Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have, Crystal.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do a lot of things that are breaking
Speaker 1: this morning. So as you guys probably already know, a
Speaker 1: horrific terror attack unfolded in Moscow, we've got the very
Speaker 1: latest about who may be behind it and what is
Speaker 1: going to happen next. It's also another big week for
Speaker 1: Trump with regard to his legal and personal financial situation,
Speaker 1: so it looks like today he's going to be getting
Speaker 1: a court date. He also maybe due for a big
Speaker 1: payday with regard to true Social potentially could bail him
Speaker 1: out of some of his other issues. So we'll take
Speaker 1: a look at that big backlash at NBC after hiring
Speaker 1: former R and C chair Rona McDaniels, some very interesting
Speaker 1: commentary from Chuck Todd and others.
Speaker 4: We will break down what we think about all of that.
Speaker 1: A horrific Israeli drone attack caught on video on unarmed
Speaker 1: civilians that has led even Alex Jones now to call
Speaker 1: this a genocide, along with a number of other atrocities.
Speaker 1: We've had to sort of like pick the worst ones
Speaker 1: to tell you about today because there are so many unfolding.
Speaker 1: We also have a lot of big political news with
Speaker 1: regard to Israel. Their defense minister is coming to town
Speaker 1: this week and guess what he's bringing with him a
Speaker 1: long wish list of weapons that he would like to
Speaker 1: be expedited. So a lot going on there. Soccer is
Speaker 1: going to take a look at yet another GOP retirement
Speaker 1: and what is happening with all of that, and that
Speaker 1: Stoller is going to join us in the studio to
Speaker 1: talk through this new Apple antitrust suit, which is very interesting.
Speaker 1: Of course, you could not have a better expert to
Speaker 1: break all of that down for us than Stoller.
Speaker 2: Justice for Green Text Bubbles is the TLDR of the segment.
Speaker 2: Before we get to that, thank you to everybody who's
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Speaker 3: So let's go ahead and start with Moscow.
Speaker 2: And this is a hard pivot, but to a horrific
Speaker 2: attack that occurred over the weekend in Moscow. Over one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty seven now debt according to the Kremlin.
Speaker 2: We have some video that we can play here, just
Speaker 2: a warning, some of it may be disturbing. As you
Speaker 2: can see, this happened in the Circus city hall. There
Speaker 2: was a concert venue and there were a roving gunmen
Speaker 2: that were going through, reminiscent of the Mumbai and the
Speaker 2: Kenya attacks, people coming in and out and then also
Speaker 2: just fleeing and absolute chaos inside of the venue. Of
Speaker 2: Reportedly many of the debts actually a result of smoke inhalations.
Speaker 2: Some of the video that you're seeing in front of
Speaker 2: you was released by AMAK News. For those of you
Speaker 2: who have been on the internet for a while, that
Speaker 2: will be familiar. It is the quote unquote official video
Speaker 2: service of ISIS the propaganda and this is the burning
Speaker 2: actually that occurred afterwards Crystal. So there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of speculation around the who perpetrated these attacks.
Speaker 3: Isis Korasan.
Speaker 2: Isis K, which is based in the tribal regions of
Speaker 2: Afghanistan and Pakistan, have claimed responsibility for the incident, as
Speaker 2: well as releasing that body camp footage. President Putin also
Speaker 2: making a response there. However, time perhaps according to him,
Speaker 2: some of this to the regime in Ukraine. Let's play
Speaker 2: some of the video here. He says, quote, they tried
Speaker 2: to hide and they were moving in the direction of Ukraine.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: According to the preliminary data, they had a crossing of
Speaker 2: the border that was prepared from the Ukrainian side, but
Speaker 2: Vladimer vadam Zelinski has now denied that Ukraine had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the attack. This was backed up by
Speaker 2: the White House spokesperson John Kirby. Let's take a listen
Speaker 2: to what he had to say.
Speaker 5: You might have also seen, hopefully you saw our State
Speaker 5: Department or embassy there put out a notice to all
Speaker 5: Americans in Moscow to avoid any large gathering, concerts, obviously,
Speaker 5: shopping malls, anything like that, just for their own safety.
Speaker 5: They should stay put where they are and stay plugged
Speaker 5: into the State Department for any additional updates and information.
Speaker 6: Do you have any sense whether this could be linked
Speaker 6: to tool to the conflict in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: There is no indication at this time that Ukraine or
Speaker 5: Ukrainians were involved in the shooting. But again, just bro
Speaker 5: We're taking a look at it, but I would disabuse
Speaker 5: you at this early hour of any connection to Ukraine
Speaker 5: and Crystal.
Speaker 2: This comes amidst the news, if we could put here
Speaker 2: up on the screen that allegedly the United States actually
Speaker 2: warned both its own citizens and Moscow that an extremist
Speaker 2: attack had quote imminent plans to target large gatherings. This
Speaker 2: was issued on March seventh, a couple of weeks before
Speaker 2: the attack, so obviously the timing did not exactly match.
Speaker 2: But allegedly, from behind the scenes, the US government had
Speaker 2: shared some information here with the Russian authorities quote in
Speaker 2: accordance with its long standing duty to warn policy. We're
Speaker 2: not exactly sure whether Moscow dismissed the warnings or not.
Speaker 2: According to Western officials, they did. Obviously the attack was perpetrated,
Speaker 2: but there's still some major questions here surrounding the attack.
Speaker 2: But nonetheless, it is horrific. You know, you have over
Speaker 2: one hundred people now have lost their lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right, and many more who were injured.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I don't know who was behind the attack.
Speaker 1: You might look at it and say, listen, Isa says
Speaker 1: they did it. They released bodycam footage. The US is
Speaker 1: saying isis did it, and that they had you know,
Speaker 1: they had this intelligence in advance that they were warning.
Speaker 1: The embassy put out a warning to our own citizens,
Speaker 1: and they also reportedly warned the Russian government as well.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's very hard to know what to
Speaker 1: believe in this day and age. So I think what
Speaker 1: perhaps matters more in terms of what happens next is
Speaker 1: what the Russian people believe happened, and then what that
Speaker 1: leads to in terms of Putin's response.
Speaker 4: And it's a very dangerous situation. I mean, first and.
Speaker 1: Foremost, the carnage is horrific and heartbreaking. Second of all,
Speaker 1: what is the response, Because we've seen the way that
Speaker 1: our country, We've seen the way that Israel can dramatically
Speaker 1: overreact to a terror attack in a way that actually
Speaker 1: brings more harm not only to the world but to
Speaker 1: their own citizens. So you know, this is something we've
Speaker 1: been talking about for a long time with regard to
Speaker 1: the Ukraine War, is just what a dangerous situation it was,
Speaker 1: what type of escalation it could lead to.
Speaker 4: You're hearing very.
Speaker 1: I would say, like almost apocalyptic rhetoric, not just from Putin,
Speaker 1: but also from Medvedev in particular, who is known for
Speaker 1: using sort of very over the top I guess you
Speaker 1: would say rhetoric, but threatening direct retribution. So that's one
Speaker 1: big question is what happens from here, And I don't
Speaker 1: think any of us can really speculate. You know, the
Speaker 1: other thing saga that I've been thinking that. There was actually
Speaker 1: a very thought provoking column in Haretz about the way
Speaker 1: that watching these horrors unfold in Israel has cheapened all
Speaker 1: of human life, and I think you kind of see
Speaker 1: it in this instance, because there's no taking away from
Speaker 1: the utter horror when you have innocent people who are
Speaker 1: there just attending a concert being slaughtered out right, being
Speaker 1: trapped in a burning building, etc.
Speaker 4: And yet when you look at it, you're like, wow,
Speaker 4: that's the.
Speaker 1: Number of people who are killed in Gaza every day
Speaker 1: in a smaller population, And it does show you the
Speaker 1: way that you know, these horrors that are being perpetrated,
Speaker 1: the impact of them and the psychological impact of them
Speaker 1: does not just stay in Gaza, does not just stay
Speaker 1: with regards to Israel and Palestine. That was something I
Speaker 1: was reflecting on here as well. And then the last
Speaker 1: thing that I think we can say with absolute certainty
Speaker 1: is that this is a tremendous failure from Putin. I mean,
Speaker 1: all indications are he did have some sort of warning
Speaker 1: and obviously, you know, he was unable to protect his
Speaker 1: own citizens in terms of the you know, the the
Speaker 1: response after the fact. As Sager mentioned, reports are that
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who perished. It was actually
Speaker 1: not from gunfire, it was from fire and smoke inhalation
Speaker 1: because the h you know, they had a very difficult
Speaker 1: time finding the exits, and there weren't people on site
Speaker 1: to assist in the immediate response. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: because this is such a really you know, security dramatic
Speaker 1: security failure and humiliation for him, that also, you know,
Speaker 1: leads to increased concerns about what the response may be
Speaker 1: so that he can rescue himself from his own humiliation.
Speaker 4: By the way, you know, noteworthy and.
Speaker 1: Well as well in terms of the political timing, this
Speaker 1: happened just days after he was quote unquote reelected, so
Speaker 1: certainly his you know, political position is secure. But again
Speaker 1: there are some echoes here of Bibi Netanyahu, who you know,
Speaker 1: October seventh. Obviously it's on hamas the atrocities they committed,
Speaker 1: but whole thing was, hey, I'm going to keep you safe,
Speaker 1: this kind of strong man figure. There were dramatic security
Speaker 1: fillers and also echoes you know, nine to eleven same thing,
Speaker 1: warnings intel and completely ignored and disregarded by the Bush administration,
Speaker 1: leaving you know, our own citizens vulnerable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So to get to that so one of the attackers.
Speaker 2: There have been four actually attackers who have been charged,
Speaker 2: and many of their interrogation videos have been released by
Speaker 2: the Russians. So we have some video here. Just we've
Speaker 2: kept out anything that's too disturbing, but we're going to
Speaker 2: show you some of his own words, allegedly. Again, this
Speaker 2: is completely released by the Kremlin official state sanctioned propaganda.
Speaker 2: But here's what they've put out. So let's gohea and
Speaker 2: put it up there on the screen. They asked one
Speaker 2: of these gunmen, where did you get the guns? They
Speaker 2: said they delivered them themselves. He says, I don't know
Speaker 2: who delivered them. It was on telegram. There was no
Speaker 2: first name, no last name, nothing. How did they find you?
Speaker 2: Did you look for them or did they find you?
Speaker 2: He says, no, they wrote to me. Why exactly did
Speaker 2: they write to you? He says, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: listened to the lessons there, referring to probably isis propaganda videos.
Speaker 2: He says, how come you were just asked to kill
Speaker 2: people for no reason? No one is just asked to
Speaker 2: kill people. He says, no, I took a class that
Speaker 2: was on telegram. He continues, kind of expounding a little
Speaker 2: bit there. He says, what is on telegram? He says,
Speaker 2: the class I listened to a class. I listened to
Speaker 2: a preacher, And he continues, he is going to describe
Speaker 2: not only the preacher that he was kind of connected with.
Speaker 2: His quote unquote assistant then texted him. He's refusing to
Speaker 2: give names. He claims that there was no first name,
Speaker 2: no last name, that he was sent in connection with
Speaker 2: all of these and that about a month ago, that
Speaker 2: is whenever he was connected to these attackers. He also
Speaker 2: claimed Crystal that he had been given some one million
Speaker 2: roubles and that he had flown to Moscow from Turkey
Speaker 2: on March fourth, which coincides March seventh, right around the
Speaker 2: time that the US authorities had delivered that warning allegedly
Speaker 2: again to the Russians. Now, I want to say there
Speaker 2: are some weird conces inconsistencies that are happening here. First
Speaker 2: and foremost is that a number of the gunmen were
Speaker 2: captured alive. And almost every single one of these previous
Speaker 2: Isis attacks, they fight to the death and they're either
Speaker 2: killed by security forces or they blow themselves up. Many
Speaker 2: of the guys, for example, and the Paris attack on
Speaker 2: the Bata Klan and others were wired with suicide vests
Speaker 2: or either to perish.
Speaker 3: Same in Mumbai.
Speaker 2: If we think back to the Mumbai attacks, I think
Speaker 2: believe all but one of the gunmen actually died and
Speaker 2: the only reason that one of them was even captured
Speaker 2: alive is because he was wounded by the Indian security forces.
Speaker 2: I believe the same is the same when we think
Speaker 2: about the Mali attack, and we also think about Kenya.
Speaker 2: So all of these like gunmen AK forty seven style
Speaker 2: attacks are that they just flood the zone and they
Speaker 2: basically just expect to perish. The other thing that kind
Speaker 2: of confused me, and this has been also noted by
Speaker 2: some terrorist analysts. As he said he was promised, for example,
Speaker 2: a million rubles, It's very unusual to be you know,
Speaker 2: quote unquote offered monetary recipient in exchange for this again
Speaker 2: because they expect you to perish.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: I don't really know much about these individuals. Their name
Speaker 2: that have been released seemed to indicate that they are
Speaker 2: from the Caucus regions, So all of their last names
Speaker 2: are like are all of their last names indicate at
Speaker 2: least that they are from some of those regions. Previously
Speaker 2: in Central Asia, which I know for certain has long
Speaker 2: had an ISIS presence. A lot of the guys who
Speaker 2: were in Syria were of Chechni and Dagistani or whatever descent.
Speaker 2: And it's not like it hasn't been a hotbed of
Speaker 2: Islamic terrorism, but I did want to know, you know,
Speaker 2: it is very unusual to capture a number of the
Speaker 2: gunment alive and.
Speaker 3: For the dead.
Speaker 1: I believe the individuals that they captured are Tajik. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's pieces of the ISIS explanation that are confusing, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, if you take this individual
Speaker 1: at his word, like, it just seems insane.
Speaker 3: Well, also, he's obviously under duress, clearly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was another thing that Jegor was noting
Speaker 1: to be. Actually, he found it very noteworthy that there
Speaker 1: were actual videos and images put out of the torture
Speaker 1: that was, you know, perpetrated against these individuals. He said,
Speaker 1: that's different from Russian history. He thinks that is part
Speaker 1: of the Putin response is like, let me put out
Speaker 1: these images basically of revenge to try to salvage myself
Speaker 1: from my own humiliation and my own failure here. So,
Speaker 1: in terms of the ISIS piece, first of all, like
Speaker 1: I was saying, this story seems crazy, right, you are
Speaker 1: on telegram listening to some Isis propaganda preacher and someone
Speaker 1: who you don't even know is like, hey, I'll give
Speaker 1: you half a million dollars if you go shoot up
Speaker 1: this concert hall and then you just do it.
Speaker 4: Like maybe.
Speaker 1: But the other thing to note about isis K in
Speaker 1: particular is they seem to have a habit recently of
Speaker 1: really being into striking America's adversaries from Iran, Pakistan and
Speaker 1: now Russia.
Speaker 4: So that's a little eyebrow raising.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, like I said, they
Speaker 1: claimed credit they're US is at least claiming they had
Speaker 1: intel supporting this. They put on the body cam footage,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And the other explanations possible. You know, theories
Speaker 1: out there don't entirely make sense or add up either.
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I think maybe the most important thing
Speaker 1: is how Russians feel about how this happened, how Putin
Speaker 1: is explaining it, whether people are buying this or not.
Speaker 1: You know, he's floating that Ukrainians had something to do
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's any evidence to actually back
Speaker 1: that up. But if the Russian people are persuaded that
Speaker 1: that is the case that has geopolitical ramifications, whether it
Speaker 1: is actually true or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, actually I have here in front of me a
Speaker 2: direct translation of the weekly news show in Moscow that
Speaker 2: aired last night Sunday night. They say that the United
Speaker 2: States and Europe understand that any connection between Ukraine and
Speaker 2: the attack on this whole would be suicidal for Kiev
Speaker 2: in the entire anti Russian alliance. So they Russian media,
Speaker 2: both the government and media organizations of the government friendly
Speaker 2: to Putin, have been pushing over the last twenty four
Speaker 2: to forty eight hours a Ukrainian connection, pushing back hard
Speaker 2: on any ISIS explanation. As you said, I mean, very well,
Speaker 2: may be ISIS even, you know, whenever we do a
Speaker 2: full investigation into the attack. But they have a direct
Speaker 2: incentive to say that it's not, because that would mean
Speaker 2: absolve Putin of not you know, hearing any warning. So look,
Speaker 2: it's not like there's any exactly trustworthy actors between ISIS
Speaker 2: and the US government of Russian government.
Speaker 1: Here it is always Yeahski, right, we should point out,
Speaker 1: I mean, there is definitely a beef that Isis has
Speaker 1: with Russia, I mean, especially with regard to Syria in particular,
Speaker 1: So it's not like it would be totally random and
Speaker 1: you know, oh why why do they have an issue
Speaker 1: with them?
Speaker 4: So there is a logic to that.
Speaker 1: But there are some other pieces here that, like I said,
Speaker 1: they're just they're just strange. There's a lot and they're
Speaker 1: not true, but there are eyebrow raising and they are strange.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of all the hypotheses that are involved,
Speaker 2: Like the Isis theory obviously makes sense. They have long
Speaker 2: standing beef with the Russians. The Russians have been the
Speaker 2: major backer of Bashar Alastad and they killed a lot
Speaker 2: of people, you know, on in Isis in Syria as
Speaker 2: a result of that. The other one, I mean, this
Speaker 2: is all goes back to the conspiracy theory around the
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine apartment bombings which Putin used as a
Speaker 2: pretext to start the Chechenian War. Given the fact that
Speaker 2: they're immediately blaming the Ukrainians, I mean, that one certainly
Speaker 2: seems plausible. I'm not saying it is the only explanation,
Speaker 2: which many you know, anti Putin people said, but it's
Speaker 2: relatively plausible. Then the other one is that you know,
Speaker 2: this is some fusion or something of the two. It
Speaker 2: could be just a Tajik It could be you know,
Speaker 2: localized Tajik militant group that somehow was also funded by ISIS,
Speaker 2: may not be technically ISIS itself. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff, you know, that could be happening. But as
Speaker 2: you said, the real regardless of whatever it actually was,
Speaker 2: how Russians, the Russian government and them use it as
Speaker 2: a response and how they respond to that, that will
Speaker 2: be the major, major question, especially now that they've made
Speaker 2: a habit of publishing some of these interrogation videos. If
Speaker 2: let's say they torture the hell out of these guys
Speaker 2: and get them to say that it's Ukraine or something
Speaker 2: on camera, I mean, you can already imagine how that
Speaker 2: would be used on their behalf. We'll continue to watch
Speaker 2: it very very closely, ended very much. Could be a
Speaker 2: major flashpoint here going forward. Trump appears to have found
Speaker 2: himself in a major financial windfall in one of the
Speaker 2: most hilarious circumstances of all time. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen. It appears that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is about to quote make a new fortune
Speaker 2: with the public listing of truth Social. According to the
Speaker 2: financial documents that are coming forward in a filing, Trump's
Speaker 2: investment in truth Social, which is held by in SPAC, is.
Speaker 3: Worth roughly three billion dollars.
Speaker 2: This is after investors in this SPAC have now approved
Speaker 2: a plan to take truth Social public, putting him quote
Speaker 2: one step closer to the three billion dollar windfall that
Speaker 2: could end a financial squeeze that is weighing on his
Speaker 2: presidential run. Truth Social quote, with few users and little revenue,
Speaker 2: is expected to start strading on the stock market next
Speaker 2: week at a staggering valuation of five billion dollars. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump self owns sixty percent of that, and the stock ticker.
Speaker 3: Will be called DJT.
Speaker 2: The vote it comes quote after two and a half
Speaker 2: years to take truth Social public, that included charges of
Speaker 2: insider trading, a fine to settle an SEC investigation. All
Speaker 2: that has kept Trump on the platform. What they say
Speaker 2: is that this could be the financial windfall crystal that
Speaker 2: he needs, which is very likely why he was pushing
Speaker 2: for this public because he's got the four hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty million dollar judgment against him that remains there, and
Speaker 2: now he's got a stake that even though he's in
Speaker 2: a lock up period, you know, he could conceivably get
Speaker 2: a loan or something like that against his valuation. That is,
Speaker 2: if the stock actually holds at the value that they.
Speaker 3: Do want to put forward. Should note that the amount
Speaker 3: of money they make is not a lot.
Speaker 1: We'll say that, and they they actually they lose money
Speaker 1: in terms of profitability and revenue. They make a few
Speaker 1: million dollars a year. In terms of profit, they are
Speaker 1: losing tens of millions of dollars a year. So the
Speaker 1: idea that Truth Social is actually worth five point five
Speaker 1: billion dollars is ridiculous, right, But this is it's actually
Speaker 1: a memes stock phenomenon. People who are supporters of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: like they're really into it, and so they've bid up
Speaker 1: the price and he's trying to cash in on this
Speaker 1: popularity in the fact that this stockport I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: the economy of the stock market are fake anyway, but
Speaker 1: they have wildly inflated the valuation of Truth. So there's
Speaker 1: no no logical way is it possible that this is
Speaker 1: worth one billion or even like one million, given the
Speaker 1: fact that it is losing money consistently with no hope
Speaker 1: of sort of turning things around. So nevertheless, this could
Speaker 1: serve to benefit Trump. But but there are some big
Speaker 1: caveats here. First of all, he is subject to a
Speaker 1: lock up agreement which would ordinarily require him to hold
Speaker 1: on to that stock, I believe, for six months before
Speaker 1: he could sell it. So that's number one. Now, apparently
Speaker 1: there are some sort of like deals that could be
Speaker 1: struck and legal ways that he could get out of
Speaker 1: that requirement and be able to sell off some stock.
Speaker 1: But when you have that large of a stockholder and
Speaker 1: you have a you know, a meme stock that's like
Speaker 1: sort of artificially inflated, him selling significantly, it's probably going
Speaker 1: to trigger a lot of other people to sell significant quantities,
Speaker 1: and it could lead to a massive crash wherein obviously,
Speaker 1: your you know, three point five million dollars stake or
Speaker 1: whatever is now worth much much, much much less than
Speaker 1: three point five million dollars. So it's not a sure
Speaker 1: thing that this is going to rescue him from his
Speaker 1: financial difficulties. And we've discussed before obviously what the immediate
Speaker 1: financial difficulties are, which is primarily that he owes half
Speaker 1: a billion dollars that actual that deadline for that bond
Speaker 1: payment is today, and we're as we're about to discuss,
Speaker 1: Letitia James has already moved to begin the process to
Speaker 1: seize some of his New York assets in Westchester County
Speaker 1: in particular, in order to make good on that payment.
Speaker 1: He and his legal team have apparently gone to thirty
Speaker 1: different insurers and they all said no, effectively, because you
Speaker 1: don't have enough cash and enough collater to back it,
Speaker 1: and they don't really count real estate holdings. So is
Speaker 1: this going to rescue him in the new year term.
Speaker 1: Don't know, but there are some challenges and some caveats
Speaker 1: with regard to this potential new fortune that he is
Speaker 1: coming into.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 2: As you said, today is actually a pretty critical day
Speaker 2: for Trump. Let's put it up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: They say that his quote is expected to spend this
Speaker 2: morning actually while we're taping in the courtroom of the
Speaker 2: New York judge who will then soon preside presumably over
Speaker 2: his criminal trial quote and ultimately possibly throw him behind bars.
Speaker 2: That is not even the legal predicament that actually worries
Speaker 2: Trump most this day. The hearing in which is the
Speaker 2: so called you know, the cover up of the Stormy
Speaker 2: Daniels thing, is coming at the exact same time that
Speaker 2: he's got to fend off the four hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: four million dollar judgment against him. The New York Attorney General,
Speaker 2: as he said, may begin collecting as soon as Monday.
Speaker 2: Quote to avoid a mortal threat to the Trump organization,
Speaker 2: Trump then must persuade another company to post the bond
Speaker 2: on his behalf, promising it will then cover the judgment
Speaker 2: if he loses a pending appeal and fails to pay.
Speaker 2: Trump's lawyers said that securing the bond would be a
Speaker 2: quote practical impossibility because he would need to pledge some
Speaker 2: five hundred and fifty million dollars in cash and liquid
Speaker 2: investment as collateral on the bond, and admission that laid
Speaker 2: bare the former president's cash crunch under the quote unless
Speaker 2: he strikes quote an eleventh hour deal that New York
Speaker 2: State can then freeze his bank accounts and began the
Speaker 2: long and complicated process of quote seizing some of his properties.
Speaker 2: All of these are the quote the two twin threats
Speaker 2: that crystallize two of Trump's greatest and longest held fears,
Speaker 2: an actual criminal conviction and a public perception that he
Speaker 2: does not have as much cash as he claims.
Speaker 3: On the cash front.
Speaker 2: I'm not defending him, but there's almost nobody is worth
Speaker 2: billions of dollars. He's got five hundred million dollars in liquid.
Speaker 4: Asset and interesting amount of money.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know much about the high end financial system.
Speaker 2: It does seem a bit ridiculous to me that you
Speaker 2: have to have liquid investments worth the amount of the
Speaker 2: bond that you're supposed to pay, because like, okay, again
Speaker 2: again only from reading, but don't people often put up
Speaker 2: like their house or their mortgage or something in a
Speaker 2: bail bond type situation.
Speaker 3: So why can't you use then the.
Speaker 2: Collateral of your real estate, you know, holdings, even in
Speaker 2: the state of New York, which presuma we are going
Speaker 2: to be taken and held anyway.
Speaker 3: I guess maybe maybe it's more of a higher risk profile.
Speaker 2: Again I don't I don't understand bond law or bond financing,
Speaker 2: but it does seem crazy because if you were going
Speaker 2: to if you had the liquid cash, and why wouldn't
Speaker 2: you just pay the bond instead of having a bond
Speaker 2: there anyway and curse some of the interests.
Speaker 3: I don't really understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't either, I mean, the one thing I
Speaker 1: read said that they just they don't even like to
Speaker 1: like to do a bond of their size even is
Speaker 1: the problem. So they were willing to go as high
Speaker 1: as one hundred million dollars, but half a billion.
Speaker 4: Was like, I don't know about that. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: But apparently, for whatever reasons, they are not feeling super
Speaker 1: comfy fronting the cash for this bond. So it is
Speaker 1: a genuine question mark what's going to happen in court
Speaker 1: today and what moves Letitia James is going to make next.
Speaker 1: Like I said, she started the process in Westchester County,
Speaker 1: one of his golf courses there, to potentially seize that
Speaker 1: potentially fire or sail it.
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: New York Posts had a report last week, for what
Speaker 1: it's worth, that Trump is thinking that maybe he's just
Speaker 1: not going to really take any action to try to
Speaker 1: solve this problem, put the ball in her court and
Speaker 1: try to make as much political hay out of it
Speaker 1: as he can, with the hopes that in the future,
Speaker 1: because this is a complicated process, it would take a
Speaker 1: while to seize as it's of course, it would take
Speaker 1: even longer to fire sale assets et cetera. He's hoping
Speaker 1: that the judgment is sort of knocked down before that happens,
Speaker 1: and he can then reclaim these properties.
Speaker 4: But who knows, who knows how? This is a lot?
Speaker 2: Nobody has any idea. Let's go put this up there
Speaker 2: on the screen as well. From the ap this is
Speaker 2: probably actually the most important part is that Trump has
Speaker 2: now reached a new joint fundraising agreement with the RNC,
Speaker 2: which will direct donations to his campaign and a political
Speaker 2: action committee that pays the former president's legal bills before
Speaker 2: the RNC gets a cut at all.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: The unorthodox diversion of Save America pack makes it likely
Speaker 2: that Republican donors would see their money go to Trump's lawyers,
Speaker 2: who have now received seventy six million dollars over the
Speaker 2: last two years to defend him against four felony indictments
Speaker 2: and multiple civil cases. Some Republicans are already trouble that
Speaker 2: his takeover the RNC would short change the cash strap party.
Speaker 2: Trump has already began inviting high dollar donors to Palm
Speaker 2: Beach for multiple fundraisers against Joe Biden and Quote. The
Speaker 2: invitation's fine print says that the donation to the Trump
Speaker 2: forty seven Committee will first be used to give the
Speaker 2: maximum amount allowed under federal law to the Trump campaign.
Speaker 2: Anything then left over will go towards a maximum contribution
Speaker 2: to Save America packed Anything then left over from that
Speaker 2: will go to the RNC, and only after the state
Speaker 2: political parties.
Speaker 3: Noteworthy though, that.
Speaker 2: The first three out of the four that are listed
Speaker 2: in the joint Funding his Agreement will all go towards
Speaker 2: paying Trump's legal bills first before any sort of campaign apparatus.
Speaker 2: And I mean, Crystal, I don't have to It doesn't
Speaker 2: take a genius to say this is probably bad for
Speaker 2: the RNC. But in some ways I almost just appreciate
Speaker 2: the brazenness of this because the RNC is Trump. Trump
Speaker 2: is the Republican Party, so you know, everything is enshrined
Speaker 2: totally with him. Even the campaign is more about him
Speaker 2: than it is about anything. So yeah, if you're donating
Speaker 2: to the campaign or whatever you are, you're donating to
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's you know, personal interests. That's basically just the
Speaker 2: way it's been the entire time. So if anything, this
Speaker 2: is actually very ideological consistent with the Trump kind of
Speaker 2: takeover of the party.
Speaker 3: I would say, and I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, but I would suspect that a good number
Speaker 1: of the people who are giving money to Trump don't
Speaker 1: really have a problem a bottom with that, because I
Speaker 1: think they see part of this campaign as this like,
Speaker 1: you know, crusade for him personally and to get him
Speaker 1: out of his legal travails, et cetera. So you know,
Speaker 1: they deserve transparency around what is going on here. But
Speaker 1: it is an astonishing situation where so many of the
Speaker 1: millions that are being raised are going directly to his
Speaker 1: personal benefit to try to, you know, get him out
Speaker 1: of this legal jeopardy that he's in, and his fundraising
Speaker 1: hasn't been going particularly well. I just pulled this up.
Speaker 1: These numbers actually just came out. So federal campaign finance
Speaker 1: filings that were released last week showed Trump's political operation
Speaker 1: to serious disadvantage, struggling to catch up to Biden. This
Speaker 1: is from ABC News and the Democratic Party. Biden and
Speaker 1: the Dems raised fifty three million dollars last month, ended
Speaker 1: February with one hundred and fifty five million dollars cash
Speaker 1: on hand. Trump's campaign and his Save America Political Action Committee,
Speaker 1: to key groups in his political operation, reported raising a
Speaker 1: combined fifteen point nine million in February ended the month
Speaker 1: with more than thirty seven million on hand. So a
Speaker 1: severe disparity between the Trump operation and between the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party and Joe Biden's operation. And then when you add
Speaker 1: to that the fact that they have to shoulder the
Speaker 1: burden not just of running a campaign but also of
Speaker 1: paying these massive legal bills on behalf of Donald Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it puts him at a real cash disadvantage. Now how
Speaker 1: much does that matter? Obviously money wasn't enough to save
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen, even though she dramatically outfund
Speaker 1: raised Donald Trump. So you don't want to read too
Speaker 1: much into it, but certainly, if you're trying to campaign,
Speaker 1: you're trying to get the word out, you're trying to
Speaker 1: pay staff, you're trying to put your message out there
Speaker 1: in terms of AD dollars, which is what a lot
Speaker 1: of this money goes to. And it's a problem for
Speaker 1: you if you don't have a lot in the bank.
Speaker 2: Yeh line, Absolutely, let's put the last element up there,
Speaker 2: please on the screen.
Speaker 3: This was also very important.
Speaker 2: Plans were actually recently scrapped for that Trump rally in Arizona.
Speaker 2: Two sources cited their desire to save money to attend
Speaker 2: a more politically advantageous event in Ohio last weekend. But
Speaker 2: that means that Trump's last trip to Arizona remains October ninth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, pretty important because didn't exactly go so
Speaker 2: well for m last time in October nine, about twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, whenever he was stumping for Kerry Lake. Presumably
Speaker 2: he will return to the state to stump for carry
Speaker 2: Lake again. The question, though, remains, is this actually going
Speaker 2: to hinder the campaign? And I don't think we can't.
Speaker 2: It's complicated, I mean, to a certain extent, I do
Speaker 2: think it has overblown some of this, like investment in
Speaker 2: get out the vote technology and all this other stuff.
Speaker 2: A lot of it comes down to whether people are
Speaker 2: even interested in voting or not, which is mostly derivative
Speaker 2: of the national news environment. We can't say it hurts
Speaker 2: either right to have this major investment in door knocking
Speaker 2: and in the software and then the actual machinery of
Speaker 2: getting people out there. But Trump has so much enthusiasm
Speaker 2: that it's not even necessarily that he needs money or not.
Speaker 2: I mean, if money really mattered, then Hillary would have
Speaker 2: beat Trump, you know, easily.
Speaker 3: Back in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: My theory when it comes to money and how much
Speaker 1: it matters in terms of any sort of political campaign
Speaker 1: is that the more local the races, the more the
Speaker 1: money actually matters.
Speaker 4: And so since when you're.
Speaker 1: Talking about a presidential contest, like who in America doesn't
Speaker 1: know who Joe Biden and Donald Trump are? Who in
Speaker 1: America doesn't have some sort of opinion about both of
Speaker 1: these two individuals, and who in America doesn't know like
Speaker 1: when the election of them is coming up, and how
Speaker 1: the mechanics of that all work. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say it doesn't matter at all, but I do think
Speaker 1: that the higher you go up the you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of food chain with regard to political campaigns, the
Speaker 1: less impactful it is because earned media and the national
Speaker 1: political climate just becomes so incredibly important. Now there are
Speaker 1: certain things like, for example, there's been this whole question
Speaker 1: of how the Trump campaign is going to deal with
Speaker 1: mail in voting this time around.
Speaker 4: Are they going to fully embrace it?
Speaker 1: Are they going to fully run that like mail in
Speaker 1: voting turnout campaign? If he had done that last time around,
Speaker 1: he may well be president right now. So he seems
Speaker 1: to still personally be kind of reluctant about it, but
Speaker 1: the people around him seem to have realized that it
Speaker 1: was a mistake to forego pushing mail in balloting. So
Speaker 1: you know, having that operation fully funded, that is the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that can make a difference on the margins.
Speaker 4: And look, we're talking about election that is.
Speaker 1: Probably going to come down to a very narrow margin.
Speaker 1: So in that way it is impactful. There's also something
Speaker 1: to say about the fact that previously Trump was a
Speaker 1: real fundraising juggernaut when it came to the grassroots, and
Speaker 1: there actually has been a bipartisan phenomenon recently of grassroots
Speaker 1: fundraising really sort of drying up.
Speaker 4: I think there's just a lot of like apathy and you.
Speaker 1: Know, discussed with the political system where people aren't feeling
Speaker 1: that hopeful, like, oh, there's you know something positive I
Speaker 1: can invest my money in, et cetera. And he has
Speaker 1: just tapped his people out too. I mean a number
Speaker 1: of times that he hits his fundraising list.
Speaker 4: Over and over and over.
Speaker 1: He really has tapped them out, not only for himself
Speaker 1: but for other Republicans as well. But it is, you know,
Speaker 1: it's also an indication of a sort of waning amount
Speaker 1: of grassroots enthusiasm that he's not still able to draw
Speaker 1: from that well to the extent that he was able
Speaker 1: to in the past.
Speaker 4: I think that also is worth noting.
Speaker 2: Keep his in mind too. Trump had tons of money
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. We lost, so I mean he had
Speaker 2: more money in that campaign. I think more than almost
Speaker 2: double or something like that. They had the same joint
Speaker 2: fundraising game, agreeing with the RNC. But then remember what
Speaker 2: we learned in October that the huge amounts of the
Speaker 2: money they brought in was just spent trying to drive
Speaker 2: even more money. But from it was like Brad pars Scale,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, and Jared Kushner, they wasted billions and billions
Speaker 2: of dollars.
Speaker 4: They're spent wildly right exactly.
Speaker 3: So money, you know, it can be helpful.
Speaker 2: Obviously no one's going to discount it, but a lot
Speaker 2: of it will come down to national trends as well.
Speaker 2: So just keep that in mind, and of course the
Speaker 2: media how they cover it, how people are feeling about
Speaker 2: the election, that's probably the single most important aspect. That's
Speaker 2: a good transition to media. MSNBC a little bit of
Speaker 2: a meltdown over there over the recent hiring of our
Speaker 2: former RNC chairwoman Ron Romney, McDaniel, NBC hosts and Chuck
Speaker 2: Todd in particular openly lambasting their own bosses for hiring her.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: I'll be joined by former RNC chair Ron and McDaniel
Speaker 7: in her first interview since stepping down as party chair.
Speaker 7: In full disclosure to our viewers, this interview was scheduled
Speaker 7: weeks before it was announced that McDaniel would become a
Speaker 7: paid NBC News contributor. This will be a news interview
Speaker 7: and I was not involved in her hiring.
Speaker 8: Let me do with the elephant in the room.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think our bosses owe you an apology for
Speaker 9: putting you in this situation because I don't know what
Speaker 9: to believe.
Speaker 8: She is now a paid contributor by NBC News.
Speaker 9: Well, I have no idea whether any answer she gave
Speaker 9: to you was because she didn't want to mess up
Speaker 9: her contract. When NBC made the decision to give her
Speaker 9: NBC News's credibility, you got to ask yourself.
Speaker 8: What does she bring NBC News?
Speaker 9: And when we make deals like this, and I've been
Speaker 9: at this company a long time, you're doing it for access,
Speaker 9: access to audience. Sometimes a Texas to an individual, and
Speaker 9: we can have a journalistic ethics debate about that, and.
Speaker 8: I am willing to have that debate.
Speaker 9: And if you told me we were hiring her as
Speaker 9: a technical advisor to the Republican Convention, I think that
Speaker 9: would be certainly defensible. You got put into an impossible
Speaker 9: situation booking this interview, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: the rugs pull out from interview. You find actually being
Speaker 9: paid to show up. It's unfortunate for this program. It's unfortunate, Crystal.
Speaker 9: Now it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Now there's a couple of things, because on one level, ethically,
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with him at all. That said, why
Speaker 2: are we not showing the same level of consternation about
Speaker 2: the number of other campaign officials that work at MSNBC.
Speaker 2: We have a list that we can show everybody in
Speaker 2: a little bit, but I want to hear what you
Speaker 2: have to say before we get in.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this practice, which is entirely commonplace
Speaker 1: and frankly has been for a while, of taking paid
Speaker 1: operatives from the political parties and putting them into quote
Speaker 1: unquote journalistic positions.
Speaker 4: Is a scourge.
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree, I think it's a scourge. When it
Speaker 1: happens if Fox New. I think it's a scourge when
Speaker 1: it happens at NBC. And you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: they're wrong to be upset about the hiring of Ronald McDaniel.
Speaker 1: And she, you know, from them, from an ideological perspective,
Speaker 1: she went along with all. She was in charge when
Speaker 1: all the stuff, this steel nonsense was unfolding, she went
Speaker 1: along with it. Now, granted, the Trump people were mad
Speaker 1: that she didn't do more and didn't like blatantly just
Speaker 1: rig the Trump Republican primary in his favor and actually
Speaker 1: ran tried to run like a neutral primary. But from
Speaker 1: their perspective, yor like, we talk all day long about
Speaker 1: this threat to democracy and then you hire this person
Speaker 1: that was central to you know, what was going on
Speaker 1: during that time period. But you're right that obviously it's
Speaker 1: very selective. They don't have an across the board concern
Speaker 1: about hiring Tansaki, about hiring Simone Sanders, about the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, reportedly Joe and Mika are on the
Speaker 1: phone of Biden all the time, and you know there's
Speaker 1: a direct connect there. And so I think if you're
Speaker 1: going to be concerned about party tied bagandas being put
Speaker 1: in these roles that now they're supposed to be credible
Speaker 1: and we're supposed to believe what they have to say,
Speaker 1: and we're supposed to think that they don't have an agenda.
Speaker 1: I don't think you should be selective about it now.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I understand why they have an issue here.
Speaker 1: I just think that they have some ideological blinders on
Speaker 1: are unable to apply the principle.
Speaker 2: Across And the ridiculous part of that is Simone Sanders,
Speaker 2: whose previous job at that net, before that network job,
Speaker 2: who was on the panel discussing McDaniel.
Speaker 3: Was working for Kamala Harris in the administration. Guys, whimp
Speaker 3: would see three please up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is what drives me crazy about all these people,
Speaker 2: of all just of the recent hires that these people
Speaker 2: have Jen Saki straight from the Biden podium over to
Speaker 2: MSNBC for her own television show. Simone Sanders is the
Speaker 2: exact same thing. I believe she has a show on Peacock.
Speaker 2: Would love to know the ratings on that one. Nicole Wallace,
Speaker 2: former Bush Press Secretary, Comm's director direct Pipeline to Television
Speaker 2: and now the host of a I think the four
Speaker 2: to six pm hour or whatever. Joe Scarborough arguably the
Speaker 2: king of the network himself, who talks directly to Biden
Speaker 2: on the phone, former job US congressman, and then Michael Steele,
Speaker 2: former RNC chair. So let's be consistent people, And yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's gross too. Every time you turn on
Speaker 2: Fox News, Dana Perino, what's her only previous job?
Speaker 3: Comm's director or press secretary to George W. Bush? Ari
Speaker 3: Fleischer Comm's director to George W. Bush.
Speaker 2: Kaylee Mcanenni, former press secretary to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the pipeline is gross.
Speaker 2: These people whose only pipeline are only previous qualifications with
Speaker 2: lying to the American people on the half of the government,
Speaker 2: then seemingly getting hired by Fox. But we have to
Speaker 2: be consistent, you know, with our standard here, and for them,
Speaker 2: I think it's very obvious that they fall into a
Speaker 2: vision of It's like, oh, well, one is lying and
Speaker 2: the other one, you know, is directionally occasionally lied but
Speaker 2: tried to steer the country in a good direction. And
Speaker 2: it's like, well, you know, people can see through this.
Speaker 2: It's like, you're freak out in all of this. It's
Speaker 2: not principled in any way, it doesn't, you know, have
Speaker 2: a foundation beyond anything, just like Republican bad or Democrat bad,
Speaker 2: you know, over on news AND's and that's why people
Speaker 2: have no trust, you know, in terms of any ethics
Speaker 2: things that they try to put forward, because.
Speaker 3: See through it instantly, like just simone on the panel, Crystal.
Speaker 1: Now, in fairness, I do seem to recall that there
Speaker 1: was some consternation when Jens Hoki was literally negotiating her ENVC.
Speaker 3: It was a little bit only from the White House
Speaker 3: course pond.
Speaker 1: There was a little bit of discomfort, if memory serves.
Speaker 1: I think Kristen Welker may have even been one of
Speaker 1: the utiful White House one of the people who was
Speaker 1: asking questions about this and was like, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: about this because it was so blatant and so inappropriate
Speaker 1: for the person who was right now the paid propagandist
Speaker 1: for the White House to be negotiating her future contract
Speaker 1: with a quote unquote journalistic enterprise was really something And
Speaker 1: of course you still have to ask to this day,
Speaker 1: like with regard to all of those people that we
Speaker 1: had up on the screen, the same questions that Chuck
Speaker 1: Todd was raising with regards to Ronald McDaniel, like, what
Speaker 1: is the reason that she is saying these things?
Speaker 4: Is it because she's paid by us? Now?
Speaker 1: Is it because she's still a propagandist for the Republican Party?
Speaker 1: You know, same thing with Jensaki. Is she saying the
Speaker 1: things and taking the perspective she's taking because guess what,
Speaker 1: she still has a lot of friends in the White
Speaker 1: House and she still wants to be part of that club.
Speaker 1: And she still wants as Chuck Tadd points out, this
Speaker 1: was part of what was so interesting about what he
Speaker 1: had to say. She still wants the access. Of course
Speaker 1: she does. So does Simone Sanders.
Speaker 4: Of course she does.
Speaker 1: So you know, we need to apply the same level
Speaker 1: of scrutiny and skepticism even when it's people who we
Speaker 1: more often agree with. And I think that's really the
Speaker 1: blind spot here is because they usually agree with Jensaki,
Speaker 1: and they usually agree with Simone Sanders, they can't see
Speaker 1: them through that lens of No, these are also just
Speaker 1: propagandists who are you know, not clearly speaking for themselves
Speaker 1: and what they actually think is right, but still have
Speaker 1: these ties, still have these incentives to really care carry
Speaker 1: water for the Biden administration no matter what it is
Speaker 1: that they are ultimately doing. I mean, listen, I can't
Speaker 1: say I'm a big consumer of MSNBC period. I'm not
Speaker 1: really not even sure the last time I turned on
Speaker 1: that channel. Occasionally, you know, we'll cover a media clip
Speaker 1: here or something that's not.
Speaker 2: The extent of it Ornachy on Election Live. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: will tune it the gym as long as it's mostly.
Speaker 3: Off and not on anybody else.
Speaker 1: But I have not It has not come to my
Speaker 1: attention that either Jensaki or Simone Sanders has found a
Speaker 1: single place where they really disagree with the Biden ministry.
Speaker 1: Now I could be wrong, again, I don't Again, I
Speaker 1: don't have an exhaustive review here, but has not come
Speaker 1: to my attention that they have found, even in each
Speaker 1: of distance from the Biden administration position on really anything.
Speaker 2: So you know, could take that for One of the
Speaker 2: biggest joke is when Jensaki interviews government officials on her show,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, really, it's like your former freaking colleagues,
Speaker 2: and you're supposed to be interviewing them, insane whenever you're
Speaker 2: in a position of power. Okay, so let's put the
Speaker 2: C two though up on the screen. We briefly flashed
Speaker 2: it from Wall Street Journal just to get tie the
Speaker 2: bow on this. MSNBC currently says they have no plan
Speaker 2: to have the x RNC chief on their network. She
Speaker 2: will solely be appearing on NBC News, I guess, on
Speaker 2: Meet the Press or whatever in their nightly news program.
Speaker 2: I definitely think it's a bit of a screw you
Speaker 2: though to them. This was according to the head of
Speaker 2: the MSNBC network, and that's in response to internal staff
Speaker 2: you know, consternation over this. But as I said, doesn't
Speaker 2: appear to stop at least the president from pulling Jensaki show,
Speaker 2: who has a premium like weekend slot or whatever, Simone Sanders,
Speaker 2: and not to mention Nicole Wallace. I also saw people
Speaker 2: being like, well, you know, it's not like Jensaki, you know,
Speaker 2: stood by for a violent insurrection. I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: even if you believe that or whatever. Nicole Wallace helped
Speaker 2: sell the worst modern war in American history? Why does
Speaker 2: she get a pass in anybody connected to the Iraq war?
Speaker 2: That is ten times, not even ten times orders a
Speaker 2: magnitude in a way I can't even express properly in
Speaker 2: emotion and a rhetoric worse than whatever the hell happened
Speaker 2: on January sixth. But you know, if we're anti Trump,
Speaker 2: apparently that's all it takes over there.
Speaker 1: How do you think Rana is going to position herself
Speaker 1: now that she's at NBC, because you know, during the
Speaker 1: Trump era, she dropped the Romney.
Speaker 4: Part of her name.
Speaker 1: Something disappeared, so she could, you know, try to align
Speaker 1: herself with the ascendant Trump portion of the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: try to keep him happy, you know, try to do
Speaker 1: the things that she thought that the base wanted her
Speaker 1: to do, even as you know, like I said before,
Speaker 1: she still didn't go far enough for them because they
Speaker 1: wanted her to overtly rig it in in Trump's favor
Speaker 1: in terms of the primary. But what do you expect
Speaker 1: her positioning will be now at NBC.
Speaker 2: I don't know, to be honest, I think Rona was
Speaker 2: one of those people who this is one thing we're chucking.
Speaker 2: All of them are not wrong in the same way
Speaker 2: about Jensizen. They care about access more than anything. She's
Speaker 2: like a power broker, slash player. She'll probably be involved.
Speaker 3: This isn't you know, this is there.
Speaker 2: This isn't really their third act either, because they have
Speaker 2: all of these contracts that they can work as consultants,
Speaker 2: and you know, the NBC News thing is only.
Speaker 3: Part of it.
Speaker 2: She's probably gonna have a thriving, you know, consultancy business
Speaker 2: on the side.
Speaker 3: People pay for play.
Speaker 2: So I think she'll probably just continue to cozy up
Speaker 2: to Trump in the same way or be the Trump
Speaker 2: splainer as she always was when she was RNC chair,
Speaker 2: because that's where a lot of her career business and
Speaker 2: all that is going to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't expect anything. That's the other thing.
Speaker 2: You don't expect anything novel from these people, which you
Speaker 2: shouldn't hire them in the first place. The only good
Speaker 2: thing about hiring people in media is when they're actually
Speaker 2: willing to say something that is interesting, which by definition
Speaker 2: you can't if you're still inside of the system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's no expectation that she's going to
Speaker 1: be some unmartaged truth teller because obviously her career is
Speaker 1: just about saying what she thinks is convenient in the moment.
Speaker 1: And so the real question that I'm asking you is like,
Speaker 1: what do you think will be convenient for her in
Speaker 1: the moment.
Speaker 4: Not what does she actually think?
Speaker 1: And it's entirely possible that she finds it now convenient
Speaker 1: in the moment to do a bit of a face
Speaker 1: turn and now be you know, a little bit of
Speaker 1: a Trump critic, you know, render herself more ecpstible to
Speaker 1: the NBC audience, make herself reclaim some of that Romney
Speaker 1: style mainstream polite society acceptability so that she can maximize
Speaker 1: her payday and corporate America through consulting, lobbying, gigs or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yes, so, guys, we wanted to share.
Speaker 1: With you a little bit of this absolutely horrifying drone
Speaker 1: footage that al Jazeer was able to obtain. In it,
Speaker 1: you can see four unarmed civilians who are murdered by
Speaker 1: and Israeli drone. You know, we had a lot of
Speaker 1: internal debate about how much of this to show you.
Speaker 1: Here you can see them walking and then very quickly
Speaker 1: you can you know, see them just strolling along this
Speaker 1: as near conunis. There is further footage that we chose
Speaker 1: not to show you where you can see their bodies
Speaker 1: on the ground. You can see one individual who is
Speaker 1: crawling along the ground, you know, clearly struggling for their
Speaker 1: life before they are struck yet again. And you know
Speaker 1: it recalls Sagar a lot of things from the past,
Speaker 1: including glateral murder, which was the footage that was released
Speaker 1: by WikiLeaks during the Iraq War. This, if anything, I
Speaker 1: think is even more brazen and even more blatant of
Speaker 1: a war crime. Just to take you a little bit
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. Were really debated how much of this
Speaker 1: to show you, because on the one hand, I think
Speaker 1: it's important for people to see directly some of the
Speaker 1: horrors and atrocities that are unfolding. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be too graphic. And in addition,
Speaker 1: in order for people to be able to see these things,
Speaker 1: you have to not have them completely suppressed by the
Speaker 1: algorithm on YouTube, So that's another factor to balance. So,
Speaker 1: in any case, incredibly disturbing footage here, which I think
Speaker 1: in some ways, for whatever reason, seems to have represented
Speaker 1: a bit of a watershed moment in terms of how
Speaker 1: people are viewing what is being committed here. And as
Speaker 1: one example of that, I would offer you the commentary
Speaker 1: of one Alex Jones put this up on the screen,
Speaker 1: who shared this footage and quote tweeted it and said, quote,
Speaker 1: Israel has lost the high ground. This is not war.
Speaker 1: It is robotic mass genocide. Section ten ninety one of
Speaker 1: Title eighteen United States Code for hibbits genocide, whether committed
Speaker 1: in time of peace or time of war. Genocide is
Speaker 1: defined in section ten ninety one and includes violent attacks
Speaker 1: with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part,
Speaker 1: a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. He goes on
Speaker 1: to say a reply to that and said, if you
Speaker 1: support Israel, you should not support the random killing of civilians.
Speaker 1: Israel is committing suicide with actions like this. Use your
Speaker 1: effing brain, so you know, just an absolute, unjustifiable horror
Speaker 1: in saga. I think maybe part of why it seems
Speaker 1: like this was a bit of a watershed moment and made,
Speaker 1: you know, the horror of these atrocities undeniable for people
Speaker 1: who were kind of reluctant to go there is because
Speaker 1: number one, you can't you know, but you can't, oh
Speaker 1: human shield this. And there's also just something so visceral
Speaker 1: about actually seeing that cold blooded massacre that is kind
Speaker 1: of undeniable.
Speaker 2: Well, and there's also something even more dystopian. I think
Speaker 2: that's part of the reason why Alex did There's something
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it should be this way, but for
Speaker 2: some reason it is emotionally like the idea of somebody
Speaker 2: walking defenselessly, even not even knowing that they're being surveiled,
Speaker 2: and then being targeted, as opposed to let's say, being
Speaker 2: caught in a crossfire or you know, in a bombing,
Speaker 2: where as you said, there could be at least some
Speaker 2: sort of plausible explanation. It was also interesting to me
Speaker 2: to see Alex kind of go back with some of
Speaker 2: the people who went against him, for example, and if
Speaker 2: you look at some of his replies, you know he says,
Speaker 2: like this is setting the stage for what they want
Speaker 2: to do domestically. That's part of the reason he's speaking
Speaker 2: out against drone coverage. For example. Someone says, I support
Speaker 2: neither side, but our tax money shouldn't be.
Speaker 3: Funding any of this, Alex, that is my view.
Speaker 2: He also specifically called out previously not wanting Israel to
Speaker 2: go into Gaza, because he said him and Steve Bannon
Speaker 2: where they were like it would be a total disaster,
Speaker 2: and he's like, and that's really what come to pass.
Speaker 2: And someone even said, quote, I'm surprised Alex is just
Speaker 2: figuring this out, and he says, I do not support
Speaker 2: October seven, but at the same time, I do not
Speaker 2: support killing random civilians.
Speaker 3: You should kill the leaders of Hamas, not unarmed people.
Speaker 2: And somebody you know replied calling saying that October sen
Speaker 2: was a war crime and should be met as such.
Speaker 2: And he again said, so a whole people need to
Speaker 2: die because of a few Where have I seen that
Speaker 2: type of logic and previously and finally, I think the
Speaker 2: most important thing that I think pushed a lot of
Speaker 2: people over the edge. Something says I would be very
Speaker 2: skeptical because this is coming from Al Jazeera. He says,
Speaker 2: it is all over Israeli TV. They are calling for this.
Speaker 2: I am not anti Israel. This is out of control,
Speaker 2: but it must stop now. And I think that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's another thing too, I can say, you know, personally
Speaker 2: for the same thing.
Speaker 3: I'm not, you know, anti Israel or whatever.
Speaker 2: From the beginning, I was just like, I'm just listening
Speaker 2: to what these people have to say and looking at
Speaker 2: their actions, and you try and you know, look at
Speaker 2: it as dispassionately as possible, and so like with this,
Speaker 2: you're like, okay, well, what is the possible explanation? There
Speaker 2: is none except for obviously giving orders and rules of
Speaker 2: engagement that basically don't exist whenever you're going after civilians,
Speaker 2: and in some cases possibly even in this one, it's like,
Speaker 2: what is the possible rationale for an attack like this
Speaker 2: if there is no Okham's razor to this? And the
Speaker 2: simplest explanation is that they were just ordered to the
Speaker 2: order to carry out these types of attacks, which does
Speaker 2: not something I support. I don't think the I don't
Speaker 2: even think vast majority of pro Israel folks in the
Speaker 2: US would support this. They just probably deny that it exists,
Speaker 2: or just they either deny that exist or there's not
Speaker 2: going to engage with it, which I get. I mean
Speaker 2: that's what a lot of the quote unquote prolemas people
Speaker 2: to do too. But you got to be you've got
Speaker 2: to be grappling with this.
Speaker 1: I mean there's two strategies effectively. One is just to
Speaker 1: deny reality. Oh there's no famine, there's no starvation. No,
Speaker 1: there's not any targeting of innocent civilians. They're all just
Speaker 1: being used as any civilians who are killed either are
Speaker 1: being used as human shields or it was you know,
Speaker 1: one bad apple, a few bad apples. No way could
Speaker 1: this be a top down policy. But of course when
Speaker 1: you see the results and you see videos like this,
Speaker 1: When you see the way that most of the Gaza
Speaker 1: strip has been just reduced to complete rubble, when you
Speaker 1: see the collective punishment of the entire population and starvation
Speaker 1: being used as a weapon of war, becomes undeniable that
Speaker 1: it's a top down policy. Obviously, it's a top down policy.
Speaker 1: It was a top down policy that was announced from
Speaker 1: the beginning. Alex Is phrasing here of robotic mass genocide
Speaker 1: also reminded me of some of the early reports that
Speaker 1: we covered from nine seven to two magazine about how
Speaker 1: they're and.
Speaker 4: Other places too.
Speaker 1: I think the Guardian had a report backing up nine
Speaker 1: seven to two's initial finding that they're using this algorithm
Speaker 1: to generate targets, you know, and it's just dramatically increasing
Speaker 1: the number of targets that they're able to obtain and
Speaker 1: the scale and the scope of the total annihilation that.
Speaker 4: They're able to perpetrate here.
Speaker 1: So, like I said, it seemed like something about this video,
Speaker 1: even though we've covered so many horrors and atrocities that
Speaker 1: have unfolded on a literal daily basis, it seemed like
Speaker 1: for some people this really finally broke through and rendered
Speaker 1: what was going on here actually undeniable. Another person who
Speaker 1: has been slow to come around to a realization of
Speaker 1: what is actually happening is aoc Your recall we actually
Speaker 1: played here? I think, do we play it the video
Speaker 1: of her getting hounded by protesters who were demanding that
Speaker 1: she call it.
Speaker 3: We never played it.
Speaker 4: We didn't play it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I watched it, and imagine that we covered
Speaker 1: apparently that she was leaving a movie theater and they're saying,
Speaker 1: why don't you call it a genocide?
Speaker 4: She refused to do it, got very upset about it. Well,
Speaker 4: she too.
Speaker 1: I think perhaps it seems like the thing that really
Speaker 1: drove her to this place was the use of starvation as.
Speaker 4: A weapon of war.
Speaker 1: She is now also calling this out as a Genocidelet's
Speaker 1: take a listen to she gave a floor speechless take
Speaker 1: to listen to some of her comments.
Speaker 4: In this moment.
Speaker 10: One point one million innocence in Gaza are at famine's door,
Speaker 10: A famine that is being intentionally precipitated through the blocking
Speaker 10: of food and global humanitarian assistance by leaders in the
Speaker 10: Israeli government. This is a mass starvation of people, engineered
Speaker 10: and orchestrated following the killing of another thirty thousand, seventy
Speaker 10: percent of whom were women and children killed. If you
Speaker 10: want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open
Speaker 10: your eyes. It looks like the forced famine of one
Speaker 10: point one million innocens. It looks like thousands of children
Speaker 10: eating grass at their bodies, consumed themselves while trucks of
Speaker 10: food are slowed and halted just miles away. It looks
Speaker 10: like good and decent people who do nothing or too little,
Speaker 10: too late.
Speaker 1: To me that level of starvation, the intentional policy of starvation,
Speaker 1: which again was announced at the beginning. Now they have
Speaker 1: allowed in some aid, but we know it has been
Speaker 1: dramatically less than what is required. We know from multiple
Speaker 1: reports on the ground the way that they block and
Speaker 1: hold up aid. We know the way that they turn
Speaker 1: trucks around, we know the way that they have actually
Speaker 1: at this point they've been targeting some of the civilian
Speaker 1: civil society personnel that was there to help distribute the aid.
Speaker 1: We know the way they've gone after unrun. And the
Speaker 1: bottom line is, you know, Israel Bear's responsibility for the
Speaker 1: fact that this population is literally starving to death at
Speaker 1: this point. And that's not even to get to which
Speaker 1: will show you a little bit of in a moment,
Speaker 1: the way that they have tacitly backed these protesters who
Speaker 1: are endeavoring to block all AID from going into the
Speaker 1: Gaza strip. And so to me, the level of famine
Speaker 1: also is undeniable. That hey, it's not you know, because
Speaker 1: of human shields or hamas or whatever. You're literally holding
Speaker 1: the entire two million, two point two million people in
Speaker 1: Gaza hostage and you know, making them pay for things
Speaker 1: that they had nothing to do with.
Speaker 4: So apparently that was the thing that pushed AOC to.
Speaker 1: Finally, you know, acknowledge what was happening in front of
Speaker 1: her eyes. So in addition to this core of this
Speaker 1: drone footage and of course the ongoing starvation and famine
Speaker 1: with no end in sight, we also have these new
Speaker 1: reports from Doctors Without Borders. Some of their medical personnel
Speaker 1: of course, have been in some of the Gaza hospitals
Speaker 1: doing the absolute best they can in absolutely hell escape
Speaker 1: like conditions.
Speaker 4: S put this up on the.
Speaker 1: Screen, we have yet another idf raid of al Shifa.
Speaker 1: And here's what Doctors Without Borders has to say. According
Speaker 1: to their staff, heavy air strikes by Israeli air force.
Speaker 1: By Israeli forces and fearce fighting continue around Al Shifa
Speaker 1: and Gaza City, endangering patients, medical staff and people trapped
Speaker 1: inside with very few supplies. According to public reports, hundreds
Speaker 1: of people have been killed in and around the hospital.
Speaker 4: Bodies are lying in the street.
Speaker 1: Access to the facility has been impossible for days. The
Speaker 1: surgical department has reportedly heavily damaged, leaving patients without care.
Speaker 1: Our staff in the area also say there are mass
Speaker 1: arrests of medical staff and other people in and around
Speaker 1: the hospital. MSF, that's the other acronym Medicines on Frontiers
Speaker 1: or Doctors without Borders is deeply concerned for their safety
Speaker 1: due to recent reports, including from the UN and images
Speaker 1: of abuse of Gazen detainees by Israeli forces, and they
Speaker 1: conclude hostilities in and around Alshifa Hospital have been raging
Speaker 1: since March eighteenth, after Israeli forces announced they were conducting
Speaker 1: a military operation.
Speaker 4: So just take that in.
Speaker 1: You're talking about reports from Doctors without Borders. This is
Speaker 1: not HUMMAS, right, It's not Hummas aligned or anything of
Speaker 1: the like. Their doctors and other personnel on the ground
Speaker 1: saying that medical staff are being arrested and detained. We've
Speaker 1: had additional reports of horrors, including executions occurring at Al Shifa,
Speaker 1: mass executions. There have also been some reports, multiple reports
Speaker 1: at this point of idea of soldiers raping women in
Speaker 1: Al Shifa. These are not things that are fully confirmed,
Speaker 1: but I think you have to take very seriously what
Speaker 1: Doctors without Borders is saying here about what is unfolding
Speaker 1: at Al Shifa. You'll recall this is the fourth raid
Speaker 1: on this hospital. It attracted a lot of scrutiny the
Speaker 1: first time around when the US basically greenlit the raid
Speaker 1: of this hospital, claiming there was some hummusk command and
Speaker 1: control note underneath of it. Of course, they never offered
Speaker 1: any evidence to back up fully those claims, and now
Speaker 1: here we are on raid number four at least. And
Speaker 1: you know, these are the things that just continue to unfold.
Speaker 2: Dagger Yeah, No, I mean it's absolutely crazy. The last
Speaker 2: and final one. Here is a video from the Gray
Speaker 2: Zone where they do interviews with some of the protesters
Speaker 2: who are blocking AID.
Speaker 3: Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 4: No, they don't deserve it. What I care?
Speaker 2: Kill them?
Speaker 4: I don't care.
Speaker 11: Do you trust?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: I know all about them. I don't trust them, I
Speaker 4: don't I want them.
Speaker 10: Out of here.
Speaker 3: Do you think she happened to Gaza?
Speaker 10: I wanted to our to be civilized with Jews from Israel.
Speaker 12: We blew up houses of terrorists, mosque you and offices.
Speaker 12: I remember we got into some U N office that
Speaker 12: was in charge of helping families in Gaza that was
Speaker 12: affected by the war, and we destroyed it.
Speaker 13: And the police and the head commander came to us
Speaker 13: and said, okay, you guys came and blocked. We don't
Speaker 13: want to fight, and he said to us, just look
Speaker 13: to the guy. You guys don't need to stand in
Speaker 13: the sun. We got we got lollipops, we got watermelon
Speaker 13: from the watermelon. Yeah, watermelons, and uh, what's great? What's
Speaker 13: great with them?
Speaker 2: So, according to AM is being supported there directly by police, military.
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure the authorities that are involved here,
Speaker 2: but this is just very obvious that they are completely
Speaker 2: supported by the government, and the government has been crushing
Speaker 2: these protests in Tel Aviv calling for a sea spot
Speaker 2: or at the very least a hostage swap, including families
Speaker 2: of the Israeli hostages who were what sprayed with water cannons,
Speaker 2: and these people are getting watermelon and lollipops. Watermelon, if
Speaker 2: you've never known, is a big Israel people. Israeli's love watermelon.
Speaker 4: I don't really get watermelon.
Speaker 2: It's okay, but these people are obsessed with watermelon to
Speaker 2: a degree that I really did not understand.
Speaker 3: Everybody in Israel's even watermelon all the time.
Speaker 4: I mean, that video really had it all.
Speaker 1: Because you have the first lady who's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: want them all to die. You have the next one
Speaker 1: who's admitting openly to war crimes in the Gaza strip. Hey,
Speaker 1: we found a UN office. They were there to, you know,
Speaker 1: help people have been displaced. We blew it up completely
Speaker 1: just I mean, no shame, because why would you because
Speaker 1: this is the policy of the government and broadly supported
Speaker 1: by society. And then you have the final one who's like, no,
Speaker 1: the police, the IDF, they're with us. They've been great.
Speaker 1: You know, they helped us find some shade, they gave
Speaker 1: us lollipops and watermelon. They've been fine. This has been
Speaker 1: clear by the way. I watching posts early on had
Speaker 1: a report about the way this was being supported by
Speaker 1: the IDF and was effectively official policy because if they
Speaker 1: wanted to remove these protesters, then they certainly would in
Speaker 1: the same way that they, you know, overwhelmingly cracked down
Speaker 1: on protesters in Tel Aviv and other places who are
Speaker 1: pushing for ceasefire negotiations to try to secure the release
Speaker 1: of hostages. No problem cracking down on them. But these
Speaker 1: individuals are important part of the bb Netnahu coalitions, so
Speaker 1: they're allowed to persist. In fact, a majority of supporters
Speaker 1: of the Net Yahoo government support ethnic cleansing and resettlement
Speaker 1: of Gaza with Jewish settlers. So you know, that's the
Speaker 1: landscape that you're dealing with here. And you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, we've sort of had to pick and choose
Speaker 1: which things we show for this segment because there were
Speaker 1: so many to choose from you cannot possibly cover them all.
Speaker 1: But this is part of the landscape that has made it,
Speaker 1: you know, impossible for even someone who was reluctant like
Speaker 1: Alex Jones perhaps or certainly someone who is reluctant like
Speaker 1: AOC as well, to call this a genocide and say
Speaker 1: there is really no other explanation here. It's also part
Speaker 1: of why, and we're about to talk about more of
Speaker 1: the political dynamics that are unfolding why the Biden administration
Speaker 1: has found it necessary to at least pretend like they
Speaker 1: care about palace to being civilians and a lot of
Speaker 1: their upset that was, you know, leaked to the press.
Speaker 1: Oh they're having these hard conversations blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: we've seen this in multiple reports as well. Is not
Speaker 1: that there's so much upset about what's going on. It's like,
Speaker 1: come on, guys, give us a little bit of cover here, Like,
Speaker 1: give us a little bit of a pr you know, whitewash,
Speaker 1: so we can at least say with a straight face
Speaker 1: that you're not, you know, using drones to massacre people
Speaker 1: as they're just walking along, you know, near a destroyed
Speaker 1: city of communis that you're not collectively punishing the entire
Speaker 1: population of the Gaza Strip by literally starving them to death.
Speaker 1: That you're not, you know, celebrating and fetting these protesters
Speaker 1: who are openly genocidal and trying to block aide, like
Speaker 1: at least give us a little bit of help. And
Speaker 1: since the Israeli government has refused even to give them
Speaker 1: that like bullshit pr cover, then they've had to do
Speaker 1: this like pathetic, you know, impotent hand ringing and pretend
Speaker 1: like they care, while of course, you know, if they
Speaker 1: really cared, there are many things they could actually do,
Speaker 1: primarily stopping the aid, stopping the weapons sales in order
Speaker 1: to force a change in the Israeli government position. But
Speaker 1: they don't actually have anything any interest in doing that
Speaker 1: outside of just rhetorical signaling. So speaking of some of
Speaker 1: the politics of what's unfolding, we have Israeli defense minister,
Speaker 1: you have Gallant who's coming to DC this week. And
Speaker 1: guess what he is bringing with him. Let's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. He is coming with his weapons
Speaker 1: wish list. He's got a whole like Christmas list of
Speaker 1: all the things that he wants to get from the
Speaker 1: US government. He wants them to be expedited. It's according
Speaker 1: to two Israeli and US officials. Barack Revied reporting this
Speaker 1: for Axios. Let me read you a little bit of this.
Speaker 1: Galan is expected to arrive in Washington on Sunday for
Speaker 1: his first visit to the US since assuming office more
Speaker 1: than one year ago. He's going to meet with Lloyd Austin,
Speaker 1: Jake Sullivan, and other senior US officials. Behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: Glan and Austin spoke on the phone on Wednesday discussed
Speaker 1: the minister's upcoming trip. The officials added, Galant told Austin
Speaker 1: he's coming with a list of specific weapons systems request.
Speaker 1: Senior Israeli officials said the request will not only include
Speaker 1: short term requests for the Warren Gozza, but also long
Speaker 1: term ones, including the option to purchase more F thirty
Speaker 1: five and F fifteen fighter jets. Israel wants to have
Speaker 1: the supply of the jets and other weapons systems expedited
Speaker 1: as much as possible. According to this Israeli official, we
Speaker 1: also have some reporting we can share with you from
Speaker 1: Tony Blinken's visit to Israel. This happened next week. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: he warned Netanyahu and his wark cabinet in a meeting
Speaker 1: Friday that israel security and its place in the world
Speaker 1: are in peril over the failed Gaza strategy and quote
Speaker 1: you might not realize it until it's too late. He said,
Speaker 1: according to this report, that on the current path, Hamas
Speaker 1: will stay in control of Gaza or there will be anarchy.
Speaker 1: We'll just create the conditions for more terrorism. According to
Speaker 1: the source, net Yaho said after Blanken's remarks, we will
Speaker 1: have our hands full for decades. So that was Blincoln's
Speaker 1: reported message to bb Again, does it come with any
Speaker 1: policy change, of course not. It's just, you know, a
Speaker 1: warning to his friend that maybe they're making mistake. Of course,
Speaker 1: from Bbe's perspective, not only is a he an ideologue
Speaker 1: and has an ideological interest in the annihilation that they're
Speaker 1: committing in Gaza, but also he has a personal political
Speaker 1: interest in dragging this war out as long as humanly
Speaker 1: possible so that he can maintain his position on his
Speaker 1: grip on power, as he's incredibly unpopular within the israel
Speaker 1: domestic population.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gallant is actually going to be here today and
Speaker 2: probably will remain for several days. Apparently, Actually, Crystal, this
Speaker 2: is from the Times of Israel. They are asking for
Speaker 2: the options to purchase more F thirty five and F
Speaker 2: fifteen jets, which is included in those that would require
Speaker 2: a direct approval both by Congress and by the administration.
Speaker 3: So let's stay tuned as to that.
Speaker 2: The secondary thing about this is that the trip was
Speaker 2: actually at the behest of Pentagon Secretary Lloyd Austin. It's
Speaker 2: not like he asked to come. We are apparently the
Speaker 2: ones who invited him. Not exactly sure what any of
Speaker 2: that all means, but we do know it meant a
Speaker 2: moment of extraordinary tension allegedly with the Israeli government. For example,
Speaker 2: the humiliation here is just completely outrageous. I mean, we
Speaker 2: have Bbe who greets Anthony Blincoln while he's on the
Speaker 2: ground with an explicit screw you message.
Speaker 3: We literally have this.
Speaker 2: We can put it up here on the screen from
Speaker 2: the Israeli News Cabinet where he says he was speaking
Speaker 2: in Hebrews, who we have the English translation. I met
Speaker 2: with Secretary of State Blncoln today. I told him I
Speaker 2: really appreciate the fact that more than five months later,
Speaker 2: we've been standing together in the war Maas. I also
Speaker 2: told him we need to recognize the need to evacuate
Speaker 2: the civilian population.
Speaker 3: From the war zones and take care of humanitarian needs.
Speaker 2: But I also said there is no way to defeat
Speaker 2: Hamas without going into Rafa and eliminating the rest of
Speaker 2: the battalions. I told him, I hope we will do
Speaker 2: it with the support of the USA, but if we
Speaker 2: have to, we will do it alone.
Speaker 3: So clearly that's a screw you.
Speaker 2: We're not going to do it I mean at this
Speaker 2: point too, the US administration has laid it all out
Speaker 2: on the table. Blinken has said it, Biden has said it,
Speaker 2: the Vice President has said it. So if they do it,
Speaker 2: that is is a explicit as a screw you as
Speaker 2: it could it possibly exist. Yeah, and will probably still
Speaker 2: ship on the weapons even if they do. That's a
Speaker 2: crazy part.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And we have covered previously. H How listen this
Speaker 1: idea that, oh, well, we couldn't do anything. Israel's his
Speaker 1: own sovereign country, they can do what they want anyway,
Speaker 1: That's just not true. If we stop supplying the munitions,
Speaker 1: they would run out pretty quickly. They would be in
Speaker 1: a real bind if we didn't continue to expedite these weapons.
Speaker 1: Sales over one hundred of them since October seventh, So
Speaker 1: there's a lot they could do other than these you know,
Speaker 1: rhetorical gestures. And Biden kind of sort of saying, maybe
Speaker 1: Roth is a red line, but also, by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to leave Israel, And so Bb feels
Speaker 1: this actually strengthens him politically, he thinks, because he can
Speaker 1: be shown as standing up for Israel and standing strong
Speaker 1: against the US and you know, making his own way, etc.
Speaker 1: When in reality it's it is just completely humiliating and
Speaker 1: impotent from the USI. And this was not the only
Speaker 1: humiliation of the Biden administration. While Blinken was in the region,
Speaker 1: GOODD put this up on the screen. So Israel announcing
Speaker 1: the largest West Bank land seizure since nineteen ninety three
Speaker 1: during Blencoln's visit. So Smotrich, who is one of the
Speaker 1: most extreme members of the government at this point, he's
Speaker 1: actually in charge of this settlement policy, and he announced
Speaker 1: the seizure.
Speaker 4: The illegal seizure.
Speaker 1: I should add of ten square kilometers that's about three
Speaker 1: point eight square miles of Palestinian territory in the West
Speaker 1: Bank on Friday. As I mentioned before, that's the single
Speaker 1: largest land seizure since the nineteen ninety three Oslo Accords.
Speaker 1: That's according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group.
Speaker 4: Here is his quote.
Speaker 1: While there are those in Israel in the world who
Speaker 1: seek to undermine.
Speaker 4: Our right over the Judea.
Speaker 1: And Samaria area, that's the West Bank and the country
Speaker 1: in general, Smotritz said, we are promoting settlement through hard
Speaker 1: work and in a strategic manner all over the country.
Speaker 1: They go on to note in this piece that Israeli
Speaker 1: settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under an
Speaker 1: international law. Still, Israel has used land orders like the
Speaker 1: one issued Friday to gain control over sixteen percent of
Speaker 1: Palestinine controlled lands in the West Bank.
Speaker 4: And i've obviously.
Speaker 1: Again total screw you, totally consistent also with the idea
Speaker 1: that they want to actually push Palestines out completely, not
Speaker 1: only of Gaza, but also using these sorts of tools
Speaker 1: out of the West Bank as well. This is the
Speaker 1: one area that the Biden administration has been very vocal about. Weirdly,
Speaker 1: especially in the beginning, they were much less vocal about
Speaker 1: the atrocities being committed in Gaza, but they felt like,
Speaker 1: I think they had a stronger hand to play in
Speaker 1: the West Bank because you couldn't butt Hamas and excuse
Speaker 1: what was going on there. So that's why you got
Speaker 1: this policy of sanctions against a few violent quote unquote
Speaker 1: violent settlers. And I use the quote because you know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of violence backed up also by the IDF.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is they wanted to make it
Speaker 1: again like it's oh, it's just a few bad apples,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, the far right bbnan Yahoo regime.
Speaker 1: It's just these few bad apples in terms of the settlers,
Speaker 1: when it's very clear, you know, the overall settlement policy
Speaker 1: is a top down policy.
Speaker 4: It is backed by this government.
Speaker 1: It's been backed by every Israeli government for decades and decades.
Speaker 1: So to do this and throw this in their face
Speaker 1: while Blincoln is there on the ground is just astonishingly
Speaker 1: brazen and humiliating.
Speaker 2: Well, the reason it's crazy, look in another world pre
Speaker 2: October seventh or any of that.
Speaker 3: This would be massive news. And this is like world
Speaker 3: changing news since.
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety three because it would have invited major pushback
Speaker 2: from the Jordanians, with the Egyptians. It obviously would have
Speaker 2: been a UN resolution that would have had, you know,
Speaker 2: been remounted in response, because you know, since nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: it's been over thirty years, and this is a complete
Speaker 2: destruction of any post Oslo and post Camp David Accords
Speaker 2: theory and thesis and policy set forth by the US.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying they haven't violated it since then in
Speaker 2: terms of settlement expansion, but to have the largest one
Speaker 2: to take place at this time is so explicit and different,
Speaker 2: and in another life would have invited a totally different
Speaker 2: reaction from the US political administration. Also marks the failure
Speaker 2: of the current Biden policy, the idea of the bear hug,
Speaker 2: which would constrain whereas opposed, what's really happened is really
Speaker 2: unleashed a whole new set of factors.
Speaker 3: This may actually be one of the most most significant
Speaker 3: things that.
Speaker 2: Has happened in the entire war, and it is not
Speaker 2: actually getting it's due because it shows an explicit linkage
Speaker 2: of the war to the expansion policy in West Bank,
Speaker 2: which could pressage what's going to happen in Kasa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And so what is
Speaker 1: the response from the US government while they had this,
Speaker 1: They had to pass this spending this budget bill. And
Speaker 1: let's take a look at some of the provisions of
Speaker 1: this bill that now was passed by Congress and been
Speaker 1: signed by Joe Biden. Well, number one, it cuts unrefunding
Speaker 1: through next year, so through twenty twenty five. UNRA being
Speaker 1: the number one aid organization on the ground in Gaza,
Speaker 1: So cutting unrefunding means you are helping to facilitate the
Speaker 1: policy of mass starvation as a weapon of war.
Speaker 4: So we did that.
Speaker 1: We made sure to send Israel another three point eight
Speaker 1: billion dollars. And this is in some ways the most galling.
Speaker 1: It limits aid to the Palestinian authority if the Palestinians
Speaker 1: initiate or support an international criminal court investigation against Israel.
Speaker 4: For human rights crimes.
Speaker 1: So even as we have overwhelming evidence that Israel is
Speaker 1: committing war crimes, they're not punished for actually committing war crimes.
Speaker 1: We ship them there three point eight billion, no problem.
Speaker 1: We do their bidding by cutting funding to UNRA, something
Speaker 1: that even you know, based which was based just to remember,
Speaker 1: it was based on these allegations that were completely evidence free,
Speaker 1: that a small number of UNRUN employees were involved. On
Speaker 1: October seventh, by the way, those employees have already been fired.
Speaker 1: And we also learned that some of the quote unquote
Speaker 1: confessions of these crimes were coerced by torture. So some
Speaker 1: of our allies went back and said, all right, there's
Speaker 1: nothing here. We've got to restore funding to UNRUN, not us.
Speaker 1: We're going to codify it and guarantee that UNRA remains
Speaker 1: unfunded at least through next year.
Speaker 4: So you've got.
Speaker 1: That, and then you also say, and hey, by the way, Palestinians.
Speaker 1: If you've got an issue with these war crimes that
Speaker 1: are being committed and you have any ideas about taking
Speaker 1: this to the International Criminal Court for investigation, We're going
Speaker 1: to cut your funding further. It's just gross and disgusting
Speaker 1: and also exposes the lie of the idea that the
Speaker 1: Biden administration is actually concerned about what's unfolding and actually
Speaker 1: really wants to change course. Because these policies, these provisions
Speaker 1: in this bill could not possibly be more in line
Speaker 1: with exactly what bb net Nyahu would dictate to us
Speaker 1: as him wanting to see in terms of priorities from
Speaker 1: our government. So I think you know, the words are
Speaker 1: one thing, the rhetoric is one thing, but you can
Speaker 1: see from the actions where the policy actually is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then if you want final confirmation about who
Speaker 2: we're run by, here is a great question at the
Speaker 2: Pentagon where they're like asking basic questions. So how is
Speaker 2: this aid peer thing? How is that going to work? Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have no idea. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: And then on the peer the Benevitez set sail today.
Speaker 14: So we've got the peer elements moving forward.
Speaker 6: You've got the sailors and soldiers are starting to move forward. Yeah,
Speaker 6: what is what's going to be the Pentagon's role in
Speaker 6: kind of that final mile?
Speaker 14: Are you letting contracts for contractors.
Speaker 6: To then deliver that aid into Gaza?
Speaker 14: What you know, what's kind of the final piece looking like.
Speaker 15: So that's still something that's being worked out right now.
Speaker 15: And in terms of the distribution, that's not something that
Speaker 15: the US military will be involved in. We are, you know,
Speaker 15: the logistics setting up coordinating the movement of the humanitarian
Speaker 15: aid from either the floating peer or to that floating causeway.
Speaker 15: But that's something that in terms of how the distribution
Speaker 15: of aid is going to happen once it gets into Gaza,
Speaker 15: that's not something that you know, we're handling.
Speaker 3: What is this like gobbledygook? I don't have that for
Speaker 3: you right now.
Speaker 2: Well you probably should, you know, at some point, how's
Speaker 2: this going to work? Are these rarely screening it? How's
Speaker 2: the distribution of aid actually happening, where's it coming from?
Speaker 2: How much it's just this is this is why this
Speaker 2: is such a boondoggle, an idiot plan when we have
Speaker 2: all the only thing standing from the aid right now
Speaker 2: or those protesters that the government is allowing why does
Speaker 2: it make any sense to be pursuing any of this well.
Speaker 1: And the government itself through through their policies, and I
Speaker 1: mean seems like kind of a critical detail of Okay,
Speaker 1: the aid has arrived at the port, what now, because
Speaker 1: we know the problem is not that there isn't sufficient
Speaker 1: aid available. The problem is not that there aren't sufficient
Speaker 1: crossings or you know it inlets into the Gaza strip available.
Speaker 1: The problem is what the Israeli government is doing prohibiting
Speaker 1: this aid from coming in and getting where it needs
Speaker 1: to go, and not to mention and this is you know,
Speaker 1: one of the other things that unfolded. You had another
Speaker 1: flower massacre, killing starving Palestinians who were trying to go
Speaker 1: and secure this aid for themselves and their families.
Speaker 4: So obviously those.
Speaker 1: Are some key questions to resolve if you think this
Speaker 1: freaking stupid port, which apparently was Bbe's idea to begin with,
Speaker 1: if you think that this is going to help the
Speaker 1: aid situation whatsoever, and by the way, of course, it's
Speaker 1: going to take a while for this thing to be
Speaker 1: built and require a lot of our money and put
Speaker 1: our service members at risk. Remember when Lloyd Austin got
Speaker 1: asked about whether there was a risk to our service members.
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, they're you know, and they didn't
Speaker 1: have any plans for how to mitigate that risk either,
Speaker 1: or any guarantees that they're not going to be in
Speaker 1: harms right way, because of course, how could you get
Speaker 1: those guarantees when you're bringing them so close to an
Speaker 1: active war zone and doing everything right up to the
Speaker 1: line of actually putting boots on the ground. You'll also
Speaker 1: recall that BB said himself that he thinks it's a
Speaker 1: good idea if that port is used to ship Palestinians
Speaker 1: out of the Gaza Strip and facilitate his and his governments,
Speaker 1: you know, ultimate desires, fondest desires over many years to
Speaker 1: complete the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. So that's
Speaker 1: what we're really aiding a bet in a betting here.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why those comments are so significant,
Speaker 1: because they really reveal that it's number one just pr
Speaker 1: and that they have not they actually have no plan
Speaker 1: in place to make sure that the aid gets where
Speaker 1: it needs to go and that it actually alleviates this crisis.
Speaker 1: Not to mention that there were people starving right now
Speaker 1: today and this doesn't come close to solving any of
Speaker 1: the issues that have you know, in any of the
Speaker 1: problems that have been put up by the Israeli government
Speaker 1: that has led to the situation. Yeah, very sad, all right, Sacer,
Speaker 1: what are you looking at?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: One of the memes that's arisen around me is that
Speaker 2: I care about dress code just for the sake of it.
Speaker 2: I know it's funny to go after politicians for dress
Speaker 2: and badly, but at its core, the reason that I
Speaker 2: do it is because I believe in this maxim the
Speaker 2: job of those in public service is to serve. No,
Speaker 2: a suit is not the most comfortable garment. The point
Speaker 2: is that those in positions of power, as we all
Speaker 2: do when we attend a wedding, you've done a garment
Speaker 2: as a sign of respect for those that we appear before.
Speaker 2: Increasingly people in so called public service don't really believe
Speaker 2: in the service part at all. They've donned the garments
Speaker 2: of the upper middle class elite, who are capable of
Speaker 2: working from anywhere and comfort. They insist on rules in
Speaker 2: place that allow them to openly trade stocks while remaining
Speaker 2: privy to incredibly sensitive and private information. And now they
Speaker 2: increasingly don't even really believe in doing even the smallest.
Speaker 3: Part of their job at all.
Speaker 2: The slow death of Congress has not just been about
Speaker 2: its ability to get things done, but it's transformation into
Speaker 2: a body of open narcissism who view the office not
Speaker 2: as a place to do anything, but except to use
Speaker 2: their perch in public service to attain wealth and power
Speaker 2: after they serve. This is especially the case in recent
Speaker 2: days with the news of several high profile retirements in
Speaker 2: the House GOP caucus. This monologue was inspired by Congressman
Speaker 2: Mike Gallagher. He's a man I've met, I've even interviewed him,
Speaker 2: respecting him at one point, but recently he announced that
Speaker 2: he was retiring from Congress. I have no problem with that.
Speaker 2: The news, though, that came next, is what set me off.
Speaker 2: Gallagher announced not only was he retiring from Congress and
Speaker 2: would not seek another term, but that he was abruptly
Speaker 2: resigning the office at the end of April. This is
Speaker 2: golling for two reasons. One, if Gallagher has any sense
Speaker 2: of duty to his party. The House GOP now has
Speaker 2: just a majority of two hundred and seventeen votes in Congress,
Speaker 2: meaning that the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world, and
Speaker 2: Matt Gates's and the Freedom Caucus members who all want
Speaker 2: to cause trouble have even more power. It also means
Speaker 2: that the sheer business of doing the most basic minimums
Speaker 2: of passing bills just got so much harder for the
Speaker 2: House GOP. But two is that Gallagher not decided not
Speaker 2: just to resign for no reason and to leave his
Speaker 2: tom early. More so, it appears at his resignation date
Speaker 2: is specifically designed so that no special election can be
Speaker 2: held because it falls after the deadline, meaning his six
Speaker 2: hundred thousand constituents will not have anyone in Congress to
Speaker 2: do their basic bidding from April to November. But it
Speaker 2: gets even worse when you find out why he's leaving
Speaker 2: his constituents high and dry. It's not just that he's quitting,
Speaker 2: but puck News reports that Gallagher appears to be resigning
Speaker 2: to take a high paying job at Pallantier, one of
Speaker 2: the largest defense contracting firms in the US. It's not
Speaker 2: a surprise. Gallagher was a leading defense hocke in Congress.
Speaker 2: I had serious disagreements with him, for example on Ukraine.
Speaker 2: But it is his sheer brazenness going Congress where you
Speaker 2: were elected to do a job, you then resign early
Speaker 2: because the vibes are bad, and then you take a
Speaker 2: job where we can easily imagine him getting paid what
Speaker 2: at least a million bucks a year. Here's the thing
Speaker 2: I get it. I wouldn't want to be in Congress
Speaker 2: either with some of these jackasses. But I'm a private citizen.
Speaker 2: I have a YouTube show. I have more of a
Speaker 2: sense of duty to the people who pay for the
Speaker 2: show than it seems like Mike Gallagher. For me, it's simple,
Speaker 2: it's a contract. Unless I'm very sick or there's a
Speaker 2: personal emergency, I show up to do the show because
Speaker 2: that's what people pay harder and money for. Is it
Speaker 2: so much to ask that same attitude for people who
Speaker 2: represent us in Congress and who pass our loss that
Speaker 2: they feel even remotely the same.
Speaker 3: Apparently it is too much to ask. It's not just Gallagher.
Speaker 2: Congressman Ken Buck, another man who's been on the show
Speaker 2: in the past, abruptly resigning from Congress after announcing he
Speaker 2: won't seek another term. At least he did so when
Speaker 2: they could still have a special election. By all accounts,
Speaker 2: there's no reason that he needed to quit. He just
Speaker 2: decided to, Except maybe the reporting that he set to
Speaker 2: become a CNN and contributor.
Speaker 3: He denied it.
Speaker 2: We'll see how it ends up. Kevin McCarthy. He also
Speaker 2: resigned late last year, at the end of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: He gave no reason. Yeah, I get it. He got
Speaker 2: booted from his speakership. That's embarrassing. That doesn't mean you
Speaker 2: can't still do and stay the basic your job, just
Speaker 2: constituent services.
Speaker 3: He's a powerful man, not since.
Speaker 2: Though he's left's been showing up on Capitol Hill. He's
Speaker 2: here in Washington right now, he's doing speeches all over TV.
Speaker 2: In other words, he resigned his job so he could
Speaker 2: actually do what he wanted to do, all the public profile,
Speaker 2: without any of the annoying serving the people part. In
Speaker 2: every case, we have people who are putting themselves and
Speaker 2: their preferences first first above the party that they supposedly
Speaker 2: care about, who have to run the house now, above
Speaker 2: the people who elected them to serve. That is how
Speaker 2: they think about the job. It's just a way station
Speaker 2: on the way to wealth and power. When things get boring,
Speaker 2: it's wrong and we shouldn't accept this as normal. Some
Speaker 2: people might even say it's always been this way, and
Speaker 2: I think it has to some degree, but now it
Speaker 2: is so out in the open. They just want the paychecks,
Speaker 2: the power, the prestige, the fame.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: They don't care at all about serving you. Even the
Speaker 2: pretense doesn't matter anymore. We should hear them loud and clear,
Speaker 2: remember that too the next time that we cast our votes.
Speaker 3: How crazy is this?
Speaker 1: This man is resigned, And if you want to hear
Speaker 1: my reaction to Sagre's monologue, become a premium subscriber today
Speaker 1: at Breakingpoints dot com. Some big news on the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice last week where Attorney General Merrick Garland announced
Speaker 1: a antitrust lawsuit against Apple. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: a little bit of what he had to say.
Speaker 16: The Supreme Court defines monopoly power as quote, the power
Speaker 16: to control prices or exclude competition, a set out in
Speaker 16: our complaint. Apple has that power in the smartphone market. Now,
Speaker 16: having monopoly power does not itself violate the antitrust laws,
Speaker 16: but it does when a firm acquires or maintains monopoly power,
Speaker 16: not because it has a superior product or superior business acumen,
Speaker 16: but by engaging in exclusionary conduct, as set out in
Speaker 16: our complaint, Apple has maintained its power not because of
Speaker 16: its superiority, because of its unlawful exclusionary behavior.
Speaker 1: So lucky for us, we have literally the perfect person
Speaker 1: to break down both what the suit means and the
Speaker 1: rationale behind it. At Stoller's, director of research at the
Speaker 1: American Economic Liberties Project, author of a fantastic book called Goliath,
Speaker 1: and also he writes at the substack big which let's
Speaker 1: go and put your piece.
Speaker 4: Up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Here, you guys can check this out, which has in
Speaker 1: depth breakdown of what is going on with this Apple
Speaker 1: anti trust suit and why you say it matters. Apple
Speaker 1: just got slapped with a major anti trust suit, you write,
Speaker 1: alleging a pattern of anti competitive behavior across all its
Speaker 1: product lines, and it lost one hundred and fourteen billion
Speaker 1: dollars in market cap in one day as a result.
Speaker 4: Great to see you, my friend.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having to see you.
Speaker 8: Man.
Speaker 1: So what is the core of the argument here against Apple?
Speaker 1: Because as you lay out and then your piece, there
Speaker 1: are a number of people who are like, why are
Speaker 1: you picking on Apple? People actually like their products, right
Speaker 1: when there are a lot of other industries that you
Speaker 1: could be going after.
Speaker 17: Yeah, and I love Apple products use that they're great,
Speaker 17: they work, they're seamless, So it's and I'm also believe
Speaker 17: in taking on monopoly. So it's kind of weird, right
Speaker 17: because you're like, well, why would you take on a
Speaker 17: monopoly of this company that has these great products. Well,
Speaker 17: the answer is because they they are thwarting innovation and
Speaker 17: competition in the market. So things could be even better
Speaker 17: if they didn't do things like restrict rivals from coming
Speaker 17: into and coming to the markets and building products that
Speaker 17: might make it easier to switch from an iPhone. So
Speaker 17: just the simplest way to tell the story is that
Speaker 17: in China, where they allow these things called super apps,
Speaker 17: things like we Chat, where you can do a whole
Speaker 17: bunch of stuff on we Chat, like you can pay
Speaker 17: for stuff, you can talk to other people, you can
Speaker 17: do lots of business. You can't do that here on
Speaker 17: the iPhone because Apple doesn't allow super apps. But in China,
Speaker 17: what it means is that the underlying phone system has
Speaker 17: been commodified and it's easier to switch from an iPhone
Speaker 17: fruitive phone. So in the US, when you buy a
Speaker 17: new phone, and basically the upgrade market is really the
Speaker 17: only market because everybody has a smartphone at this point,
Speaker 17: except if you're really young. About ninety to ninety eight
Speaker 17: percent of people with an iPhone go to a new iPhone.
Speaker 17: In China it's about fifty percent. Because it's much easier
Speaker 17: to switch. And so the heart of the case is
Speaker 17: is that Apple has made it much, much, much harder
Speaker 17: than it should be to switch.
Speaker 11: The result is people can't switch.
Speaker 17: In China, they have to discount, they have to entice customers,
Speaker 17: and in the US they don't.
Speaker 8: Right, that's the.
Speaker 3: Heart of the case. That's a good point.
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought about it, and they have a much
Speaker 2: more robust competition there because they not just have Sam,
Speaker 2: they have Huaweih and all this stuff. We don't have
Speaker 2: that for a variety of reasons. Right, The whole point
Speaker 2: is that it does make it easier to switch. One
Speaker 2: of the things that a lot of people are paying
Speaker 2: attention to, or some of the specific complaints, specifically the
Speaker 2: green bubbles. So lay out some of the things in
Speaker 2: the complaint that people can look to the real world
Speaker 2: application of how Apple is supposedly acting as a monopoly.
Speaker 17: The heart of the complaint is the smartphone, right, and
Speaker 17: it's a pattern of conduct, a pattern of saying you're
Speaker 17: making it harder to switch from the smartphone, from the
Speaker 17: Apple smartphone to rivals, and that actually degrades the quality
Speaker 17: of the smartphone, because, as I noted, you know, a
Speaker 17: messaging app on the smartphone that can do less than
Speaker 17: a messaging app that can do more makes the smartphone worse.
Speaker 17: And Apple isn't intentionally doing that. But what I've also
Speaker 17: found really interesting about the complaint is that it's not
Speaker 17: just an allegation about the smartphone itself. The smartphone is
Speaker 17: the heart of it, but it's about the Apple ecosystem.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 17: So there's a part in the complaint where Steve Jobs
Speaker 17: talks about the importance of the Apple, of the Apple
Speaker 17: ecosystem stickiness, right, and so it.
Speaker 11: Goes to the top.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 17: Steve Jobs was very clear that he is it wants
Speaker 17: to maintain market power, he doesn't want people to switch,
Speaker 17: and they want to erect artificial switching costs. But what
Speaker 17: they're also doing is they're trying to extend the Apple
Speaker 17: ecosystem into places you wouldn't expect, like banking. Right, So
Speaker 17: the tap to pay feature, the way that that Apple
Speaker 17: is actually they're actually starting to charge banks junk fees
Speaker 17: for using the tap to pay feature, and banks can't
Speaker 17: create their own app to use that chip. They can
Speaker 17: you know elsewhere, but they can't do it here. But
Speaker 17: they're also trying to do it. And this is the
Speaker 17: most interesting thing in cars, right. So you know when
Speaker 17: you when you buy a car now it has to
Speaker 17: have access to CarPlay, right, which is the Apple software
Speaker 17: system for cars. You put your iPhone in the car
Speaker 17: and it shows you know, maps and the different you
Speaker 17: know apps and things like that that you that you
Speaker 17: need to shows your iPhone on the screen. And car
Speaker 17: makers have to have CarPlay in their in their car
Speaker 17: or else a certain number of customers just won't buy
Speaker 17: the car. So you must have if you're an automaker. Well,
Speaker 17: what Apple has told car makers next time is that
Speaker 17: the next version of CarPlay is going to include not
Speaker 17: just the stuff it has now, but also all the
Speaker 17: fuel gauges and every part of the car's operating system
Speaker 17: that you see has to be run by Apple or
Speaker 17: else you can't get car Play, right, so you have
Speaker 17: to put car Play in there.
Speaker 11: But they're going to tie all this other stuff.
Speaker 17: So Apple is literally going to take over is trying
Speaker 17: to take over the user experience for every automobile manufacturer now,
Speaker 17: and there is you know, with the exception of people
Speaker 17: who are going to use the Google Android.
Speaker 11: Phone and they're probably going to do the same thing.
Speaker 17: So there's this there's this extent of the Apple ecosystem
Speaker 17: into kind of as many parts of our experience as possible.
Speaker 17: And I love Apple, we all use Apple products, but
Speaker 17: the truth is there's only so many things that one
Speaker 17: company can do well, and you don't want a dictator
Speaker 17: over all parts of the economy. And that's what Apple
Speaker 17: is really trying to go for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially when you get in the business not
Speaker 1: of the innovating great new products, but innovating new ways
Speaker 1: to basically toward the market. And one of the things
Speaker 1: you argue is that Apple isn't exactly the pioneering innovative
Speaker 1: company of yours. They've gone in the direction of Boeing
Speaker 1: as you point out, and other company. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a major trend in corporate America where it's more
Speaker 1: about financialization, more about manipulating the market than it is
Speaker 1: actually building incredible products that people are going to love.
Speaker 11: That's one hundred percent right.
Speaker 17: And one of the things that complain talked about is
Speaker 17: how internally they have these discussions about withholding better features
Speaker 17: on the on the iPhone because they're like the customers
Speaker 17: don't need them and they're expense But they also do
Speaker 17: twice as much stock buybacks as they do R and
Speaker 17: D at this point. So I would love to see
Speaker 17: like a Think Different commercial and that includes like you know,
Speaker 17: Einstein and Gandhi and then the guy that like that
Speaker 17: was the engineer for the green bubble, right with like
Speaker 17: the green you know, and like the video with nineteen
Speaker 17: ninety six resolution, and it's like think Different, Right, That's
Speaker 17: what Apple is doing, not everywhere, Like the vision pro
Speaker 17: is amazing, right, and there are you know, their silicon
Speaker 17: chips are great, but gradually you can see that power corrupts,
Speaker 17: and power has corrupted Apple, and it's going to affect
Speaker 17: the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a great book.
Speaker 2: I think it's called After Steve or something like that,
Speaker 2: and that a New York Times reporter. I highly recommend
Speaker 2: it because I love Apple too. Part of the reason
Speaker 2: I was excited by Vision pros like they finally did something.
Speaker 2: It's been a decade, right, they actually crazy something interesting.
Speaker 2: But what the book details is that the vast majority
Speaker 2: of their profit comes from keeping people inside of the
Speaker 2: ecosystem and charging fees. So I know a lot of
Speaker 2: app developers in particular have been excited about this, and
Speaker 2: I know you've tracked some of this in the past.
Speaker 2: Maybe break some of that down because as I understand
Speaker 2: that those fees, according to the app developers and some
Speaker 2: of the other people trying to build on the Apple platform,
Speaker 2: are just so prohibitive to be able to do business.
Speaker 17: Yeah, So there's two things with the app store. One
Speaker 17: is it the ability to charge that thirty percent. So
Speaker 17: one definition of monopoly, and this is what Mark Carland
Speaker 17: lays out, is the ability to control prices. So if
Speaker 17: Apple can just set the price at thirty percent and
Speaker 17: people still have to pay it, or they can raise
Speaker 17: it or lower it, which they can do, that is
Speaker 17: evidence of monopoly power. You can also do market shares, right,
Speaker 17: but there's lots of ways, like what is a monopoly
Speaker 17: or one way to understand do you have monopoly powers?
Speaker 17: If I can raise prices and you have no choice
Speaker 17: but to take it, that's monopoly power, right.
Speaker 11: So the ability to charge.
Speaker 17: That amount of money in an app store is evidence
Speaker 17: of monopoly power, and people who make apps are like,
Speaker 17: you know, oh, this is terrible, right because this is
Speaker 17: my business and they're taking a thirty percent tax. Moreover,
Speaker 17: if you actually make an app and it's just sort
Speaker 17: of part of a whole system, right, Like let's say
Speaker 17: you run a tutoring service, and like you have an
Speaker 17: online tutoring service or a hybrid tutoring service, and some
Speaker 17: of it is on an app. Apple often will say,
Speaker 17: we don't care that you run a tutoring service that's
Speaker 17: mostly offline. We're going to take thirty percent of it. Right,
Speaker 17: So they're taxing increasingly large parts of the economy because
Speaker 17: more and more stuff needs an app. But the other
Speaker 17: part is that Apple actually can just exclude any app
Speaker 17: that has a service that they think might compete with
Speaker 17: part of the Apple ecosystem or make it easier to
Speaker 17: switch off the Apple ecosystem. So this is you know,
Speaker 17: this is the I message thing, but you know there
Speaker 17: are lots of there are lots of examples of that,
Speaker 17: and so sort of to take a slightly different example,
Speaker 17: other than China, most of the rest of the world,
Speaker 17: the market share that Apple the smartphone the iPhone has
Speaker 17: is lower than it is in the US. One of
Speaker 17: the reasons is because the US is the is basically
Speaker 17: the only country that uses the SMS protocol. Right everywhere
Speaker 17: else telecom networks charge they charge for a texting. We
Speaker 17: don't arch for texting. So people use that, they just
Speaker 17: do it over the telecom networks. But they use WhatsApp
Speaker 17: in other places. And so it's not a big as
Speaker 17: big a deal to switch from an iPhone to a
Speaker 17: different kind of phone. So Apple, the switching barrios aren't
Speaker 17: as high elsewhere in the world.
Speaker 11: And so that's that's kind of what you're seeing. And
Speaker 11: that's the heart of the case.
Speaker 1: How does this fit into the broader doj antitrust agenda?
Speaker 11: It's a great question.
Speaker 17: So, so this is the fourth suit against a trillion
Speaker 17: dollar plus corporation Trump brought to Biden has brought for
Speaker 17: But it also is part of a broader revolution in
Speaker 17: anti monopoly policy making. So it's not just big tech, right.
Speaker 17: I think most people would say, okay, well, if you
Speaker 17: make the iPhone like slightly better, okay, cool, but that's
Speaker 17: not that big a deal. Right, what about meat prices?
Speaker 17: What about you know, airlines, what about rent all of
Speaker 17: these you know, bread and butter stuff, and I think
Speaker 17: one of the one of the things that's happening is
Speaker 17: people don't pay. There isn't as much reporting on what
Speaker 17: else the DOJ is doing, the anti trust agencies are doing,
Speaker 17: but they are taking on the bread and butter stuff.
Speaker 11: So there is a big suit.
Speaker 17: Against meat packing the price fixing there. There is a
Speaker 17: big suit against big landlords for price fixing. The dj
Speaker 17: is investigating ticket Master. They'll probably bring a case a
Speaker 17: bunch of big inhaler companies. Right, they just cut prices
Speaker 17: inhalers from a couple hundred dollars to thirty five dollars
Speaker 17: in response to FTC action, And so you see kind
Speaker 17: of like across the board, competition policy is working.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 17: I don't want to this isn't like a broad I mean,
Speaker 17: the Bide administration is doing great work on competition policy.
Speaker 17: But competition policy is only part of the government. There's
Speaker 17: the rest of the government. And I think that there's
Speaker 17: a lot of work that they could be doing there
Speaker 17: that would be much better. But in terms of just
Speaker 17: the anti trust stuff, there is a lot of meat
Speaker 17: and potatoes and that's revolutionary as well. It's just the
Speaker 17: big tech stuff those are the kind of the pay
Speaker 17: setters of the economy. And if you're in the boardroom
Speaker 17: of any company, it doesn't matter if it's waste management
Speaker 17: or food or tech. You're looking at Apple and Google
Speaker 17: and Amazon and saying, how can I be more like them?
Speaker 17: Because they're the most profitable, they're the biggest And so
Speaker 17: by taking on the pay setters, you're sending a message.
Speaker 11: To corporate America.
Speaker 3: That's actually a fantastic point.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the business process is all taking this in stride
Speaker 1: very calmly.
Speaker 11: They're like, oh, this makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 17: Let's let's analyze this in good faith.
Speaker 4: There is.
Speaker 17: Especially Jim Jim Kramer, he's the the clown of the
Speaker 17: clown of capital.
Speaker 1: Well, he's known for his cool head yeah, and incredible
Speaker 1: insights into the market.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and his calm demeanor. That's the other thing is
Speaker 11: calmed emotional stability.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 17: I mean, there's there's a you know, CNBC is very
Speaker 17: obviously they're very upset. And it's because monopolization is has
Speaker 17: been sort of the way that that people do business
Speaker 17: since the eighties almost and it's it's where modern Silicon
Speaker 17: Valley was born. I mean, Silicon Valley's name so Valley
Speaker 17: because it was semiconductors. They moved off of that. Now
Speaker 17: they just you know, they make software essentially, and monopolization
Speaker 17: and IP to control markets. And that's just people are
Speaker 17: offended in that world because they're like, but this is
Speaker 17: how business is done. This is what we do, and
Speaker 17: you're saying we can't do that anymore. I mean at
Speaker 17: this point, like bankers don't really think that their business
Speaker 17: is lending money. They think their business is finding other
Speaker 17: banks to merge with, right, And they're like, why are
Speaker 17: you interfering with business? And it's like, that's not what
Speaker 17: business is, right. So Apple, you know, the business of
Speaker 17: a company like Apple should be to innovate, to improve,
Speaker 17: and to compete on the merits with rivals. But they
Speaker 17: think of their business as finding ways of excluding rivals
Speaker 17: using the existing market power that they have. They're very offended.
Speaker 17: Wall Street's very offended. There's obviously a financial element to it.
Speaker 17: Wall Street bonuses are down, although big tech profits are not.
Speaker 17: But there's their self interest here. But I think it's
Speaker 17: a lot of it is just ego. They're like, how
Speaker 17: dare our elected officials actually do something about market structure?
Speaker 2: That's really well said I really appreciated this. We're going
Speaker 2: to put a link to the substack in the description.
Speaker 2: We always appreciate your analysis. Man, Thank you, Hey, thanks
Speaker 2: for having me, Matt. We'll see you guys later