Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What do we have, Crystal, Indeed, we do lots to
Speaker 1: get to you this morning. Israeli officials claiming they are
Speaker 1: shifting to a different phase of the conflict as they
Speaker 1: are floating yet another supposed plan for what may come
Speaker 1: in the day after.
Speaker 4: We will break all of that down for you. We
Speaker 4: also have a member of.
Speaker 1: The Kanesset who is signing on to South Africa's claims
Speaker 1: of genocide against Israel, leading to huge political ramifications for him.
Speaker 1: There's a whole freak out going on over that, so
Speaker 1: we'll break that down for you. Also, got some interesting
Speaker 1: ways that that conflict is flowing into day domestic politics.
Speaker 1: Protesters disrupting Joe Biden during a speech down in Charleston,
Speaker 1: so we'll show you those images. We also have the
Speaker 1: Iowa caucuses next week next week and a new poll
Speaker 1: is showing Nikki Hayley surging into a single digit deficit
Speaker 1: with Trump in New Hampshire, so she is definitely surging
Speaker 1: closing the gap.
Speaker 4: Is it enough? Is it too late? All of that.
Speaker 1: Will show you their closing ads as well as they
Speaker 1: head into iow.
Speaker 4: A lot of interesting stuff going on there.
Speaker 1: Also have some updates for you as we're learning more
Speaker 1: about what may have caused that door to blow off
Speaker 1: of a jet while they.
Speaker 4: Were in the air.
Speaker 1: This was the subject of Soccer's monologue yesterday, so we're
Speaker 1: getting a little bit of insight into what the hell
Speaker 1: may be going on there, and it is not good news.
Speaker 1: We also have some media updates for you. Mehdi Hassan
Speaker 1: out at MSNBC. He has chosen to leave after his
Speaker 1: show was canceled, so we will break down the reasons
Speaker 1: why perhaps he was sidelined there. Also excited to talk
Speaker 1: to Jeff Steiny as a new podcast breaking down the
Speaker 1: history of abolitionist John Brown, which is really fascinating, highly
Speaker 1: recommend Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be fun to talk to him about that.
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Speaker 1: of what you want to know from RFK junior supporters.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go ahead and get to the very
Speaker 1: latest out of Israel. Put us up on the screen
Speaker 1: from the Wall Street Journal. This was quite an extraordinary
Speaker 1: interview overall that the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant gave
Speaker 1: the headline here Israel plans for next phase of Gaza war,
Speaker 1: Defence minister says, and in this piece they kind of
Speaker 1: buried the lead. So Galant is floating and this is
Speaker 1: not official government policy, but this is what he's floating.
Speaker 4: He says, as he sees it.
Speaker 1: A multinational task force should be set up in the
Speaker 1: day after in Gaza, led by the US, with European
Speaker 1: and Middle Eastern partners. They should oversee the rehabilitation of Gaza. This,
Speaker 1: of course, comes after last week you had those far
Speaker 1: right ministers Smotrich and Ben Gavier making very clear that
Speaker 1: they believe the appropriate day after plan in Gaza is
Speaker 1: ethnic cleansing. Of course, we've had Net and Yahoo reports
Speaker 1: that he is interested in the same. We've had multiple
Speaker 1: We've had a plan come out from a government ministry
Speaker 1: laying out three different options, and the one that they
Speaker 1: said they prefer where the most was pushing Palestinians out
Speaker 1: of Gaza, the idea being basically to make all of
Speaker 1: Gaza uninhabitable, mission accomplished there and then to pressure the
Speaker 1: US and others that this is the humanitarian solution, is
Speaker 1: to forcibly remove Palestinians from the Gaza strip. I think
Speaker 1: it's worth noting in terms of Yoev Galant with regards
Speaker 1: to this war, he has been hand in glove with Netanyahu.
Speaker 1: He actually at one point was fired by Netnyahai if
Speaker 1: you remember. That has sparked huge protests over the judicial
Speaker 1: coup that Netanyahu was pushing through that is now in
Speaker 1: dispute the Supreme Court of the country overturning that and
Speaker 1: causing yet another crisis because of that. So there's been
Speaker 1: friction with them on the pass. There's more details of
Speaker 1: what Yoev Galant is floating here in the Guardian. Let's
Speaker 1: go and put this up on the screen. They sent.
Speaker 1: Under Galant's plan, which is not official policy and as
Speaker 1: yet to be submitted to other ministers, Israel's offensive in
Speaker 1: Gaza would continue until hostage is taken. On October seventh,
Speaker 1: were freed and Hamasa's military and governing capabilities dismayed handled then,
Speaker 1: the outline says a new phase would begin during which
Speaker 1: Hamas will not control Gaza and will not pose a
Speaker 1: security threat, with unspecified Palestinian bodies, apparently local civil servants
Speaker 1: or communal leaders assuming the territories governance. Galant said that
Speaker 1: Israel would reserve its right to operate inside the territory,
Speaker 1: but there would be no Israeli civilian presence in the
Speaker 1: Gaza strip after the goals of war have been achieved.
Speaker 1: Gaza residents are Palestinian, therefore, Palestinian bodies will be in charge,
Speaker 1: with the condition that there will be no hostile actions
Speaker 1: or threats against the State of Israel. Earlier this week,
Speaker 1: Israeli media reported the military and intelligence officials favored dividing
Speaker 1: Gaza into regions and subregions, with civil administration and the
Speaker 1: distribution of humanitarian aid in each area entrusted to local
Speaker 1: leaders seen as trustworthy. Many people describing this as sort
Speaker 1: of a Bantu Stan plan, relating it to the ghettos
Speaker 1: that were established in South Africa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the biggest problem that we have with this entire
Speaker 2: thing is as obvious that they don't have a unified
Speaker 2: plan that they agree on then their most convenient one
Speaker 2: is to offload the responsibility onto the United States. And
Speaker 2: they the saddest thing, Crystal is I cannot rule out
Speaker 2: that our people, our leaders, are not dumb enough to
Speaker 2: actually want to sign up to something like that. They're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it would just be too disruptive. It's like absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Israel is responsible for this. They need to pay for
Speaker 2: all of the reconstruction, and they also are the ones
Speaker 2: who need to pay for administration. And I think that
Speaker 2: the reason that they are trying to get out right
Speaker 2: now is because Crystal, they know we cover this. They
Speaker 2: had one hundred something soldiers who were wounded in a
Speaker 2: single day yesterday. The IDF announced this morning that nine
Speaker 2: of them were killed just yesterday yesterday that were killed
Speaker 2: inside of Gaza. That was not just included in the
Speaker 2: Hesbolah attacks. We need to understand here that the occupation
Speaker 2: and actually, if I went and I read the descriptions
Speaker 2: of the idea of soldiers who were all killed, they
Speaker 2: were all in combat engineer's brigades, meaning that they were
Speaker 2: involved in demolition or some sort of occupation like activity.
Speaker 2: This is where I believe the vast majority of their
Speaker 2: future casualties are all going to come from and if
Speaker 2: you read again the incidents ambushed in communists, ambushed in
Speaker 2: Gaza City involved in a demolition activity. They want us,
Speaker 2: the Europeans and the Middle Eastern partners, to somehow be
Speaker 2: responsible and to catch all of the flak the bullets
Speaker 2: and eventually elevate us to something called primary occupation status.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not, and I think that they might be might
Speaker 2: be realizing the nightmare that they've now signed themselves up for.
Speaker 2: Of course, the preferred solution for the most right wing
Speaker 2: ministers is going to be ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 3: But it becomes.
Speaker 2: Clear that I think they are starting to see what
Speaker 2: they have created and that mess, and they're going to
Speaker 2: try to extricate themselves by pushing the bill onto the
Speaker 2: United States, to the UN and others, which I think
Speaker 2: is outrageous. I mean, they are the ones who have
Speaker 2: to They should bear one hundred percent of the cost
Speaker 2: for all of this, not one dollar of this should
Speaker 2: come from the US.
Speaker 1: So I read it differently, this plan by Yoev Galant,
Speaker 1: which there's a reason why I floated that there was
Speaker 1: previously tension and distance between him and net Yahoo. I
Speaker 1: don't think that this really is representative whatsoever of what
Speaker 1: the Israeli government really wants to do. Remember, the US
Speaker 1: position is supposedly that, you know, what we want is
Speaker 1: the Palestinian authority to be bolstered, to be enabled to
Speaker 1: take some governing role in Gaza, and then for a
Speaker 1: two state solution process to be seriously undertaken. There is
Speaker 1: zero appetite for that in the Israeli government. And even
Speaker 1: Yoov Goalant, who is sorry, based on his comments around
Speaker 1: this world, were a total psycho, but he's what counts
Speaker 1: for like a moderate in this administration, even he doesn't
Speaker 1: mention the Palestinian Authority or any of the things that
Speaker 1: the US is.
Speaker 4: Allegedly pushing for. Here.
Speaker 1: I think what happened is you have not just Smotrich,
Speaker 1: not just Ben Gavir, but Netanyahu Hertzog. You can read
Speaker 1: through the list of Israeli Cabinet members and Lakud party
Speaker 1: members and military officials and journalists and commentators who are
Speaker 1: all pushing the ethnic cleansing plan.
Speaker 4: You can look at the polling.
Speaker 1: Of Jewish Israelis who overwhelmingly think that is the right solution.
Speaker 1: And so you had this burgeoning pressure because they said
Speaker 1: it too many times too clearly and too out loud,
Speaker 1: where even the US felt the need to put out
Speaker 1: this little statement of like, oh, we disagree with this,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So I view this plan less
Speaker 1: as a real serious idea of what they want to
Speaker 1: do than a bit of ass covering of like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: that's not really representative of what we want. Look, here's
Speaker 1: another idea that we're floating out there. And by the way,
Speaker 1: they went ahead to make sure that idea was like
Speaker 1: also completely unpalatable to the US, putting the assignment for
Speaker 1: reconstruction of Gaza and some sort of oversight of Gaza
Speaker 1: onto the US and to the UN. So that's how
Speaker 1: I read this in terms of, you know, the dynamics
Speaker 1: and the push and pull supposedly between the US and
Speaker 1: the Israelis. I think it's very clear, based on the
Speaker 1: actions in the strip, based on the comments from everyone
Speaker 1: from Netanyahu on down, including Smotrich, including Ben Giver, what
Speaker 1: they really want is the ethnic cleansing plan. That is
Speaker 1: what they've been executing effectively, and that they're just floating
Speaker 1: this option as like a bit of public ass covering.
Speaker 3: You may certainly be right.
Speaker 2: I do think that they're I think, actually this seems
Speaker 2: more likely to me just because of the outrageous I mean,
Speaker 2: this is just in my opinion, I do not think
Speaker 2: it would be a possable situation, both to America, to Egypt,
Speaker 2: to all these other Middle Eastern countries. I think a
Speaker 2: full scale regional war would be more likely than acceptance
Speaker 2: of genuine ethnic cleansing, at least in terms of expulsion
Speaker 2: from the Gaza strip now starvation and all that. That's
Speaker 2: a different story, and certainly because we're in something like that,
Speaker 2: I guess the net effect doesn't necessarily matter. But you know,
Speaker 2: this seems to me as if something that could arrive
Speaker 2: sadly as some middle ground solution quote unquote, as horrible
Speaker 2: and awful as it would be, I think for everybody involved.
Speaker 2: Now let's go and put this next one please up
Speaker 2: on the screen. Because of this highlights the expanding nature
Speaker 2: of the conversation, because we're here talking right now about Gaza,
Speaker 2: but the likelihood right now of the regional war which
Speaker 2: we touched on yesterday, demonstrates that these people are hell
Speaker 2: bent on expanding the war largely I believe, to be
Speaker 2: able to keep their hold on power because of course,
Speaker 2: the Israeli people. You know, is Nataannaho's got what four
Speaker 2: to six percent approval rating, But as long as this
Speaker 2: thing goes on, it's better off for him. And he
Speaker 2: says that to the Wall Street Journal that Hesbolah knows quote,
Speaker 2: we can copy and paste Gaza to Beirut. Now there
Speaker 2: is zero question in my mind. And I'm curious what
Speaker 2: you think that a copy and paste of Gaza to
Speaker 2: Beirut would erupt in a full scale regional war. Because
Speaker 2: of Hezbolah, because of Iran, and certainly because Lebanon is
Speaker 2: a sovereign nation with partners and allies in the region,
Speaker 2: They're just already we're at such a massive breaking point
Speaker 2: in terms of the relations between Jordan and Israel, Jordan
Speaker 2: and the United States, Egypt and others. If they were to
Speaker 2: do that and effectively declare war on the nation of
Speaker 2: Lebanon with Hesbola somehow caught in between, I just don't
Speaker 2: have any doubt in my mind it would erupt and
Speaker 2: the US would almost certainly become involved. So, first of all,
Speaker 2: the idea is a fantasy. But disturbingly, the more that
Speaker 2: they begin to talk this way, it just feels like
Speaker 2: two thousand and two all over again. Put the next one,
Speaker 2: please up on the screen, because the way that they
Speaker 2: talk here, he says, my basic view is that we
Speaker 2: are fighting in axis, not a single enemy. Iran is
Speaker 2: building up military power around Israel in order.
Speaker 3: To use it.
Speaker 2: It's based the exact same playbook Crystal of they've you know,
Speaker 2: shoddily you know, tempted their so called mission post October
Speaker 2: seventh in Gaza. They're realizing already that this is not
Speaker 2: going the way that they wanted it to be, and
Speaker 2: they're trying to sell it to the public. So now,
Speaker 2: just like President George W. Bush did in two thousand
Speaker 2: and two, the Axis of evil becomes the thing. And
Speaker 2: now we're starting to beat the drum and towards Hezbollah.
Speaker 2: And then we've all seen this movie before, but America
Speaker 2: doesn't have, i think, the courage or really the resolve
Speaker 2: to stand up.
Speaker 3: And just be like, this is this is not going
Speaker 3: to happen.
Speaker 2: You know, we actually you know, put your finger or
Speaker 2: whatever on the scale, and we're just seemed to be
Speaker 2: incredibly impotent in our handling of this entire situation, which
Speaker 2: is humiliating, honestly, especially if we do get involved in
Speaker 2: this war, it will be one hundred percent on Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: And it is one hundred percent on Joe Biden. I mean,
Speaker 1: they have completely bypassed Congress. These you know, national security
Speaker 1: democrats who were like former CIA agents even there for you,
Speaker 1: they're the one, yeah, Lissa Slotkin and these people and
Speaker 1: former you know, people who served in the military as well.
Speaker 1: They're looking at this situation. They're saying, this is a
Speaker 1: potential disaster for us. You have, as we covered yesterday,
Speaker 1: defense officials furiously leaking to the Washington Post and the
Speaker 1: Huffington Post them seemingly anyone who will listen to them
Speaker 1: of like, you know, they don't really care about the
Speaker 1: human toll being u you know, the horrors that are
Speaker 1: being inflicted on the people in Gaza. But they're looking
Speaker 1: at this and they said, every single war game that
Speaker 1: we scenario that we play out with an escalated war
Speaker 1: against Hesbola is a total disaster. It ends in complete nightmare.
Speaker 1: So it's not like we're the ones that are just
Speaker 1: inventing this out of whole cloth. Our own military and
Speaker 1: defense establishment is playing this out and saying this does
Speaker 1: not end in a good place. And yet you see
Speaker 1: all these articles about this hand ring, and nowhere in
Speaker 1: there do they explain that there is one very clear
Speaker 1: way to ratchet down the hostilities, and that's to have
Speaker 1: a negotiated settlement and a ceasefire for the fighting and
Speaker 1: the bombing of Gaza to stop.
Speaker 4: That gets the sound of this whole entire mess.
Speaker 1: So in any case, there's also this, uh, these comments
Speaker 1: from Yoov Galan and others in the Israeli political class
Speaker 1: and the defense establishment in Israel that they're quote shifting
Speaker 1: to a new phase of the war. It's going to
Speaker 1: be less you know, just like all on assault and
Speaker 1: more targeted.
Speaker 4: We'll see.
Speaker 1: We have not seen that yet. They've been they've been
Speaker 1: sort of floating this since the beginning of the year,
Speaker 1: and yet the we've seen some of the deadliest strikes
Speaker 1: and deadliest days in this entire assault, even in the
Speaker 1: new year. And they mentioned in particular, you know that
Speaker 1: there's going to be issues with Rafa, where I think
Speaker 1: over a million Palestinians have gathered at this point, that's
Speaker 1: at the border with Egypt there and now you know,
Speaker 1: originally it was all Hamas's command and controls in the north,
Speaker 1: and we've got Flattena and destroyed. Well they did that,
Speaker 1: that's destroyed, its uninhabitable. There's basically nothing left there. Then
Speaker 1: it was all we got to move to Conunis. That's
Speaker 1: where Hamas really is. Okay, well they've destroyed neighborhoods and Conunis,
Speaker 1: massive death tolls there. Now they're saying, oh, well, really
Speaker 1: they're in Rafa, so we've got to move there, and
Speaker 1: you know, the human toll is going to be absolutely devastating,
Speaker 1: and at the same time, the humiliation for the US
Speaker 1: just continues. Put this next piece up on the screen
Speaker 1: Israel to tell Anthony Blincoln, who is in the region
Speaker 1: right now, that Palestinians cannot return to the north of
Speaker 1: Gaza without a hostage deal. Now hanging over this elephant
Speaker 1: in the room that doesn't even get mentioned in this piece,
Speaker 1: I believe, is that there is basically nothing to return
Speaker 1: to in the north of Gaza in terms of any
Speaker 1: sort of civilian infrastructure that can sustain life.
Speaker 4: But let me read you a little bit of this.
Speaker 4: They say.
Speaker 1: The big picture making progress toward the return of Palestinians
Speaker 1: their homes and ensuring they are not forcibly displaced from
Speaker 1: Gaza is one of the goals of Lincoln's talks in Israel.
Speaker 1: This week, the Biden administration has expressed concerns over recent
Speaker 1: statements from some radical right wing Israeli ministers who have
Speaker 1: called for Palestinians to be driven on a strip. It's
Speaker 1: not only then, by the way, what they're saying. Palestinian
Speaker 1: civilians must be able to return home as soon as
Speaker 1: conditions allow, Blinken said on Sunday in a press conference
Speaker 1: with the Katari Prime Minister in Doha. They cannot and
Speaker 1: they must not be pressed to leave Gaza.
Speaker 4: He's stressed.
Speaker 1: But behind the scenes, Israeli sources told Axios, while Israel
Speaker 1: doesn't in principle a pose allowing Palestinians to return to
Speaker 1: northern Gaza, officials will tell Blinken such a move needs
Speaker 1: to be part of a new hostage deal.
Speaker 4: Let me be clear.
Speaker 1: Hamas should release the hostages, no doubt about it. It
Speaker 1: is a war crime to hold, especially civilians, as hostages.
Speaker 1: It is unacceptable. They should release the hostages. What is
Speaker 1: Israel doing here. They're basically holding the people of Gaza
Speaker 1: hostage based on these hostilities and demanding that there wants
Speaker 1: and needs be fulfilled In order for people just to
Speaker 1: return to the rubble of their homes that have been
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly destroyed in northern Gaza. And as I said before, Saga,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's so clear that the US's
Speaker 1: words and rhetoric mean yeah, zero nothing because they see
Speaker 1: that they can do what they want, and you know,
Speaker 1: they keep pushing like, Okay, what if we attack a hospital?
Speaker 4: What if we do that? Will they go along with us?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 4: We will. What if we flatten all of northern Gaza?
Speaker 3: What if we.
Speaker 1: Impose a complete siege? What if half of Gaza residents
Speaker 1: are starving? Will they do anything to push back the answers?
Speaker 1: Buten no, So why would they listen to our little
Speaker 1: pearl clutching handbringing comments about what we want to see
Speaker 1: when there's zero willingness to back it up with anything
Speaker 1: other than those words.
Speaker 3: No, I can't disagree with that at all. I think
Speaker 3: it is outrageous decision and a statement and to be
Speaker 3: communicated again to the United States. Two wrongs don't make
Speaker 3: it right.
Speaker 2: I mean, we saw the videos just yesterday of those
Speaker 2: Israeli girls who are still being held hostage.
Speaker 3: They got like blood on their face or whatever. It's horrifying.
Speaker 2: But then you know, you can't erase and say that
Speaker 2: their captivity is going to be subject to a million
Speaker 2: or so people who are living in a tent, you know,
Speaker 2: on the brink of starvation by the border. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is you know, insanity. And then, as you said
Speaker 2: in tandem, where are they supposed to go? I mean,
Speaker 2: the more and more I look at this, I'm just
Speaker 2: genuinely so humiliated on behalf of the United States of America.
Speaker 2: Like if you go back and you read and you
Speaker 2: think about the way that even past presidents, who you know,
Speaker 2: not necessarily the strongest people. There's a famous quote of
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton behind the scenes saying, who the hell does
Speaker 2: this guy think he is? When talking about the Israeli
Speaker 2: Prime minister, And he said, you know, who needs to
Speaker 2: remind who of who the superpower is here?
Speaker 3: And as you.
Speaker 2: Know, increasingly it's clear they don't care or listen to
Speaker 2: what we think. And by the way, that's fine. They're
Speaker 2: a sovereign country. They can do what they want. But
Speaker 2: you know, when they're also got their hand out like
Speaker 2: this asking for emergency replenishment of their artillery shells and
Speaker 2: their weapons and all this other stuff, then you know,
Speaker 2: we got to have a little bit of respect here
Speaker 2: and just say that this is clearly look, take Israel.
Speaker 3: Out of it. And this has been my entire you know, position.
Speaker 2: From day one, Israel Palace, and I'll put it all
Speaker 2: out of because I don't like to think about quote
Speaker 2: unquote humanity and stuff, because he get really bogged down
Speaker 2: on the details.
Speaker 3: Strategically, this has been a disaster. This has heightened tensions
Speaker 3: for us in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: We started to redirect tens of billions of dollars of
Speaker 2: military resources. We stand on the brink of a regional
Speaker 2: war in a region that we already lost to wars
Speaker 2: that we've just come twenty five years or so off of.
Speaker 2: What possible reason would we want to get involved in this?
Speaker 2: And the humanitarian situation is both upstream and downstream of this,
Speaker 2: which is why we should be absolutely focused on making
Speaker 2: sure this doesn't happen. And you know, Israel cannot be
Speaker 2: talking about their hostages and the emotional situation of this
Speaker 2: and then try to hold hostage the million or so
Speaker 2: people who are been kicked out of their homes just
Speaker 2: doesn't It doesn't bear any scrutiny, and if anything, it's
Speaker 2: just going to multiply the criticism against them, because you know,
Speaker 2: let's be honest, the sheer numbers of the Palestinians is
Speaker 2: what ten thousand to one of the Israeli hostages that
Speaker 2: are being held here and there. This sympathy that they
Speaker 2: had on October seventh has evaporated, you know, in the
Speaker 2: entire eyes of the world.
Speaker 3: I saw it all over Europe.
Speaker 2: Just you know, just so people know when I was
Speaker 2: in Europe, the amount of Palestine in flag and activism
Speaker 2: stuff that was scrolled in public spaces. I was at
Speaker 2: the International Red Cross Museum in Geneva, Switzerland.
Speaker 3: It had a big thing.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, war crimes and are wrong and everything,
Speaker 2: even war has rules.
Speaker 3: I sent you that photo.
Speaker 2: This is all over the world, you know, it's only
Speaker 2: right here in America though, you know, our discourse is
Speaker 2: so screwed up.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: I run an editorial or op ed, I guess in Haratz,
Speaker 1: which of course is an Israeli media outlet, that was saying, listen,
Speaker 1: whether you agree with the genocide charges or not. We
Speaker 1: went through people accusing us of being occupiers to accusing
Speaker 1: us of ethnic cleansing and genocide. That's where we are,
Speaker 1: and with plenty of merit. So yeah, I mean in
Speaker 1: terms of Israeli security, in terms of any sort of humanitarianism,
Speaker 1: in terms of any sort of international law, in terms
Speaker 1: of any desires for peace, and not blowing this up
Speaker 1: into a larger conflagration. It's all a complete and utter disaster.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there is some real friction in
Speaker 1: Israeli society, especially over what happened on October seventh, how
Speaker 1: October seventh happened in the first place, why it was
Speaker 1: not disrupted, especially now that we know there were plenty
Speaker 1: of indications in advance that this was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Then the response itself has come under incredible scrutiny, and
Speaker 1: this is getting this is really blowing up at this point,
Speaker 1: So put this up on the screen. There's now demands
Speaker 1: for an investigation into what exactly happened at Kibbutz be
Speaker 1: a re in what they're describing as the tank fire incident. Now,
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure to cover this because we
Speaker 1: haven't covered it yet. There have been England's for a while,
Speaker 1: but we wanted to wait until there was more concrete
Speaker 1: proof that some of the deaths that occurred at this
Speaker 1: kibbutz were caused by Israeli military fire. Now, let me
Speaker 1: be clear, swhelming number of deaths on October seventh, as
Speaker 1: far as the evidence shows, was committed by Humas, this
Speaker 1: is not an attempt to undercut the horrors of that
Speaker 1: day or the horrors and atrocities that were committed by Hamas. However,
Speaker 1: let me read from this piece and Haretz. They say
Speaker 1: there is no demand more justified than that of relatives
Speaker 1: of people killed in the hostage incident at kibbutz, be
Speaker 1: a re to investigate the army's actions and to receive
Speaker 1: answers about the circumstances of their loved one's death. Moreover,
Speaker 1: the families should not have to make this demand alone.
Speaker 1: The IDF must give them and the public an explanation
Speaker 1: for the army's conduct on October seventh outside the home
Speaker 1: of pesse Cohen. Above all, it must disclose whether the
Speaker 1: so called Hannibal directive, and I'll explain what that is
Speaker 1: in a moment which states that hostage taking should be
Speaker 1: prevented even at the price of harm to our own forces,
Speaker 1: was used against the Israelis held hostage in that house.
Speaker 1: So they're saying, what happened here and the act direct
Speaker 1: cause of death of so many people at Pessi Cohen's
Speaker 1: house in this kibbutz. This needs to be investigated. So
Speaker 1: what is the Hannibal Directive? As a little bit of
Speaker 1: context and backstory here, put this up on the screen
Speaker 1: from Al Jazeera. So the directive, known as the Hannibal
Speaker 1: Procedure or Hannibal Protocol, is an Israeli military policy that
Speaker 1: stipulates the use of maximum force in the event of
Speaker 1: a soldier being potentially kidnapped. This is according to a
Speaker 1: former soldier and co founder of an activist group called
Speaker 1: Breaking the Silence quote. You will open fire without constraints
Speaker 1: in order to prevent the abduction, he said, adding that
Speaker 1: the use of force is carried down even at the
Speaker 1: risk of killing a captive soldier. In addition of firing
Speaker 1: at the abductor, soldiers can fire at junctions, roads, highways
Speaker 1: and other pathways opponents may take a kidnapped soldier through.
Speaker 1: The Israeli military has denied the interpretation of the directive,
Speaker 1: but there have been other indications and reports in the
Speaker 1: past that this has been utilized, and so the allegation
Speaker 1: here is that the people who were on the scene,
Speaker 1: the IDF officers who were on the scene, rather than
Speaker 1: risking people being taken hostage, which we know is very
Speaker 1: emotional issue, they decided to fire on this house, killing
Speaker 1: almost everybody who was inside. This is now based on
Speaker 1: a New York Times report. Put this up on the
Speaker 1: screen of what unfolded at that kibbutz. The headline here
Speaker 1: is the day Hamas came and this is the pivotal moment.
Speaker 1: So they're interviewing this man, General Hiram, who was sort
Speaker 1: of leading the action or directing the action from the
Speaker 1: Israeli side at this kibbutz. And in the story they write,
Speaker 1: as the dusk approach, the SWAT commander and General Hiram
Speaker 1: began to argue. The SWAT commander thought more kidnappers might surrender.
Speaker 1: The General wanted the situation resolved by nightfall. Minutes later,
Speaker 1: the militants launched a rocket propelled grenade accornitia. To the
Speaker 1: general and other witnesses who spoke to the Times quote,
Speaker 1: the negotiations are over. General Hiram are called telling the
Speaker 1: tank commander break in, even at the cost of civilian casualties.
Speaker 1: The tank fired two light shells at the house. Strapnel
Speaker 1: from the second shell hit mister Dagan, that's one of
Speaker 1: the hostages in the next severian artering, killing him.
Speaker 4: According to his wife.
Speaker 1: Who was one of the only people who survived here
Speaker 1: during the melee, the kidnappers were also killed. Only two
Speaker 1: of the fourteen hostages survived, so one of them, this
Speaker 1: Misporat who they indicate there she had actually one of
Speaker 1: the kidnappers, surrendered, took off his shirt to show he
Speaker 1: wasn't wearing suicide vest, took her with him as a
Speaker 1: human shield really, and brought her out. That's how she
Speaker 1: was able to survive. And part of what's critical about
Speaker 1: that context is then the Israeli military officers who are
Speaker 1: there on the scene, they interview her and she tells
Speaker 1: them there are fourteen hostages in this house, so it's
Speaker 1: not like they didn't know that there were civilians there
Speaker 1: in the house. When General Hiram tells The New York Times,
Speaker 1: he gives the order to fire, for the tank to
Speaker 1: fire on this house, and everyone's safe for one person
Speaker 1: who remained inside is ultimately killed. So that is causing
Speaker 1: a huge fracture within Israeli society about what the hell
Speaker 1: happened on October seventh, and how many of the people
Speaker 1: who were killed were actually at the hands of the
Speaker 1: IDF executing the quote unquote Hannibal directive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the big question.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about this
Speaker 2: now for months on end, and a lot of speculation
Speaker 2: about helicopter fire and the level of casualties and all
Speaker 2: of that. But it's like you said, Chris wo we
Speaker 2: want to really wanted to wait for like ironclad evidence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got a general here who says he ordered them
Speaker 2: to go in regardless, pretty iron clad.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good in terms of evidence.
Speaker 2: And then you've got here the Haretz investigation citing the
Speaker 2: people inside the community who say and ask whether the
Speaker 2: directive was in play or not.
Speaker 3: And that's obviously one of.
Speaker 2: Those where you should have a real question about that
Speaker 2: in a democracy or in a society, imagine if that
Speaker 2: was US policy. And by the way, it's a legitimate one.
Speaker 2: It's an Honestly, I could see both sides. There was
Speaker 2: that whole debate when people thought Dick Cheney might have
Speaker 2: shot down United ninety three, and it's like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: are you gonna allowed to crash into the capital.
Speaker 3: What do you do? How can you say their innocent lives.
Speaker 2: It's a genuine moral quandary for a leader, and that's
Speaker 2: why you should have practices and all these other things
Speaker 2: in place for decision making.
Speaker 3: Clearly they had that in the past.
Speaker 2: Hostages have been a very emotional problem for Israel many
Speaker 2: many times, and it wouldn't be outside the realm of
Speaker 2: possibility that that's something that they did. And it does appear,
Speaker 2: at least in a small instance that they did it,
Speaker 2: almost certainly here in this case. But you get to
Speaker 2: debate that, you know, in a democratic society, and I
Speaker 2: think that's the big question unfortunately, and I'm really glad
Speaker 2: the way that.
Speaker 3: You phrase it at the beginning.
Speaker 2: No one's trying to say that the vast majority of
Speaker 2: the people who were killed were not done so by Hamas.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's also a legitimate question, as it
Speaker 2: would be on nine to eleven. It doesn't obscure the
Speaker 2: nine to eleven hijackers. If a plane was shot out
Speaker 2: of the sky, clearly you know it was a direct
Speaker 2: result of that. But it's still a legitimate question about
Speaker 2: things that you know that were done in our name
Speaker 2: or in this case, in the Israeli name, authority and policy,
Speaker 2: and what it means now I think, for how does
Speaker 2: it translate to the existing hostages. We already know that
Speaker 2: what is it? Three of the hostages were shot and
Speaker 2: killed by IDF soldiers even when they were waving white
Speaker 2: flags around. We know that some have been reported dead.
Speaker 2: Now Hamas claims that it's because of an air strike.
Speaker 2: We do know that the hostages who were freed and
Speaker 2: who eventually met with Netsen Yahu said, you have no
Speaker 2: idea what you're doing. We heard the air strikes above
Speaker 2: us all the time. These are genuine questions, I mean.
Speaker 2: So then the question is is that directives still in
Speaker 2: place today? There's a current report that ya is it
Speaker 2: yahwa or yaha whatever sinwar, that leader of Hamas is
Speaker 2: currently surrounding himself with all of the existing Israeli hostages.
Speaker 3: Not outside the realm of possibility.
Speaker 2: Isis leaders did it all the time throughout Syria America
Speaker 2: decided we will never hit somebody if they're going to
Speaker 2: be surrounded by civilian casualties, and by and large we
Speaker 2: were pretty good about it. In some cases waited almost
Speaker 2: two years just to hit someone for the one time
Speaker 2: that they slipped up. Well, what if the Israelis are
Speaker 2: getting impatient? Are they going to make that air striker not?
Speaker 2: And they just blame Hamas. That's a genuine question, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's one of those where it could
Speaker 2: be genuinely downstream of this right here, and considering that
Speaker 2: all of global politics is surrounding like this with the sun,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's outside their own possibility.
Speaker 1: And this is the terror that hostage families are expressing exactly.
Speaker 1: And let me also say the other reason why it
Speaker 1: matters to parse these details of what happened on October seventh,
Speaker 1: even though it's frankly it's uncomfortable because you don't want
Speaker 1: to sound like you're minimizing it.
Speaker 4: And I really am not right. It really was horrific.
Speaker 4: There were genuine.
Speaker 1: Atrocities, but we have seen the way that israelly politicians
Speaker 1: and military officials have used fake stories to justify the
Speaker 1: level of horror that has been inflicted on Gaza. Forty
Speaker 1: beheaded babies not true, true, not true? Right, And that's
Speaker 1: not me, that's the Haaretz did an investigation many of
Speaker 1: the most gruesome and grizzly stories, the baby in the oven, right,
Speaker 1: a pregnant woman having a baby cut down. For these
Speaker 1: things were not true. Now, there were plenty of other
Speaker 1: horrors that were true, but these fake stories were weaponized
Speaker 1: to justify the treatment of all Palestinians like they were animals,
Speaker 1: starving them, bombing them. Now, twelve thousand kids dead, you know,
Speaker 1: ninety percent civilian casualties. These fake stories were weaponized, and
Speaker 1: so that's why it matters to get these details really correct.
Speaker 1: What was the number of civilian casualties that were actually
Speaker 1: inflicted by humus?
Speaker 4: What was that number?
Speaker 1: It matters just in the interest of accuracy and understanding,
Speaker 1: truly understanding the events of that day.
Speaker 4: So that's why I thought it was worthwhile.
Speaker 1: To spend some time on this story and the uproar
Speaker 1: that it's caused in Israeli society, because we were they
Speaker 1: were caught many times line about what actually unfolded in
Speaker 1: that day in a way that has allowed them to,
Speaker 1: you know, make more a stronger case. Not that any
Speaker 1: atrocity on that day would justify what they've done in Gaza,
Speaker 1: but that's the way that these stories and the events
Speaker 1: of these that day have been covered up and weaponized
Speaker 1: to incredibly horrific effect.
Speaker 2: Played out in my own life. Not even three weeks ago,
Speaker 2: I was having dinner with some of my friends. All
Speaker 2: of them are very very pro Israel. I don't bring
Speaker 2: it up. I in general, I don't bring up anything.
Speaker 2: But it's one of those where you know, you're sitting
Speaker 2: and people are talking and all of that, and they're like, saga,
Speaker 2: you know, we've been listening to some of what you
Speaker 2: big guys have been saying, and it's.
Speaker 3: Like, how can you have so much concern for Palestinians?
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, you know, first of all,
Speaker 2: you know, I just look at it genuinely, impartially like
Speaker 2: I have equal compassion for both.
Speaker 3: And they're like, yeah, but what about the beheaded babies?
Speaker 2: And I was like, look, I don't want to get
Speaker 2: into a discussion here at this Mexican suburban restaurant, but
Speaker 2: the Israeli me and themselves are the ones who died.
Speaker 2: They had no idea, they had no clue. You know,
Speaker 2: these are there's your casual news consumers. And I'm not
Speaker 2: putting them down. It's they're living their lives. You know,
Speaker 2: They're they're going about doing something They're like, well, what
Speaker 2: about the baby in the oven? And I was They're like,
Speaker 2: how can you you know, how can you you know,
Speaker 2: move past something like that. And I was like, look again,
Speaker 2: I don't want to ruin your ampanadus, but that's not true.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I can pull it up here,
Speaker 2: you know, on my phone. And I was like, and
Speaker 2: then when we take the emotion out of it a
Speaker 2: little bit, you know, we start to have even a
Speaker 2: little bit more of a conversation. And somebody's like, so
Speaker 2: what is the plan exactly? He's like, so where are
Speaker 2: all these Palestinians? He's like where did they go? And
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, that's a good question, isn't it.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you should look into it. And
Speaker 2: it's one of those where that's how you have the conversation.
Speaker 2: But it just it showed me in real time. I'm like, wow,
Speaker 2: this stuff is goes deep, you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: people who are casual news consumers, people who are picking
Speaker 2: these things up, and then how they can and I
Speaker 2: you know, to a certain extent, you can understand where like, well,
Speaker 2: anybody responsible for something like that has got to invite
Speaker 2: a similar type of response. But then When you take
Speaker 2: that out of it, you start, like you said, I
Speaker 2: don't think they genuinely had thought in that moment, where
Speaker 2: did all these palacinam people have to go? And that's
Speaker 2: what happens whenever you you'll casually consume some of these things.
Speaker 2: And again, I don't I'm not putting these people down.
Speaker 2: These are good friends of mine. The point is just
Speaker 2: that a lot of people lived like this, you know,
Speaker 2: genuinely about in their daily lives, and what we try
Speaker 2: to do here on the show is.
Speaker 3: Just present to you a very very grace.
Speaker 2: You know, it's black and white is easy, the gray
Speaker 2: zone and all this other stuff.
Speaker 3: That's where most of real life takes place.
Speaker 2: And when you can talk in that as I did
Speaker 2: with my friends, you can do it in a non
Speaker 2: confrontational way and you can actually arrive at a very
Speaker 2: different place. And I think that's what we're trying to
Speaker 2: do here right now, and that's part of the reason
Speaker 2: why we're doing the story.
Speaker 1: So go ahead and touch the third rail here. The
Speaker 1: other thing that has been in dispute is whether there
Speaker 1: was widespread systematic rape on October seventh. Sure, and maybe
Speaker 1: there was. I'm not saying there wasn't. I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: saying there was no sexual violence on that day. I
Speaker 1: actually think it would be relatively preposterous to imagine there
Speaker 1: was no sexual violence on that day. However, the claim
Speaker 1: of mass systematized sexual assault has not been backed up
Speaker 1: by evidence, and at this point, based on all of
Speaker 1: the lies they've been caught in, at this point, I
Speaker 1: think it is entirely appropriate to say there needs to
Speaker 1: be some sufficient level of evidence to justify these claims.
Speaker 1: Ryan and Emily actually reported on there was a New
Speaker 1: York Times article that sought to dig in to this
Speaker 1: this you know question of sexual violence on October seven,
Speaker 1: and one of the primary you know witnesses families that
Speaker 1: they focused on after this report came out, said, we
Speaker 1: did not think that our daughter was raped. We did
Speaker 1: not know that this was the intention of your article.
Speaker 1: And just imagine if that was your daughter who was
Speaker 1: killed on that day, and you have a reporter who
Speaker 1: comes to you basically under false pretenses to sort of
Speaker 1: use you to try to make a point. Now again,
Speaker 1: I am not saying that nothing happened. I don't, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But the evidence that has so fun
Speaker 1: been proffered is insufficient to justify the claim of mass
Speaker 1: systematized rape on that day. And again you might say, well,
Speaker 1: why why does this matter? Like it was horrible, isn't
Speaker 1: that enough for you? Like why are you nitpicking here?
Speaker 1: And I would just go back to the fact that
Speaker 1: the horrible stories that were many and often in many
Speaker 1: cases fabricated in order to elicit emotional response, were used
Speaker 1: to justify horrors being inflicted on Palestinians. And so you
Speaker 1: know that, and just accuracy does matter, Like actually knowing
Speaker 1: for the historical record what really unfolded as best as
Speaker 1: we possibly can on that day does matter.
Speaker 3: Truth matters a lot.
Speaker 2: Like you said, it would be actually absurd to have
Speaker 2: the idea that a bunch of guys, you know, thousands
Speaker 2: of guys who flooded into a country, you know, and
Speaker 2: with weapons and crazed bloodluss did not commit sexual violence.
Speaker 3: It also would be absurd to just.
Speaker 2: Take any you know, account which has frequently been caught,
Speaker 2: you know, either being fabricated or exaggerated, and just believe
Speaker 2: it in hold truth fact matter of course for the
Speaker 2: historical record, and we've also seen throughout history how exaggerations
Speaker 2: and fakeries are often used to justify the worst of
Speaker 2: a response, such that in this moment of intense information
Speaker 2: overflow and all that, I actually think it matters the
Speaker 2: most today than it ever did in the past, because
Speaker 2: there is so much out there to quote unquote support
Speaker 2: whatever you want. I think you can fully convince yourself
Speaker 2: that the beheaded baby story and the oven story or
Speaker 2: one hundred percent true if you just googled it online,
Speaker 2: if you read the three stories that were to back
Speaker 2: it up. It takes a lot of time and effort,
Speaker 2: and that's part of the why the news is exhausting
Speaker 2: for so many people, and also because they don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about it over dinner. I get it, I
Speaker 2: one hundred percent do. But you know, if you're going
Speaker 2: to engage in it, and if you're going to think
Speaker 2: about it more importantly as an informed citizen, I would
Speaker 2: urge you to try and do a lot of what
Speaker 2: we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last thing I'll mention on this is, as you
Speaker 1: mentioned the you know, the teenage girls that are still
Speaker 1: being held by Hamas, and they were highlighted, you know,
Speaker 1: extensively in the media yesterday, and I understand why left
Speaker 1: down of the count is that at least some of
Speaker 1: them are in the IDF, so they're not civilians, which
Speaker 1: changes the nature of the story and the way you
Speaker 1: feel about it. So in any case, it's important to
Speaker 1: have all of these details out there and to as
Speaker 1: best we can try to accurately sort through what the
Speaker 1: evidence suggests actually happen on that day, and that's something
Speaker 1: that the Israeli society right now is grappling with themselves.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there is another uproar in Israel
Speaker 1: over a Kannesset member who is signing on to the
Speaker 1: South Africa claim at the ICJ that Israel is in
Speaker 1: the process of committing a genocide. Put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen, so the headline here is Israeli MK causes
Speaker 1: uproar and kannesse after signing petition accusing Israel genocide in Gaza.
Speaker 1: After a fair Kasif MK in the Arab Jewish hadaj
Speaker 1: Tal party signed the South Africa petition.
Speaker 4: Fellow Kannisseant members called for his removal.
Speaker 1: Kasif explained his reasonings, saying, my constitutional duty is to
Speaker 1: Israeli society, not to the government who calls for ethnic
Speaker 1: cleansing and even actual genocide. His signature is added to
Speaker 1: those of over two hundred citizens of Israel who have
Speaker 1: also signed on.
Speaker 4: To that petition.
Speaker 1: I'm reading from this report right now, expected to be
Speaker 1: presented to the court towards the beginning of the hearings,
Speaker 1: which start on Thursday. The petition reads, in part, the
Speaker 1: information that emerges from the lawsuit is both horrific and credible.
Speaker 1: Israel is indeed taking systematic and thorough steps to wipe
Speaker 1: out the population of Gaza, to starve, abuse and displace it.
Speaker 1: It has implemented a policy of erasing options for livelihood,
Speaker 1: which is leading to genocide. So I have an update here,
Speaker 1: which is that there's a process by which if you
Speaker 1: can collect seventy signatures from cabinet members from across the Kanesset,
Speaker 1: then you can begin a process that could lead to
Speaker 1: his removal. And they have now obtained those seventy signatures,
Speaker 1: so the process is moving forward to attempt to remove
Speaker 1: him from the Kannesset. He explained his reasoning in a
Speaker 1: post on Twitter. Put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: is translation is per Google Translate, so forgive any inaccuracies here,
Speaker 1: but according to Google Translate, what he said is my
Speaker 1: constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all of its residents,
Speaker 1: not to a government whose members and its coalition are
Speaker 1: calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide. They are
Speaker 1: the ones who hurt the country and the people. They
Speaker 1: are the ones who led South Africa to turn to
Speaker 1: the heg that me and my friends. And when the
Speaker 1: government acts against society, the state, and its citizens, especially
Speaker 1: when it sacrifices them and commits crimes in their name
Speaker 1: on the altar of maintaining its existence, it is my
Speaker 1: right and even my duty to warn about this and
Speaker 1: do everything I can within the law to stop it.
Speaker 1: I will not give up the fight for our existence
Speaker 1: as a moral society. This is the true patriotism. No
Speaker 1: revenge wars and calls for extermination, no unnecessary bloodshed, and
Speaker 1: no sacrifice of kidnapped citizens and.
Speaker 4: Soldiers in false wars.
Speaker 1: This is not the first time that this man has,
Speaker 1: by the way, been temporarily suspended and removed from the
Speaker 1: Kannesset over his activism. And I wanted to play for
Speaker 1: you a piece of an interview that he gave a
Speaker 1: way while back. This was I think roughly two years ago,
Speaker 1: just to give you a sense of his sort of
Speaker 1: like passion and his committed advocacy.
Speaker 4: Take a listen much, I'm.
Speaker 6: A member of the class.
Speaker 7: But the police, he's not interested in that. They don't
Speaker 7: care about my immunity, they don't care about my rights.
Speaker 7: They just care about protecting the criminals settlers. Indee, then
Speaker 7: you see the kids shooting now, they kids shooting here,
Speaker 7: although they demonstrators out peaceful that they don't know anything,
Speaker 7: We didn't do anything.
Speaker 8: This is the police.
Speaker 7: This is the police of this fascist government texts the
Speaker 7: criminal settlers against the pitting in indigenous.
Speaker 1: So we see the level of pushback that occurs when
Speaker 1: you descent here in the US on Israel Palestine, when
Speaker 1: you stand up for Palestinian rights and dignity. And here
Speaker 1: he is in Israel where people are getting arrested for
Speaker 1: a social media posts, and you know, society is and
Speaker 1: fever pitch at the moment. And I think it's incredibly
Speaker 1: courageous to do this, to sign on to this petition,
Speaker 1: to speak out really at all at this moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really interested to actually see how it goes
Speaker 2: in terms of Israeli society. And actually, you know, I
Speaker 2: watched your whole video on the breakdown. How it's going
Speaker 2: to continue in the ic J process because that actually
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that some of the ramifications of what
Speaker 2: it means because they're a signatory to it. And also
Speaker 2: for what the geopolitical situation in the future. We've already
Speaker 2: seen it right now with Putin in terms of his
Speaker 2: inability to travel in some cases, so you know, something
Speaker 2: like that apply to Israel will be extraordinary in terms
Speaker 2: of their overall situation.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see
Speaker 3: how it plays out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched an analysis and we maybe play this
Speaker 1: on Thursday because that's when the public hearings start. But
Speaker 1: Norman Finkelstein was talking about how he thought this may
Speaker 1: break down, and you know, unfortunately, like you would hope
Speaker 1: that these things were unbiased and it's just going to
Speaker 1: look at the merits, et cetera. It's very politic, which
Speaker 1: is why Israel's pushback is less on the merits and more,
Speaker 1: according to what's been reported, pressuring diplomats to get various
Speaker 1: countries to put out statements and you know, play like
Speaker 1: a political game to try to pressure the judges that
Speaker 1: will be hearing this case at the ICJ. There are
Speaker 1: fifteen judges and normals going through you know, each one
Speaker 1: of them. He thought it was unlikely that South Africa
Speaker 1: would prevail because even countries like China and Russia you
Speaker 1: might think.
Speaker 4: Would side with them.
Speaker 1: But there's a real question mark because then does that
Speaker 1: open does Russia fear that that opens Pandora's box and
Speaker 1: invite scrutiny on them just trying to fear that it
Speaker 1: opens Pandora's box and invites scrutiny on them for their
Speaker 1: treatment of the Veiger Muslim minority. So you know, even
Speaker 1: countries like that that you might think would be on
Speaker 1: South Africa side, there's a real question mark. So in
Speaker 1: any case, you know it's going to be I think
Speaker 1: it's important that South Africa did it. I think the
Speaker 1: case they filed is incredibly detailed. The legal standard that
Speaker 1: has to be met right now is not like a
Speaker 1: final finding of genocide. It's just that it is plausible
Speaker 1: that that's what's being committed right now. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, in my opinion, if you look at the
Speaker 1: civilian death, if you look at the levels of starvation,
Speaker 1: if you look at the vast number of comments. They
Speaker 1: have six pages of comments from Varie Israeli officials talking
Speaker 1: about you know, Palestinians as human animals and saying they
Speaker 1: want to destroyal of Gaza and not but twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I think it is certainly plausible that that's
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening. But we'll see how this all unfolds
Speaker 1: and whether the activism here from this member of Kanesse
Speaker 1: means anything. The last thing I wanted to close within
Speaker 1: this section is there was just to show you that,
Speaker 1: you know, this conversation is important even within Israeli society.
Speaker 1: There was Ajaretz up ed we can put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. Who that is basically saying, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the South Africa really has a point.
Speaker 4: Good luck to the ICJ.
Speaker 1: Is really should hope it will decree to stop the
Speaker 1: Gaza operation. Israel to not go to war in order
Speaker 1: to commit genocide this person's opinion, there is no doubt
Speaker 1: about that, but it is committing it in practice, even
Speaker 1: without intending to. Every day that goes by in this war,
Speaker 1: with its hundreds of debts, reinforces the suspicion. So even
Speaker 1: at Israeli newspaper here within a ed calling for the
Speaker 1: ICJ to side with South Africa and find that it
Speaker 1: is plausible that Israel is in fact committing genocide.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's going to be fascinating to see how it
Speaker 3: plays out.
Speaker 1: So yesterday President Joe Biden went down to Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 4: To give a political speech at the.
Speaker 1: Mother Emmanuel Ame Church. That is where, of course, Dylan
Speaker 1: Rufe massacred so many people in a horrific incident. While
Speaker 1: Biden was speaking, he was interrupted by protesters demanding a
Speaker 1: ceasefire in gozill.
Speaker 9: Let's take a listen, well, the truth, there's no light,
Speaker 9: all light, there's no path from your darkness.
Speaker 8: Did you really here?
Speaker 4: Alive?
Speaker 3: Laws?
Speaker 8: Here, the law, the fir.
Speaker 10: That's all right, that's all right, that's all right.
Speaker 9: I understand their passion, and I've been quietly working. I've
Speaker 9: been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them
Speaker 9: to reduce and significantly get out of gossip, using all
Speaker 9: I can to do.
Speaker 4: So that is the way that unfolded.
Speaker 1: You know, from my perspective, when you have protesters who
Speaker 1: are demanding an end to the mass murder of children
Speaker 1: and other innocence, in the response is.
Speaker 4: For more years.
Speaker 1: It is a very dark, very dark situation. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: I would love soccer for Joe Biden in particular, but
Speaker 1: for all politicians who are enabling this to have to
Speaker 1: face these types of protests and face the horrors of
Speaker 1: what they're enabling. I would love for them to have
Speaker 1: to deal with that every single day. And you know,
Speaker 1: the Biden campaign and the Biden administration their theory of
Speaker 1: the case of why oh, young people like they'll get
Speaker 1: over it, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, they'll get over it
Speaker 1: when they remember that it's Donald Trump on the ballot.
Speaker 1: They'll show back up, they'll come back around, and they
Speaker 1: think that this will be in the cool rear view mirror.
Speaker 1: And I think actions like this, which have persisted for
Speaker 1: months at this point, are a very clear demonstration that no,
Speaker 1: they're not getting over it, and there is no going
Speaker 1: back to a time before this was all enabled by
Speaker 1: Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I was interested to play this and actually, maybe,
Speaker 2: if you don't mind, could just set up the next element,
Speaker 2: because I think this is going to be an instructive
Speaker 2: conversation about protest, about its place in American life, usefulness,
Speaker 2: you know, counter productivity and all of that.
Speaker 1: So there were also yesterday mass protests in New York City.
Speaker 1: We can go on and put this up on the
Speaker 1: screen where pro cease fire protesters shut down three different bridges.
Speaker 1: You can see this is the Brooklyn Bridge. They also
Speaker 1: shut down the Holland Tunnel. That's what you're looking at here.
Speaker 1: And here we have Manhattan Bridge, and I think we
Speaker 1: had one more bridge. And this is an individual who
Speaker 1: was upset because he is being delayed. I would probably
Speaker 1: be upset too, and he's yelling at the protesters, getting
Speaker 1: out of his car, shoving them, becoming irate. So this
Speaker 1: was the scene that unfolded in New York yesterday. And
Speaker 1: here you have police who are sawing through I believe
Speaker 1: the chains that they had chained themselves together. And a
Speaker 1: number of people were arrested in these protests, which shut
Speaker 1: down traffic for I believe roughly like hour and a
Speaker 1: half two hours yesterday in New York City.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the reason I think this is a good juxtaposition
Speaker 2: for me personally, I know you disagree, is that I
Speaker 2: have this zero ish use with the protests the president
Speaker 2: of the United States, but these protests drive me absolutely crazy,
Speaker 2: and not only are they counterproductive, but I went back,
Speaker 2: and I did a lot of reading, and my favorite
Speaker 2: book on this subject about the New Left and the
Speaker 2: rise of this type of protest and belief was it's
Speaker 2: called Days of Rage, And what it is is that
Speaker 2: if you actually see the way that they rhetoric, that
Speaker 2: was these organized things where they call them actions. Action
Speaker 2: is a traditional word in New Left activism, and it
Speaker 2: goes back to the days of the Weather Underground, of
Speaker 2: the Symbionese Liberation Army and many of these other crackpot
Speaker 2: groups from back in that time. And those people had
Speaker 2: a fundamental belief that if you set off, you know,
Speaker 2: a thousand bombs or whatever what the Weather Underground and
Speaker 2: these types of groups did, if you kidnap Patty Hurst,
Speaker 2: if you you know, create awareness quote unquote, and you
Speaker 2: basically make life miserable and annoying for people, that they
Speaker 2: will rise up the great proletariat against the establishment. And instead,
Speaker 2: actually it was completely counterproductive. The vast majority of people
Speaker 2: hated these groups. They in supported law enforcement, and they
Speaker 2: turned against the very causes which the protest movements of
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties on civil rights and on Vietnam work
Speaker 2: extraordinarily successful. So what I would say to these Palestinian groups.
Speaker 2: Is that blocking working class people from traffic, or a
Speaker 2: man from his daughter, preventing people from picking or dropping
Speaker 2: off from school or for going to work is not
Speaker 2: only counterproductive, but is fundamentally stupid and it misses the
Speaker 2: point of fund who is actually in power for quote
Speaker 2: unquote awareness. So, for example, remember the debate about the
Speaker 2: lady who followed Kirsten Cinema into the bathroom and yelled
Speaker 2: at her, and.
Speaker 3: Everyone say, oh, this is outrageous breaking and I was like, hey, sorry,
Speaker 3: you know each hit. You know you are a politician.
Speaker 3: It is what it is. I'm not saying it's pleasant.
Speaker 3: You can resign, go for it. I don't care.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I believe in
Speaker 2: maximum's protests against people who are in power, but blocking
Speaker 2: normal folks from traffic, just as many of these climate
Speaker 2: folks have done.
Speaker 3: Also, the people who.
Speaker 2: Throw you know, what is it blood or whatever on
Speaker 2: these van go paintings and all that, this is just
Speaker 2: classic new left activism, and folks, you're gonna lose, just
Speaker 2: like the Black Panthers did, just like the Weather Underground,
Speaker 2: just like these other f So if you believe in
Speaker 2: making an impact, this is just the wrong, wrong thing
Speaker 2: to do, and I think he should be arrested. I
Speaker 2: don't think he should be doing or allowed to be
Speaker 2: doing such like this. It just doesn't work, and it
Speaker 2: just it misses the point about the center of gravity
Speaker 2: for Israel is not in the American populacet.
Speaker 3: The American populist supports a ceasefire.
Speaker 2: It is in Joe Biden, the United States Senate, and
Speaker 2: the DC establishment. So go outside the White House and
Speaker 2: protest all day long, and in fact, you know, go
Speaker 2: back and read that, Hey, hey, lbj Chance, they drove
Speaker 2: him nuts, and they arguably did have an impact on
Speaker 2: Vietnam policy. But blocking a Brooklyn man from going to
Speaker 2: see his daughter, I don't know, man' that's just so
Speaker 2: so wrong to me.
Speaker 1: So I disagree on basically every level. So they've been
Speaker 1: protesting outside the White House every day. Do you know
Speaker 1: what impact it's had?
Speaker 4: Nothing? Well, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: So to conflate this completely nonviolent protest, what's the weather underground?
Speaker 1: Nonviolent protest here? Blocking traffics, blocking bridges, blocking tunnels, to
Speaker 1: conflate that with the weather underground, these are that is
Speaker 1: just wildly wrong in interpase, I'm talking about this so
Speaker 1: let me okay, but let me let me talk about
Speaker 1: the theory here. So, first of all, Number one, do
Speaker 1: I think that the cause of attempting to stop babies
Speaker 1: from being bombed, an entire population from being starved is important,
Speaker 1: vital and urgent enough to inconvenience people to justify inconveniencing people.
Speaker 4: That's the first test. That's the one thing you the
Speaker 4: first thing you've duck to. Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: I think it justifies inconveniencing people because of the vast scale,
Speaker 1: unprecedented nature of the whoores that are being inflicted.
Speaker 4: That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, the question is it effective? Listen, we can't
Speaker 1: really know in real time, but protests like mass protests
Speaker 1: like this come out of the media era where the
Speaker 1: goal isn't you know, to persuade that gentleman in the
Speaker 1: car who's very irate, or even you know, the people
Speaker 1: immediately there in New York.
Speaker 4: The goal is to get media.
Speaker 1: Attention to draw eyeballs to your cause. Did they accomplish that? Yes,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. Have we covered any of the protests outside.
Speaker 4: The White House? No, that's not true.
Speaker 1: Are we covering now, you know, the protests that interrupted
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and these protests, which I think were very
Speaker 1: creative in fact, which disrupted life in New York City. Yes,
Speaker 1: so does it pass the test of it garners eyeballs.
Speaker 8: Yes.
Speaker 1: Second piece of you know, what makes a protest effective?
Speaker 1: Does it win people over to your cause? And I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about overall majority opinion, although that can happen too,
Speaker 1: And usually when that happens is when there is a
Speaker 1: disproportionate response from police and other authorities that garners sympathy
Speaker 1: for the activists. You know, they were arrested. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call the like response to be disproportionate or the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that would garner that sort of sympathy, But
Speaker 1: did it draw the sort of attention that could win
Speaker 1: more activist to their cause?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Third question to your point, already a majority of the
Speaker 1: American public agrees with overwhelmingly once to cease fire. The
Speaker 1: one person who is determintive on this is Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: It's all about Joe Biden, right And what is Joe
Speaker 1: Biden telling himself right now? Because the only obviously he
Speaker 1: doesn't care about babies being killed in Gaza is pretty clear.
Speaker 1: Obviously he doesn't care about you know, the humanitarian situation
Speaker 1: apparently doesn't care about the possibility of the US getting
Speaker 1: drawn into war, at least not enough to actually do
Speaker 1: something about it. What he might care about is his
Speaker 1: political prospects. They're telling themselves that this is going to
Speaker 1: be in the rear view mirror, and these protests, day
Speaker 1: after day, these mass actions, day after day, are a
Speaker 1: clear message aimed directly at Joe Biden. No, it won't
Speaker 1: be We are not going away, These disruptions are not
Speaker 1: going away. Life is not going to be normal again
Speaker 1: for you, certainly until you stop the bombing in Gaza.
Speaker 1: So on those metrics of success, just as a tactic,
Speaker 1: I think it passes. And then the last thing, which
Speaker 1: is perhaps the most important to me is, you know,
Speaker 1: if I look back at like non violent protesters against
Speaker 1: past horrors, you know, slavery, right, the abolitionists, those who
Speaker 1: protested against like the Holocaust, those who were protesting Jim
Speaker 1: Crow again non violently, I could not possibly even if
Speaker 1: I thought the tactic was like a little foolish or
Speaker 1: not going to work or whatever, which again I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the case here. But even if I did,
Speaker 1: could I find it in my heart to criticize the
Speaker 1: people who are on the right side of history, who
Speaker 1: are trying to do everything they can to try to
Speaker 1: force some sort of an end to the horrores that
Speaker 1: are being inflicted here. No, there's no way I could
Speaker 1: find it in my heart to do so.
Speaker 3: I totally understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 2: But the reason why I have compared it to that
Speaker 2: is about the theory of the case, which is about
Speaker 2: making life more miserable in a democracy. And I you
Speaker 2: know what, I can hear the emotion in your voice,
Speaker 2: and I just think is a fundamental disagreement. I mean,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, the people who are
Speaker 2: dying here or not American citizens, even in the case
Speaker 2: of Vietnam, like this was about American soldiers. But what
Speaker 2: I would disagree with is that you were saying, you know,
Speaker 2: we did cover a protest the White House. We sent
Speaker 2: our own mac over there in order to do the filming.
Speaker 2: But it took five ten years, you know, of protests
Speaker 2: against Vietnam. That's simply you know, you don't get to
Speaker 2: have immediate gratify.
Speaker 4: In five or ten mirrors.
Speaker 1: There won't be a single Palestinian left in Gaza. I
Speaker 1: mean that's the thing. It's so immediate, and our people
Speaker 1: are not dying yet. Actually, our soldiers came very close
Speaker 1: to being killed thanks to this conflict in Iraqi militias,
Speaker 1: you know, firing on them while they're sleeping in barracks.
Speaker 1: So the risk is incredibly real. These are our tax
Speaker 1: dollars that are paying for these two thousand pounds bunk
Speaker 1: or buster bombs that are being dropped on civilians in Gaza.
Speaker 1: So to be like, oh, this doesn't really concern of.
Speaker 4: Course it does.
Speaker 1: And clearly these protesters feel that incredibly, incredibly deeply. That's
Speaker 1: why they're doing whatever they can think of to do
Speaker 1: to try to disrupt this, try to put pressure on
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, because listen it honestly, it's it's not Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's not about winning people over in a democracy, because
Speaker 1: if that was the case, that be over already, it
Speaker 1: would be over already. This is not a democratic action.
Speaker 1: This is about pressuring Joe Biden and persuading him that
Speaker 1: this is not going away, This is not going to
Speaker 1: be in the rearview mirror. And so yes, I do
Speaker 1: think that attention grabbing actions like this could move the needle. Maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean listen, there's no guarantees, but could move the needle.
Speaker 2: Here, let's reversing a look back. What was the result
Speaker 2: of nineteen sixty eight of the mass protest movement? What
Speaker 2: ended up happening a landslide election for Richard Nixon, who
Speaker 2: wanted to crack down on protests, the silent majority who
Speaker 2: despised and were angry at the hippies who had taken
Speaker 2: over the cities and were doing.
Speaker 1: There are no things soe Palestinian politicians on the ballot point.
Speaker 4: It's not like there's a better option.
Speaker 2: That vast majority of people, as we also saw post BLM,
Speaker 2: turned against the BLM movement. You know that you could
Speaker 2: use the same justification for much of the looting another
Speaker 2: thing that a company.
Speaker 4: No, but those weren't right.
Speaker 1: You cannot compare non violent protests in some instance turned violence. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is not a fair comparison.
Speaker 2: But let's look about the BLM ryot. Okay, let's look
Speaker 2: at the BLM nonviolent marches themselves, and about eventually what occurred,
Speaker 2: which was a mass social chilling against anybody, including people
Speaker 2: like me, who spoke out against what we thought was
Speaker 2: a ridiculous cause at the time. What ended up happening
Speaker 2: is that huge amounts of people felt as that they
Speaker 2: could now speak out then at the time, and ended
Speaker 2: up supporting more pro police policies. The net effect of
Speaker 2: BLM has had no impact on the overall cause I.
Speaker 1: Don't see the technology here because the people who feel
Speaker 1: they can't speak out right now are the people who
Speaker 1: are trying to defend Palestinians. So it's completely it's completely reversal.
Speaker 1: And again I think what people responded to because the
Speaker 1: original peaceful marches, I mean you remember it was overwhelmingly popular,
Speaker 1: You had huge constituencies, millions of people out in the street,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. I think what caused the backlash
Speaker 1: is the looting, is the violence that broke out in
Speaker 1: plenty of locations. There's no analogy here. There is no looting,
Speaker 1: there is no violence. This is a completely like textbook
Speaker 1: non violent civil action that is occurring here. And like
Speaker 1: I said, even if I thought it was like foolish,
Speaker 1: which again I don't, there is no way that I
Speaker 1: could look at what's unfolding and Gaza and be like
Speaker 1: where there are such clear villains and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: these people who are on the right side of history.
Speaker 1: They're the ones that I'm going to complain about. They're
Speaker 1: the ones that I'm going to criticize.
Speaker 2: I just don't think much of this right side of
Speaker 2: history stuff ends up standing up because the truth is
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody thinks so it's.
Speaker 1: A genocide, soberty, it is a genocide at the very least,
Speaker 1: it is a mass killing of civilians. If there is
Speaker 1: a right side of history that has ever been clear,
Speaker 1: which yes, you're right in many instances, it's a judgment call.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty compelling which is the right side
Speaker 1: of history here, just based on the numbers of civilians
Speaker 1: who are being massacred and starved at the moment.
Speaker 2: So I think that the mass killing, slaughter and all that.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing I not only condemned it. I've talked
Speaker 2: about with you now for two months straight. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about we live in a democracy, you know, actually not
Speaker 2: even inconveniencing. Who knows what if you stopped an ambulance
Speaker 2: as we saw during Bridgegate, I mean we'd know about
Speaker 2: it now maybe maybe, but they personertainly could have done
Speaker 2: it, and they were willing to take that risk.
Speaker 3: That's fine. You're allowed to do that.
Speaker 2: As an American citizen, I think that as long as
Speaker 2: it's nonviolent, absolutely, and I don't think you should be
Speaker 2: treated badly in order that we're talking about what is
Speaker 2: the overall net democratic effect, and I think it's incredibly counterproductive.
Speaker 2: And then generally it goes back to that disagreement that
Speaker 2: we have here about New Left tactics, where yes, it
Speaker 2: bled into violence in the case of the Weather Underground,
Speaker 2: but fundamentally what it came from was a incan was
Speaker 2: that they believed they could no longer work within.
Speaker 3: The corridors of power in order to pressure them, and
Speaker 3: they were wrong.
Speaker 2: I believe that they were absolutely wrong, and because of
Speaker 2: that they ended up seating, actually infusing much of the
Speaker 2: New Left with the Democratic politicians, which allowed the overall
Speaker 2: Nickstonian takeover. So what I would say to many of
Speaker 2: these people who are doing this is yet turning the
Speaker 2: regular populace against you makes it so that the more
Speaker 2: politically popular choice for Eric Adams and for Joe Biden
Speaker 2: would be to crack down on these protesters.
Speaker 3: It would be to send the police in, beat the
Speaker 3: shit out of them.
Speaker 4: And guess what would happen?
Speaker 1: Then, guess what would happen, then I actually don't know
Speaker 1: public opinion would turn in favor of the protests. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at the Civil rights movement, what caused
Speaker 1: the public to really turn and be.
Speaker 4: On their side.
Speaker 1: It's that way undreached dog on the protesters because they
Speaker 1: felt the same way. They're like, these people are annoying,
Speaker 1: they're taking over our cities.
Speaker 4: This rabble needs to go.
Speaker 1: If you have a protest that is inconveniencing no one,
Speaker 1: you know what it's going to do, absolutely freaking nothing.
Speaker 3: Well, you should think convenienced the right thing, which are
Speaker 3: the people in power.
Speaker 2: You should go outside the White House and you should scream,
Speaker 2: which is what they should listen.
Speaker 3: That's what they did in Vietnam. And you can say
Speaker 3: that it didn't have an effect.
Speaker 2: I think it had a tremendous effect, that occupation of
Speaker 2: that ground about that White House. I think that those
Speaker 2: protests that were eventually, for example, at that time college
Speaker 2: sit ins did nothing. Screaming outside of the White House
Speaker 2: had a massive pact on overall US policy. Or for example,
Speaker 2: when President Nixon showed up at the Lincoln Memorial in
Speaker 2: order to talk with the protesters there and to figure
Speaker 2: out He's like, why can I cannot connect with those folks.
Speaker 2: That was occupation of a federal monument and a specific
Speaker 2: you know, protest against a policy. But the overall American
Speaker 2: populace dramatically rejected this, as we can see from the
Speaker 2: historical record. And I would disagree because at the time
Speaker 2: what shocked the Northern conscious is that they were already
Speaker 2: on the side of the civil rights protesters here they
Speaker 2: had not seen the validation of that cause. But that
Speaker 2: Israel is a fifty fifty split, not.
Speaker 1: In terms of most fire, not in terms of a ceasefire.
Speaker 1: But again, Sager, the idea that having a majority of
Speaker 1: people support a ceasefire is going to change anything is
Speaker 1: clearly not true. Like that's clearly not true. So in
Speaker 1: my opinion, the most effective thing is to try to
Speaker 1: create pressure that convinces Joe Biden that this is not
Speaker 1: going away. That's your best hope, because it really comes
Speaker 1: down to this one senile old man who is deluding
Speaker 1: himself into you know what, justifying atrocities and is turned
Speaker 1: out to be a complete monster.
Speaker 4: That's your whole goal.
Speaker 1: And so listen, are there guarantees that this action or
Speaker 1: any other action is going to influence this one senile
Speaker 1: old man. No, but anything that you're doing that is
Speaker 1: aimed at persuading him and his political coterie that this
Speaker 1: is not going away, and that people feel really strongly
Speaker 1: about this, so strongly they're willing to shut down bridges
Speaker 1: in Manhattan and piss off a bunch of motorists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's costless to them. The cost is paid
Speaker 2: by the motorists. I mean, that's kind of my pay.
Speaker 1: And we'll just view this differently because given the ten
Speaker 1: kids every day are losing their legs in Gasa, right,
Speaker 1: half of the population is starving to death. Ninety percent
Speaker 1: doesn't have a mail a day. It has already been
Speaker 1: rendered uninhabitable. The level of instruction is beyond Dresden and
Speaker 1: some of the other you know, horrors of the past,
Speaker 1: like that's where we are. So when I put that
Speaker 1: up against inconveniencing motorists for a couple hours during rush hour,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but I think it justifies that inconvenience.
Speaker 3: You could say that for anything.
Speaker 2: I mean, you could make that for literally, for any
Speaker 2: cause that you sufficiently believe in. And so I'm not
Speaker 2: putting down you can you could believe whatever you want,
Speaker 2: but I mean.
Speaker 4: The really that's moral relativism.
Speaker 2: But it is moral relatives everybody believe January sixth, people
Speaker 2: believe that they're saving democracy.
Speaker 3: That doesn't justify what they were doing.
Speaker 1: That's what they believed in the fact, in the reality,
Speaker 1: not as a judgment civilian death is I mean, these
Speaker 1: are two very different things. So yes, in a sense,
Speaker 1: everything is subjective, but in another sense, like it's very
Speaker 1: clear what's unfolding here, and when you're just stack up
Speaker 1: the number of innocent lives that are lost, you know,
Speaker 1: to put that against inconveniencing people, Yes, I think it's yes,
Speaker 1: I think it's just. And like I said, I there
Speaker 1: is no way that I can criticize these people who
Speaker 1: I admire, who I wish I was more like them
Speaker 1: to have the current to go out and do these
Speaker 1: sorts of things and try to affect try to you know,
Speaker 1: rescue the lives of people that they don't even know
Speaker 1: in the Gaza Strup.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of my point is that I actually
Speaker 2: think you're doing far more of a service to the
Speaker 2: cause of sitting here and we're talking, you know, having
Speaker 2: an intelligent conversation, and we're talking about the news, and
Speaker 2: you probably changed ten times more minds than any of
Speaker 2: those people have. So I disagree with that actually completely.
Speaker 2: And I just think that is that justification is one
Speaker 2: that anybody could use for anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but sometimes it will be right and sometimes it
Speaker 1: would not be.
Speaker 3: Who decides that. Nobody decides that.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I could give the exact countercase, which
Speaker 2: is that these people, you know, the Israeli case on
Speaker 2: this is these people support Hamas. These are we're making
Speaker 2: sure that the safety of our and what I said
Speaker 2: is not a lot. I mean, what they helped is
Speaker 2: they helped elect them. At the very least they lived
Speaker 2: under their rule. I don't believe this, to be clear,
Speaker 2: I'm giving what they could say. So obviously we need
Speaker 2: to make sure that we have a safe zone around
Speaker 2: our territory. We have a military capability to do so
Speaker 2: that they don't. History belongs to the victors, So be it.
Speaker 1: You're just whod moral relative. There is no right and wrong.
Speaker 1: You can't say a genocide is wrong, ethnic cleansing is wrong.
Speaker 1: These are they things that are worth in community.
Speaker 3: I think this is really action is wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm saying though, that you can make this case in
Speaker 2: any form and that such. Then that's why baseline rules
Speaker 2: overall matter, and that you should make sure that you're
Speaker 2: trying to look I just simply don't believe in doing
Speaker 2: things that aren't going to do anything. So, for example,
Speaker 2: that's why I think this is deeply counterproductive blocking people
Speaker 2: in traffic. Same with the climate changing. Do I think
Speaker 2: anthropogenic climate change is real?
Speaker 3: Yes? Do I think that, you know, defacing Van Go
Speaker 3: paintings and all that is going to do with you
Speaker 3: about it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: And that's why I believe in nuclear power, and that's
Speaker 3: why I talk about it.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's productive either. This is different. This
Speaker 1: is a different action, and it's much more targeted, and
Speaker 1: it's much more immediate. There is a very clear demand,
Speaker 1: there's a very clear individual who needs to be influenced,
Speaker 1: and so I I just basically disagree on every level.
Speaker 1: I disagree that it's not effective. I disagree that it
Speaker 1: is wrong in morally wrong in any sort of sense.
Speaker 1: These people are morally righteous to me, There's never been
Speaker 1: anything more clear. And number three, I just like there
Speaker 1: are villain right now, very clear villains. One of them
Speaker 1: is like, you know, a mile away from here in
Speaker 1: the White House, and to spend any time criticizing the
Speaker 1: people who are trying to avert atrocities.
Speaker 2: I think that's fair ruy so, but if you were,
Speaker 2: let's what if they crossed into the realm of violence, then.
Speaker 1: What well, then that's a different story. But that do
Speaker 1: have non violent but then we do have to try.
Speaker 4: This is non.
Speaker 3: Violent realms within people operations, right, get.
Speaker 1: Within nonviolence, nonviolent protests. Will I criticize non violent protesters
Speaker 1: who are saying no to genocide now or any other
Speaker 1: time in the past. No, I will not criticize them.
Speaker 2: I just think that when we talk about effectiveness and
Speaker 2: about power and about what actually matters and what moves
Speaker 2: the needle, I don't see this as moving that at all.
Speaker 2: I think the Biden one actually might and in fact,
Speaker 2: if that continues, that's something that he's going to have
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: We have to try lots of things. And again, contentious
Speaker 1: politics like they are contentious for a reason. If they're
Speaker 1: not upsetting anyone or irritating anyone or causing any friction,
Speaker 1: they go completely unnoticed and they're completely pointless.
Speaker 3: You may be right, but then we can't complain.
Speaker 2: Then whenever causes that we don't support subject themselves to
Speaker 2: the same level of tactics. And that's more where you know,
Speaker 2: I see not only medias like.
Speaker 1: The anti vax people who took over the city and Canada.
Speaker 2: Right, it didn't really work though unfortunately for them, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, they got cleared out by the police. The
Speaker 2: Canadian populace largely turned against them. They had a massive
Speaker 2: police state crackdown. From what I can tell, Trudeau got
Speaker 2: himself reelected again. I don't did much.
Speaker 1: I just don't agree with this moral relativism of like,
Speaker 1: who can even say what's right or wrong? And all
Speaker 1: costs causes could theoretically be just It's like, okay, but
Speaker 1: there are some things that should be really clearly off
Speaker 1: the table that we should be very able to, very
Speaker 1: clearly say this is right and this is wrong. And
Speaker 1: to me, again, this is the most clear cut instance
Speaker 1: I've perhaps ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3: Okay, Lory go reader disagree. Let's move on to the
Speaker 3: next one.
Speaker 2: At the same time, we got to turn over to
Speaker 2: domestic politics. What's happening here in America. It's primary season.
Speaker 2: We got a shocking new poll here. Let's put it
Speaker 2: up there on the screen, and what does it show
Speaker 2: my god, Nicki Haley coming within single digits in a
Speaker 2: CNN poll, up twelve points since November, Trumps standing at
Speaker 2: thirty nine points, Haley thirty two, Chris Christy twelve, Vivek eight,
Speaker 2: and DeSantis five. So Nicki Haley is certainly surging at
Speaker 2: least that certainly seems to be the consensus, and not
Speaker 2: just in this pole Crystal, but in a variety of
Speaker 2: other ones that we have seen, and it actually fits
Speaker 2: I think with Trump's overall strategy. He no longer has
Speaker 2: been talking as much about Ron DeSantis. He's been talking
Speaker 2: much more about her. He took that opportunity on the
Speaker 2: pulpit to go after her for her slavery comments about
Speaker 2: the Civil War, and I.
Speaker 3: Wish I've been here for that. Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 11: You know, they asked her about the Civil War, why
Speaker 11: did it start? How did it start? She didn't use
Speaker 11: the word slavery, which was interesting. I don't know that
Speaker 11: it's it's going to have an impact, but you know,
Speaker 11: I'd say slavery is sort of the obvious answer, supposed
Speaker 11: to supposed to about three paragraphs of bullshit?
Speaker 3: Are christ won't that's so good? You gotta get it
Speaker 3: to him. You have to hand it to him. Grizly
Speaker 3: this he gets to the crux of it.
Speaker 2: It's also funny because I haven't gotten to weigh on this,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing I actually hate more than Lost Cause stuff.
Speaker 2: And so for her, she I believed didn't know or
Speaker 2: she did not have a real position on this. She
Speaker 2: in her head was like, well, I can't say it's
Speaker 2: about slavery because these GOP voters are so racist that
Speaker 2: they're going to get mad at me for saying it.
Speaker 2: Whereas Trump is like if slavery instead of free paragraphs
Speaker 2: the bullshit, and he's overwhelmingly more popular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's also to such a disdain to voters.
Speaker 1: It's also the context of him being a New Yorker yes,
Speaker 1: and her being it's not Carolinian who's like imbibed all
Speaker 1: of this weird lost Cause bullshit, where it's like, I
Speaker 1: can't I can't say a slavery when it even the
Speaker 1: way she approached the question, remember she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a tough question.
Speaker 3: Yes, I watched like the worlds. It's like, actually not
Speaker 3: a tough question.
Speaker 4: It's like top it should be you.
Speaker 3: Can say states rights about slavery, it.
Speaker 4: Should be the easiest question of all time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Trump unfortunately, using his superpower of humor, there's
Speaker 1: a great effect.
Speaker 2: Trump is the true master of this of this art.
Speaker 2: Now we've I've seen Nikki Haley in her last ad
Speaker 2: in Iowa. This seems to be the way that she
Speaker 2: wants to She wants to draw a difference between her
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump. Here she's talking about a president with
Speaker 2: grit and grace, a different style, and not a name
Speaker 2: from the past.
Speaker 3: While flashing images of the two. Let's take a listen
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 12: A president with grit and grace, a different style, not
Speaker 12: a name from the past. Your family deserves a border secure,
Speaker 12: an economy restored, a nation respected.
Speaker 3: Our moment is now, our mission is clear.
Speaker 1: Let's save our country and secure our future, and let's
Speaker 1: move forward together toward our.
Speaker 9: Destiny in a strong and proud America.
Speaker 2: Pretty cookie cutter message there that you see, Crystal. But
Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting that that's as far as.
Speaker 3: She'll go whenever it comes to criticizing Trump. That's it
Speaker 3: just not a name from the past, a name from
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 2: But I gotta be honest, she's done an extraordinarily more
Speaker 2: better than I thought she Yeah, in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: It does though, like I've always said, it kind of
Speaker 3: makes sense.
Speaker 2: She is the natural anti Trump candidate and she embodies
Speaker 2: everything from the past, So people who might have liked
Speaker 2: the Dick Cheney and that type of politics, this is
Speaker 2: who you should vote for.
Speaker 1: Well, after Ron kind of fell off and was like
Speaker 1: super awkward and not gaining traction, whatever, the donor has
Speaker 1: all got behind Nikkeys. She had that first debate which
Speaker 1: was very effective, which you know, she actually garnered a
Speaker 1: bump in the polls from her debate. Performances continued to
Speaker 1: climb from there, at least in New Hampshire.
Speaker 4: I mean, my question for you, like, I guess.
Speaker 1: Her theory is, all right, Iowa was whatever, I'm going
Speaker 1: to lose there, and she even said something weird like
Speaker 1: New Hampshire will correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, what happens.
Speaker 1: In Iowa, which was like a little bit too much
Speaker 1: the quiet.
Speaker 4: Part out loud.
Speaker 1: But anyway, her theory is then if she goes and
Speaker 1: has this upset win in New Hampshire, that's going to
Speaker 1: completely change the game. It's going to show that someone
Speaker 1: else can win, and then she'll just pick up ahead
Speaker 1: of steam.
Speaker 4: From there and be able to roll on through.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that there's anything to that case,
Speaker 1: because I don't really think there is.
Speaker 3: But let me make I don't either.
Speaker 1: Let me make the Devil's Advocate case, which is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump feels so invincible and his whole reputation
Speaker 1: is staked on being a winner, and if Nicky Birdbreing
Speaker 1: Haley comes out and beats him in New Hampshire, a
Speaker 1: state that historically he did well in in the past,
Speaker 1: that that would be a real blow to him. And
Speaker 1: then that would open people up. You probably have everybody
Speaker 1: else drop out of the race.
Speaker 4: At that point.
Speaker 1: It would be head to head Nicki versus Trump, and
Speaker 1: maybe that will open people up to this idea that
Speaker 1: it's actually time to move on.
Speaker 2: If there's a case that's it, I don't think it's practical,
Speaker 2: But let's look to a little bit of history. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's complicated because you're comparing apples to oranges, but you know,
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton crashes in Iowa, comes to New Hampshire the
Speaker 2: comeback kid, he gets the headline, goes through Super Tuesday,
Speaker 2: does pretty well, steals it all up, and he owes
Speaker 2: it all to New Hampshire to this day, he says,
Speaker 2: that's where I know officially won the presidency. You could
Speaker 2: flip it, though, and you can look at the fact
Speaker 2: that Barack Obama won Iowa, then he lost New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: But because he won Iowa always able to win South Carolina.
Speaker 2: So I can give two examples, you know, where it
Speaker 2: did matter and what we didn't. I think for Trump,
Speaker 2: New Hampshire is really the first primary ever won in
Speaker 2: the race. I still think he's probably going to win.
Speaker 2: There's also a big question mark here are these poles
Speaker 2: even right Crystal Hell? Do we know you could see
Speaker 2: mass movement towards it, like what if the final tally
Speaker 2: If I recall in twenty sixteen, the poll was slightly off,
Speaker 2: especially because the effects of a Trump win in Iowa
Speaker 2: have not been factored into this, so you have the
Speaker 2: inevitability argument about, oh well, Trump just won Iowa, so
Speaker 2: we'll do something a little bit different here. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of contraveting elements here where overall I still't think
Speaker 2: any of it matters because in South Carolina, her own
Speaker 2: home state, in traditional politics, she should drop out if
Speaker 2: she doesn't win. If you can't win your own home
Speaker 2: state you should never continue in the race. That's generally
Speaker 2: how it goes. So then we have Super Tuesday and Nevada,
Speaker 2: which you know, come afterwards, Trump is you know, crushing
Speaker 2: by a mile, and people forget California is now part
Speaker 2: of Super Tuesday. Trump is up in California by fifty points.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just not even a competition right now.
Speaker 1: So again, I don't agree with this announcement, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to play Devil's advocate and try to take Nicky's
Speaker 1: side here. So what worked for Barack Obama why he
Speaker 1: had such a surge after Iowa Is it effectively created
Speaker 1: a permission structure for a lot of people who wanted
Speaker 1: to vote for him but didn't know if he could
Speaker 1: really win, and black voters in particular, And that's why
Speaker 1: he goes on to you know, succeed in South Carolina
Speaker 1: and the rest is history. Maybe there's some group of
Speaker 1: Republican voters who are kind of sick of Trump and
Speaker 1: kind of sick of the chaos and don't really want
Speaker 1: this dude with all these criminal indictments hanging over his
Speaker 1: head and all.
Speaker 4: That you know, he entails.
Speaker 1: Maybe they would like some sort of a break from
Speaker 1: him and to move to you know, what does Nicky say,
Speaker 1: like not a name of the past.
Speaker 4: Maybe there's some group out.
Speaker 1: There that feels like ah, but everybody's with Trump, and
Speaker 1: I just got to stick with Trump, and we got
Speaker 1: to back up Trump because he's under attack from the liberals,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And so maybe if you do
Speaker 1: see a state go for Nicki Haley, maybe there is
Speaker 1: some group that needs that permission structure to jump from
Speaker 1: the Trump train to the Nikki ship.
Speaker 2: If listen, anything is possible in America, all right, So the.
Speaker 4: Real question, he's going to freak out if you lose
Speaker 4: this new nature. The only thing I would say, is
Speaker 4: there such high expectations for Trump at that's true too.
Speaker 1: If he wins Iowa but underperforms, that also is kind.
Speaker 4: Of a problem.
Speaker 3: You're not wrong.
Speaker 2: And so let's say he wins New Hampshire by two points,
Speaker 2: and then she can have a you know, a theory
Speaker 2: of the case or whatever. So why she could win
Speaker 2: South Carolina. We could see it, although I still don't
Speaker 2: think it's really going to happen. Let's also give Ron
Speaker 2: DeSantis his due. This is his last ad in Iowa.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: Wall Street funded Nikki Haley just said in New Hampshire.
Speaker 6: You know Iowa starts.
Speaker 3: You know that you correct it.
Speaker 12: Hailey disparages the Caucuses and insults you.
Speaker 13: It's Ron Dessantis who embodies and defends Iowa's values of faith, family.
Speaker 7: And freedom.
Speaker 6: He's tirelessly working to earn your support.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is running for his issues. Nicky Hayley's running
Speaker 3: for for donors issues. I'm running for your issue. I'm
Speaker 3: run DeSantis and I approved this message, Okay.
Speaker 2: I mean it's probably the best that he can do.
Speaker 2: Things not looking necessarily the best for him right.
Speaker 1: Now, and it's sort of pathetic that he's even taking
Speaker 1: aim and Nikki it's this.
Speaker 2: Well, right, I think it's just it is that she's
Speaker 2: bleeding into here. Can we please put CE five up
Speaker 2: on the screen the maps, guys, because this is his
Speaker 2: only chance right now. Where if you look at the
Speaker 2: two side by side, he clearly has done way more
Speaker 2: events in fifty seven counties. But Christal, if you look
Speaker 2: at the number of events and the counties where he
Speaker 2: did them, I went back and checked, these are all
Speaker 2: the places which Ted Cruz actually won in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: so he is trying to recreate the Ted Cruz victory
Speaker 2: of twenty sixteen in the Iowa caucuses. What I would
Speaker 2: just say is that's a footnote to history for a
Speaker 2: reason is guess what, it didn't matter.
Speaker 3: The only thing that ended up happening is Ted one
Speaker 3: Iowa and he one Texas.
Speaker 2: So it didn't exactly work out so well for him
Speaker 2: in the overall the thing is for DeSantis is this
Speaker 2: is a lasted ch effort. He's hoping and praying for
Speaker 2: more of a surprise in the car. But overall, if
Speaker 2: we can put the next one up, guys the other maps.
Speaker 2: What's really sad about this is the overall decline of
Speaker 2: retail politics. Because Nikki Haley, she's done fifty one events
Speaker 2: in thirty counties.
Speaker 3: I mean, look at the vague.
Speaker 2: He's done two hundred and thirty nine events in ninety
Speaker 2: four counties.
Speaker 3: Thirty five years ago. That actually mattered.
Speaker 2: And yet if you look at the polls of where
Speaker 2: he is in Iowa, it's like four maybe five percent.
Speaker 3: The sad truth is is that this whole.
Speaker 2: Visiting all ninety nine counties of Iowa and spending time
Speaker 2: on the ground like Season six or whatever of the
Speaker 2: West wing.
Speaker 3: That stuff just it. It doesn't matter anymore, you know, it's
Speaker 3: all national.
Speaker 2: It all comes down to television and the Internet and
Speaker 2: what people are consuming in the issue set in terms
Speaker 2: of them attending an event. Yeah, sometimes it can be
Speaker 2: a relative predictor, but on the margins doesn't really matter anymore.
Speaker 4: No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: The retail politics, the traditional campaign events are basically like
Speaker 1: a Potempkin village for the reality, you know, to cover
Speaker 1: the reality that your campaign is just all about media.
Speaker 1: And if you misunderstand that, you just misunderstand the nature
Speaker 1: of modern politics. The one thing the Iowa caucuses are
Speaker 1: unique in that, because of the nature of having to
Speaker 1: go in a certain times weird process and whatever, it
Speaker 1: does matter that you have effective organization on the ground.
Speaker 1: And I genuinely don't know which campaign has good organization
Speaker 1: on the ground and which doesn't.
Speaker 4: I just don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't you know, I haven't seen much reporting about it.
Speaker 1: I do know that the DeSantis campaign has been in
Speaker 1: complete disarray, and they had this whole theory that they
Speaker 1: were going to run the campaign effectively through the superpack,
Speaker 1: and then the super pac was bad and blackluster and
Speaker 1: like not doing a good job and pissed off Roun
Speaker 1: de Santis and so that sort of you know, they
Speaker 1: had CEOs leaving week after week after week and a
Speaker 1: total leadership crisis there, and then they're like, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll use this other superpack. So the top level signs
Speaker 1: that this is a well organized campaign aren't there. But hey,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe on the ground in Iowa they've
Speaker 1: done a good job, effective job organizing, and that's what
Speaker 1: they're betting on.
Speaker 3: I just don't know possible.
Speaker 2: I mean, just to return to New Hampshire and to
Speaker 2: underscore you know, we've seen this too. Let's put this
Speaker 2: up there from arg and they're more recently a Republican pole.
Speaker 2: We can put C four please up on the screen.
Speaker 2: I mean, what you see here is Donald Trump at
Speaker 2: thirty seven percent, Nicky Haley at thirty three percent, Chris Christy,
Speaker 2: I mean he's actually at ten percent.
Speaker 3: Previously was Ron.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he certainly is. Ron DeSantis is at five. Obviously
Speaker 2: it was at six and Vin vive Ramaswami at four
Speaker 2: and five. So DeSantis, you know, competing with Vivik for
Speaker 2: the JEB position of New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: Hampshire heyea, right, there you go. That's the case for
Speaker 3: maybe why it might work out. But things looking pretty
Speaker 3: good right now.
Speaker 2: I think for Donald Trump, the Nicky Haley position and
Speaker 2: the victory that she would want to see is one
Speaker 2: where she would beat Trump up in that slight margin
Speaker 2: and it would lead to some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: some sort of momentum about something in South Carolina. But
Speaker 2: there's just not a lot of evidence that bears any
Speaker 2: of it out.
Speaker 3: See it.
Speaker 1: We'll see how it happens. You know, you never know, right,
Speaker 1: Crazier things have happened before. I will say, just to
Speaker 1: emphasize again, you know it's difficult to say, Okay, if
Speaker 1: this person drops out, then all their voters are going
Speaker 1: to go in one place?
Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody.
Speaker 1: But we know that the Chris Christie voters are not
Speaker 1: going to go to Dondue, right That one is like
Speaker 1: as clear as it probably gets. They're probably likely to
Speaker 1: go majority to Nikki Ailey. And so it's funny that
Speaker 1: effectively Chris Christy, who is the most aggressive Trump critic
Speaker 1: in the race, may be giving him exactly the boost
Speaker 1: that he needs in New Hampshire in order to prevail
Speaker 1: over Niki.
Speaker 4: Will see how it all plays out.
Speaker 1: And as you said, listen, we should take all these
Speaker 1: poles with the massive grain of salt.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I actually I'm excited to see because the last
Speaker 2: Iowa poll is going to come out soon and we
Speaker 2: will see. It's always fun to compare that to the
Speaker 2: actual results, and usually it's not I mean, it's close ish,
Speaker 2: but it it can be pretty far off. And that's
Speaker 2: just the nature of the beast, especially with the caucuses,
Speaker 2: where it's like, if you don't get enough votes here,
Speaker 2: then you can do a second choice.
Speaker 3: It's such an insane system and honestly, we should do
Speaker 3: over with But that's a whole other conversation. Let's move
Speaker 3: on to Boeing.
Speaker 2: Wanted to give an update here because it's very very
Speaker 2: important news. Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: What you can see here this was reported by the
Speaker 2: Air Current fantastic aviation related news outlet, and they're reporting
Speaker 2: that United yesterday found loose bolts on plug doors during
Speaker 2: their seven thirty seven Max nine inspections. This news report
Speaker 2: is very important because what it demonstrated is that this
Speaker 2: form of the aircraft where you have a door plug
Speaker 2: over what was traditionally going to be a door which
Speaker 2: was installed by a separate Boeing supplier. Spirit Eurosystems appears
Speaker 2: to have problems across the fleet of the seven thirty
Speaker 2: seven Max nine. This shows us that it's not necessarily
Speaker 2: a maintenance issue ascribed to Alaska Airlines. This is, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of both of the types of both the airlines
Speaker 2: which received the delivery of the vehicles and most importantly Crystal.
Speaker 2: The aircraft in question were all delivered between September November
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two and September of twenty twenty three and
Speaker 2: would not have had their heavy maintenance check that would
Speaker 2: occur after four thousand to six thousand hours of flights
Speaker 2: aka two to three years, So this was after immediate
Speaker 2: delivery relatively recently. It was found in at least five
Speaker 2: United aircraft. The more troubling news, though, is that afterwards
Speaker 2: what we saw is that Alaska Airlines announced late last
Speaker 2: night that they also had found loose bolts on door
Speaker 2: plugs in their seven thirty seven Max nines that they
Speaker 2: have within the a fleete. This traces us back then
Speaker 2: to that question about Boeing and Spirit Aerosystems, and so
Speaker 2: this is actually something I did not know Boeing outsources
Speaker 2: its fuselage to Spirit Aerosystems, they build the actual fuselages.
Speaker 2: So Alaska and United are the ones who have the
Speaker 2: specific type of configuration with the door plug. It is
Speaker 2: installed by Spirit Aerosystems, but it is then delivered for Boeing.
Speaker 2: So this does not take the responsibility away from Boeing.
Speaker 2: In fact, this basically heightens it, and it's going to
Speaker 2: have huge questions around their guidance to the overall fleet
Speaker 2: that remains and how the hell are you're not catching
Speaker 2: this guys. We got multiple of these loose bolts. The
Speaker 2: big question right now in the current Alaska Airline incident
Speaker 2: is whether those door plug bolts Crystal were even installed,
Speaker 2: whether they had fallen off, and that's part of the
Speaker 2: reason why you had the decompression, or whether they had
Speaker 2: loosened and then fell off mid flight, which is what
Speaker 2: led to the incident. But the loose bolt it's yet
Speaker 2: is horrifying because I said this yesterday. If this happened
Speaker 2: in cruising altitude, there'd be a lot of dead people.
Speaker 2: In fact, the entire plane could have burst apart. Certainly,
Speaker 2: it's like called catastrophic decompression or something like that just
Speaker 2: to show you though the economic impact of this, it's
Speaker 2: massive already for Boeing. Let's put this up there, Boeing stock.
Speaker 2: You know, the dow drop yesterday was almost entirely due
Speaker 2: to Boeing. There's stock down now by percent, spirit aerosystems down,
Speaker 2: actually even further. They're going to have huge questions for
Speaker 2: the NTSB overall should we find recommendation, I don't know, man, Honestly,
Speaker 2: i'd probably buy Airbus stock. I don't actually don't even
Speaker 2: know if you can, but because I think it's a
Speaker 2: European company. But the overall point just gets to my
Speaker 2: monologue yesterday, and that's kind of why I wanted to
Speaker 2: do this.
Speaker 3: Is, guys, this is really bad.
Speaker 2: This is a flagship American company once again failure of maintenance,
Speaker 2: or sorry, once again failure of regulatory regime failure here
Speaker 2: of Boeing. We have here a company that's bought some
Speaker 2: sixty some billion dollars worth of its own stock since
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, and now we've delivered two, you know, at
Speaker 2: the very least two aircraft which have problems. Now we
Speaker 2: don't know one hundred percent of this lies with Boeing,
Speaker 2: but it is very difficult not to look at this
Speaker 2: and say, manufacturing air happens sometimes and to a certain extent.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you and I outsourced.
Speaker 2: An element of our business for our overall products, you
Speaker 2: and I are still responsible for quality control.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have people who work on our graph
Speaker 2: and all that, But like what would I say, like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's the graphic eyes. We never you know, like it's
Speaker 2: our responsibility. We put out a product and this is
Speaker 2: a much less life and situation that's happened over at Boeing.
Speaker 2: So I think it's pretty crazy, you know, to see
Speaker 2: some of this news.
Speaker 1: I also want to give credit to David Seroda and
Speaker 1: his team over at Lever News. They have some relevant
Speaker 1: They just broke a story that's very relevant to their headline.
Speaker 1: Is Boeing supplier that's Spirit what's it.
Speaker 3: Called Spirit Aero Spirit Aerosystems.
Speaker 1: Aerosystems ignored warnings of excessive amount of defects, according to
Speaker 1: former employees, weeks before Alaska Airlines terrifying tobacle, one of
Speaker 1: the aircraft's manufacturers was accused of systematically ignoring safety problems.
Speaker 1: And what they say is that they were also asked.
Speaker 1: They alleged that this employee alleged they were asked by
Speaker 1: corporate officials to falsify records to cover.
Speaker 4: Up these defects.
Speaker 1: One of the employees at Spirit Aerosystems, which reportedly manufactured
Speaker 1: the door plug that blue mount off an Alaska Airlines flight,
Speaker 1: allegedly told company officials about an excess amount of defects.
Speaker 1: This is according to a federal complaint and corresponding internal
Speaker 1: corporate documents that were reviewed by the lever. According to
Speaker 1: the court documents, the employee told a colleague that he
Speaker 1: believed it was just a matter of time until a
Speaker 1: major defect escaped to a customer. So is this relevant
Speaker 1: also to what unfolded here? Raises certainly a lot of questions.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, massive questions. It's like, what's happening in terms
Speaker 2: of our oversight and just in general. Look, Spirit Aerosystems,
Speaker 2: and I went back yesterday and dug even deeper about,
Speaker 2: you know, a Boeing company, how they've moved their headquarters,
Speaker 2: They've had mergers in the past. People who work for
Speaker 2: the company have been whistleblowing now for twenty some odd
Speaker 2: years about the financialization of this company, the moving away
Speaker 2: from engineering, and the promotion of these MBAs. It all
Speaker 2: goes back to everything I talked about yesterday about the
Speaker 2: takeover of financialization of stock price.
Speaker 3: The airplane is merely a function to boost the stock.
Speaker 2: The stock is not a reflection right now of the airplane.
Speaker 2: And what's really embarrassing is that this is a duopera system.
Speaker 2: Our only other option is a European company called Airbus.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was and is a bedrock of American manufacturing.
Speaker 2: National defense base is critical to our national security, how
Speaker 2: and to a certain extent, I mean, the public basically
Speaker 2: owns this company, all right. We bailed them out how
Speaker 2: times two thousand and eight because of their stock buybacks,
Speaker 2: and so we have no say over the way that
Speaker 2: they're conducting themselves, even though they take tens of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars in bailouts, not to mention all these military,
Speaker 2: you know, contracts that we have with the company, So
Speaker 2: pretty devastating. Final thing that we can put up there
Speaker 2: on the screen here is from a leak by United
Speaker 2: pilots themselves, where this is an internal email where they
Speaker 2: tell them not to leak the email, but the pilots
Speaker 2: immediately did and they're like, yeah, this new memo shows
Speaker 2: us that we are hoping to return this aircraft to
Speaker 2: service quote in the next several days. But this is
Speaker 2: going to lead to public you know, loss of public confidence.
Speaker 2: United has, you know, a lot of these aircraft in
Speaker 2: its fleet. There's huge you know, commercial implications right now
Speaker 2: because hundreds of flights have been canceled, both by Alaska
Speaker 2: and by United and overall, I just think it dramatically
Speaker 2: undermines confidence in Boeing and in its capabilities. Which if
Speaker 2: you're in the future and you're one of these airlines,
Speaker 2: which plane are you buying?
Speaker 3: You know you have to This is a big question.
Speaker 2: So we'll see, you know, in terms of what the
Speaker 2: overall fallout is on this, I recommend following that news
Speaker 2: outlet the Aircarrent. They've been doing fantastic reporting. All signs
Speaker 2: right now point to some sort of manufacturing problem.
Speaker 4: Would you get on one of these planes right now?
Speaker 3: Uh, well, it's not.
Speaker 2: We can't right now because they're all grounded. If the
Speaker 2: NTSB cleared it, yeah, I think I would. I've got
Speaker 2: enough the seven Max seven thirty seven Max nine I
Speaker 2: it look. I mean, if the NTSB says that the
Speaker 2: issue is the door plug and they tighten it up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know why I'm relatively confident is that a piece
Speaker 2: of that plane blew out.
Speaker 3: Of the sky and they still were able to land it.
Speaker 2: In fact, you could look at it the other way
Speaker 2: and say, wow, what a miracle of engineering.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But as we said, if they were a little further up,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it would be very diverse.
Speaker 3: Nine out of two hundred might have died. This pretty
Speaker 3: good offen.
Speaker 1: You like, I've gotten so much more risk averse as
Speaker 1: I've gotten older, Like something about how like after I
Speaker 1: had kids that became so much more risk averse.
Speaker 4: I don't think so well.
Speaker 1: I'd be thinking about it the whole time I was
Speaker 1: on that plane, and just be even if everything was fine,
Speaker 1: which overwhelming chances are everything would be fine, I'd be
Speaker 1: so miserable during that flight that I couldn't take.
Speaker 2: You might be right, but as you know, I'm a
Speaker 2: credit card fanatic and chasing airline status, so there's no
Speaker 2: way i'd even be sitied in that row.
Speaker 3: Of course, I'd be at the bulkhead seat where I belong.
Speaker 3: Don't pay for him, to be clear, you.
Speaker 2: Never pay for You always use your points, and you
Speaker 2: use these things in order to get it. I should
Speaker 2: do a whole monologue at some point about how to
Speaker 2: gain the system, but that's a different conversation. Turning over
Speaker 2: to the media, there's another casualty of Israel on the
Speaker 2: airwaves of American television. Mehdi Hassan, the MSNBC host whose
Speaker 2: show was canceled, has announced he is officially leaving it
Speaker 2: appears by choice after MSNBC leadership took that decision.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 14: It's been an absolute bloss during live show on MSNBC
Speaker 14: for the past three years, with an amazing team of
Speaker 14: producers behind me, and with all of you watching at home.
Speaker 14: It's been a privilege.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 14: But as we begin twenty twenty four, with an election coming,
Speaker 14: our war still ongoing, and too many Trump trials honesty
Speaker 14: to even keep track of, and with this show going away,
Speaker 14: I've decided that it's time for me to look for
Speaker 14: a new challenge. Tonight is not just my final episode
Speaker 14: of the mayde Hussan Show, it's my last day with MSNBC. Yes,
Speaker 14: I've decided to leave. To be clear, I am so proud,
Speaker 14: so so proud of what we've achieved on this show
Speaker 14: on this network, and I can't thank you all enough
Speaker 14: for tuning in and for your support and for your feedback.
Speaker 14: But as I say, new Year, New plans.
Speaker 2: So my respect for medi has gone up significantly. There
Speaker 2: was no way, in my opinion, he could stay there
Speaker 2: untenable situation if he did, I mean, imagine being canceled
Speaker 2: for something he said, and specifically whenever it's such a
Speaker 2: contentious issue that clearly cares.
Speaker 3: About all Wow, and then they fired is that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's outrageous, So good for him. He should have left.
Speaker 3: That's the right thing to do. You have none other
Speaker 3: choice in this business.
Speaker 1: And there's consequences for him to leaving. I mean, Mehdi
Speaker 1: will never work in mainstream I mean medio again. I
Speaker 1: assume children, absolutely, and financially and who knows what provisions
Speaker 1: there are in his contract about how long it has
Speaker 1: to stay on the sidelines, and a non compete and
Speaker 1: a non disclosure and all of that crap. It's not
Speaker 1: like you can just you know, Unfortunately, these contracts are
Speaker 1: very binding on talent, probably in a way that's illegal
Speaker 1: and needs to be challenged. But in any case, you know,
Speaker 1: many people are pointing out I think rightly, so that
Speaker 1: this cancelation of his show, which ultimately forces his hand
Speaker 1: and forces him to leave, comes after he has been
Speaker 1: a very clear dissident voice on the network in favor
Speaker 1: of Palestinian rights. And what Meddi is kind of famous for,
Speaker 1: which we've shown you here a number of times, is
Speaker 1: he is genuinely a very effective interviewer. And you know,
Speaker 1: we press people like John Bolton on his show, for example.
Speaker 1: But there is this is a rumor, so I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is accurate, but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: suggestions that the decision to cancel his show came after
Speaker 1: a particularly contentious interview that we covered here on this
Speaker 1: show because it made significant news in which he pressed
Speaker 1: a Babi Natanya who spokesperson on air about what they were.
Speaker 4: Doing in Gaza. Let's take a listen to a little
Speaker 4: bit of that.
Speaker 15: It'll be good for the people of Gaza, who deserve
Speaker 15: better than this terrible authoritarian, extreme Kamas regime.
Speaker 14: The people of Gazho are still alive. As I said,
Speaker 14: more than eleven thousand people dead reported dead, four thousand children.
Speaker 14: I just want to pull up on come numbers. You
Speaker 14: say Hamas's numbers, I should point out just put up
Speaker 14: on the screen. In the last two major Gaza conflicts
Speaker 14: two thousand and nine and twenty fourteen, the Israeli militaries
Speaker 14: death dolls matched Hamas's Health Ministry death toll, SO and
Speaker 14: the UN human rights groups all agree that those numbers
Speaker 14: are credible.
Speaker 15: They control all the images coming out of Gaza. Have
Speaker 15: you seen one picture of a single did Kamas terrorist?
Speaker 15: In the fighting game?
Speaker 6: Girls are not?
Speaker 15: One? Is that commerce can control commerce can control the information.
Speaker 6: And you said you would be brief.
Speaker 14: I have haven't. You're right, but I have seen lots
Speaker 14: of children with my own lying eyes being pulled from
Speaker 14: the robber because the.
Speaker 15: Pictures Commers wants you to see exactly.
Speaker 14: Because the pictures they're also people. Your government is killed.
Speaker 14: You accept that right you've killed children? Or do you deny?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 15: I do not.
Speaker 12: I do not.
Speaker 5: I do not.
Speaker 15: First of all, you don't know how those people died.
Speaker 6: Those two wow.
Speaker 15: First of all, we don't want to see us do
Speaker 15: Why does that give you permission to accept Commas's numbers.
Speaker 6: I don't understand.
Speaker 14: I didn't ask about much.
Speaker 3: I said to you that you're minit, but you were.
Speaker 15: You were quoting to me before Commas numbers numbers.
Speaker 14: Because the entire you An and the human rights community
Speaker 14: and the American intelligence community on Friday said they trust
Speaker 14: those numbers. But you're dodging my question mark.
Speaker 1: So you can see very heated. That's an extraordinary moment
Speaker 1: where I was crazy. Meddi says, you are denying that
Speaker 1: you killed these John Oh, I don't know how they died.
Speaker 4: I mean for that is that wild.
Speaker 1: There was another moment in that interview we covered as well,
Speaker 1: where he was pressing him on some of the misinformation
Speaker 1: they got caught putting out. Specifically, remember this, what was
Speaker 1: just a calendar that was on the wall that they
Speaker 1: were like, oh, this is where Hamas is saying. You know,
Speaker 1: they're logging in for their hostage watching duties. So he's
Speaker 1: very effective at this. It was shortly after this that
Speaker 1: a show gets canceled. We also know that the head
Speaker 1: of the ADL had gone on MSNBC and was going
Speaker 1: after Metti in particular, but all three of the Muslim
Speaker 1: anchors who have been critical of the Israeli response in Gaza.
Speaker 1: We also know that all three of those Muslim anchors
Speaker 1: were sidelined in different ways shortly after October seventh. So
Speaker 1: it surely seems like Mehdi is being punished for actually
Speaker 1: being good at his job and making powerful people uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: As people can go watch.
Speaker 2: I've got a lot of criticisms of the man, but
Speaker 2: I won't lay it here because I admire him for leaving.
Speaker 2: I think that's what you should do, especially when somebody
Speaker 2: is trying to censor you like this. I genuinely, even
Speaker 2: though I disagree with him, I wish him the best
Speaker 2: and I think that he'll probably do well in the
Speaker 2: independent space.
Speaker 3: And you know, we're happy to have him on the
Speaker 3: show anytime. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you dissent too much, cause too much friction with
Speaker 1: powerful people, cable news wants nothing to do with you,
Speaker 1: and Meddi is just the latest casualty of that. I
Speaker 1: think that we can save, very confidently.
Speaker 2: Very sad. Okay, we got a great guest standing by
Speaker 2: Jeff Stein. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Excited to be joined today by Jeff Stein, who is
Speaker 1: a reporter for The Wash and pos and great friend
Speaker 1: of the show, but more importantly for today, host of
Speaker 1: a new podcast called American Carnage that is on radical
Speaker 1: abolitionist John Brown and which is fantastic. I really recommend
Speaker 1: it to people. Great to have you, Jeff.
Speaker 5: Thank you guys so much for having me on. It's
Speaker 5: exciting to join independent media.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Before I ask the first question, let's just get a
Speaker 1: taste of what this podcast is all about.
Speaker 4: We have a bit of the trailer that you released.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 13: John Brown's body Laso moln and degree, John Brown's god
Speaker 13: Eliza Mouldron and them to be a soldier in the
Speaker 13: Army of the Lord. He's gone to be a soldier
Speaker 13: in the Army of the Lord.
Speaker 8: His soul is marching on goory glory, hellluyah, glory glory, hellolu.
Speaker 1: Explain to people what fascinates you about him and what
Speaker 1: were some of the questions you were trying to answer
Speaker 1: in this podcast series.
Speaker 6: Do you guys recognize that movie?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No, I Actually it's.
Speaker 5: From like a terrible, atrocious, impossible to watch Reagan movie
Speaker 5: from the forties, glorifying the post slavery side in the war.
Speaker 3: Oh God, what you call?
Speaker 5: And yet despite the attempt to make John Brown look
Speaker 5: crazy in the film, he looks awesome. It's really interesting
Speaker 5: and really cool, really fascinating. And I think the reason
Speaker 5: we got into this, and the reason I got into this,
Speaker 5: was because I don't think that political.
Speaker 6: Science is a thing.
Speaker 3: I kind of agree with you why people think.
Speaker 5: That political science is almost like taking an approach like
Speaker 5: chemistry or physics to how political change happens, our political
Speaker 5: processes unfolds. And the reality is that sounds like you
Speaker 5: might agree that from my perspective, at least, historical events
Speaker 5: involve so many variables and so many inputs, and it
Speaker 5: is impossible to try to get it down to the
Speaker 5: beaker and the lab equipment that you put in a
Speaker 5: chem lab, right, And so the historians want to look
Speaker 5: at what happened in the past and try to draw
Speaker 5: links rather than try to say, what are the elements
Speaker 5: that create a historical moment or create a moment. And
Speaker 5: with that in mind, I think the reason John Brown
Speaker 5: is so interesting is because he forces us to reckon
Speaker 5: with what is actually it.
Speaker 6: Causes change in this country.
Speaker 5: And I actually think you guys understand this and intuitively
Speaker 5: at a real level where we have this conception, right,
Speaker 5: this idea that that is very much like the official
Speaker 5: Washington world where I operate, where people are presented every
Speaker 5: four years like a list of ideas, and then their
Speaker 5: agency consists of going to the ballot box and being
Speaker 5: like I like this or I like that.
Speaker 6: You would look at a restaurant, you know, it's.
Speaker 5: Like, oh, here's the menu. But what that alides, right
Speaker 5: is like what is going on on the menu? How
Speaker 5: do we decide like what the political process is giving
Speaker 5: people the choice between? And when you look at John
Speaker 5: Brown's story, it's this question of how did this issue
Speaker 5: that when John Brown was first emerging on the scene
Speaker 5: was not even really a German people's heads, I mean
Speaker 5: abolitionism much less, you know, the racial egalitarianism that John
Speaker 5: Brown believed in was so unbelievably fringe the population, more
Speaker 5: fringe than than the people you guys have.
Speaker 16: On Yeah, and so what is the process, the historical
Speaker 16: process by which someone tries to move that, to shift that?
Speaker 5: And that's what I found so rivening and so captivating.
Speaker 5: How do you w beata boys his biophy of Brown?
Speaker 5: It's interesting because some of the historians today, I think
Speaker 5: are much more accurate than like the historians from fifty
Speaker 5: to sixty one hundred.
Speaker 6: Years ago, as the boy is, but they don't right in.
Speaker 5: A way that touches the soul the way that someone
Speaker 5: like du Boys or James Baldwin can. And what du
Speaker 5: Bois says is that what Brown reveals is that historical
Speaker 5: processes really shift by people who are able to activate
Speaker 5: the part of our consciences that are not explicable parts of.
Speaker 6: The political process.
Speaker 5: So things that we understand intuitively are immoral or wrong
Speaker 5: somewhere deep in our core. It takes someone in the public,
Speaker 5: maybe a media, maybe an activist, maybe a radical oub
Speaker 5: listionnist who starts invading federal armories. It takes someone to
Speaker 5: activate our latent sense of morality and justice, and that
Speaker 5: the idea that political change is instead driven by people
Speaker 5: at the top giving options that then people vote on
Speaker 5: is missing. How important that activation process?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting because Brown was,
Speaker 2: you could see there's many ways, right, There's like the
Speaker 2: great Man theories, there's a structureless theory, There's like many others.
Speaker 3: I basically subscribed to all three, which why I also
Speaker 3: don't believe in political science.
Speaker 2: But if you're to go and you're going to look
Speaker 2: at it, we could see, like why Brown right, because
Speaker 2: Nat Turner's rebellion is what twenty years before I getshed
Speaker 2: completely right, and actually.
Speaker 3: The Northern public is like, oh my god, this is horrifying.
Speaker 2: Why is it that Brown himself like right when it happened,
Speaker 2: it was like the perfect moment to awaken exactly like
Speaker 2: you said, and to also draw the right contrasts. Right,
Speaker 2: So like for Brown and there's everybody, it's so crazy
Speaker 2: when you look at his story, it's like Robert E.
Speaker 2: Lee is involved in the John Brown. You know, you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, like what a precursor. And then John
Speaker 2: got Booth his own exactly got John's book here.
Speaker 3: So how is this all?
Speaker 2: Like it's like a story, it's like a movie, and
Speaker 2: yet it was real life. So what did you find
Speaker 2: when you were teasing that out as to why his
Speaker 2: spoke to people at that moment when, like I said,
Speaker 2: Turner and all these other folks, it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: And give people a little TLDR if we don't if
Speaker 1: we have some non John Brown Buffson audience.
Speaker 5: So in on October sixteenth, eighteen fifty nine, John Brown,
Speaker 5: in about twenty men will invade a federal armory at
Speaker 5: Harper's Ferry, Virginia. The idea of this raid is that
Speaker 5: Brown is going to. I mean, as you said, it
Speaker 5: is cinematic, ritterical, and which is why it makes such
Speaker 5: a good story for a podcast.
Speaker 6: Brown and his little gorilla army, he wanted more men, but.
Speaker 5: He really he just decided that the place that they
Speaker 5: were training was at risk of being exposed. So he
Speaker 5: and about twenty men will invade this federal armory at
Speaker 5: Harper's Ferry, and they will go around the nearby plantations,
Speaker 5: liberating slaves, including the slaves owned by the great grand
Speaker 5: nephew of George Washington. They take these two amazing airlooms,
Speaker 5: a pistol that the Marquisa Lafayette had given George Washington,
Speaker 5: and a sword that Frederick the Great had given George Washington,
Speaker 5: and they take those and they free George Washington's descendant slaves,
Speaker 5: and then they come back to Harper's Ferry and they've
Speaker 5: taken this town. And that is when this moment that
Speaker 5: I've been really focused on recently is like why didn't
Speaker 5: John Brown leave?
Speaker 6: Because the whole conception of this rate is.
Speaker 5: That they're going to take these freed slaves, are going
Speaker 5: to ride off into the Appalachian Mountains and from there
Speaker 5: they will launch little raids on southern plantations, free more slaves,
Speaker 5: and eventually build this massive black colony that will destabilize
Speaker 5: the slave system, which is.
Speaker 6: Ambitious, certainly, but not super crazy. I don't think it hasn't.
Speaker 4: It hasn't. Some it has logic, It hasn't.
Speaker 3: I mean when it has more logic than staying in
Speaker 3: the armory, getting your sons killed and then get it
Speaker 3: on trial.
Speaker 6: But what are you doing? John?
Speaker 5: But what really happens, you know, in Brown stays, then
Speaker 5: the militias of Harper's Ferry, the white militias come, and
Speaker 5: then the federal government sends the US Marines, as you
Speaker 5: were saying under Roberty Lee later the leader of the Confederacy,
Speaker 5: to crush John Brown. And what happens in the immediate
Speaker 5: aftermath is kind of similar to what you see after
Speaker 5: Nat Turner, where people are outraged and they want this
Speaker 5: guy killed, and even the Northern abolitionists who were his
Speaker 5: allies say, oh, maybe there's legal jeopardy here. I want
Speaker 5: nothing to do with this. And so you have this
Speaker 5: massive immediate reaction that this guy is bad, and then
Speaker 5: partly because he's white, right, unlike Nat Turner. Yes, but
Speaker 5: also partly because he's able to articulate himself in.
Speaker 6: A way not Turner. Never is.
Speaker 5: John Brown in the aftermath of the raid is going
Speaker 5: to be put on trial, which again not Turner does
Speaker 5: not have this luxury of having a public audience where
Speaker 5: he can articulate and sound clear and level headed and appeal.
Speaker 5: And then he becomes the smart right because he's facing
Speaker 5: his death. He's just watched his sons be brutally nimed
Speaker 5: and die in his arms. And this the tragedy of
Speaker 5: the story and the fact that I think we can
Speaker 5: get into this and I have so much to say
Speaker 5: about John as you can sell, but he really was
Speaker 5: not that violent at Harper's Ferry. We can debate his
Speaker 5: actions in Kansas, which are more morally ambivalent, I think,
Speaker 5: But in Harper's Ferry, I think part of the reason
Speaker 5: that he gets trapped there is because he is concerned
Speaker 5: for the well being of his white hostages, and he
Speaker 5: treats them well. And this becomes part of the historical
Speaker 5: record after the fact. A handful of people do die
Speaker 5: at Harper's Ferry. But he's really in a defensive crouch.
Speaker 5: I mean, his attitude is like, let me liberate as
Speaker 5: many slaves and escape, and they're not going around. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people have this misapprehension of
Speaker 5: Brown as this you know, crazy white boy who went
Speaker 5: around just slaughtering slaveholders is much more. He was not
Speaker 5: intending on killing a lot of plantation owners in the South.
Speaker 5: And so that combined with the fact that Virginia, you know,
Speaker 5: while Brown still is like suffering from wounds to his head,
Speaker 5: he has this massive kidney injury. There's a scene where
Speaker 5: he's in court because the slaveholders are so insane that
Speaker 5: they insist on speeding up this trial even though he
Speaker 5: is unable to stand up. So they wheeld this cot
Speaker 5: into the courtroom and he has to pull the blanket
Speaker 5: over his face. So his stoicism in that moment and
Speaker 5: all the gallows where even the Confederates will recognize that
Speaker 5: he was incredibly brave in the face of death, that
Speaker 5: sort of like sense of valor, that sort of machismo,
Speaker 5: helps turn his image, and I think that is a
Speaker 5: big part of the reason that the nation was ready
Speaker 5: to receive his message in the way that they weren't pronound.
Speaker 3: I absolutely think you're right.
Speaker 1: And then what do you see as the reverberating impacts
Speaker 1: of that. I mean almost what you're describing is like
Speaker 1: through what came to be seen as his valor, selflessness,
Speaker 1: his willing to die, his willing to sacrifice his own
Speaker 1: kids on behalf of a cause that he saw as
Speaker 1: being so righteous that it really caused people to sort
Speaker 1: of awaken in them their own sense of injustice and
Speaker 1: change the opinions. So how does that reverberate throughout history?
Speaker 1: How does that help create the conditions that lead to
Speaker 1: the Civil War.
Speaker 6: It's a great question.
Speaker 5: I mean, John Brown, there's this fascinating, like self fulfilling
Speaker 5: dynamic that begins to happen in the South where the
Speaker 5: South is really determined. After even though John Brown is
Speaker 5: so exceptional as an abolitionist, he and his twenty guys
Speaker 5: are so unlike all the other abolitionists who you know,
Speaker 5: Willimore Garrison is the other most prominent abolition at this point,
Speaker 5: and he is an adamant pacifist and he looks down
Speaker 5: at what John Brown is doing things that's all rubbish.
Speaker 6: And so John Brown is really exceptional.
Speaker 5: But because the South wants to make John Brown out
Speaker 5: to be like the prototypical abolitionist a Northerner. They begin
Speaker 5: accusing everyone else in the North of being an abolitionist
Speaker 5: like John Brown. And so there's this weird effect that
Speaker 5: begins to happen where because the South starts saying these
Speaker 5: insane things about all the northern abolitionists, equating them to
Speaker 5: John Brown. Eventually the northern abolitionists are like, well, maybe
Speaker 5: we do believe in him, because their response is so
Speaker 5: disproportionate and so insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's actually so just you know, pick
Speaker 2: up on that. Really, what happened is that the fire eaters,
Speaker 2: which are the people who wanted to get out of
Speaker 2: the Union and to have secession, they saw it as
Speaker 2: a validation of their worst fears, and they're like, well,
Speaker 2: they're gonna do it to us anyways, we may as
Speaker 2: well arm up and we may as well succeed. And
Speaker 2: then people were well, hold on a second, you can't
Speaker 2: actually succede here. It's like, and if you're gonna you're
Speaker 2: not going to take all his federal property and all
Speaker 2: that with you. And really it increased I think militarism
Speaker 2: in the South, which, in turn, like you said, showed
Speaker 2: the North. They were like, okay, we genuinely have no
Speaker 2: other option.
Speaker 5: Butmia became a self fulfilling prophet exactly because when the
Speaker 5: South was insistent on seeing everyone in the North as
Speaker 5: John Brown, they started doing things in.
Speaker 6: Response to that, right that actually turned people.
Speaker 5: In the North into militants, right because the South started
Speaker 5: arming themselves literally. Yeah, And I got into like a
Speaker 5: Twitter argument with someone who was like, it was super
Speaker 5: rational for the South to secede.
Speaker 6: I mean maybe maybe because like.
Speaker 5: At that point, when Lincoln won in eighteen sixty, you
Speaker 5: see like the end of the expansion of slavery, and
Speaker 5: so like maybe the political balance of power is going
Speaker 5: to shift in a way that that is, you know,
Speaker 5: spells the death knell of the South, and therefore they
Speaker 5: should take their shot and try to get England on
Speaker 5: their side of the war.
Speaker 6: And maybe that's like their best gamble.
Speaker 5: But to me, like you look at the stated intention
Speaker 5: of Lincoln, and this is why, I mean, I'm curious
Speaker 5: that you guys think about this because to me, like
Speaker 5: the idea the answer to the question who.
Speaker 6: Freed the slaves?
Speaker 5: Right, I mean, like you have the Lincoln monument up there,
Speaker 5: but it's like it's Lincoln, that's what people say.
Speaker 6: Lincoln didn't want.
Speaker 5: Lincoln was not talking about freeing the slaves until events
Speaker 5: forced his hands. Like, you know who really wanted to
Speaker 5: free the slaves with John Brown and the idea?
Speaker 1: So are you telling me Nikki Haley lied to me
Speaker 1: and the Civil War was actually about slavery?
Speaker 4: Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 5: Anytime wants to come on American Carnage Big, She's honestly
Speaker 5: glad to have her discuss John.
Speaker 1: Brown, Jeff, how do you grapple with this moral question
Speaker 1: that you present at the beginning of your podcast? So basically, like,
Speaker 1: how do you think about someone one who some people
Speaker 1: would define as a domestic terrorist, John Brown, especially, like
Speaker 1: you said, for the actions that helped spark this Bleeding
Speaker 1: Kansas period, which was incredibly you know.
Speaker 4: Bloody and violent.
Speaker 1: How do you grapple with someone who is like violent
Speaker 1: but on behalf of a clearly just cause.
Speaker 5: I think it's a difficult question. I mean, we get
Speaker 5: into like all the competing historical debates in the podcast
Speaker 5: just very quickly to have time to explain, Yeah, what
Speaker 5: happened in Kansas. Yeah, so the fate of the expansion
Speaker 5: of slavery will fall to Kansas.
Speaker 6: I know this is kind of boring.
Speaker 5: But in eighteen fifty four, Congress says they passed the
Speaker 5: Kansas Nebraska Act, which gives the rights of the people
Speaker 5: in the territory to the side view of election whether
Speaker 5: that territory enters the Union as a free or slave state.
Speaker 5: And that's really important because it will determine the balance
Speaker 5: of power within Congress. And at this point, the pro
Speaker 5: slavery border ruffians from Missouri interfere with the elections, They
Speaker 5: steal the elections, they completely pollute democracy, and they start
Speaker 5: going around killing the anti slavery side. And so that's
Speaker 5: kind of the stakes of what happens when John Brown
Speaker 5: is fed up by all this and he gets a
Speaker 5: credible threat that some pro slavery guys from Missouri might
Speaker 5: go around and annihilate this is the term they use
Speaker 5: him and his sons. And at that point Brown decides
Speaker 5: to stop this pacifistic campaign to finally take retribution. He
Speaker 5: and his men will execute five men in the middle
Speaker 5: of the night with these swords, gashing their body and
Speaker 5: cutting it.
Speaker 6: It's all grizzly and bloody.
Speaker 5: And if there's any Dan Carlin hardcore history fans out here,
Speaker 5: I promise he will not be disappointed in our podcast,
Speaker 5: but the question becomes right, like, was the killing of
Speaker 5: five people who were not slaveholders, not plantation owners, not
Speaker 5: even particularly crucial to the pro slavery side in Kansas
Speaker 5: where they.
Speaker 6: Was that justified killing?
Speaker 5: And I would say the majority of historians that I
Speaker 5: read for this read for this project say that they're not.
Speaker 5: But the ones that do say he was justified will
Speaker 5: really point out that, you know, what was also terrorism,
Speaker 5: what was also violence was slavery. And we talk about
Speaker 5: Brown's killings as this form of like terroristic violence, and
Speaker 5: these historians who are more sympathetic to Brown will argue,
Speaker 5: and I think quite understandably that we never talk about
Speaker 5: the slaveholders or the founding fathers who kept people violently
Speaker 5: against their will as a form of terrorism.
Speaker 6: But how is it not right like it's.
Speaker 5: And so if you consider slavery to be a form
Speaker 5: of warfare, which seems legitimate at least in theory to me,
Speaker 5: then why is Brown responding to that terrorism by killing
Speaker 5: these guys not a form of of like engaging the
Speaker 5: Battlefield's that's the counter.
Speaker 3: It also belies the fact that there was massive violence
Speaker 3: on the pro slavery side too, to kick all these
Speaker 3: apples voters out Kansas. Yeah exactly, I mean massive, I
Speaker 3: mean absolute bloodshed. So I consider here and talk about
Speaker 3: this all day.
Speaker 2: We're running out of time, So Jeff, where can people
Speaker 2: find the podcast?
Speaker 3: What should they do is rate, subscribe.
Speaker 5: American Carnage on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Patreon. If you
Speaker 5: want to throw three bucks our way would be super
Speaker 5: grateful as well, but no, no pressure.
Speaker 3: We'll put a link down in the description.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting.
Speaker 1: It's obviously very relevant to the current moment in terms
Speaker 1: of the violent and kaza and you know, discussions about
Speaker 1: Hamas and a lot of the same sort of like
Speaker 1: moral and ethical questions. I'm not going to like say
Speaker 1: it's equivalent, but there are some echoes.
Speaker 5: Here a few years ago that John Brown is the
Speaker 5: nineteenth century Hamas and Hybola equivalents. And will I will
Speaker 5: leave it to have to listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1: He's gonna try to keep his Washington Post job as
Speaker 1: well and not fully comment on that particular deal step
Speaker 1: in that.
Speaker 4: But Jeff, it really is fascinating.
Speaker 1: I'm learning a lot from listening to it, and it's causing
Speaker 1: me to think a lot too, Like I said about
Speaker 1: current moral quandaries.
Speaker 4: So thank you so much. It's great to see you.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, great to see you man, true pleasure being Thanks guy,
Speaker 2: good job, thank you.
Speaker 3: We'll see you guys later