaker 1: a lot to say about the SAP ed. First of all,
Speaker 1: on the alleged calls for genocide, and this came up
Speaker 1: in the context of the initial congressional hearings that caused
Speaker 1: such a fuss on this. There's no specifics, there's no
Speaker 1: specific examples of students actually doing this. And so are
Speaker 1: you talking about just a call for equal rights from
Speaker 1: the river to the sea, are you calling about you know,
Speaker 1: talking about the chance to globalize the Intifada? What are
Speaker 1: you referring to tiers specifically? Because there's been this pretense
Speaker 1: that there's some outbreak of outright genocidal language occurring on
Speaker 1: college campuses. And I'm not going to say there's not
Speaker 1: a single instance or there isn't genuine anti semitism out there.
Speaker 1: I think that'd be a ridiculous thing to say. But
Speaker 1: we never seem to see these instances of this supposed
Speaker 1: call for genocide against the Jews happening on college campuses,
Speaker 1: So it's left very vague. And then in addition, what
Speaker 1: you've actually seen in terms of Colombia is a real
Speaker 1: crackdown on the rights of students, and in a very
Speaker 1: one sided way. Colombia is being sued actually right now
Speaker 1: for unlawfully banning multiple pro Palestine groups. So the New
Speaker 1: York Civil Liberties Union and a Palestinian rights organization filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against Columbia University so that you had Justice
Speaker 1: and Students for Justice in Palestine and Columbia barn Are
Speaker 1: Jewish Boys for Peace both banned and Columbia administrator previously
Speaker 1: said the group's repeatedly violated college policies like holding unauthorized
Speaker 1: events and that the gathering included threatening rhetoric and intimidation.
Speaker 1: But once again, there's no specifics given about what that
Speaker 1: rhetoric or what that intimidation is. They just sort of
Speaker 1: came in over the top and shut down these two groups.
Speaker 1: And you also have an incident which was pretty horrif
Speaker 1: buying where a number of pro Palestine activists were sprayed
Speaker 1: by some sort of a chemical irritant. There was a
Speaker 1: recent Al Jazeera documentary about what happened, and the investigation,
Speaker 1: which from the university side has basically gone nowhere into
Speaker 1: what was effectively a chemical attack against pro Palestinian demonstrators.
Speaker 1: Let's watch a little bit of that kind of got
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it smells like someone is dying.
Speaker 8: We smelled that.
Speaker 4: That's what I was hospitalized for severe bored version.
Speaker 10: These students are describing the moment they suffered an alleged
Speaker 10: chemical attack during a pro Palestine rally at one of
Speaker 10: the world's most prestigious universities. Students say the chemical smelled
Speaker 10: like skunk, which has been used by Israeli forces against Palestinians.
Speaker 1: We're not safe in the West Bank, We're not safe
Speaker 1: in Gaza. Even in the US, we aren't safe.
Speaker 10: In this report, we revealed previously unpublished images and footage
Speaker 10: of suspicious activity at the protest. More than two months
Speaker 10: after the incident, no suspects have been named, while students
Speaker 10: speaking up or Palestinian rights have received death threats, been doxed,
Speaker 10: and targeted by professors.
Speaker 1: Does me being Palestinian? Does that inherently mean I'm a terrorist?
Speaker 1: That's how they're treating us so emily to me, The
Speaker 1: bottom line here of this congressional inquiry is you'll have
Speaker 1: a lot of people who talked a big game about
Speaker 1: free speech who suddenly are dragging university president before them
Speaker 1: to demand more censorship and more crackdowns on free speech.
Speaker 1: And I doubt, at least from the Republicans side, we're
Speaker 1: going to hear much in terms of questioning about the cancelation,
Speaker 1: the banning of these activist groups and the investigation into
Speaker 1: what happened to these students.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I agree that this is a real
Speaker 3: challenge for conservatives, for elected Republicans who have held all
Speaker 3: kinds of hearings on campuses in the last several years,
Speaker 3: and Columbia is a place where that dilemma I think
Speaker 3: is in sharp focus. They had from the very pros
Speaker 3: or a Washington Free Beacon right now, but they have
Speaker 3: an interesting report, they say. During a January fifth interview
Speaker 3: with socialist podcast Revolutionary Left Radio, Islamic scholar Mohammad Abdu
Speaker 3: declared his support for Hamas and the quote resistance the
Speaker 3: terror groups quote dedicated few. He said admiringly worked in
Speaker 3: quote stealth mode on October seventh to defeat a larger
Speaker 3: enemy in Israel. Just days later, on January sixteenth, Columbia
Speaker 3: University's Middle East Institute extended a quote warm welcome to Abdu,
Speaker 3: the Ivy League School's latest visiting professor in Modern Arab studies,
Speaker 3: and it goes on later in the article to quote
Speaker 3: him four days after October seventh, saying, yes, I'm with
Speaker 3: the resistance be it Hamas and Hesbalah and Islamic jihad,
Speaker 3: and he talked about false reports accusing Arabs and Muslims
Speaker 3: of decapitating the heads of children and being rapists, and
Speaker 3: he said, I might be with Hamas and support the
Speaker 3: resistance absolutely.
Speaker 4: Look what the fifteen hundred did.
Speaker 3: They were organized, and they worked in stealth mode, and
Speaker 3: they divested. Judith Butler, who is an academic, also has
Speaker 3: referred to Hamas and has as the quote resistance for
Speaker 3: a long time, and I think that's honestly, I think
Speaker 3: that's protected speech. That's I think it's a challenge for
Speaker 3: conservatives and Republicans to sort of live up to the
Speaker 3: game that they've talked. Now, whether it's protected speech is
Speaker 3: somewhat a different question as to whether that's someone worthy of,
Speaker 3: you know, being a visiting professor of Arab studies. You know,
Speaker 3: I think it's entirely an ideological disagreement. People can can
Speaker 3: talk about Hamas and Hezbollah in the context of being
Speaker 3: the resistance. I personally find that to be abhorrent. But it's,
Speaker 3: you know, something that should be debated obviously, out in
Speaker 3: the open and not sort of relegated to these corners
Speaker 3: where it festers. I don't think that's healthy, whether it's
Speaker 3: happening on the fringes of the outright or the sort
Speaker 3: of fringes in this situation.
Speaker 4: Either.
Speaker 3: If I were the head of Columbia University, I would
Speaker 3: look at that and I'd be like, well, maybe we
Speaker 3: need someone who brings like slightly more balance to this
Speaker 3: question at our school, or slightly more nuanced to this
Speaker 3: question than referring to Hamas and Hausbla as potentially the
Speaker 3: resistance and admiringly talking about their stealth mode on October seventh.
Speaker 3: But this is a I actually think this is a
Speaker 3: really helpful example for Republicans that it is really difficult
Speaker 3: to stand up for free speech on campus when it's
Speaker 3: you know, somebody like this, as opposed to when it's
Speaker 3: you know, your own speakers.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the point of free speech, That's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Is it only matters when it's speech that you disagree with,
Speaker 1: that you may despise, that you may find abhorrent. That's
Speaker 1: when the principle actually matters. When it's something everybody's cool
Speaker 1: with and comfortable with, well, you don't really need those
Speaker 1: protections because it's going to be fine, you know, in
Speaker 1: another instance of how quickly the language from the right
Speaker 1: on all of this has flipped. You know, all these
Speaker 1: concerns about like student safety, You see that in this
Speaker 1: instance of the Columbia University president being called to testify
Speaker 1: about protecting Jewish student making sure they don't feel unsafe
Speaker 1: on campus, not because they're physically threatened, but because they
Speaker 1: might hear something at a protest that makes them feel unsafe.
Speaker 1: You also had that same safety language being used by USC.
Speaker 1: And let's put this up on the screen. I find
Speaker 1: this so disgraceful. So they announced that their valedictorian, Asna
Speaker 1: Tobasom's commencement speech has been canceled. The reason is they said, oh,
Speaker 1: it was necessary to maintain the safety of our campus
Speaker 1: and students. So Asna was selected valedictorian. She happened to
Speaker 1: minor in genocide studies, and apparently the university was very
Speaker 1: fearful that she, as someone who has expressed pro Palestinian views,
Speaker 1: might use some of what she learned at their university
Speaker 1: about genocide and discussed that in her commencement speech. So
Speaker 1: they just canceled the whole thing altogether. And just so
Speaker 1: you know that the whole you know, Oh, we're worried
Speaker 1: about kids safety and safety at graduation, etc. Is complete nonsense.
Speaker 1: When she spoke to them, they couldn't give her any
Speaker 1: specific examples of credible threats or other legitimate safety issues
Speaker 1: that they could identify. But they came under all kinds
Speaker 1: of pressure from the right and from Jewish groups, in
Speaker 1: particular who pro Israel groups, I should say, because there
Speaker 1: are plenty of anti Zionist Jewish groups at this point
Speaker 1: as well. They came under a lot of pressure from
Speaker 1: pro Israel groups to cancel this speech on a fear
Speaker 1: for what this accomplished young lady may have to say.
Speaker 1: She wrote quite an extraordinary response. She said, I'm surprised
Speaker 1: my own university has abandoned me. She went on to
Speaker 1: say that she's student of history and chose to minor
Speaker 1: and resistance to genocide, and had learned that ordinary people
Speaker 1: are capable of unspeakable acts of violence when they are
Speaker 1: taught hate fueled by fear, and due to widespread fear,
Speaker 1: I was hoping to use my commencement speech to inspire
Speaker 1: my classmates with a message of hope. By canceling my speech,
Speaker 1: USC is only caving to fear and rewarding hatred. Matt
Speaker 1: Tybee had a notable responses as well that we can
Speaker 1: put up on the screen. He says, all sorts of
Speaker 1: people are blamed for undermining confidence in institutions, but it's
Speaker 1: usually the institution itself that does the most damage, as
Speaker 1: in this case. And you know, not hearing a lot
Speaker 1: from the usual suspects who used to be all about
Speaker 1: free speech and against cancel culture, etc. At the valedictorian
Speaker 1: of the school being blocked for speaking because she might
Speaker 1: say something that they're uncomfortable with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, my position is that ideologically, the
Speaker 3: people who have been quote unquote canceled on college campuses
Speaker 3: and worked with a lot of them, like it's like
Speaker 3: I've actually had jobs like working on that stuff before
Speaker 3: should be more mainstream than someone like the Columbia professor
Speaker 3: that we were just talking about. But that doesn't matter
Speaker 3: in this context. The point is that speech is speech,
Speaker 3: and as long as it's not outright incitement, especially at
Speaker 3: public universities, but at universities in general.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's nothing new under the sun you can
Speaker 4: go back to. You know, for example, here's a great example.
Speaker 3: You know, anybody, let's say there were professors of I
Speaker 3: don't know professors of history, professors of war back in
Speaker 3: the Cold War that supported the contrast.
Speaker 4: I don't know that there were a lot of them,
Speaker 4: But I.
Speaker 3: Don't think conservatives would have had a problem about conservatives
Speaker 3: making this kind of ideological argument that it was necessary
Speaker 3: to fund the contras in order to, you know, defeat
Speaker 3: the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. There's Hanoy Jane,
Speaker 3: you know, talking about people like Jane Fonda that were
Speaker 3: a supportive of the other side in the Vietnam War
Speaker 3: that was killing American soldiers and just making this argument intellectually,
Speaker 3: building this case that it was morally necessary to support
Speaker 3: this force of violence because in their perception, they were
Speaker 3: pushing back on a bigger threat of violence.
Speaker 4: Whatever it is.
Speaker 3: We act like some of these dilemmas are new, and
Speaker 3: they're not. There have always been these arguments on campuses,
Speaker 3: and they have to be aired out on campuses. If
Speaker 3: they're going to be aired out literally anywhere, it should
Speaker 3: be on college campuses where the academics who are the
Speaker 3: kind of backbone of the media and the policy world
Speaker 3: are coming to the sort of different points on how
Speaker 3: we think about these things. So I mean, I agree, Crystal,
Speaker 3: I think that you know, there's way too little appetite
Speaker 3: for true, genuine freedom of expression, the exchange of ideas
Speaker 3: in the interest of the common good, in the interest
Speaker 3: of understanding each other. So I don't disagree that this
Speaker 3: is a real challenge for conservatives. I still think it's
Speaker 3: a real challenge for the left, and you know, constantly
Speaker 3: deal with that all the time. But when the going
Speaker 3: gets tough, the tough get going, and I don't see
Speaker 3: as much of that as I think we should.
Speaker 4: But that's no surprise.
Speaker 1: I guess I at least listen not to pat myself
Speaker 1: on the back, but I really made an attempt, even
Speaker 1: with regard to the next individual about to talk about
Speaker 1: Tom Cotton, to support free speech, even when I genuinely
Speaker 1: find it horrifying. Right, I have tried my very best
Speaker 1: to be consistent, because that's the whole point, and it's
Speaker 1: not hard. It was not hard for me in those
Speaker 1: instances to see, Okay, well, this censorship is coming against
Speaker 1: a political adversary right now. But you know, I'm a leftist,
Speaker 1: and no one has been more censored throughout American history
Speaker 1: than the left. So you can see very clearly like
Speaker 1: these tools may be used again them in this particular instance,
Speaker 1: but they can be used against my ideology. And by
Speaker 1: the way, that's not really the point anyway. It's about
Speaker 1: having a commitment to this bedrock principle, whether it's about
Speaker 1: your side or their side, or something in between. So
Speaker 1: it's just it has always been clear to me because
Speaker 1: there was never any willing to speak out a pro
Speaker 1: palestining people have been getting canceled, you know, long before
Speaker 1: October seven. You're gonna ask Mark Lamont Hill and any
Speaker 1: number of other folks, Norman Finkelstein how their careers fared
Speaker 1: when they stepped out of the bipartisan consensus with regards
Speaker 1: to Israel, and there was never any sort of solidarity
Speaker 1: with those individuals from the right. So as underno illusions here,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly never been more clear that any purported
Speaker 1: like right wing free speech moment is outside of some
Speaker 1: notable exceptions yourself included, is officially over. I've got another
Speaker 1: example where you hear the aforementioned Senator Tom Cotton, who
Speaker 1: had put out a tweet regarding some of the protests
Speaker 1: that have propal Simee protests that have shut down roadways,
Speaker 1: including the Golden Gate Bridge for some five hours. He
Speaker 1: called on people to quote take matters into their own
Speaker 1: hands with regard to these protesters, and then when asked
Speaker 1: to clarify whether he was serious about violence directly against
Speaker 1: protesters exercising their First Amendment speech rights, he doubled down.
Speaker 1: In an interview with Fox News, Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to what he had to say.
Speaker 8: I agree with you that you have to get to
Speaker 8: the or these criminals early. If something like this happened
Speaker 8: in Arkansas on a bridge there, let's just say, I
Speaker 8: think there'd be a lot of very wet criminals that
Speaker 8: have been tossed overboard, not by law enforcement, but by
Speaker 8: the people who's road their blocking. If they glued their
Speaker 8: hands to car or the pavement, well, probably pretty painful
Speaker 8: to have.
Speaker 1: Their skin ripped off.
Speaker 8: But I think that's the way we'd handle in Arkansas,
Speaker 8: and I would encourage most people anywhere that gets stuck
Speaker 8: behind criminals lack this who are trying to block traffic
Speaker 8: to take matters in their own hands. There's only usually
Speaker 8: a few of them, and there's a lot of people
Speaker 8: being inconvenience. It's time to put an end to this nonsense.
Speaker 1: So skin ripped off, thrown off the bridge, take matters
Speaker 1: into their own hands. Emily, your thoughts.
Speaker 3: So, Tom Cotton, I think is making a big mistake
Speaker 3: by saying that for you know, just a pure Let's
Speaker 3: just talk about the style, the public relations superficial level
Speaker 3: right now. If something happens to one of those protesters,
Speaker 3: Tom Cotton, the finger is going to be pointed straight
Speaker 3: at him for incitement. I despise the traffic blocking protests.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of my favorite images from the last
Speaker 3: year is all of these like working class DC residents
Speaker 3: of all different stripes, all different backgrounds, all different you know, ethnicities,
Speaker 3: all of that just like pulling these protesters off one
Speaker 3: of the major roads in DC. But they were climate
Speaker 3: protesters because you know, nothing violent, but just like moving
Speaker 3: them because I just think it is one of the
Speaker 3: worst possible ways to protest. I think it is you know, illegal,
Speaker 3: and it's not the best use of civil disobedience.
Speaker 4: All of that is all of that said, two things
Speaker 4: can be true.
Speaker 3: It can be a really bad and illegal way to
Speaker 3: protest without also being something that weren't violent, and something
Speaker 3: that you know, gives Republicans any reason to even wink
Speaker 3: and nod at potential violence. You know, wasn't it in
Speaker 3: Panama that someone shot I think it was a climate
Speaker 3: protester just last year who was blocking traffic shot and
Speaker 3: killed a climate protester who was blocking traffic just last year.
Speaker 4: So no, I don't think it's right to play fast
Speaker 4: us with this rhetoric.
Speaker 3: Tom Cotton obviously served in both The Rock and Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: I think actually in combat units, and so I'm sure
Speaker 3: that this is really.
Speaker 4: This role for him in a way that it's not
Speaker 4: for myself.
Speaker 3: But it's still I think, really really unwise to be
Speaker 3: playing fast and loose with that physical, violent rhetoric like
Speaker 3: he did there, even if it's a you know, at
Speaker 3: least from a perspective of myself and a lot of
Speaker 3: conservatives and probably a lot of people in general, a
Speaker 3: really annoying form of protest.
Speaker 1: You could object to the form of protest without calling
Speaker 1: for people to be thrown off a bridge and have
Speaker 1: theirs get ripped off. You just did it. And Tager
Speaker 1: and I had a whole debate on some of these
Speaker 1: protest tactics, which you know, at this point, I.
Speaker 4: Saw, here's pro traffic blocking.
Speaker 1: He loves that. No, here's my thing that bothers me
Speaker 1: is you have a majority of Democrats and a plurality
Speaker 1: of independence who are looking at what's happening in Gosen.
Speaker 1: This is a genocide. And yet the amount of emotion
Speaker 1: about that versus some protest tactics that people disagree with
Speaker 1: coming from Tom Cott, I mean, it's just it's nowhere
Speaker 1: near equivalent. And the other thing is, you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about hypocrisy, and I remember this amount of upset
Speaker 1: about the inconveniencing of people, et cetera, et cetera. When
Speaker 1: we were talking about this convoy in Canada. What was
Speaker 1: it called? I can't remember freedom kN What was the
Speaker 1: thing that shut down an entire Canadian city? This was celebrated.
Speaker 1: They weren't criminals, they weren't you know, being called for
Speaker 1: them to throw thrown off a bridge and their skin
Speaker 1: ripped off and whatever. So it's only when it's protests
Speaker 1: that Tom Cotton disagrees with. But certainly suddenly we hear
Speaker 1: this language, and you know, he is. I think he
Speaker 1: is very credibly the most authoritarian and one of certainly
Speaker 1: the most pro war senators, which is pretty extraordinary thing
Speaker 1: to say. I think pretty consistently, you know, his instincts
Speaker 1: are incredibly authoritarian, crack down police, date, call in the
Speaker 1: military to crush Black Lives Matter protesters, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: that he can say this on Fox News, which is
Speaker 1: a very the largest cable news network and you know,
Speaker 1: very mainstream in terms of conservatism, with zero pushback. In
Speaker 1: some ways, I find that to be the most disturbing
Speaker 1: part of all of this, that the idea that people
Speaker 1: should who are people who are trying to get a
Speaker 1: ceasefire and end a genocide, deserve to be thrown off
Speaker 1: a bridge because you disagree with their protest tactics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a problem with that.
Speaker 4: And I think, by the way, that's one of the
Speaker 4: reasons that this is just totally it's.
Speaker 3: Kind of a tangent. But I think that's one of
Speaker 3: the reasons, like why people like you and Sager and
Speaker 3: Ryan and me and all of us can sit down
Speaker 3: and have these conversations is that we understand that there
Speaker 3: are legitimate reasons, that people have real reasons and real
Speaker 3: arguments as to you know, if you believe something is
Speaker 3: legitimately a genocide, then why would you not be blocking traffic?
Speaker 3: People have real reasons to do what they're doing that
Speaker 3: are rooted in principles, and we might disagree with them,
Speaker 3: and we might find them, you know, abhorrent, or we
Speaker 3: might you know, disagree with the sort of ends or
Speaker 3: the way people justify those ends, but you kind of
Speaker 3: understand that people have their principles, just like by the
Speaker 3: way the warmongers have had their principles of supporting the
Speaker 3: contras in the nineteen eighties. You know, there's the people
Speaker 3: have deeply held beliefs and they act on those deeply
Speaker 3: held beliefs. And the best way to come to consensus
Speaker 3: that serves everyone and to seek justice is to debate it,
Speaker 3: to debate it, and to have a country that allows
Speaker 3: for that debate to be aired out. So, yeah, really
Speaker 3: unfortunate decision, I think from Don Cotton yesterday. And you know, Crystal,
Speaker 3: there's more more bad news really for the fate of
Speaker 3: protesters around the country, just coming out of the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court yesterday.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is maybe the most magnificant thing
Speaker 1: that happened. I know, we've done like a world tour
Speaker 1: of censorship for attacks of First Amendment, but honestly, this
Speaker 1: may be the most significant. Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So the Supreme Court is the headline from box effectively
Speaker 1: abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states.
Speaker 1: That would be Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. So basically, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court decided to allow a lower court decision to stand,
Speaker 1: and that lower court decision stood with a Texas law
Speaker 1: that criminalized a Black Lives Matter protest organizer because something
Speaker 1: illegal happened at his protest that he helped to lead
Speaker 1: and organize. This is de Ray mcasson, who very well
Speaker 1: known Black Lives Matter organizer and activist leader. So the
Speaker 1: idea here isn't that Deray himself did anything illegal, or
Speaker 1: even that he incited anyone to do a anything illegal.
Speaker 1: The idea is that he created by even hosting this
Speaker 1: protest where something illegal and violent happened, that he himself
Speaker 1: is culpable and can be found criminally liable or those
Speaker 1: acts of these random people at the protest. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is insane and the reason that the Box article
Speaker 1: I think rightly says this effectively bans protest in these
Speaker 1: three states as long as this decision holds. And like
Speaker 1: I said, it's not that the Supreme Court made a
Speaker 1: decision they allowed this to stand. So there may be
Speaker 1: there may be a decision down the line that overturns it.
Speaker 1: But you can imagine if you are responsible for the
Speaker 1: actions of every single random person who happens to show
Speaker 1: up at your protest, you could also have bad actors
Speaker 1: who just want to like get you legally in trouble,
Speaker 1: who show up and cause mischief knowing that it can
Speaker 1: be pinned the blame can be pinned on you. So
Speaker 1: who's going to want to risk that that type of
Speaker 1: criminal liability when the stakes are so extraordinarily high as
Speaker 1: you know, Currently, this Fifth Circuit decision is the law
Speaker 1: in much of the American South.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think this is just so the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court declining to hear this case is one thing.
Speaker 3: It's now being kicked back to the lower courts, who
Speaker 3: could still sort of come to a question on this,
Speaker 3: And it's about.
Speaker 4: Sort of the vagueness of a statute.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's there might be really legitimate legal questions.
Speaker 3: Actually clearly there are, because it's ping ponging back through
Speaker 3: the court about how to interpret something. And it might
Speaker 3: be the case that a law needs to be changed
Speaker 3: in order to prevent the legal confusion here because there
Speaker 3: should be no legal confusion. A person who organizes a
Speaker 3: protest should not be able to be held liable, you know,
Speaker 3: for any violence that happens. And the argument is that
Speaker 3: Duran McKesson was organizing what was you know from it's
Speaker 3: from the outset by design in illegal protest. But we're
Speaker 3: talking about then civil disobedience, and that doesn't mean, you know,
Speaker 3: you can't have civil disobedience without the violation of laws,
Speaker 3: which means you know, there are laws that you're violating.
Speaker 3: Civil disobedience is that's the concept of it. And so
Speaker 3: if we're going to virtually make it completely impossible by
Speaker 3: holding people liable for things that others do, that's a
Speaker 3: sad day. But I actually expect that as a ping
Speaker 3: pellings through the lower courts, someone's going to figure out
Speaker 3: that a law needs to be changed. Maybe I just
Speaker 3: have more faith in the system. But I think both
Speaker 3: sides obviously benefit from protests at this point.
Speaker 4: Everyone knows that. So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're about to talk about a Supreme Court
Speaker 3: case involving January sixth defendants, and so I just think
Speaker 3: there's heightened sensitivity about this, and we're going to have
Speaker 3: a better outcome eventually. The sad thing is that, you know,
Speaker 3: justice delayed is justice denied, and it might take too
Speaker 3: long to get to that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean Donald Trump used a lot of
Speaker 1: language on January sixth that could be seen much more
Speaker 1: directly as incitement than anything de Ray McKesson is, you know,
Speaker 1: even alleged to have said on that day. They're not
Speaker 1: even saying like, oh, he incited this, that's not even
Speaker 1: part of the argument. But can you imagine the reaction
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump was found liable in some ways for
Speaker 1: people who did assault police officers, not because he incited it,
Speaker 1: but just by being involved in the organization of the protests.
Speaker 1: I think the right would probably have something negative to
Speaker 1: say about that.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, you know.
Speaker 3: Jenny Thomas and the sort of organization of buses for
Speaker 3: people to march in d C.
Speaker 4: On January sixth.
Speaker 3: There was an original protest that was planned to be peaceful,
Speaker 3: and I talked to tons of people that day that
Speaker 3: were there just they had no idea that there was
Speaker 3: anything that was going to spiral. They were there to
Speaker 3: see Trump's speech, and they were there to like make
Speaker 3: their presence known just in DC and weren't planning to
Speaker 3: go into the Capitol.
Speaker 4: They didn't even know that was on the radar.
Speaker 3: But you know, there were people that supplied resources to
Speaker 3: that original protest that could easily in with really problematic
Speaker 3: interpretations of this law be you know, if DC had
Speaker 3: similar language, could be brought up on charges like Deray McKesson.
Speaker 3: So hopefully this has opened up all of our eyes
Speaker 3: to the dangers of that because you know, conservative protests
Speaker 3: and conservative I guess riots like January six was, you know,
Speaker 3: just not something that a lot of conservatives had to
Speaker 3: think about in the past.
Speaker 4: They are now thinking pretty hard about it.
Speaker 3: So let's hope we can come to some good legal
Speaker 3: consensus on this question in those states, because there's just no.
Speaker 4: There's no way that can stand. I mean, it's wildly wrong.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk a little bit about GOTUS and
Speaker 1: what they were contemplating with regard to January six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so absolutely we can go ahead and put this
Speaker 3: first element up on the screen. This is from Megan Kelly,
Speaker 3: who was following the Supreme Court arguments yesterday on this case.
Speaker 3: Megan's a big Supreme Court argument on whether quote, obstructing
Speaker 3: an official proceeding can form the basis for a criminal
Speaker 3: charge versus J six defendants, including Trump. This is the
Speaker 3: heart of Smith's J six case versus him. Is not
Speaker 3: going well for the government at all. All six Conservatives
Speaker 3: sound like they're on the side of the defense. If
Speaker 3: they sided with the defense here, it guts Jack Smith's
Speaker 3: DC case against Donald Trump. So let's break down a
Speaker 3: little bit about why that is. There's this tear schuet
Speaker 3: here from scotus Blog. They write, the Supreme Court heard
Speaker 3: that oral argument in the case of a former police
Speaker 3: officer from Pennsylvania who entered the Capitol during the January sixth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one attacks. Joseph Fisher, who was charged with,
Speaker 3: among other things, assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct in
Speaker 3: the capital, and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, has asked
Speaker 3: the justices to throw out the charge that he obstructed
Speaker 3: an official proceeding, arguing that the law that he was
Speaker 3: charged with violating was only intended to apply to evidence tampering.
Speaker 3: More than three hundred other JA six defendants have been
Speaker 3: charged with violating the law, which, and this is very interesting,
Speaker 3: was enacted as part of the Sarpines Oxley Act in
Speaker 3: the wake of the n Run scandal, and I guess
Speaker 3: people can understand why and then also sort of understand
Speaker 3: why it's narrowly been interpreted in the past to talk
Speaker 3: specifically about that question of evidence tampering Scotis blog rights.
Speaker 3: It's also at the center of two of the charges
Speaker 3: brought by Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump and
Speaker 3: Washington d C. That is the same case in which
Speaker 3: the justices will hear argument on guess what. April twenty fifth,
Speaker 3: so coming right up right around the corner regarding Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's claims of immunity. So Fisher had sent some text
Speaker 3: messages in which he indicated to acquaintances Scotis Blog Rights
Speaker 3: that members of Congress can't vote if they can't breathe
Speaker 3: dot dot dot lol, and that he might need his
Speaker 3: police chief to post my bail it might get violent.
Speaker 3: On January sixth, prosecutors say Fisher urged rioters to charge
Speaker 3: and hold the line. In a message on social media
Speaker 3: on January seventh, Fisher wrote that he had been pepperbald
Speaker 3: and pepper sprayed, but entry into the capital was needed
Speaker 3: to send a message that we the people hold the
Speaker 3: real power. So the reason it's important to note those
Speaker 3: quotes is because you can see that Fisher saw, according
Speaker 3: to these messages, at least his entrance into the capitol,
Speaker 3: his sort of violent entrance into the Capitol as an
Speaker 3: intentional act of obstruction of the proceeding of certifying the electors.
Speaker 3: So that's the I think relevant context in that case.
Speaker 3: But if the statute can be interpreted as something that
Speaker 3: goes beyond evidence tampering is actually at the heart of
Speaker 3: the question. That's it's sort of like what we're talking
Speaker 3: about in the last block, Crystal, like two things can
Speaker 3: be true. It can be true that he clearly intended
Speaker 3: to obstruct the proceed without this charge specifically being applicable,
Speaker 3: this post end run charge specifically being implicable. I believe
Speaker 3: Scotis Blog actually has in this article. I'll find the
Speaker 3: exact quote that it's true. This hasn't been interpreted in
Speaker 3: the past. There's not precedent for interpreting this to go
Speaker 3: beyond that narrow question of evidence tampering.
Speaker 4: And if the justices.
Speaker 3: Come down in June July with the ruling here that
Speaker 3: you can't have evidence tampering, that you can't go beyond
Speaker 3: evidence tampering, that's pretty devastating to the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you had one judge in the context of
Speaker 1: this case making its way up to the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: acknowledging that outside of the January sixth cases brought this jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: there is no precedent for using the obstruction provision to
Speaker 1: prosecute the type of conduct at issue in this case.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, amazing this will surprise you.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that the government had good answers to
Speaker 1: this question of Okay, well, how do you get this?
Speaker 1: Where's the limiting principle? So if you have protesters who
Speaker 1: pull a fire alarm during a you know, congressional vote,
Speaker 1: is does that count? Do you can you get thrown
Speaker 1: in prison for that? Now, in reality, none of the
Speaker 1: January sixth protesters who were charged with this, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the only charge they were faced with. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: if you just had someone who you know, trespassed and
Speaker 1: wasn't hit with any other charges, there was no one
Speaker 1: who this is the only thing. It was used as
Speaker 1: a way to sort of up the ante in terms
Speaker 1: of what the government, what sort of sentences the government
Speaker 1: could obtain here in the language, First of all, you
Speaker 1: do have the context of this was about Enron and
Speaker 1: sarbainez Oxley and all of that, And the language is
Speaker 1: very vague and honestly bakes me pretty uncomfortable. It says impeded.
Speaker 1: One of the words is if you impeded a government proceeding.
Speaker 1: So again, what's the limiting principle there? And how do
Speaker 1: you make sure that in applying this law you are
Speaker 1: not taking a sledgehammer to other protected speech and other
Speaker 1: sort of protest activities that any of us could easily imagine.
Speaker 1: You even had Katanji Brown Jackson in these arguments expressing
Speaker 1: reservations about what the government is arguing here. She said
Speaker 1: the court should not lose sight of the backdrop of
Speaker 1: a real world context, which I think is what I'm
Speaker 1: speaking to here. And Emily, I think we have some
Speaker 1: of the clips of some of the conservative justices asking
Speaker 1: these critical questions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's go ahead and roll that.
Speaker 3: You can cure conservative justices Ammy, Conny Barrett and Neil
Speaker 3: Gorsich poking some serious holes in the government's case.
Speaker 11: What does that mean for the breadth of this statue
Speaker 11: would to sit in that disrupts a trial for access
Speaker 11: to a federal courthouse qualify. Would a heckler in today's
Speaker 11: audience qualify? Or at the State of the Union address,
Speaker 11: would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify? For
Speaker 11: twenty years in federal prison.
Speaker 12: What if on January sixth, the capital itself had not
Speaker 12: been breached, the protest is going on outside the capital,
Speaker 12: stop the steal, Stop the steal, police, or you know
Speaker 12: in megaphone saying disperse, disperse, they're too close to the capital.
Speaker 12: Their goal is to impair, impede, stop the proceeding, stop
Speaker 12: the counting of votes. Does that violate the statute in
Speaker 12: your view? Under this impede language?
Speaker 13: So, I think I think that one relevant question would
Speaker 13: be whether we could satisfy the nexus requirement and show
Speaker 13: that actually the natural and probable effect of that conduct
Speaker 13: would be to have some effect on what's going on
Speaker 13: in the capital and in the myran you can yes.
Speaker 13: So if you're assuming that the same thing happened where
Speaker 13: Congress to go into recess and couldn't hold the joint
Speaker 13: session after Ahill because there was such a security risk,
Speaker 13: I think that that probably would be chargeable if we
Speaker 13: had the intent evidence. Now, as I mentioned before, even
Speaker 13: with respect to the riot that happened, which was a
Speaker 13: much more serious breach. We don't have that evidence of
Speaker 13: intent for everyone, but if we had, for example, organizers
Speaker 13: where it was absolutely clear that they were the ring
Speaker 13: leaders who had intended to obstruct and undertook the action
Speaker 13: with that specific intent and did so knowing it was wrongful,
Speaker 13: and especially if they went you know, I'm assuming you're
Speaker 13: saying they're in the unauthorized area right outside the capitol.
Speaker 13: That is unlawful conduct committed with consciousness of wrongdoing, if
Speaker 13: we have the proof of it.
Speaker 12: Let's say that I am having a hard time seeing
Speaker 12: accepting your limiting construction of the verbs obstruct, influencer impedes
Speaker 12: to have this extra element. Tell me why I shouldn't
Speaker 12: be concerned about the breadth of the government's reading just
Speaker 12: relying on corruptly and the nexus requirement. Should I be
Speaker 12: concerned or could you just embrace it and say, yeah,
Speaker 12: there might be some ads applied First Amendment challenges or
Speaker 12: that sort of thing. I mean, can I be comfortable
Speaker 12: with the breadth if that's what I think.
Speaker 1: Yes, you can be.
Speaker 13: You certainly don't have to agree with us that a
Speaker 13: deminimus hindrance wouldn't qualify. If you thought that this was
Speaker 13: unqualified and swept broadly to any kind of hindrance whatsoever,
Speaker 13: there would still be really important limits in the statute.
Speaker 3: Christ So can I say that Biden's solicitor general there
Speaker 3: sounds very conservative. It actually reminds me of a lot
Speaker 3: of conservative arguments about protests and speech in the past, because, Yeah,
Speaker 3: this idea that you should curve down on any sort
Speaker 3: of public I guess, disobedience, anything like that, You can
Speaker 3: just really easily see it kind of reminds me what
Speaker 3: we're talking about in the campus speech block. It kind
Speaker 3: of you can easily see how when you have interpretations
Speaker 3: like that, they can be applied wildly to just protests
Speaker 3: in general, because in essence, every protest is trying to
Speaker 3: quote unquote obstruct maybe not a technical, narrow constitutional proceeding
Speaker 3: as is in this case, but in a lot of
Speaker 3: cases they're trying to obstruct some type of proceeding. There
Speaker 3: is some type of like legislative proceeding that they don't
Speaker 3: want to happen. So you can see how language like
Speaker 3: obstruct and proceeding being interpreted in this way could get
Speaker 3: really really out of control for you know, government sensors
Speaker 3: or would be government sensors and people who want to
Speaker 3: crack down on legitimate protest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the languages obstruct, influence or impede, so influence, I mean,
Speaker 1: right exactly. I mean that's it really is written in
Speaker 1: this very broad way that I think should make us uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And obviously we reference that this not only impacts the
Speaker 1: I think hundreds of January sixth defendants who had this
Speaker 1: as one of the charges that was brought against them,
Speaker 1: but it does directly impact Donald Trump in terms of
Speaker 1: the January sixth cases, Megan Kelly was pointing out. So
Speaker 1: he was charged. Of course, he's got a whole wrapped
Speaker 1: of charges that he's facing, including the hush money situation
Speaker 1: that he's dealing with in court in Manhattan as we speak.
Speaker 1: He's got the Document's case, he's got the Georgia case.
Speaker 1: But in terms of the federal January sixth case, he
Speaker 1: was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the
Speaker 1: United States. That's about his efforts to spread false claims
Speaker 1: about November twenty twenty election, knowing they weren't true, tempting
Speaker 1: to illegally discount legitimate votes, all with the goal of
Speaker 1: overturning the twenty twenty election. According to prosecutors, one count
Speaker 1: of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, that's the one
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, due to the alleged organized planning
Speaker 1: by Trump and his allies to disrupt the electoral vote
Speaker 1: certification in January twenty twenty one, another count of obstruction
Speaker 1: of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, which has
Speaker 1: to do specifically with those elections vacation efforts that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about. And one count of conspiracy against rights
Speaker 1: referring to Trump and his co conspirators allegedly attempting to oppress,
Speaker 1: thread and intimidate people in their right to vote in
Speaker 1: an election. So you've got four different counts that are
Speaker 1: related to January sixth. So if the official preceding one
Speaker 1: is out the window, then you're left with two counts,
Speaker 1: this conspiracy or fraud the US and this conspiracy against
Speaker 1: rights that Jack Smith is left with in terms of
Speaker 1: the January sixth case. So it is definitely quite consequential
Speaker 1: in terms of Trump's legal jeopardy in that particular, in
Speaker 1: that particular situation that he is in legal jeopardy.
Speaker 3: From not to quote the Bachelor, But to quote the Bachelor,
Speaker 3: whether or not you believe that the conservative justices are
Speaker 3: in this for the right reasons, By the way, I
Speaker 3: hate the Bachelor, but whether or not you think they're
Speaker 3: in it for the right reasons, I actually hope that
Speaker 3: they push back on this and they really set precedent
Speaker 3: to interpret this narrowly, because you couldn't. You know, it
Speaker 3: already feels like we're sort of lurching ever closer to
Speaker 3: banana republic territory.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: But you know, you can see how when Republicans, for example,
Speaker 3: you know, just in Congress, when they started to push
Speaker 3: back on you know, for example, Nancy Pelosi wouldn't seat
Speaker 3: the members that they wanted on the January sixth committee,
Speaker 3: or uh, you know, Republicans or Democrats you know, peached
Speaker 3: Trump for his quote perfect phone call to Zelenski, and
Speaker 3: then Democrats went and or Republicans went and started to
Speaker 3: seriously talk about impeachment for Joe Biden doing this kind
Speaker 3: of escalating tit for tat. You can easily see actually
Speaker 3: how Joe Biden. You know, you have a bunch of uh,
Speaker 3: liberal activists, progressive activists protesting something like the voting rights
Speaker 3: legislation in Georgia and Joe Biden, you know, giving the
Speaker 3: saying something that you know aligns with them, trying to
Speaker 3: influence the official proceeding of.
Speaker 4: The vote on that like you can like this can
Speaker 4: just get blown up.
Speaker 3: And you never underestimate the cynical tactics of people in
Speaker 3: positions of power to wield statutes like this for immediate
Speaker 3: political ends that do not serve the sort of best
Speaker 3: interests of the country, that do not set long term
Speaker 3: standards in the best interests of the country, and do
Speaker 3: not serve frankly, the constitution and the growth of office.
Speaker 3: So never underestimate the cynicism of our elected officials, because
Speaker 3: they will wield these things in ways that absolutely bring
Speaker 3: us closer to the brink.
Speaker 1: You want to Tom Cotton to a future president Tom
Speaker 1: Cotton or future president Donald Trump, or where you want
Speaker 1: them to have the power to wield this, you know,
Speaker 1: to its fullest extent, not personally, not me. There was
Speaker 1: one liberal argument though, that did land with me about
Speaker 1: Justice Thomas. I'm curious your thoughts on this. Emily can
Speaker 1: put this one up on the screen. So this is
Speaker 1: from Jeffrey. He says, in the most credible of sources
Speaker 1: here anyway, put that aside in oral argument today, Justice
Speaker 1: Thomas is minimizing the severity of the January sixth insurrection
Speaker 1: at the Capital. Perhaps that's because his wife was part
Speaker 1: of the conspiracy. What a disgrace that he's sitting on
Speaker 1: this case. I actually do think it's inappropriate for Thomas
Speaker 1: to be involved in this case. His wife, as you
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, Emily was involved in some of the organizing
Speaker 1: for that day. There were a bunch of infamous, you know, tweets,
Speaker 1: sorry texts between her and then Chief of Staff Mark
Speaker 1: Meadows about the stop the Steal conspiracy in which she
Speaker 1: was incredibly encouraging, et cetera. And so I do think
Speaker 1: that it's inappropriate that he's involved here. But and it
Speaker 1: just speaks to you know, there's any number of cases
Speaker 1: that he and other justices, by the way, should have
Speaker 1: recused themselves from if we're upholding a high standards of ethics,
Speaker 1: where even the appearance of a conflict of interest should
Speaker 1: be enough for you to recuse yourself. But the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court doesn't have an official code of ethics, which is insane.
Speaker 1: They're just left to like make their own decisions about
Speaker 1: whether they or not they feel conflicted and feel like
Speaker 1: they want to recuse, and so Justice Thomas doesn't ever
Speaker 1: feel like he needs to recuse himself, even from cases
Speaker 1: that in which he has a direct financial interest. That's
Speaker 1: always also been an issue in the past.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this is interesting because I agree completely that
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court needs a code of ethics and that
Speaker 3: conflicts like this are not are far from ideal. I
Speaker 3: do think that there's a good argument for being a
Speaker 3: conflict of interest in this case. I think that's always
Speaker 3: been an issue for Clarence Thomas, and I don't think.
Speaker 4: Again that's ideal.
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's unfortunate that Jenny Thomas wants
Speaker 3: to be a conservative activist, and you know, like she
Speaker 3: wants to do.
Speaker 4: It for good reasons, like she really believes in the cause.
Speaker 3: So I don't think it's ideal that it creates these
Speaker 3: conflicts of interest, because you know, I feel for anybody
Speaker 3: that wants to be involved and advocate on behalf of
Speaker 3: ideas that they believe in really strongly. But you know,
Speaker 3: that's been kind of the problem is that there is
Speaker 3: no consistent code of ethics. So Clarence Thomas is like,
Speaker 3: there's this big effort on the left, and you know
Speaker 3: this would create this could blow up into a huge
Speaker 3: like we could spend a whole show on this. But
Speaker 3: I from my perspective, I think there's been a decades
Speaker 3: long effort to discredit Clarence Thomas, specifically because he is
Speaker 3: a black sort of conservative jurist, and that he's gotten
Speaker 3: a lot of racism frankly because of all of that,
Speaker 3: and so that lack of consistency is what has allowed
Speaker 3: for I think some of these conflicts of interest to fester.
Speaker 4: So I agree.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's sort of a problematic conflict. But
Speaker 3: I think, you know, we talk about it, not us,
Speaker 3: but I think the media talks about it specifically with
Speaker 3: Clarence Thomas more than some other justices.
Speaker 4: But that doesn't make it right. So I ultimately kind
Speaker 4: of agree.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's an ideal situation to have the
Speaker 3: different interests at hand here. I do want to mention
Speaker 3: Megan Kelly another Megan Kelly tweet, this time at Jeffrey
Speaker 3: Tubin in response to that tweet you just read Crystal,
Speaker 3: and Meghan said, Hi, Tubin, FYI you waived your right
Speaker 3: to use the term disgraced about other lawyers when you
Speaker 3: took your dick out of your pants and jerked off
Speaker 3: in front of your colleagues.
Speaker 4: Not safe for work, folks.
Speaker 1: Nice. Nice, But his point stands about Clarence Thomas. I mean,
Speaker 1: I listen, I am not going to dispute. There's been
Speaker 1: plenty of racism, you know, directed towards him, especially with
Speaker 1: regards to He infamously doesn't really usually chime up during
Speaker 1: oral arguments, and this was sort of used to smear
Speaker 1: him as unintelligent. If you read about his actual philosophy,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's this weird sort of like almost like
Speaker 1: right wing black Nationally, he's very cynical about racial politics.
Speaker 1: It's once I, you know, really learned about his ideology
Speaker 1: is actually a little different than what I thought he is.
Speaker 1: Probably he is just as cynical about the possibility of
Speaker 1: sort of racial co existence and reconciliation as like a
Speaker 1: Nicole Hannah Jones. I mean they actually share. There's a
Speaker 1: weird horseshoe there in terms of racial pessimism. We'll put
Speaker 1: that ideology aside for another day. But I think part
Speaker 1: of that cynicism from him is his willingness to accept
Speaker 1: like these large monetary gifts and monetary assistance and you know,
Speaker 1: the trips and the helping to pay for the r
Speaker 1: V and his mother's house and all of these things,
Speaker 1: because first of all, that is completely corrupt, and he
Speaker 1: is an outlier in terms of how much he appears
Speaker 1: to have accepted these types of gifts. Not that he's
Speaker 1: the only one who's done it, but the frequency, the amounts,
Speaker 1: the unwillingness to disclose, etc. I do think is at
Speaker 1: another level with Clarence Thomas. So in that way, the
Speaker 1: additional scrutiny of him is very justified, and I think
Speaker 1: it comes from this deeply cynical place of his view
Speaker 1: of politics, which is like, yeah, rich people have their way.
Speaker 1: It's a corrupt system, and I'm part of that corrupt system.
Speaker 3: He also has this sort of uniquely inspiring story that
Speaker 3: I think has been has made him more attractive as
Speaker 3: sort of a compatriot to that donor class, you know,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, the sort of like billionaire
Speaker 3: donor class that has all of these massive charities that
Speaker 3: they you know, he's used the Supreme Court to have ceremonies.
Speaker 3: I think he's just sort of especially attractive for them
Speaker 3: because he grew up like speaking Gulla dialect and like
Speaker 3: the most rural place that you could imagine in the
Speaker 3: United States and had this like weird like you said,
Speaker 3: he was basically in college, he was basically like a
Speaker 3: left wing black nationalist and then had this interesting evolution.
Speaker 3: There's a good documentary called Clarence Thomas Created Equal that
Speaker 3: was done by people who are favorable to Thomas, but
Speaker 3: it's still just him kind of telling his life story,
Speaker 3: and you get a different glimpse than.
Speaker 4: What the media tells you.
Speaker 3: But I think basically the bottom line, Chris, is that
Speaker 3: we agree the Supreme Court has a big ethics problem
Speaker 3: on its hand, because you know, when you have in
Speaker 3: your family these interests or personally these interests. I think
Speaker 3: with Ruspader Ginsburg it was like different things with the
Speaker 3: ACLU and different kind of like left wing groups that
Speaker 3: found her story to be frankly very inspiring and her
Speaker 3: evolution as a jurist to be inspiring. It does it's
Speaker 3: impossible to see how that wouldn't weigh on their minds
Speaker 3: or be something that you know, is present in their
Speaker 3: minds as they're thinking about these cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, Let's talk about
Speaker 1: some more legal action here. This incredibly significant. Put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen from Axio's Department of Justice planning
Speaker 1: to sue Ticketmaster parent Live Nation. So there was a
Speaker 1: Ticketmaster Live Nation merger acquisition back in the Obama era
Speaker 1: that made them this giant in terms of the live
Speaker 1: music and live arts industry. So the dog planning to
Speaker 1: sue them for anti trust violations. We don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of details about what the specifics of that case
Speaker 1: are going to be, as it has not come to
Speaker 1: light yet, but just as a reminder about the history here,
Speaker 1: So back in twenty ten, Live Nation acquires Ticketmaster, the
Speaker 1: Obama DOJ Anti Trust Division does very little about it,
Speaker 1: you know, even though some of the concerns which would
Speaker 1: later become manifest were already quite predictable at that point.
Speaker 1: But you know, there were decades in which Democrats and
Speaker 1: Republicans joined together to basically stop enforcing anti trust violations.
Speaker 1: This was Reagan, this was you know, first Bush, this
Speaker 1: was Clinton, this was second Bush, this was Obama, all
Speaker 1: of them very similar approach, and the Biden DOJ has
Speaker 1: taken a markedly more aggressive and I would say a
Speaker 1: return to you know, more true application of the law
Speaker 1: when it comes to anti trust. This article reminds that
Speaker 1: there was a ten year consent decree when they were
Speaker 1: allowed to acquire Ticketmaster in twenty ten, which was meant
Speaker 1: to keep them from abusing their market dominance, like to
Speaker 1: punish artists that don't use their services, etc. To punish
Speaker 1: venues that don't want to partner with them for ticket sales.
Speaker 1: That consent decree has really not been enforced, which is
Speaker 1: pretty typical, which is why it's more important to block
Speaker 1: these things to begin with, because the enforcement after the
Speaker 1: fact is very, very difficult. And they go on to
Speaker 1: say artists have long spoken out about Ticketmaster's practices, but
Speaker 1: those murmurs turned into rallying cries after Ticketmaster's site crashed
Speaker 1: for thousands of Tailor Swift fans in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: So we also have ilhan Omar celebrating this action, calling
Speaker 1: for them to be broken up. We can put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. We also have She says, let's go,
Speaker 1: I've said it before and I'll say it again, break
Speaker 1: up Ticketmaster in Live Nation. You've got more perfect union
Speaker 1: talking a little bit more about this suit and that
Speaker 1: they're being accused of running an illegal monopoly over the
Speaker 1: ticketing industry. The corporate monopoly charges too much for tickets,
Speaker 1: exploits venues, hurts fans and artists so effectively, Emily, what
Speaker 1: you have is this industry giant that as someone who's
Speaker 1: put on these you know, little live performances can attest to,
Speaker 1: they give you no other choice. They can charge whatever
Speaker 1: they want. Not only do they control the ticket sales,
Speaker 1: but then through Live Nation, they control you know, the
Speaker 1: concert promotion. They can in fact, you know, punished venues,
Speaker 1: punish artists who don't want to work with them. They
Speaker 1: also own the ticket resale platforms. So not only was
Speaker 1: a fee charge on the front end to ticket Master
Speaker 1: when the tickets initially purchased, but then if it's resold
Speaker 1: and there's indications they encourage people who are reselling to
Speaker 1: you know, really gouge the final consumer. When it's resold,
Speaker 1: they get another fee on top of the one that
Speaker 1: you that was already paid in for this ticket. So
Speaker 1: they really have control over a bunch of pieces of
Speaker 1: this ecosystem and have weaponized it against everyone who is
Speaker 1: a consumer of music or the artists, the fans, the venues,
Speaker 1: et cetera in a way that I think is very
Speaker 1: clearly abusive, and some of this has really been hidden.
Speaker 1: I want to get your reaction. And then Matt Stoller,
Speaker 1: our great partners, who's you know, anti trust expert. He
Speaker 1: also did a breakdown of some of the specifics of
Speaker 1: the way that they have been cooking the books to
Speaker 1: try to avoid the very clear implications of the way
Speaker 1: that they're overcharging people. But first, your reaction to this,
Speaker 1: you know, this new action that is being reported by
Speaker 1: the DJ.
Speaker 3: Well, first, I think it's really important to see like
Speaker 3: ilhan Omar more perfect Union. They're right, They've been on
Speaker 3: top of this case for a really long time, and
Speaker 3: it's unfortunate I think that the right hasn't picked up
Speaker 3: on what a populist cause this is, and actually, frankly,
Speaker 3: what a free market cause this is because there is
Speaker 3: no competition. And that's one thing I wanted to toss
Speaker 3: back to you, Crystal, because you guys, when you've you've
Speaker 3: gone out into different cities all over the country and
Speaker 3: hosted these events, the ability to find competition to Ticketmaster
Speaker 3: first of all, to like how Ticketmaster wields its power
Speaker 3: as a virtual monopoly is one thing, but then also
Speaker 3: if you want to find some way to bypass Ticketmaster,
Speaker 3: it is virtually impossible.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are some ways that.
Speaker 3: Some people can do it, but in your experience, I
Speaker 3: remember talking to you guys about this, is like impossible
Speaker 3: to have an event, a major event with without Ticketmaster,
Speaker 3: or even with Ticketmaster.
Speaker 1: They make it so hard to Yeah, so basically you
Speaker 1: have to be in order to avoid using Ticketmaster, you
Speaker 1: have to be really big to start with and basically
Speaker 1: be able to do your own sort of like ticket sales.
Speaker 1: But that's not it. Then you also have to have
Speaker 1: a venue that's willing to work with you when you
Speaker 1: are going around Ticketmaster knowing that they then because they
Speaker 1: also own Live Nation, and say, okay, you want to
Speaker 1: have you know, crystalin Sager, that's fine. Guess what next
Speaker 1: time Ariana Grande's coming to town. Nothing, we're playing same venues.
Speaker 4: As first Saga or I have both.
Speaker 1: What's your choice?
Speaker 14: Right?
Speaker 1: So yeah, so they can put pressure. Okay, well, these
Speaker 1: other comedians, artists, act whoever that's going to come through
Speaker 1: your town, they're going to go to a different venue
Speaker 1: because we're going to put them there. So that's the
Speaker 1: sort of buying that they put people in. There was
Speaker 1: a case recently in New Jersey for two Stoller's explainer
Speaker 1: that he did, which was excellent, and we should go
Speaker 1: check out the whole thing because I can't possibly do
Speaker 1: a justice. But there was some discovery in this case
Speaker 1: that was very interesting because effectively, you had some sort
Speaker 1: of a festival that wanted to you know, local New
Speaker 1: Jersey festival. They wanted to hire, they wanted to put
Speaker 1: on a music show. They hired these established concert promoters
Speaker 1: to you know, do that work for them. And ticket
Speaker 1: Master just basically came in like a bully over the
Speaker 1: top and was like, no, no, no, you're going to
Speaker 1: have to deal with us. So that was number one,
Speaker 1: number two. And this gets to the argument that Ticketmaster
Speaker 1: makes about how no, no, we're not gouging, we're not exploiting.
Speaker 1: They claim they actually, we really don't make that much,
Speaker 1: but we don't charge that much money on the tickets.
Speaker 1: We don't make that much money. Here's our books. Look
Speaker 1: at this money that we're losing in terms of tickets. Okay,
Speaker 1: well you look at that. Well, I guess it's not
Speaker 1: a monopoly if they're not charging these monopoly fees. But
Speaker 1: what comes out in this case is that what they
Speaker 1: would do is they would contract with these different vendors
Speaker 1: with regards to this concert, and they would have these
Speaker 1: secret deals where okay, Ticketmaster and the local concert promoter,
Speaker 1: they're going to equally share the cost seems even steven
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty, et cetera. But they would have these
Speaker 1: secret deals with the vendors where they wanted the vendors
Speaker 1: to overcharge on the front end, but then give a
Speaker 1: secret rebate just to Ticketmaster on the back end that
Speaker 1: the artists, the venue, and the concert promoter had no
Speaker 1: idea about. And they actually went so far as to
Speaker 1: keep two sets of books, one that showed this purported
Speaker 1: loss on oh see, we're not even making that much
Speaker 1: money in this industry, and the other one that reflected
Speaker 1: these secret deals that they were making with vendors, which
Speaker 1: were hugely profitable, you know, throughout the entire country, the
Speaker 1: tune of hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars. That's
Speaker 1: one of the things that maybe will come out in discovery.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to a little bit of how that Stoler
Speaker 1: described this approach.
Speaker 14: Live Nation negotiated third party expenses like rental custom with
Speaker 14: the venues directly with vendors in exchange for exclusive financial
Speaker 14: gains not disclosed to their artists or their agents, managers
Speaker 14: or independent coke promoters in the form of rebates. So,
Speaker 14: in other words, Live Nation had seek side deals with
Speaker 14: vendors to inflate costs by overpaying those vendors and venues,
Speaker 14: which meant that any profit from the event would evaporate.
Speaker 15: It would look like a loss.
Speaker 14: Co promoters and artists who share in profits would lose out,
Speaker 14: but and would be told that the show just wasn't profitable.
Speaker 14: But the thing is those vendors those venues who had
Speaker 14: gotten extra money by being paid inflated costs would in
Speaker 14: turn remit that money back to Live Nation in the
Speaker 14: form of secret rebates. In other words, juice would pay
Speaker 14: the inflated costs that would get furtively funneled back to
Speaker 14: Live Nation along with all the profits from the show.
Speaker 15: At Live Nation kept two sets of books.
Speaker 14: So in one case they posted an entry of ninety
Speaker 14: thousand dollars rent for settlement, but only seventy five thousand
Speaker 14: dollars internally for the same item. They routinely put in
Speaker 14: profit and loss statements large losses while admitting that events
Speaker 14: actually made money.
Speaker 1: So there you go, and Juice being the concert promotion
Speaker 1: promoters who were originally hired and so having these secret
Speaker 1: deals on the front end, Juice is getting charged these
Speaker 1: exorbitant prices and then that's just getting funneled back to
Speaker 1: Ticketmaster's last Live Nation in the form of these secret rebates.
Speaker 1: It's also funny, Emily he talks to the piece about
Speaker 1: how we came to know this because they actually got
Speaker 1: their way of keeping these documents that were revealed through
Speaker 1: discovery secret. The court ruled like, okay, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: keep the stuff secret, and then Live Nation accidentally posted
Speaker 1: it online themselves so that we could all know what
Speaker 1: they're up to. And again it will be very revealing,
Speaker 1: I think, to have more of these accounting practices and
Speaker 1: tricks that they use to wield their monopoly power revealed
Speaker 1: to the public.
Speaker 3: And you know again, they're also spending around a million
Speaker 3: dollars on lobbying just in the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: I think they're up to one point seven million in
Speaker 3: the current election. According to the Guardian. It's a lot
Speaker 3: of money on lobbying. It's not you know, compared to
Speaker 3: other industries or other companies. You know, they're people who
Speaker 3: spend more, but it's an increase, and there's a reason
Speaker 3: it's an increase. So to that question of competition in
Speaker 3: the marketplace, to your point, Crystal, if you are a
Speaker 3: small intended competitor, want to be competitor to help the
Speaker 3: state of quote consumer welfare, to borrow the phrase from
Speaker 3: Robert Bork and that sort of standard that people, you know,
Speaker 3: whether it was during the Obama administration or the Bush
Speaker 3: administrations or even right now, who defend this. If you
Speaker 3: want to bring consumers a better state of welfare, if
Speaker 3: you want to help bring prices down, and you're a competitor,
Speaker 3: not only is the bar already so high because Ticketmaster
Speaker 3: Live Nation, they're all established, but they're also then spending
Speaker 3: more than a million dollars lobbying to keep themselves that way.
Speaker 3: So the barrier to entry for a competitor is it's
Speaker 3: like almost impossible, and there is no consumer welfare here, which,
Speaker 3: as Lina Kahn said, you know, the Taylor Swift Ticketmaster
Speaker 3: thing that you guys covered so well turned gen Z,
Speaker 3: like tons of gen Z people into monopolists, so anti
Speaker 3: monopolists overnight. I think it is the quote from Lena
Speaker 3: Khan at the time, and again that's because the consumer
Speaker 3: welfare is harmed by this particular situation, and you just
Speaker 3: hear no conservatives talking about it, even though it was
Speaker 3: something that happened under the Obama administration and Chuck Schumer
Speaker 3: was like against it at the time, but it happened
Speaker 3: under Barack Obama, and it is harming consumers, and it
Speaker 3: is the most anti free market conduct unless you are
Speaker 3: a full iron rand like let everyone just be monopolists
Speaker 3: and monopolies are good. Unless you're sort of on the
Speaker 3: libertarian fringe. This is not a competitive marketplace anymore. It's
Speaker 3: a classic case of anti competitive behavior, and there's just
Speaker 3: so little Republican concern about it, despite the fact that
Speaker 3: it's clearly a populist cause.
Speaker 1: This is one of the areas where I have to
Speaker 1: genuinely give kudos the Biden administration. They have broken with,
Speaker 1: you know, the Obama neoliberal approach in this, and they
Speaker 1: also have been significantly better, not perfect, but better in
Speaker 1: terms of labor rights. Those are to me to the
Speaker 1: two strongest areas and where they have the two sort
Speaker 1: of strongest teams of personnel acting, and it is consequential.
Speaker 1: It's also the reason why like the Wall Street journal
Speaker 1: man they hate Lena Khan, they hate this new antitrust enforcement.
Speaker 1: It's why you see, you know, even liberal Wall Street
Speaker 1: figures like Jamie Diamond being like, yeah, maybe they aren't
Speaker 1: so bad with Trump, like maybe he was okay. Because
Speaker 1: you also have to remember a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: like rank and file Wall streeters, their bonuses come from
Speaker 1: these big merger and acquisition deals. So to the extent
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration and they have significantly has sort
Speaker 1: of like put a freeze on those deals happening, they're
Speaker 1: all waiting it out and hoping Trump comes back and
Speaker 1: there's less scrutiny over their actions. That has really put
Speaker 1: a hit on the wallets of a lot of denizens
Speaker 1: of Wall Street. And so there's a real CNBC Wall
Speaker 1: Street journal hatred of Lena Khan Jonathan Canter in this
Speaker 1: whole direction of the Biden administration. But if you are
Speaker 1: not a Wall Street denizen, if you are an ordinary
Speaker 1: person out there who would like to go see a
Speaker 1: concert or comedian or whatever it is that you're into
Speaker 1: and not be completely gouged at every turn. You should
Speaker 1: be very pleased with this lawsuit.
Speaker 3: But there's nobody for the most part representing your interests
Speaker 3: in Washington because who has the money to spend on
Speaker 3: that kind of lobbying. Well, Wall Street does, and the
Speaker 3: people who oppose Ticketmaster really don't.
Speaker 4: So I think that's just an important point, Crystal.
Speaker 3: The Wall Street Journal has written like one hundred op
Speaker 3: eds against Lena Khan. If you talk to people in
Speaker 3: that sort of world, the sheer hatred.
Speaker 1: Of Lea Khan is genuinely unhinged.
Speaker 4: It unhinged, unhinged.
Speaker 3: But it's because of what you said. The stakes for
Speaker 3: them are so high. There's so much on the line
Speaker 3: with these murders and acquisition. So you know, we'll see,
Speaker 3: we'll see if any Republicans take up the ticket Master
Speaker 3: cause at some point, even ones that have been good,
Speaker 3: because there's this question of antie, there's a question of
Speaker 3: big tech. You know, Ryan and I have said for
Speaker 3: the last couple of months, one of the questions in
Speaker 3: our interview with Ted Cruz, we ended up talking so
Speaker 3: much about Israel. We wanted to ask him actually about
Speaker 3: he wrote a whole book that he was here to
Speaker 3: promote about big Tech and how big tech is too
Speaker 3: big and it is anti competitive, but he's super postedly
Speaker 3: to con So it's a genuine dilemma I think for
Speaker 3: a lot of conservatives, kind of like the speech questions
Speaker 3: we were talking about earlier, Crystal.
Speaker 1: Very true. Yeah, it all is filtered through a partisan
Speaker 1: lens versus a principal lens.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of new alliances in the culture war, let's
Speaker 3: move on to this Bill Maher clip, Crystal. Bill Maher
Speaker 3: had Katie kirk on Club Random this Sunday and they
Speaker 3: got into a debate about the media. Bill Maher has
Speaker 3: sort of joined the conservative critiques of CNN and another
Speaker 3: kind of corporate media outlets that I think both of
Speaker 3: us in a lot of cases would agree with their
Speaker 3: their their bias in different directions. And there are a
Speaker 3: lot of cases selection bias, what they choose to talk
Speaker 3: about versus what they don't choose to talk about, and
Speaker 3: all of that good stuff. But it was an interesting conversation.
Speaker 3: So let's roll this clip of Bill Maher and Katie
Speaker 3: Kuric on Club Random this Sunday.
Speaker 16: Okay, remember the town hall he had on CNN about
Speaker 16: six months ago and the audience loved it. The audience
Speaker 16: loved it. I mean, you can't.
Speaker 1: You can hate it.
Speaker 15: It stacked with Trump's supporters.
Speaker 16: Well they said Republicans and independents, that's what they said. Okay,
Speaker 16: maybe it was. How did they get in? If they did,
Speaker 16: that's on CNN.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I agree, I think it is on n and
Speaker 15: the vetting process.
Speaker 16: Well, then you've got to get a better audience person obviously.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 16: Yeah, it's like the person who handed the gun to
Speaker 16: Alec Baldwin. Yeah, you know, you got to get good
Speaker 16: people in all these positions.
Speaker 15: I agree.
Speaker 16: Okay, So if that was about whatever, if in if
Speaker 16: it was, here's what happened. Here's what people saw in America.
Speaker 16: They saw Trump killing it, killing it with the crowd.
Speaker 16: Then you come to a panel of six people who
Speaker 16: all just do nothing but dump on him and call
Speaker 16: him a liar. And America goes, oh, didn't you just
Speaker 16: see that? We like him?
Speaker 15: And now a stand up comedian, what he's killing it?
Speaker 15: He's not a stand up comedian.
Speaker 16: But popularity, it doesn't matter. The people loved him and
Speaker 16: what he was saying. And then you cut to a
Speaker 16: panel of six no it alls in Washington who just
Speaker 16: do nothing but talk about the native and like, I'm
Speaker 16: all in on the negative. No one's bit harder on
Speaker 16: Trump than me, but I get it and I'm bored
Speaker 16: with it. And there's a different way to do this,
Speaker 16: I think is not to defend Trump, but to defend
Speaker 16: the people who still vote for him, because what they
Speaker 16: see on the other side side to them is even
Speaker 16: more dangerous because it's very closer to home. My kid
Speaker 16: is coming home from school and he thinks he's a racist.
Speaker 16: He's five. What have you been telling him? You know,
Speaker 16: my son thinks maybe he's not a boy, and maybe
Speaker 16: that's true. That happens, but you know, those kind of
Speaker 16: things are what they say. That's why I'm voting for Trump.
Speaker 15: Backlash, the pendulum swinging.
Speaker 16: The conservative guy one said to me, what you don't
Speaker 16: get about Trump is we don't like him either. Now
Speaker 16: that's not true for all people. There are people who
Speaker 16: just love his dirty draws and they are dirty. But
Speaker 16: lots of people it's like that, we don't like him,
Speaker 16: but he's all that stands between us and madness.
Speaker 4: That's their view.
Speaker 3: So Christal, I think that's really interesting because there are
Speaker 3: a few people that have reckoned with the reality that
Speaker 3: a lot of Republican voters again really don't like Trump.
Speaker 3: There's like thirty percent of the hardcore magabase that actually
Speaker 3: loves him, and there's a lot of polling that puts
Speaker 3: that number around twenty to thirty percent of that sort
Speaker 3: of hardcore, diehard maga, the people who are at rallies
Speaker 3: versus the average Republican voter or Republican leaning independent that
Speaker 3: sort of tolerates Trump.
Speaker 4: And they tolerate Trump not.
Speaker 3: Because they love him, they see him as a stand
Speaker 3: up comedian, but because you know that Flight ninety three
Speaker 3: election essay that went really viral in twenty sixteen by
Speaker 3: Michael Anton that was very influential and conservative intellectual circles,
Speaker 3: not probably with Republican voters, but put that into words
Speaker 3: that the threat of Hillary Clinton presidency because of some
Speaker 3: of those culture war questions was so big that people
Speaker 3: are willing to sort of swallow the pill of Donald
Speaker 3: Trump because they think four years of Hillary Clinton or
Speaker 3: Joe Biden is worse.
Speaker 4: And people can disagree with.
Speaker 3: That argument, that's fine, but at least acknowledging the argument.
Speaker 3: I kind of can't believe that we're just having this
Speaker 3: conversation in a.
Speaker 4: Somewhat mainstream venue. I mean, it's Bill Maher's podcast.
Speaker 3: It's not like that conversation itself is happening on CNN
Speaker 3: all the way in twenty twenty four. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: what should have been understood in twenty sixteen, and there
Speaker 3: should have been people willing. You know, Katie Kirk obviously
Speaker 3: wasn't agreeing with him, but there should have been people
Speaker 3: willing to even hear that argument out in twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: instead of automatically shouting down Bill Maher as a enabler
Speaker 3: of racism or whatever else. But CNN will not even
Speaker 3: air a conversation like that. I think that's what he's
Speaker 3: talking about. There's nobody on the panel to represent that perspective,
Speaker 3: even though it's coming from a huge chunk of the electorate,
Speaker 3: you know, north of what sixty million people voting for
Speaker 3: Trump in twenty twenty, and there's no representation in that
Speaker 3: in CNN because there's no tolerance for it, because you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the younger staffers there see it as
Speaker 3: being an enabler of racism, that it's necessarily sort of bigotry, racism, transphobia, homophobia, etc.
Speaker 3: So you can't even have that conversation, you can't even
Speaker 3: hear it out, and I just kind of monologued there.
Speaker 3: But I do find it frustrating that, like he's having
Speaker 3: this conversation while smoking a joint in a shadowy sort
Speaker 3: of podcast venue, when that's the conversation that should be
Speaker 3: had by the so called mainstream press, but everyone's too
Speaker 3: afraid to even talk about it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to say here. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: with regard to Bill Maher himself, he's been on this
Speaker 1: very noteworthy like right word shift journey for years at
Speaker 1: this point. He started out in twenty sixteen, he was
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders guy. Then in twenty twenty suddenly he was
Speaker 1: with Amy Klobashar. Now he's most of his noteworthy comments
Speaker 1: are directed at the left and the excesses, the woke
Speaker 1: excesses of the left. He's very much consistently on that beat.
Speaker 1: So in that venous commentary, it's not like surprising to
Speaker 1: me at all that seems to be where Bill Maher
Speaker 1: is at this point. That's number one. Number two with
Speaker 1: regard to the comments about trying to put yourself in
Speaker 1: the show shoes and give the most charitable reading of
Speaker 1: ordinary Americans and their motivations. Obviously, that's something I have
Speaker 1: advocated for very strongly for a long time, very consistently.
Speaker 1: I will just say Bill Maher does not show that
Speaker 1: charity when it comes to many other groups, specifically young
Speaker 1: people who he has nothing but unbridled contemp for, and
Speaker 1: the left, which he also has nothing but unbridled contemp for.
Speaker 1: So where is this supposed empathy for differing perspectives when
Speaker 1: it comes to, you know, the young people who are
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly protesting the atrocities in Gaza, or who just have
Speaker 1: a different view of the world than he does. He
Speaker 1: has no problem very consistently smearing any and all young
Speaker 1: people as stupid and foolish and lazy and ill informed
Speaker 1: and whatever else. So if it was a consistent principle,
Speaker 1: like I like to hear people out, I like to
Speaker 1: try to understand their perspective, think about where they're coming from,
Speaker 1: et cetera, these comments might land a little differently with
Speaker 1: me than coming from Bill Maher, who, as I said,
Speaker 1: is happy to smear people who he at this point
Speaker 1: sees as his biggest ideological opponents, which is those on
Speaker 1: the left. You know, he feels very comfortable doing that
Speaker 1: on a very very regular basis, who probably did it
Speaker 1: in this same interview with Katie Kerr if I had
Speaker 1: to guess the other thing. And this ties into the
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about like some updates with with NPR,
Speaker 1: and that ties into this conversation. As a leftist, I
Speaker 1: find it offensive when people assume that I'm being represented
Speaker 1: somehow in CNN or the New York Times or at NPR.
Speaker 1: There is no ideological group that is more shut out
Speaker 1: of any sort of mainstream news outlet than actual class
Speaker 1: first leftist Like it's like we don't exist, and we're
Speaker 1: supposed to pretend like Jake Tapper is our ideological ally
Speaker 1: or somehow our worldview is it all reflected in these
Speaker 1: corporate neoliberal spaces and there's never any crying about where's
Speaker 1: that diversity of viewpoint?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: This is why occasionally, when like anin eternal Turner will
Speaker 1: sneak on for one segment or something, we're all like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's like we exist, but otherwise we
Speaker 1: understand what the game is because our ideology is threatening
Speaker 1: to capital. It doesn't sit comfortably with the advertisers or
Speaker 1: like the donor class that at this point backs NPR,
Speaker 1: and so we're just invisibilized and you know, casually smear, dismissed,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And I never see any concern about that.
Speaker 1: At least conservatives have Fox News and it's bigger than
Speaker 1: CNN the other The last thing I'm saying, and this
Speaker 1: really does transitions to that NPR conversation, is like, let's
Speaker 1: just be serious about where we are in the medio
Speaker 1: media ecosystem. At this point. These places are not trying
Speaker 1: to play to a general audience. Their corporate they need
Speaker 1: advertiser money. They have a specific audience that they're super serving.
Speaker 1: It's a business model. It's not news, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: So we shouldn't be surprised when CNN doesn't platform my
Speaker 1: ideology or your ideology, because we aren't for the audience
Speaker 1: that they have and that they want to keep and
Speaker 1: that they're trying to super serve. We aren't for the
Speaker 1: advertisers that they want to keep buying ads. So the
Speaker 1: more that we're clear about what's actually happening here, and
Speaker 1: I think drop the pretense that this is some like
Speaker 1: neutral journalistic endeavor, I think the more easily we'll understand
Speaker 1: what's actually unfolding before our eyes at all of these
Speaker 1: various outlets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree completely that like the number one thing
Speaker 3: the media could do to improve instantly would to be,
Speaker 3: quite literally, just drop the pretense for New York Times
Speaker 3: to say our editorial slant on the opinion.
Speaker 4: Side also guides our news side.
Speaker 3: It just dropped the idea that this is the paper
Speaker 3: record for the country as a whole. That would do
Speaker 3: so much, whether it's CNN, NPR, Washington Posts, that would
Speaker 3: go so far to restoring trust in media and allow
Speaker 3: some of the genuinely brave and excellent reporting those outlets
Speaker 3: do overseas, you know, in actual war zones, to actually
Speaker 3: build credibility back with readers that rightfully have no trust.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying all that reporting deserves credibility, but
Speaker 3: just that you know, there are people that are doing
Speaker 3: some good work that the critics of media aren't doing,
Speaker 3: mostly because they don't have, you know, the funding or
Speaker 3: the institutional infrastructure to do it. But you know, that's
Speaker 3: the number one thing that should start happening. CNN says,
Speaker 3: we don't have people on that make that perspective of
Speaker 3: Republican voters or that will give that perspective that amplify
Speaker 3: that perspective and give it anywhere near proportionality because we
Speaker 3: disagree with both sides is because we're mostly cultural progressives.
Speaker 3: And that chan key argument that has been around for
Speaker 3: decades is important.
Speaker 4: And it was about class. It was about foreign policy
Speaker 4: and war.
Speaker 3: And now there are a lot of class first conservatives
Speaker 3: who are also finding themselves just as ostracized as class
Speaker 3: first leftists have been for a long time in corporate
Speaker 3: media spaces because this is deemed out of bounds. It's
Speaker 3: it is beyond the bounds of what is acceptable, of
Speaker 3: what is allowed to be speech in this country. So
Speaker 3: I think it's really interesting, and let's move on to
Speaker 3: this NPR thing because it's been a fascinating sort of
Speaker 3: turn of events. Let's put F two up on the
Speaker 3: screen speaking of class. I mean, it's just so interesting.
Speaker 11: Here.
Speaker 4: This is Steve Guest.
Speaker 3: He posted these old Twitter posts from the new CEO
Speaker 3: of MPR, who I think got the job back in January.
Speaker 4: She's pretty new on the job.
Speaker 3: She was saying the best part of Arizona Get out
Speaker 3: the vote is my Biden Grandpa hat. So she's in
Speaker 3: a Biden for President hat. Back on November one, twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: She said in twenty sixteen, I do wish Hillary wouldn't
Speaker 3: use the language of quote boy and girl. It's a
Speaker 3: racing language for non binary people. I'm an unalloyed progressive
Speaker 3: and supporting Hillary this time around, she tweeted in July
Speaker 3: of twenty sixteen. Yes it is girl boss, like insufferable
Speaker 3: girl boss sanctimony. Matt Tayibi did a hilarious piece running
Speaker 3: down all of the time Katherine Marr, the new CEO
Speaker 3: of NPR, was just like destroying all of the fun
Speaker 3: in holidays by just doing this like virtue signaling political correctness.
Speaker 3: It was a really wonderful sort of journey through her
Speaker 3: political arc. But she used to be at Wikimedia. I
Speaker 3: think she's like had some like fellowships with World Economic
Speaker 3: Forum in those places, and Wikimedia is Wikipedia is a
Speaker 3: place that a lot of people see as being sort
Speaker 3: of unbiased and neutral.
Speaker 4: It is not.
Speaker 3: We've done some reporting on the federalist set, like the
Speaker 3: horrifying levels of powerful influence over Wikipedia Wikimedia. I think
Speaker 3: she had positions on other sort of big corporate friendly
Speaker 3: places before.
Speaker 4: Landing there, But this all has bubbled to the.
Speaker 3: Surface because a guy named Darry Berliner wrote an essay
Speaker 3: for The Free Press, which is Barry Weiss's outlet, last week,
Speaker 3: and we can go ahead and put F three up
Speaker 3: on the screen, making some pretty clear accusations of just
Speaker 3: bias that was culture based, class based at NPR that
Speaker 3: he's worked there for twenty five years, he just saw
Speaker 3: it escalate in recent years, for example, calling the lab
Speaker 3: leak conspiracy theory and discrediting it immediately. Now he was
Speaker 3: suspended yesterday, and so this happened as all of these
Speaker 3: posts from Catherine Marr were circulating.
Speaker 4: And it is pretty.
Speaker 3: Funny because the New York Times and TABI another great
Speaker 3: piece about this. The New York Times totally dismissed and
Speaker 3: like downplayed all of the serious concerns about this woman's bias.
Speaker 3: You know, she's never been a journalist, but she has
Speaker 3: overseeing journalism at NPR, which has the added kind of
Speaker 3: credibility benefit built into it of being National Public Radio,
Speaker 3: a place that you know, Ryan and I talked last
Speaker 3: week used to be. People have a lot of nostalgia
Speaker 3: for different eras of MPR, even if it used to
Speaker 3: be kind of slanted left.
Speaker 4: People liked NPR and Now, I don't know, Crystal Hoften,
Speaker 4: you listen to it.
Speaker 3: I listened to it a lot, and I listened to
Speaker 3: it mostly to get like the Cultural Progressive I mean,
Speaker 3: they're like anti free speech now, even though they have
Speaker 3: a show called one a Like, it's just amazing the
Speaker 3: turn of events at MPR, like pro censorship on social
Speaker 3: media and all of that. So, you know, I actually
Speaker 3: think there's probably a good reason to suspend a guy
Speaker 3: who publicly airs your dirty laundry if you're a media outlet,
Speaker 3: like that's you know, I'm sure that's against some type
Speaker 3: of contract agreement. So I kind of get that, But
Speaker 3: I do find it somewhat interesting that you have this
Speaker 3: breathless sort of defense of mar or protection over mar
Speaker 3: or whatever in the media and then this like, well
Speaker 3: this Berlin or guy like he's getting suspended while the
Speaker 3: media is sort of defending her, rushing to her defense.
Speaker 3: It's just like, come on, guys, like both sites can
Speaker 3: be wrong here. It's pretty clear that NPR has gone
Speaker 3: in one direction over the other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think this dude was pretty much
Speaker 1: asking to be fired, right, Like, yes, if you work
Speaker 1: for an outlet and you go on a different outlet
Speaker 1: and you're like, I hate this outlet I were in,
Speaker 1: here's all the problems, Like you're kind of asking to
Speaker 1: be fired. I don't have a whole lot of sympathy
Speaker 1: for that. I think he probably knew that was the
Speaker 1: likely outcome of his actions, and he was ready to
Speaker 1: move on for some of the reasons that he laid out.
Speaker 1: That's fine. In terms of this CEO, I don't know.
Speaker 1: To me, she seems like a fit for what NPR
Speaker 1: is today. And if you consider those the views that
Speaker 1: you put up there, you know, like I'm on your
Speaker 1: canvassing for Biden and I love Hillary, and you know,
Speaker 1: the like language PC language obsession stuff. How safe is
Speaker 1: that for rich people, corporate donors as that are.
Speaker 4: I mean that it's the public relations strategy.
Speaker 1: Yep, this is their business model. They are not actually
Speaker 1: really public radio at this point. They receive very little
Speaker 1: funding from the federal government. Most of their budget comes
Speaker 1: from rich donors and advertisements. So guess what you get,
Speaker 1: this neoliberal ideology that is really safe for rich white people.
Speaker 1: That's their constituency, that's who they're applaying to. And in
Speaker 1: that context, the CEO is an absolutely perfect fit. So
Speaker 1: I know, ironically, a lot of the response to the
Speaker 1: right of NPR's you know, intense identitarian liberal turn is well,
Speaker 1: we should defund them. The defunding is actually part of
Speaker 1: the problem, because the fact that the business model now
Speaker 1: is reliant on these like rich donors and advertisers is
Speaker 1: a big part of the story of how they've become
Speaker 1: what they are. You know, the original concept, if you
Speaker 1: go back to the seventies, it was this very like
Speaker 1: populist public access. We're going to talk to Mississippi about
Speaker 1: what's going on with his soybean crop or whatever. We're
Speaker 1: going to hear from regular Americans all around the country.
Speaker 1: I think that's very valuable. I appreciate that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: public access. I think about remember Bernie those like TV
Speaker 1: shows he used to do from the local mall or whatever. Yes,
Speaker 1: like that's kind of a vibe, but it's not super profitable.
Speaker 1: So if you have to actually like make money on
Speaker 1: this thing, and you can't be reliant on federal government
Speaker 1: just backing you to do this thing that's genuinely like
Speaker 1: an educational or public search, then you're going to end
Speaker 1: up acting like the rest of corporate media. And we
Speaker 1: really see this. You know, we really see this turnaround
Speaker 1: Trump where he is this very divisive figure, and some
Speaker 1: media outlets go in the direction of We're going to
Speaker 1: be the Trump people, and others go in the direction
Speaker 1: we're gonna be the anti Trump people. George Floyd is
Speaker 1: another Fisher in American society. And so no one should
Speaker 1: be surprised since NPR really is basically like a corporate
Speaker 1: media outlet at this point, that they follow the same
Speaker 1: trajectory of every other corporate media outlet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, it's actually so interesting.
Speaker 3: And the last thing I'll say on this because that
Speaker 3: the sort of Chansky argument has been papered over by
Speaker 3: the culture War in recent years to the point where
Speaker 3: you know, you use the sort of necessary shorthand about
Speaker 3: liberal media or left wing media, and honestly, I do
Speaker 3: that all the time because there's really I mean, you
Speaker 3: can launch into a tangential two minute thing about what
Speaker 3: you mean when you say that, but you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's really what you mean is cultural sort of progressivism
Speaker 3: in the along the lines of what Catherine Mahr is
Speaker 3: just displaying so clearly when she stop using the language
Speaker 3: of quote boys and girls posts that to her Twitter page, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's it. It's hard to even have these
Speaker 3: conversations now because the terms have been scrambled because of
Speaker 3: that culture war embrace just in the last decade or so. That,
Speaker 3: by the way, stems from real class biases in ways
Speaker 3: that have been uniting to both the left and the right.
Speaker 3: And that's not to say the left and the right
Speaker 3: have found common cause on like medicare for all so
Speaker 3: much as it is to say, when you pull working
Speaker 3: class people on some of these cultural issues, like using
Speaker 3: the word Latin X for example, you find a very
Speaker 3: different position from what the corporate media has. And I
Speaker 3: think that's one of the openings in the marketplace that
Speaker 3: you and Sager.
Speaker 4: It's not like you were trying to, you know, fill
Speaker 4: that gap. You just naturally do.
Speaker 3: And that's what people initially responded to, and hopefully that's
Speaker 3: what people respond to on the show, is that, like,
Speaker 3: you need media that is responsive to what people actually
Speaker 3: want to hear, and in so many cases that is
Speaker 3: absolutely class based, and you just don't get that anywhere,
Speaker 3: even from purportedly left wing media at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this lady does not represent me.
Speaker 4: Yes she does, Crystal, Yeah, she does not.
Speaker 1: I think you guys, go Hillary Christian to be proof
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 4: You guys, you guys need to have That's fine.
Speaker 1: We could be friends. You know, I've got friends who
Speaker 1: were on team Hillary in twenty sixteen and were, you know,
Speaker 1: very aggressively and still are pro Biden. That's fine, but
Speaker 1: you know, she does not reflect my political ideology, and
Speaker 1: very few people in mainstream press actually do, if any,
Speaker 1: To be honest with.
Speaker 3: You, absolutely no, it's it's just the whole MPR saga
Speaker 3: has been fun to watch, and I think partially is because,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't like the concept of state media
Speaker 3: at all, honestly, but I do like the nostalgia. That's
Speaker 3: I like hearing people's nostalgia for the different era of
Speaker 3: MPR because I think it does harken back to a
Speaker 3: time when there was just generally more consensus, and some
Speaker 3: of that consensus was bad, but some of it actually
Speaker 3: was good. There was this touchstone culturally in NPR that
Speaker 3: a lot of people listen to and could talk about
Speaker 3: it as a water cooler, the proverberal water cooler, and
Speaker 3: that was important, I think to just a lot of
Speaker 3: our shared values.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think there is a way public
Speaker 1: funded media can be done well, and obviously we need
Speaker 1: different models of media than what we've collapsed to, which
Speaker 1: is this you know, corporate funded model, and then you know,
Speaker 1: in independent media there are good parts about it, but
Speaker 1: it's also subject to its own risks and perils of
Speaker 1: audience capture and trying to play to you know, narrow
Speaker 1: of an audience in a bubble, et cetera. So definitely
Speaker 1: need a whole whole media rethink because I don't think
Speaker 1: these outlets are serving the American.
Speaker 3: People well well, speaking of platforming, genuine debate that represents
Speaker 3: the actual American public. Stay tuned to this channel, right, Crystal,
Speaker 3: because Sager is moderating one such debate tonight here on
Speaker 3: the channel at seven pm on Israel.
Speaker 1: That's right, it is going to be Sager as moderator.
Speaker 1: We've got on one side Batya Ngarsargon and Dennis Prager
Speaker 1: as the pro Israel side, and we've got Dave Smith
Speaker 1: and Jank Uger on the pro palestinior anti. However you
Speaker 1: want to raise that side pro ceeds fire will say
Speaker 1: side of the equation. So I'm excited to watch. It
Speaker 1: should be really interesting. I always learn a lot from
Speaker 1: these things. Too, on a more serious note about the
Speaker 1: way everybody's thinking about it, new historical facts and new
Speaker 1: things for me to personally grapple with two in terms
Speaker 1: of how I'm viewing the conflict.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and Ryan's on spring break, but he'll be back
Speaker 3: here next week for another edition of Points, and the
Speaker 3: weight is almost over.
Speaker 4: I think we can start teasing this a little bit
Speaker 4: more heavily, Crystal.
Speaker 3: There will be some new Counterpoints content coming down the pike,
Speaker 3: so make sure that you subscribe. You get the full
Speaker 3: version of Counterpoints when you subscribe right to your inbox,
Speaker 3: you know, not just the couple clips that we post
Speaker 3: on Wednesdays from the show, but the whole thing right
Speaker 3: to your inbox, and you get all kinds of different
Speaker 3: benefits of your premium subscription for Breaking Points as well.
Speaker 3: So that's Breakingpoints dot com and I would highly recommend
Speaker 3: everybody stay tuned for next week.
Speaker 1: Yes, speaking of giving the people what they want, we
Speaker 1: had many, many requests, seriously for more Ryan and Emily,
Speaker 1: and we were trying to make that happen for you
Speaker 1: good people. So thank you for your support and hoping
Speaker 1: to enable that, and Emily, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'll be back here again with Sager tomorrow. So hope
Speaker 1: you guys aren't sick of me yet.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, I don't know if you saw
Speaker 3: this Chrystal, but now Ryan and Emily there's competition in
Speaker 3: the Ryan and Emily department because Ryan Gosling and Emily
Speaker 3: Blunt are in a new movie together and they just
Speaker 3: covered Taylor Swifts all too well on Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 3: and Taylor referred to it as Ryan and Emily's version,
Speaker 3: and we had some great viewer viewer response to that,
Speaker 3: they like, this is not the Ryan and Emily that
Speaker 3: I've come to know and love. Of course, Ryan, Grimm
Speaker 3: and Emily get much more famous, uh and iconic duo,
Speaker 3: but we name.
Speaker 1: It more iconic Ride and Emily than Ride Grim and
Speaker 1: Emily Skies.
Speaker 3: Well, stay tuned for more of that and Soccer will
Speaker 3: be back with Crystal tomorrow. Thanks so much for tuning in, everyone,