Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 3: Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have, Christal Indeed.
Speaker 1: We do lots of interesting stories to talk about this morning,
Speaker 1: including oral arguments in a landmark free speech case in
Speaker 1: front of the Supreme Court. This one is really really interesting,
Speaker 1: cuts across ideological lines, deals with a lot of very
Speaker 1: thorny issues around state power and social media. So we're
Speaker 1: going to dig into that and tell you what the
Speaker 1: implications could be. We also have some new theories out
Speaker 1: about something we talked about yesterday, Trump's consistent underperformance in
Speaker 1: the primaries that have been held so far. Nate Conden
Speaker 1: analysis of different theories of why that may be occurring.
Speaker 1: So we're going to take a look at that and
Speaker 1: what that could mean for the future and for the
Speaker 1: general election. We also have new details about the death
Speaker 1: of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny that we're going to get
Speaker 1: into what exactly the hell happened there interesting details that
Speaker 1: are coming out now from his team and from others.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was on late night. That's all I got
Speaker 1: to say about that. Yeah, we've got We've got some
Speaker 1: highlights from that to bring to you. Also, today is
Speaker 1: the primary in Michigan, and obviously Joe Biden very much
Speaker 1: expected to win. However, a very open question about how
Speaker 1: many voters, especially young voters, are going to cast their
Speaker 1: ballot for uncommitted as a rebuke of Joe Biden and
Speaker 1: his unconditional support for Israel. John Stewart was back on
Speaker 1: last night with some Israel takes.
Speaker 4: We'll take a look at that.
Speaker 1: And I am looking at an extraordinary scandal that is
Speaker 1: unfolding right now at the New York Times that is
Speaker 1: just absolutely unbelievable. This woman with literally no journalistic experience
Speaker 1: ending up with a byline on one of the most
Speaker 1: fraud and sensitive stories of all time that has now
Speaker 1: been discredited. I can't even believe some of the details here,
Speaker 1: so we'll break all of that down for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really excited to hear that report.
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Speaker 2: can go ahead and sign up for that. But let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and begin with this social media case because
Speaker 2: it is probably one of the most significant First Amendment
Speaker 2: cases to come before the Court in quite a long time.
Speaker 2: It comes down to two separate laws in the state
Speaker 2: of Florida and the state of Texas which were designed
Speaker 2: by these two state legislators to try and protect quote
Speaker 2: unquote conservative viewpoints. But the legal question before the court,
Speaker 2: and its actually frankly very interesting, is this, It does
Speaker 2: do the tech platforms Are they common carriers as classified
Speaker 2: by these state legislatures aka like the Internet company which
Speaker 2: doesn't censor information that you or I might be pinging,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't have any say at an auditorial judgment.
Speaker 2: Or are they editorial platforms that have the right to
Speaker 2: pick and choose the way that a newspaper would the
Speaker 2: way that you or I would. The reason why this
Speaker 2: is all at play is it comes back to the
Speaker 2: way that they were originally classified, where the tech companies
Speaker 2: effectively are both allowed to behave as quasi common carriers
Speaker 2: because of the monopolistic effects of the network basically the
Speaker 2: network effects of their business, but also because of pre
Speaker 2: existing law from nineteen ninety six Section two thirty of
Speaker 2: the Communications and Decency Act.
Speaker 3: Which also allow them to have some editorial judgment.
Speaker 2: So basically, the states have passed these separate laws.
Speaker 3: They're now before the court.
Speaker 2: The people who are challenging the laws are the trade
Speaker 2: Organization which represents all of the big tech companies. We
Speaker 2: have a little bit of flavor from the arguments which
Speaker 2: showed some skepticism but also some interesting alignment between some
Speaker 2: of the liberal justices and the Republicans and then some
Speaker 2: of the more conservative justices who are countering. First here,
Speaker 2: we're going to play for you some questioning by Justice
Speaker 2: Alido of the lawyers about who exactly is making speech determinations,
Speaker 2: what the algorithm is, and how the mechanics of this
Speaker 2: all work.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: They're not going to see a bunch of material that
Speaker 5: glorifies suicide.
Speaker 6: Is there any distinction between action or editing that takes
Speaker 6: place as a result of an algorithm as opposed to
Speaker 6: an individual?
Speaker 5: I don't think so. You're honored. These algorithms don't spring
Speaker 5: from the ether. They are essentially computer programs designed by
Speaker 5: humans to try to do some of this editorial function
Speaker 5: is number what do you.
Speaker 6: Do with to say, deep learning algorithm which teaches itself
Speaker 6: and has very little human intervention, You.
Speaker 5: Still had to have somebody who kind created the universe
Speaker 5: that that algorithm is going to look for.
Speaker 6: Who's speaking then the algorithm or the person?
Speaker 5: I think you know, the question in these cases would
Speaker 5: be the Facebook is speaking, that YouTube is speaking, because
Speaker 5: they're the ones that are using these devices to run
Speaker 5: their editorial discretion across these massive volumes. And the reason
Speaker 5: they're doing this, and of course they're supplementing it with
Speaker 5: lots and lots of humans as well, But the reason
Speaker 5: they have to use the algorithms, of course, is the
Speaker 5: volume of material on these sites, which just shows you
Speaker 5: the volume of editorial discretion.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and finally, I'm sorry to keep going this deplement.
Speaker 6: Exactly what are they saying? So is the algorithm saying
Speaker 6: I don't know, I'm not on any you know, But
Speaker 6: what is it saying it's safe? Is it a consistent message?
Speaker 6: What I mean? Usually when we had Hurly, uh, the
Speaker 6: it was their parade and they didn't want certain people
Speaker 6: in their parade, you understood that. What are they saying here?
Speaker 5: They're saying things like Facebook doesn't want pro terrorist.
Speaker 2: Stuff on our Okay, So as you see as a
Speaker 2: little bit of the pushback there from the lawyers for them.
Speaker 2: But Crystal, it's a very interesting question, and it really
Speaker 2: comes back to, as I said, some of the press
Speaker 2: release for example, that they put out, they go just
Speaker 2: as Florida may not tell the New York Times what
Speaker 2: opinion pieces to publish or Fox News what interviews to air,
Speaker 2: it may not tell Facebook and YouTube what content to disseminate.
Speaker 2: He's looping in the algorithm with the plugged in editorial judgment.
Speaker 2: The crux of the Texas and the Texas and the
Speaker 2: Florida law are that there is a baseline free speech assumption,
Speaker 2: especially in the case of the Florida law that applies
Speaker 2: to elected representatives, that does not allow for editorial discretion
Speaker 2: of these quote unquote standards to come into play. I
Speaker 2: think it's a very important one. I definitely support the law,
Speaker 2: even if it may be intended to be applied solely
Speaker 2: or whatever to conservative viewpoints. But I think that's why
Speaker 2: we've seen even liberal outlets and people who are skeptical
Speaker 2: of technology and not really necessarily supportive of Texas or
Speaker 2: Florida who say that if they rule in the opposite direction,
Speaker 2: you're giving them carte blanche to censor whatever they want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd encourage you to in some ways put aside
Speaker 1: the specific of the motivations of these particular laws and
Speaker 1: think about the core issues here. So the argument from
Speaker 1: the tech companies is effectively like the libertarian argument. We
Speaker 1: are you know, we have these companies and we have
Speaker 1: a right to basically run them the way that we want.
Speaker 1: We have a right to enforce our terms of service.
Speaker 1: We are not a government, so we are not subject
Speaker 1: to free speech laws, and basically we can do what
Speaker 1: we want on our platforms. On the other side is
Speaker 1: states like Florida and Texas and presumably other states around
Speaker 1: the country that also have an interest in this saying no,
Speaker 1: this is the modern public square. Free speech is incredibly
Speaker 1: important for society on these platforms because that is the
Speaker 1: way our society is constituted at this point, and the
Speaker 1: state has an interest in making sure that there is
Speaker 1: some level of free speech, especially with regard to elections
Speaker 1: and candidates, that is protected and preserved on these platforms.
Speaker 1: And so the interest of citizens and of the state
Speaker 1: in protecting free speech rights is superior to the interests
Speaker 1: of these companies that are arguing not we have free
Speaker 1: speech rights.
Speaker 4: To publish on our platforms what we want.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I would say here in terms
Speaker 1: of these companies Zagur is they really want to have
Speaker 1: it both ways in terms of this question about whether
Speaker 1: they're common carriers or whether they're publishers. When they don't
Speaker 1: want responsibility for bad things that are published on their platforms, oh,
Speaker 1: then they're not publishers.
Speaker 4: They're common carriers.
Speaker 1: They don't want any liability and any responsibility for the
Speaker 1: content that's going on on their platforms. But when they
Speaker 1: want to effectively please their advertisers and protect their business models. Then, oh,
Speaker 1: we're publishers, this is our speech. We have to protect
Speaker 1: our free speech rights here, and we're just making editorial
Speaker 1: judgments in the same way as the New York Times.
Speaker 1: And I would say basically like, you can't have it
Speaker 1: both ways. And so to me, that's sort of the
Speaker 1: core of the issue here. Now, I do think that
Speaker 1: the questions are somewhat complex, right. I do think it
Speaker 1: is a thorny, tricky issue to legislate. Okay, where is
Speaker 1: the line? How much can these states just dictate to
Speaker 1: companies how to run their platforms and who to censor
Speaker 1: and who not doesn't start.
Speaker 4: I mean, that can get into very tricky grounds as well.
Speaker 1: But when I think about it at bottom, when you
Speaker 1: have this core competition between the corporations and the state,
Speaker 1: at least the state, there's some sort of theoretical democratic
Speaker 1: mechanism for making these choices and having citizen input into
Speaker 1: way that free speech is mediated and moderated and permitted
Speaker 1: on these platforms. Versus with a company, whether it's a
Speaker 1: public company or private company.
Speaker 4: You have no say.
Speaker 1: It's just up to these few oligarchs what they feel
Speaker 1: like doing on their platform with massive costs and consequences
Speaker 1: as we've seen for society.
Speaker 2: I'll continue and dig into a little bit what you
Speaker 2: said where you're talking about liability and this is something
Speaker 2: that we can understand, but people who are not publishing
Speaker 2: may not, which is at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: as editorial organizations like breaking points like The New York
Speaker 2: Times or others we because we curate information, are also
Speaker 2: liable under defamation and libel law, as in, if we
Speaker 2: were to publish something which was absolutely wrong and that
Speaker 2: somebody could then prove that we knew it was wrong
Speaker 2: before we published it, and we did it specifically to
Speaker 2: defige or reliable somebody else, they could take us to court.
Speaker 3: But the section two thirty of.
Speaker 2: The Communications in Decent Yacht actually allows the social media
Speaker 2: companies not to be liable under the same standard, as in,
Speaker 2: if I take to Facebook and I quote unquote defame
Speaker 2: somebody else, that person cannot sue Facebook for platforming defamation.
Speaker 2: So in that case, they're trying to treat themselves as
Speaker 2: a common carrier in the same way that common carrier
Speaker 2: like at and T. They have no editorial judgment over
Speaker 2: who I pick up and call. They don't drop my
Speaker 2: phone call because I'm saying problematic things. Maybe the government will,
Speaker 2: but that's a different story in terms of how the
Speaker 2: actual company itself, which has allowed this effective legalistic monopoly
Speaker 2: or you know, regulatory monopoly on top of the service
Speaker 2: that they provide, even though it's a private company, we
Speaker 2: classify it on are a very different set of standards,
Speaker 2: the same way that comcasts and isp internet providers do
Speaker 2: as well the social media companies in this weird gray area.
Speaker 2: And actually thought Justice Katanji Brown Jackson did a really
Speaker 2: good job of digging into this about elected officials and
Speaker 2: the elected official standard under the Florida law, which allows
Speaker 2: anyone running for public office not to be subject specifically
Speaker 2: to this. Really listen to the counter argument being given
Speaker 2: by the social media company and some of the democratic implications.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen. We want to have what about
Speaker 3: a straightforward one?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 8: I understood that one of these was no candidate can
Speaker 8: be deplatformed. That seems pretty straightforward.
Speaker 3: Right, right?
Speaker 8: And so why isn't that enforcing anti discrimination principles with
Speaker 8: no candid If somebody is a candidate for office, they
Speaker 8: can't be deplatformed, So.
Speaker 5: That means they can't be deplatformed no matter how many
Speaker 5: times they violate my client's terms of use, no matter
Speaker 5: how horrible their conduct, no matter how misrepresenting they are
Speaker 5: in their speech, we still have to carry it. And
Speaker 5: not just have to carry it, but under this statute,
Speaker 5: we have to give it pride of place. And it
Speaker 5: doesn't take much to register as a candidate in Florida,
Speaker 5: And so this gives a license to anybody. Even if
Speaker 5: there's you know, somebody who's only going to pull you know,
Speaker 5: two percent in their local precinct, they can post anything
Speaker 5: they want that can cause us to fundamentally change our
Speaker 5: editorial policies and have to ignore our terms of use.
Speaker 3: So that's really worth digging into.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 2: When he says it, you're like, oh, well this seems
Speaker 2: you know, reasonable or whatever. But I'm like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: let's hold on a second. How do you get from
Speaker 2: two percent to ten percent? Anyone want to tell me?
Speaker 2: Maybe it's by being able to reach voters, which is online.
Speaker 2: So yeah, if the state of Florida makes it so
Speaker 2: that anybody can get on the ballot and pull a
Speaker 2: two percent, I mean, listen, what if we all learned
Speaker 2: from the rf Cajunior thing. It ain't that easy to
Speaker 2: get on the ballot, okay, And so if you can
Speaker 2: get there, then yeah, you should be in a place
Speaker 2: where you are in a level playing field against other
Speaker 2: candidates on the social media companies.
Speaker 3: I don't see what's exactly wrong with that.
Speaker 2: And when you phrase it that way, you can then
Speaker 2: understand some of the inverse ways where this could apply.
Speaker 2: As we all learn post January sixth, with the deplatforming
Speaker 2: of Trump from simultaneous deplatforming and really the simultaneous destruction
Speaker 2: of parlor, you're.
Speaker 3: Like, whoa.
Speaker 2: You have companies which are technically separate, effectively working in
Speaker 2: concert from a major social pressure campaign, and the company
Speaker 2: and even the individual at that point, the sitting president
Speaker 2: of the United States has no genuine recourse to reach
Speaker 2: millions and millions of people. You know, we're not talking
Speaker 2: about a plumbing business in Ohio. Here, we're talking about
Speaker 2: the basically singular ways which the vast majority of Americans
Speaker 2: are interacting with presidential candidates and fundraising. And so when
Speaker 2: you consider it in that vein, we come much more
Speaker 2: to the common carrier status. Again, the companies don't want
Speaker 2: this because they simply want to be able to do
Speaker 2: what they want to do so it doesn't affect their
Speaker 2: advertising business sets. But these are multi trillion dollar companies
Speaker 2: get their market cap. I don't even think, honestly, it
Speaker 2: would have that much of an effect, especially if they're
Speaker 2: legally if they're legally required Crystal, what are they going
Speaker 2: to do?
Speaker 3: They're be like, hey, we have legally do it, what
Speaker 3: are we supposed.
Speaker 2: To do it?
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true, And especially if they're all held
Speaker 1: to the same standard, then it's an even playing field.
Speaker 1: I mean, the core tension here is this question, do
Speaker 1: citizens have an interest in the way these platforms are
Speaker 1: run that goes above and beyond the profit motive of
Speaker 1: the companies themselves, Because that is kind of the unspoken
Speaker 1: part of all of this, and you just pointed to
Speaker 1: it Soccer in terms of the advertising dollars. The reason
Speaker 1: these companies are making the decisions they are where there's
Speaker 1: kicking Trump off the platform or you know, moderating speech
Speaker 1: in the ways that they do, it's all because of profit.
Speaker 1: It's not because they.
Speaker 4: You know, aren't interested in speech.
Speaker 1: It's not because they have some message that they want
Speaker 1: to convey through their algorithm the way that you know,
Speaker 1: a newspaper wants to publish the news and cover it
Speaker 1: in a certain way. No, they're making these decisions because
Speaker 1: they believe that decisions that will maximize profit. So where
Speaker 1: do we place in our order of priorities the desire
Speaker 1: for these companies, their owners, their shareholders to maximize their
Speaker 1: profits and the interest that citizens have in having platforms
Speaker 1: that you know, enable free speech, that allow them to
Speaker 1: understand candidates, and their platforms that allow candidates to be
Speaker 1: able to run and get their message out even if
Speaker 1: they aren't the best funded. And so you know, it's
Speaker 1: very much my physician that this is the modern town
Speaker 1: square that we do all very much have an interest
Speaker 1: in what goes on here, and that in some certain ways,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about core rights like free speech, they
Speaker 1: do trump the prerogatives of these companies to run their
Speaker 1: platforms in precisely the way that they think will absolutely
Speaker 1: maximize profit. And you're right, I don't think it would
Speaker 1: be massively harmful to them if they had to comply
Speaker 1: with these laws. You know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: would be implicated here is definitely with the Florida law.
Speaker 1: I think with both the Florida and the techis law.
Speaker 1: But because you're dealing with the way that the algorithm
Speaker 1: promotes and suppresses content, you would also have to have
Speaker 1: some level of transparency around how those decisions are being made,
Speaker 1: what content is being promoted, what content is being suppressed,
Speaker 1: And so it also give us a tool to be
Speaker 1: able to understand the inner workings of these companies in
Speaker 1: a way that I think would be extraordinarily beneficial just
Speaker 1: in terms of transparency. And you know, sunlight being an
Speaker 1: incredible disinfectant.
Speaker 4: So there is a lot at stake here.
Speaker 1: Again, I'm not going to pretend like the issues aren't
Speaker 1: tricky and that there isn't an important balance to strike here,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But to me, at its core, this tension
Speaker 1: between a democratic society, our interest in speech, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a core constitutional right, and the interests of
Speaker 1: these companies to just absolutely maximize their profit.
Speaker 4: There is a limiting principle.
Speaker 1: There are rights as citizens of this country, trump their
Speaker 1: rights to you know, do whatever they want on the
Speaker 1: platform in the interest of maximizing profit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you know it's okay YouTube, the
Speaker 2: platform where a lot of you are consuming this right now,
Speaker 2: I don't think people understand the scale. YouTube in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three accounted for thirty one point five billion dollars
Speaker 2: in profit. That is just ten or ten percent of
Speaker 2: Google's overall revenue, and that thirty one billion is bigger
Speaker 2: than Netflix. How much money Netflix made in the year
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. Ten percent of Google is roughly equivalent
Speaker 2: to Netflix, which is one of the most predominant streaming
Speaker 2: platforms in.
Speaker 3: The whole world.
Speaker 2: YouTube is YouTube is media now basically at this point,
Speaker 2: and this is just here. I'm talking in the US context.
Speaker 2: I've talked to you about this before, Crystal, but in
Speaker 2: many countries like India or in South America as well,
Speaker 2: which did not have the same analog TV, YouTube is
Speaker 2: media because they don't have cable television in the same
Speaker 2: way everybody skipped and started the entry point at the
Speaker 2: mobile phone level.
Speaker 3: And with data.
Speaker 2: That is the major way that people consume not just news,
Speaker 2: everything television shows. And when you think about the dramatic
Speaker 2: cultural power that something like that has not only here
Speaker 2: but all around the world, you start to understand why
Speaker 2: I think common carrier status is not only justified now,
Speaker 2: I mean it would have been justified many many years ago.
Speaker 3: So let's put this up there on the screen from
Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2: I encourage people to read this if they want a
Speaker 2: decent primer on some of the.
Speaker 3: Things that were at play.
Speaker 2: I would note, you know, based on the arguments, it
Speaker 2: definitely did seem as if the majority of the conservative
Speaker 2: justices were not on the side of the Red States
Speaker 2: in this case, using a much more libertarian point of
Speaker 2: view in some of their questioning.
Speaker 3: Let's go to the next one there, please. This is
Speaker 3: a net choice.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a write up of their specific allegations
Speaker 2: as to why the law should not be should be
Speaker 2: allowed to stand. It basically just comes back to an
Speaker 2: argument is that their private companies, no matter at the scale,
Speaker 2: they should not have to be told by the government
Speaker 2: how and when and which way to run their business.
Speaker 2: But I mean that even to me falls apart a
Speaker 2: little bit, crystal, because you and I have all kinds
Speaker 2: of regulations that we have to comply, like workers comp.
Speaker 2: Anybody who runs a business, you have to buy a
Speaker 2: worker's comp right, I think that's fine. Or you know,
Speaker 2: if you're a certain size, like you have to provide
Speaker 2: health insurance. If you're a plumbing company, you have to
Speaker 2: have a trade certification. You can't just be going out
Speaker 2: and doing anything. You know, there's all kinds of things that.
Speaker 3: We're all required to do minimum right, we have to
Speaker 3: make minimis.
Speaker 2: There's so many different things that we all have to
Speaker 2: do whenever we run a business.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily enjoy it all, but we don't have
Speaker 3: a choice.
Speaker 2: So the idea then, at a baseline level that you know,
Speaker 2: this principle like you can't tell people what and what
Speaker 2: not to do.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, we already do that.
Speaker 2: It's just that we're trying to apply it to a
Speaker 2: twenty first century standard.
Speaker 3: If anything, I think we're some twenty years late.
Speaker 4: That's a good point. That's actually a very good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of how this
Speaker 1: case is going to play out, I genuinely don't know.
Speaker 1: There was questioning that, you know, from both ends of
Speaker 1: the ideological spectrum that seemed pretty scp of the presentation
Speaker 1: coming from these companies.
Speaker 4: So it left me somewhat hopeful.
Speaker 1: That they will rule in favor of free speech and
Speaker 1: the rights of states to regulate these companies and the
Speaker 1: interests of citizens to you know, have the First Amendment protected.
Speaker 1: But I genuinely don't know how it's ultimately going to
Speaker 1: play out because you know, it's it's tricky and it's
Speaker 1: not an ideologically clear cut case. As you said, just
Speaker 1: thinking about the right. You know, you have these competing
Speaker 1: ideological strands of you know, this newfound at least rhetorical
Speaker 1: interest in free speech, and then the you know, sort
Speaker 1: of radical libertarian strain that has been on the rise
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party for decades at this point. So
Speaker 1: which of those ideologies wins out here among the conservative
Speaker 1: justices who obviously have a significant majority on the court
Speaker 1: is really an open question.
Speaker 2: We don't know, you know, I hope this has been
Speaker 2: a decent enough primer just so people can really dig
Speaker 2: into it. However this happens, we won't know for several months.
Speaker 2: Of course, in terms of how this all plays out,
Speaker 2: it's going to have big, big impacts, And especially consider
Speaker 2: this Crystal. If it comes before the twenty twenty four election,
Speaker 2: Who knows, November could be a very interesting to imagine.
Speaker 2: If they do uphold the legislation, November could be very interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what's allowed to stand and what's not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, and that's an important note is right now
Speaker 1: these laws are on hold, they haven't been implemented while
Speaker 1: they go through the court system, and these justices make
Speaker 1: a decision, so we will see how it all turns out.
Speaker 9: Here you are.
Speaker 1: Interesting analysis yesterday from Nate con in the New York
Speaker 1: Times of why it is that Donald Trump has consistently
Speaker 1: underperformed his polls in these primaries. Now, no one here
Speaker 1: is saying that he's not an absolute lock for the
Speaker 1: Republican nomination, that he isn't an incredibly forced in the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, that he isn't probably at this point the
Speaker 1: favorite to win the general election against Joe Biden. But
Speaker 1: it's an interesting enough phenomenon that we wanted to spend
Speaker 1: some time digging into it.
Speaker 4: So put this up on the screen. From the New
Speaker 4: York Times, Nate.
Speaker 1: Cohen says three theories for why Trump's prime results are
Speaker 1: not matching expectations. He's underperformed the polls in each of
Speaker 1: the first three contests. So first let me give you
Speaker 1: just the data. We share this with you yesterday, but
Speaker 1: just to refresh. So in Iowa, the final five thirty
Speaker 1: eight polling average had Trump leaving Haley by thirty four
Speaker 1: points with the fifty three percent share. Instead of beating
Speaker 1: her by thirty four points, he beat her by thirty
Speaker 1: two points with a lower share fifty one percent.
Speaker 4: Not that different, but a little bit off.
Speaker 1: In New Hampshire, in the poles, he led by eighteen
Speaker 1: points with fifty four percent. In the end he won
Speaker 1: by eleven points with fifty four percent, so a narrower
Speaker 1: margin then was predicted. In South Carolina, Trump led by
Speaker 1: twenty eight points in the polls with sixty two percent
Speaker 1: of the vote, and he ultimately won by twenty points
Speaker 1: with sixty percent of the vote.
Speaker 4: So again, it's not a huge.
Speaker 1: Underperformance, but it is a consistent trend in the primary
Speaker 1: states that we've seen thus far. So the three explanations
Speaker 1: that Nate floats here possibilities Number one is just simply
Speaker 1: undecided voters who you know, we're telling polsters I don't
Speaker 1: know going into it ultimately broke for Nicki Haley. There
Speaker 1: is some evidence that this accounts for part of it,
Speaker 1: but it can't account for all of it because of
Speaker 1: the piece of Trump also underperforming his vote share going in.
Speaker 1: So again, like in South Carolina, he came in with
Speaker 1: sixty two percent, he ultimately won with sixty percent, so
Speaker 1: you can't just attribute that diminishment to undecided voters breaking
Speaker 1: in Nikki Haley's direction. The second possibility is that polsters
Speaker 1: are getting the electorate wrong, especially because on the Democratic
Speaker 1: side there isn't much of a competition. There's been more
Speaker 1: hype around the Republican side, so you've had a proportionally
Speaker 1: larger number of Democrats voting in Republican primaries and independent
Speaker 1: Democratic leaning independence voting in primaries that polsters typically pulling
Speaker 1: a Republican primary. They are not calling Democratic voters at
Speaker 1: all to see what they're going to do, because they're
Speaker 1: just assuming, well, a Democratic voter is not going to
Speaker 1: vote in public and primary. That assumption may be off,
Speaker 1: and that may be part of the Trump underperformance here
Speaker 1: in the Nikky Haley relative overperformance. The last one, which
Speaker 1: is the most tantalizing to Democrats and Biden supporters, is
Speaker 1: that there is actually a hidden Biden vote and that
Speaker 1: there is, you know, some secret enthusiasm for Joe Biden
Speaker 1: or secret antipathy towards Donald Trump that isn't being picked
Speaker 1: up in the polls. This is sort of akin to
Speaker 1: the like shy Trump voter theory from twenty sixteen and
Speaker 1: what they say here I'll just read from the piece.
Speaker 1: In this theory, the polls did well in modeling the
Speaker 1: lecturate while undecided voters split between the candidates, but anti
Speaker 1: Trump voters simply were not as likely to take surveys
Speaker 1: as pro Trump voters. If this theory were true true,
Speaker 1: then the general election polls might also be utter estimating
Speaker 1: mister Biden by just as much as they've underestimated Miss
Speaker 1: Haley quote. There is one reason the anti Trump turnout
Speaker 1: might have relevance for general election polling. It's consistent with
Speaker 1: other data showing mister Biden with the edge among the
Speaker 1: mo those highly engaged voters.
Speaker 4: This could yield a slight.
Speaker 1: Turnout and advantage even in a general election, and may also
Speaker 1: mean the current polls of all registered voters slightly underestimate
Speaker 1: mister Biden compared with the narrow group of actual voters
Speaker 1: and sagre. This is something that a number of polls
Speaker 1: have found is right now, this far out from the
Speaker 1: general election, polsters are looking at all registered voters, but
Speaker 1: in the instances where they've narrowed that down to the
Speaker 1: likely voters, the voters who show up consistently, election after election,
Speaker 1: Biden is a little bit better in those polls. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of the theory here, is that the actual
Speaker 1: electorate is more likely to favor Biden, which makes some
Speaker 1: sense given the realignment amongst the parties and so many
Speaker 1: college educated voters who tend to be the most reliable
Speaker 1: voters year after year, election cycle after election cycle, they're
Speaker 1: the ones that reliably show up.
Speaker 4: This used to be the advantage that Republicans have.
Speaker 1: Now with the electorate shifting, it seems to be an
Speaker 1: advantage that Democrats have.
Speaker 4: So that's the other theory that's out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the theories, I mean, I really don't know what
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 2: So back in twenty twenty, just for context, one of
Speaker 2: the thingies that I heard all the time from the
Speaker 2: Trump people where don't believe these polls look at how
Speaker 2: people feel about the economy, and they were actually right
Speaker 2: in terms of how close the election was, the how
Speaker 2: I feel about the economy, and who I trust more,
Speaker 2: Where they had Biden and Trump tied as opposed to
Speaker 2: Biden beating Trump by like six to seven points in
Speaker 2: many of these nationals. That ended up being a very
Speaker 2: good approximator for the overall vote totals, even though Biden
Speaker 2: was to be able to take it up.
Speaker 3: However, what did we all learn in twenty twenty two?
Speaker 2: We apply that exact same logic, where Biden is historically
Speaker 2: underwater on the economy compared to every single other modern
Speaker 2: president in a midterm, we apply the midterm lesson and
Speaker 2: we say Biden would have to overperform by more than
Speaker 2: a century, and then he almost.
Speaker 3: Does, merely does. True.
Speaker 2: And so what we learned from that is that in
Speaker 2: certain instances, some social issues can trump the economy. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, there are a lot of different lower propensity
Speaker 2: voters who stayed at home, the high propensity people really
Speaker 2: jacked it up because of all of the abortion turnout
Speaker 2: that happened, lots of college educated people, the Trump cope Again,
Speaker 2: I'm going to give here as well, twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: will be more of a normal election because lower propensity
Speaker 2: voters who love Trump but don't necessarily give a shit
Speaker 2: about Mitch McConnell or anybody else will be coming out
Speaker 2: to vote. Yeah, I could see it in so many
Speaker 2: different ways that in terms of my prediction, I still
Speaker 2: come back to fifty to fifty. But I do think
Speaker 2: it's humiliating actually for both of them. You know, considering
Speaker 2: considering Trump's unpopular, it should be runaway, should be so easy.
Speaker 2: Considering Biden's age, he should be beaten. He should be
Speaker 2: you know, beating him by fifty five forty five or
Speaker 2: something like that. So the fact that it is fifty
Speaker 2: to fifty, I think is not good, Yeah, for euther
Speaker 2: of these people.
Speaker 1: This was basically the case Ryan Gerdsky was making to
Speaker 1: us when he was here about how Republicans, not Trump
Speaker 1: specifically in the primaries, but Republicans in these special elections
Speaker 1: why they're doing so poorly. And it's because the white, affluent,
Speaker 1: college educated suburban vote is so heavily Democratic now and
Speaker 1: they're show it up for all these elections and that
Speaker 1: since you know, Republicans have chased all these you know,
Speaker 1: weird conspiracy rabbit holes that are like disconnected from the
Speaker 1: interests of that population and make them sort of like
Speaker 1: and just like are like an instant turned off to
Speaker 1: a lot of normies in that population that it has
Speaker 1: led to disaster and abortion being you know, the primary
Speaker 1: issue where Republicans have really put themselves out on a
Speaker 1: fringe extremist position that is abhorrent to not just zac
Speaker 1: group of voters, but really the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Speaker 4: But he thinks that.
Speaker 1: That is a very different story in a special election
Speaker 1: versus a general election, because obviously you have more people
Speaker 1: turn out in a general election, and so those people
Speaker 1: who are the low propensity voters, maybe they're motivated, maybe
Speaker 1: they come out. Maybe that or rases this advantage that
Speaker 1: Democrats have had in the special elections.
Speaker 4: I genuinely don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I had to guess, it's probably like
Speaker 1: a combination of all of these three things that he
Speaker 1: floats here, all of them make some sense to me.
Speaker 1: You know, it does seem there's some data to backup
Speaker 1: that undecideds have been breaking towards Nikki Haley. There is
Speaker 1: data to back up that Democrats are making up a
Speaker 1: larger percentage of the electorate in these primaries than polsters
Speaker 1: are really anticipating, and so there's sort of like this
Speaker 1: built in, inaccurate electorate that they're pulling on. But I
Speaker 1: do also think that the data surrounding the fact that
Speaker 1: likely voters have a you know, Biden gets a slightly
Speaker 1: more favorable outcome when you limit the universe to those
Speaker 1: people who are most likely to actually show up in
Speaker 1: an election. It does sort of indicate that there's something
Speaker 1: going on there as well. Actually put up the third
Speaker 1: element here and we can show you this sort of
Speaker 1: underscore some of the points you're making Sagreabuk, specifically Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's weakness. So this is the latest gallop hole. His
Speaker 1: approval has now edged down to thirty eight percent. That
Speaker 1: is three points. That is three points lower than the
Speaker 1: last date. It's one point shy of his all time low,
Speaker 1: and person also says accurately well below the fifty percent
Speaker 1: threshold that has typically led to reelection for incumbents. I
Speaker 1: took a note though, to sober of the specifics on
Speaker 1: his approval rating on various aspects of the job, so
Speaker 1: it actually gets the highest rating. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: not a great number, but on the situation in Ukraine
Speaker 1: is a forty percent approval. What was noteworthy to me
Speaker 1: is that his handling, his unconditional support of israel Is
Speaker 1: handling of what they describe as the situation in the
Speaker 1: Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians now nearly as
Speaker 1: poorly rated as his handling of immigration, which has long been.
Speaker 1: I mean, his handling of immigration has now long been
Speaker 1: one of the low points in terms of public perception
Speaker 1: of how he is doing in the presidency. So I
Speaker 1: thought that was quite noteworthy because across the first of all,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's dramatically at odds with the Democratic base
Speaker 1: in terms of what they want to see. When you've
Speaker 1: got fifty percent of Democrats saying this is a genocide,
Speaker 1: you are very much.
Speaker 4: At odds, but you have a majority. There's a pull
Speaker 4: that just came out.
Speaker 1: There's a majority of all religious groups who support a
Speaker 1: cease fire, and then you have people on the other
Speaker 1: extreme who think that, oh, actually we should be doing
Speaker 1: even more somehow for Israel. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: that's possible. But you do have this rhetoric on the
Speaker 1: right as well of like, oh, he's not doing enough
Speaker 1: to back Israel, and even this little hand ring behind
Speaker 1: the scenes is like he shouldn't be doing that. He
Speaker 1: should just be saying, go and kill the bad guys.
Speaker 1: So that has become a major major problem for him
Speaker 1: in terms of facing reelection.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it is certainly true. You can definitely
Speaker 3: look at that.
Speaker 2: I would combine the economic number immigration being very low.
Speaker 3: He basically is just being.
Speaker 2: Hit at all sides from everybody, which is very, very problematic.
Speaker 2: At the same time, an interesting situation developing in Ukraine
Speaker 2: and in Russia. The head of Ukrainian Intelligence making some
Speaker 2: very eyebrow raising remarks, let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen from the Kiev Post. The head of Ukraine
Speaker 2: Intelligence believes that Navalny Alexi Navalny, the Russian dissident who
Speaker 2: died in Russian prison quote died of a detached blood clot.
Speaker 3: Says that the cause of death.
Speaker 2: Actually aligns with the initial assertion that was made by
Speaker 2: the Kremlin. Now this has sparked a lot of it
Speaker 2: discussion because it's like, well, is this confirmation that he.
Speaker 3: Did die of natural causes?
Speaker 2: However, that one countervailing piece of evidence which definitely needs
Speaker 2: to be discussed here is put this up there please,
Speaker 2: is according to Navalny and his or Navalney's organization, after
Speaker 2: his death, there was actually a prisoner swap proposal that
Speaker 2: was being discussed which would have allowed for the swap
Speaker 2: of Navalny in exchange and likely Evan Gersovich and possibly
Speaker 2: even another American who is in custody to be traded
Speaker 2: for an alleged Russian hit man who is being held
Speaker 2: in a German prison. This is somebody who Putin has
Speaker 2: personally spoke about before the question for a while, exactly
Speaker 2: with the Tucker Carlson. So the reason why, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We've read it two ways, and I read it one way,
Speaker 2: which is, well, maybe he did die of natural causes,
Speaker 2: because why would you kill him if he was going
Speaker 2: to be a valuable part of the prisoner swap. The
Speaker 2: other is, well, they killed him so they don't have
Speaker 2: to swap him and have to deal with him on
Speaker 2: the outside.
Speaker 3: Both seem equally and very plausible.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I come back to is even
Speaker 2: if he did technically die of natural causes, if you
Speaker 2: guys saw the video, he looked terrible the day before
Speaker 2: he died. I mean he's very obvious and being I mean,
Speaker 2: being in prison, you know, newsplash not good for your health.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. That's kind of my summary of
Speaker 3: the situation.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like if Julian Assange died in prison
Speaker 1: right now of quote unquote natural causes, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: his health is in such poor condition because because of
Speaker 1: the captivity, because of the imprisonment because of the years
Speaker 1: of effectively like psychological and physical torture that he has endured.
Speaker 1: So then if you know, even if someone didn't slip
Speaker 1: poison into his tea, he still was really murdered by
Speaker 1: the state. You know, he still did not, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: die of natural causes in the same way that some
Speaker 1: one who was free and living their life quote unquote
Speaker 1: dies of natural causes. That death is still on the
Speaker 1: hands of the United States government and you know, the
Speaker 1: UK government at this point as well, who have been
Speaker 1: imprisoning him for years at this point, so I sort
Speaker 1: of view it in the same way. With regard to
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian report, there's a few things to put out
Speaker 1: here that because I was talking to our friend Diegor
Speaker 1: about all of this, and he, for what it's worth,
Speaker 1: yeaher was very convinced that Putin actually murdered this guy. Now,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have any special knowledge, he's just reading based
Speaker 1: on his you know, insight into Russian politics and specifically
Speaker 1: how happy Putin seemed after Navaldey was dead. But he said,
Speaker 1: keep in mind, the Ukrainians also hated Navalny, which may
Speaker 1: be sort of confusing to you, but they wanted him
Speaker 1: to be very explicitly pro Ukrainian, and he didn't follow
Speaker 1: along with the messaging and the position they wanted him
Speaker 1: to take.
Speaker 4: So they didn't like navalne either.
Speaker 1: And there's also a question of like how they would
Speaker 1: have this special knowledge into whether it was a blood
Speaker 1: clot or whether it was something else. So, as I said, listen,
Speaker 1: in terms of the specifics of how he died, why
Speaker 1: at this moment, I do think it's compelling what the
Speaker 1: Navalney team is putting out there. Their theory is effectively
Speaker 1: they said. Putin was clearly told the only way to
Speaker 1: get Krasikov, that's the dude he talked about in the
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson in an interview, who he clearly wants back is
Speaker 1: to exchange him for Navalny. Putin decided, since they're willing
Speaker 1: to offer Krasikov in principle, then I just need to
Speaker 1: get rid of that bargaining chip then offer someone else
Speaker 1: when the time comes. So that would be the theory
Speaker 1: on the side of it was Putin. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: you know, him dying from being in captivity, but it was,
Speaker 1: you know, an explicit intentional murder.
Speaker 4: Do we know will we ever really know?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: But again to me, the top line of however we
Speaker 1: feel about him, where a political prisoners should not First
Speaker 1: of all, they shouldn't be political prisoners. Second of all,
Speaker 1: they should't be out an imhorrent conditions. Third of all,
Speaker 1: they certainly shouldn't be murdered. No matter how you feel
Speaker 1: about them, whether you grew with their politics or not,
Speaker 1: his death is on the hands of Vladimir Putin. That
Speaker 1: to me is very clear yet.
Speaker 2: And the question now about the prisoner swap kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: Some news that just broke out of the Financial Times
Speaker 2: that have in front of me. The Germany appetite apparently
Speaker 2: for the deal with the Kremlin is now much lower,
Speaker 2: as you said, because Putin had assumed that they could
Speaker 2: swap him in principle, then all he had to do
Speaker 2: was to have some sort of get rid of navalney
Speaker 2: and they can offer up as Evan Gersovich and possibly
Speaker 2: this new American citizen dual American citizen who's in prison
Speaker 2: in Russia. But it appears now that the Germans are
Speaker 2: cooling on their any sort of prisoner swap. I mean,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons this is the bad news is look,
Speaker 2: Evan has now been in prison now for almost what
Speaker 2: two three hundred days. I mean, he's nearing a year
Speaker 2: in captivity. Seems fine, you know the images that are
Speaker 2: coming out of Moscow.
Speaker 3: He appears healthy.
Speaker 2: But you know that it's not good, as we learn
Speaker 2: here with Nivolney, to be put in prison for quite
Speaker 2: a long time. So I would hope certainly that even
Speaker 2: if the you know, yes, I think this is abhorrent
Speaker 2: and all that, but we need to get our man
Speaker 2: out of there as soon as possible. And you know,
Speaker 2: in exchange or Russian hitman doesn't seem like.
Speaker 3: Too bad of a deal.
Speaker 9: So be it.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's move on to the next part here. Oh,
Speaker 2: this was some major news that happened just yesterday, combines
Speaker 2: with some even worse major news. I'll start with the
Speaker 2: major headline coming overnight from our allies in France. Let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: In terms of nobody asking for this and yet being
Speaker 2: floated anyway, President Emmanuel Macrone, at a major meeting of
Speaker 2: the European powers to mark the two year anniversary of
Speaker 2: Ukraine invasion, now is floating the idea of Western troops
Speaker 2: on the ground.
Speaker 3: He says, quote, there is.
Speaker 2: No consensus today to send in an official endorsed manner
Speaker 2: of troops on the ground, but in terms of dynamics,
Speaker 2: nothing can be ruled out. This is absolutely extraordinary news
Speaker 2: to me, news to a lot of people in NATO,
Speaker 2: very quickly crystal overnight, the Kremlin reacting saying that if
Speaker 2: this is in fact true, then war with the United
Speaker 2: States with NATO is quote inevitable.
Speaker 3: Here's what they say. Quote.
Speaker 2: In that case, it wouldn't be likely inevitable. That is
Speaker 2: how we assess it. That is, according to the official
Speaker 2: spokesperson for the Kremlin, so Macron basically floating an entire
Speaker 2: war with the NATO alliance. I do find it interesting
Speaker 2: that immediately the Germans actually smacked him down.
Speaker 3: Olaf Shaw's a.
Speaker 2: Chancellor of Germany, immediately putting out a tweet in German
Speaker 2: saying just so we're clear, there will be no Western
Speaker 2: troops or NATO troops that are being sent into the country.
Speaker 3: But just goes to show, you know, the.
Speaker 2: Brainworm is there even with reality on the ground. They're like, well,
Speaker 2: Ukraine's losing, America won't ship them anymore, ammo. We literally
Speaker 2: don't have the capacity to send AMMO, so what's left.
Speaker 3: It was inevitable.
Speaker 2: I didn't think they were stupid enough to float it though,
Speaker 2: especially somebody in a democratic country. But if anything, I'm
Speaker 2: happy about it. Please run on it. Put it to
Speaker 2: the American people. Should we send Western troops to save
Speaker 2: Ukraine on the battlefield?
Speaker 3: I think I know what that answer would be.
Speaker 1: NATO Chief Stoltenberg came out to also rebuff Macron's comments.
Speaker 4: Although I think his phrasing is very interesting.
Speaker 1: He says there are no plans, yes exactly, for NATO
Speaker 1: combat troops on the ground in Ukraine. But Macron didn't
Speaker 1: say there were plans. He said that this is something
Speaker 1: that needs to be kept on the table and you know,
Speaker 1: a theory that needs to be discussed. He didn't say
Speaker 1: that there are active plans to do it. And listen,
Speaker 1: it makes some logical sense if you are in the
Speaker 1: you know, extreme pro Ukraine camp, where you genuinely believe
Speaker 1: that Russia intends, you know, next is going to be
Speaker 1: Poland on their list and they're gonna, you know, try
Speaker 1: to have this incredibly expansionist imperial project and that it's
Speaker 1: going to force the native NATO conflict down the line.
Speaker 4: Anyway, So if.
Speaker 1: You're looking at the at the the situation, the battle
Speaker 1: situation in Ukraine, and you realize like they don't have
Speaker 1: a chance to win unless you do have something like
Speaker 1: NATO and US and French boots on the ground in
Speaker 1: the country, that's how you end up saying like this.
Speaker 1: I think it's an extraordinary I think it's extraordinarily revealing
Speaker 1: about how dire the Ukrainian situation actually is right now
Speaker 1: and how out of ideas they are for changing that
Speaker 1: save for, you know, something that would be incredibly not
Speaker 1: just unpopular, but insane, foolish, reckless, et cetera, as is
Speaker 1: being floated here.
Speaker 2: What's really fascinating to me is that if you read
Speaker 2: so I talked previously about how Germany was their parliament.
Speaker 2: You know, they have a democratic system over there, Crystal
Speaker 2: where major things actually get floated to the legislature and
Speaker 2: they get to vote and decide how and whether they
Speaker 2: should send certain types of cruise missiles.
Speaker 3: This really interesting concept which maybe want to try it
Speaker 3: well in their parliament.
Speaker 2: They overwhelmingly voted not to send Taurus cruise mass missiles
Speaker 2: to Ukraine, and the German chancellor gave a very good
Speaker 2: justification for this, he says, Listen, these are longer rage missiles.
Speaker 2: They could use them to strike Russia. But more importantly,
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian troops are too incompetent and not well trained enough,
Speaker 2: and to actually employ these on the battlefield would require
Speaker 2: German troops on the ground to operate these cruise missile systems. Thus,
Speaker 2: I am not putting Germany in a place where we're
Speaker 2: going to become an active combatant, he says, quote, we
Speaker 2: will not become a party to the war. I have
Speaker 2: to come back to the strategic logic. The entire point
Speaker 2: of our supposed you know, why we got a back
Speaker 2: Ukraine to the hill, is that if we don't stop
Speaker 2: putin here, then he's going to continue into NATO countries.
Speaker 2: Then why are the major powers in NATO, like Germany,
Speaker 2: the largest economy on the continent, largest economy out of
Speaker 2: in Britain in the NATO alliance, Why are they so
Speaker 2: cautious and they're not shipping everything they've got because they
Speaker 2: don't believe it. It's one of those where at this
Speaker 2: point the Cranians have been roughly hung out to dry.
Speaker 3: They've been screwed.
Speaker 2: I think you know from day one, they're like dangled here.
Speaker 2: They're basically being used as Pond's vast majority of the
Speaker 2: prime age, courageous males. They're all dead and or amputated now.
Speaker 2: And so now I think we're really starting to get
Speaker 2: a taste of what this war is really all about.
Speaker 2: You see it being pitched here in Washington as like, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: the money's not being sent to Ukraine. It's being sent
Speaker 2: our defense contractors. So it's good for the economy.
Speaker 1: Wait what multiple officials have set that up. Yeah, Tory
Speaker 1: Newlan came out. We just got to keep in mind
Speaker 1: this money that we're sent to kr this is really
Speaker 1: going to our defensive destauma that is so sick.
Speaker 4: I can't even believe it. I can't even believe it.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a an executive from one of
Speaker 1: those companies that went to speak to college students in Texas.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, and they're getting all these questions about like,
Speaker 1: you know, how much if I go to work at
Speaker 1: your company, you know, will I get to directly be
Speaker 1: involved in making the bombs to kill Palestinian children?
Speaker 4: And he was like, uh, no idea how to do it.
Speaker 1: But the sickness of thinking that that's a reason to
Speaker 1: go to war. It's really I mean, that's a mask
Speaker 1: off moment, because that is a big part of the
Speaker 1: reason why we end up in these endless conflicts, because
Speaker 1: there are people that are making a buck off, and
Speaker 1: not just making a buck they are filthy rich and
Speaker 1: they all live right around here.
Speaker 4: By the way.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why McClain Virginia is one of the
Speaker 1: wealthiest zip codes in the entire fricking country. It's because
Speaker 1: of these goals and that ideology of like, wow, war
Speaker 1: is good for the economy.
Speaker 4: Sick.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely sick that they would make that argument,
Speaker 1: and it's extraordinarily revealing that they feel like that's the
Speaker 1: best that they can do at this point in terms
Speaker 1: of selling this for the American people. We're talking about
Speaker 1: this before, Sager, but I do think it is worth noting.
Speaker 1: You know, now that you have the Israel war on Palestine,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian cause, it really has taken a massive hit
Speaker 1: because all of the aspirational ideological life language about oh,
Speaker 1: it's a fight for democracy and we're so principled and
Speaker 1: human rights and we're against these Russian war crimes and whatever, like,
Speaker 1: they can't even talk like that anymore.
Speaker 4: No, they don't even talk like that anymore.
Speaker 1: And actually, well John Stewart made this very point in
Speaker 1: some of his dialogue and his show last night. We'll
Speaker 1: show you a little bit of in another segment. But
Speaker 1: you know, they can't even say those words because the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy is so blatant and so shameful that even these
Speaker 1: basically shameless people can't bring themselves to, you know, say
Speaker 1: the words international rules based order when we're they're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, basically, we don't care about what the ICJ
Speaker 1: has to say, and we're going to argue on Israel's
Speaker 1: behalf that the occupation, the settlements aren't really illegal, or
Speaker 1: at least they're not you know, you're not the proper
Speaker 1: venue to be dealing with it. We can't really say
Speaker 1: what war crimes are when it comes to Israel. All
Speaker 1: of that has gone out the window. So now they're
Speaker 1: just left with like, well, it's good for the weapons
Speaker 1: makers to keep shipping these weapons and making more money.
Speaker 4: Insanity.
Speaker 2: So Russia annexing Eastern Ukraine illegal Israel settlements.
Speaker 3: It's complicated.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you know, they both got a historical claim, right,
Speaker 2: that's the defense that all of these people, I this
Speaker 2: sanctimony that we have been subjected to over the last
Speaker 2: two years. It has been one of the great pleasures
Speaker 2: to watch it completely unwined, just to make it all
Speaker 2: clear though, by the way, in terms of NATO, just
Speaker 2: because Germany may be acting well in this one instance,
Speaker 2: there has been a major development which we were miss
Speaker 2: if we didn't go into put it up there on
Speaker 2: the screen.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 2: Officially, yesterday, the Hungarian Parliament voted for Stockholm, Sweden to
Speaker 2: join the NATO Alliance, clearing the way for all thirty
Speaker 2: two countries for allowed to its ascension. This is effectively
Speaker 2: very noteworthy because Sweden, I don't think a lot of
Speaker 2: people understand this, has had an official policy of neutrality
Speaker 2: for two hundred years. They were actually neutral in the
Speaker 2: Second World War. A lot of US airmen who had
Speaker 2: damaged aircraft actually went and landed in Sweden and were
Speaker 2: interred there, apparently at a good time whenever they were there.
Speaker 2: But my point just being like, even when the Nazis
Speaker 2: were around and the Russians the Cold War.
Speaker 3: They had an official policy of neutrality.
Speaker 2: You really want to tell me that the things have
Speaker 2: changed so much for them to abandon it now. Listen,
Speaker 2: it's their right, but it's also our right not to
Speaker 2: allow them in. We've decided to Finland and Sweden adding
Speaker 2: a huge border with Russia. We actually have a map
Speaker 2: that we can show everybody here. This is extraordinary. I mean,
Speaker 2: look at this new map of NATO. But if we
Speaker 2: go to the next one, guys, please, I want everybody
Speaker 2: to understand just how much frontage has now been added
Speaker 2: for the overall NATO border. Look at that border crystal
Speaker 2: between Finland and Russia. We are talking about some eight
Speaker 2: hundred miles of new territory that basically the United States
Speaker 2: is now set to defend, and of which we will
Speaker 2: go to nuclear war over Finland, a country which has
Speaker 2: literally been at war with Russia and invaded by them previously.
Speaker 2: The theory being that we should extend it all the
Speaker 2: way over there to make sure that nothing happens. And
Speaker 2: lo and behold what has the effective result? Has Russia,
Speaker 2: you know, invaded Finland and.
Speaker 3: A that No, But guess what. They haven't backed down.
Speaker 2: They've increased defense spending historic levels, not just to fund Ukraine,
Speaker 2: They've actually remilitarized their border with Finland, and both Finland
Speaker 2: and Sweden now, who were both under the two percent
Speaker 2: defense threshold, are doing everything in their power to could
Speaker 2: you know, try and meet to two percent, which, look,
Speaker 2: I guess if they're going to be the Alliance at
Speaker 2: least I support that. But it's one of those where
Speaker 2: the circular logic of the war, it's like we've got
Speaker 2: to expand NATO to defend NATO. We got to defend
Speaker 2: Ukraine to defend NATO. It just it never ends. All
Speaker 2: it leads to is more of US entrenchment on the continent,
Speaker 2: where nobody ever asked why it makes any strategic sense. Like, sorry, Finland,
Speaker 2: you know you guys have been invaded before. Are you
Speaker 2: really that critical to the US economy?
Speaker 3: No, absolutely not. You people literally fought with the Nazis
Speaker 3: also in World War Two. Like we have to really.
Speaker 2: Think about what we're extending ourselves for. So I've been
Speaker 2: saying this rant for a while.
Speaker 3: Buck. Yeah, it's one of those where you.
Speaker 2: Know, you can't just let it pass because it's one
Speaker 2: of those it's just how just how North Macedonia got
Speaker 2: into the Alliance, just how Montenegro. Everybody just signs these
Speaker 2: people up as if there's no consequence to it. And
Speaker 2: then one day there really might be. And look at
Speaker 2: that border and tell me that you don't think nothing's
Speaker 2: gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and remember those expansions happened under the supposedly anti
Speaker 1: natas on the Trump So keep that in mind when
Speaker 1: you see this l freaka, Oh my god, he's going
Speaker 1: to break up the NATO alliance really because he did
Speaker 1: the exact opposite last time he was in office, you know,
Speaker 1: with regard to Finland the Russians. The Kremlin spokesman Pescavi
Speaker 1: told the BBC, Russia be watching closely how NATO uses
Speaker 1: the finished territory quote in terms of basing weapon systems
Speaker 1: and infrastructure there, which will be right up close to
Speaker 1: our borders, potentially threatening US. Based on that, measures will
Speaker 1: be taken. So, as far as I can tell, the
Speaker 1: entire logic logic of admitting Finland into NATO is basically like, oh,
Speaker 1: the Russians aren't.
Speaker 3: Going to like this, right, That's right?
Speaker 1: So is that what our forum policy is based around?
Speaker 1: Like owning the Russians? Because what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: creating more potential vectors of escalation, more potential vectors of conflict,
Speaker 1: and you're calling that improved security, not to mention, I
Speaker 1: mean the discussion that you're having here about Hey, American people,
Speaker 1: like are you ready to send your sons and daughters
Speaker 1: to you know, die for Finland or die for North
Speaker 1: Macedonia or whatever. That's never discussed in the US press,
Speaker 1: I mean really never discussed in the US space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and maybe the American people say, yeah, but we believe
Speaker 1: in that, you know, we think this is good for
Speaker 1: us whatever. But the very fact that the debate doesn't
Speaker 1: even happen, you know, it's just never spelled out what
Speaker 1: the implications actually are of this expansion. It's effectively taken
Speaker 1: as a given. It's accepted as just all upside, no downside,
Speaker 1: as a great way to like own putin, you know,
Speaker 1: put him in his place and show him that we're
Speaker 1: going to do the thing he doesn't want us to do,
Speaker 1: and for what ultimately, So that's the other tragedy here
Speaker 1: is just and this has been the case throughout the
Speaker 1: entire Ukraine War, is there's only ever been one side
Speaker 1: and one narrative presented. None of the potential follow on
Speaker 1: costs and consequences have ever been laid out. And that's
Speaker 1: how you end up in a situation like we are
Speaker 1: right now and like the Ukrainians are right now. That
Speaker 1: is horrible, absolutely horrible for everyone involved. With no end
Speaker 1: in sight and no plan for how we're going to
Speaker 1: ever resolve this conflict, that's how you end up there.
Speaker 1: So it is, it is, you know, it is a
Speaker 1: troubling dynamic. There's just no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: It's just one of those where you know, look, I
Speaker 2: can think about it in terms of economic terms. You
Speaker 2: know how much trade we do with Finland eleven billion dollars,
Speaker 2: Like you want to go to nuclear war over eleven
Speaker 2: billion dollars.
Speaker 3: Not everything is Munich, you know, Not everything is World
Speaker 3: War Two in the fall of France. It's the brain.
Speaker 2: It's the infection of the brain that you know. You
Speaker 2: can double NATO's border with Russia and nobody talks about it,
Speaker 2: and think about it in terms also not just you know,
Speaker 2: the nukes, because obviously we would get to there. Let's
Speaker 2: say it doesn't go nuclear and it's merely conventional. That means,
Speaker 2: just like in World War Two, there're gonna be guys
Speaker 2: from Kansas or wherever deployed up to the Arctic Circle
Speaker 2: to defend the territorial integrity of the Finnish Russo border. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's worth it. I think most people
Speaker 2: would agree with me if you actually put it up
Speaker 2: for a vote. But that's why it all just sneaks
Speaker 2: in and the next thing you know, boom, you get
Speaker 2: involved in this and you never even had a say
Speaker 2: in the first place.
Speaker 3: Enough of the soapbox, I think, Crystal, we've got Israel.
Speaker 1: We've got things to soapboxing regard to Israel as well.
Speaker 1: Are great President of the United States, Joseph Biden. He
Speaker 1: went on seth Myer's last night. Before he did though,
Speaker 1: he decided they decided to go get ice cream at
Speaker 1: thirty Walk, as you do, and it's just a bizarre
Speaker 1: scene unfolding.
Speaker 4: Gets asked about Israel and makes.
Speaker 1: Some actually confidential news about his expectations of this temporary ceasefire.
Speaker 4: Let's just watch how this all unfolded.
Speaker 10: When you think that will start, well, I hope by
Speaker 10: the beginning of the weekend, I mean the end of
Speaker 10: the weekend at least, my not security visor tells me
Speaker 10: that we're close. We're close, not done yet, and my
Speaker 10: hope is by next Monday we'll have.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, there's just something optically about
Speaker 1: talking about something so extraordinary, extraordinarily serious where thousands, if
Speaker 1: not millions of lives are on the line while you're
Speaker 1: casually eating an ice cream cone with Seth Myers. That
Speaker 1: it's just it just is very discordant. I guess would
Speaker 1: be the right word there. So in an attempt to
Speaker 1: I guess, silence the critics and show he's really really
Speaker 1: up to the job, et cetera, he decided to do
Speaker 1: this softball interview with Seth Myers on late I won't
Speaker 1: sit for, you know, a journalist at a real newspaper
Speaker 1: or anything that might be even remotely contentious, like what
Speaker 1: would have probably also been a softball interview in front
Speaker 1: of the super Bowl. But he'll go on late night
Speaker 1: television and you'll banter with Seth Myers. Here he did
Speaker 1: address a bit of his Israel policy.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to.
Speaker 2: Someha what you have to say, because again, we see
Speaker 2: this horrible every day, we see this horrible images of Gaza,
Speaker 2: and is there a path forward?
Speaker 3: Is there a safe future for the people who live there?
Speaker 7: There is a path forward with difficulty, But here's the
Speaker 7: path forward. Look, first of all, there are the hostages
Speaker 7: being held must be released, and then we've got at
Speaker 7: least some principal agreement. There will be a ceasefire well
Speaker 7: that takes place. Ramadan's coming up, and there's been an
Speaker 7: agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in
Speaker 7: activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us
Speaker 7: time to get all the hostages out. That gives us
Speaker 7: time to begin to move in directions that a lot
Speaker 7: of Arab countries are prepared to move in. For example,
Speaker 7: Saudi Arabia is ready to recognize Israel, Jordan, is Egypt,
Speaker 7: There's six other states. I've been working with Cutter, and
Speaker 7: the bottom line is that I'm not I think the
Speaker 7: only way Israel ultimately survives, and I make no bones
Speaker 7: about it. I get criticized for having said a long
Speaker 7: time ago, you need not be a Jew to be
Speaker 7: a Zionist. I'm a Zionist where they know Israel, there's
Speaker 7: not a Jew in the world to be safe. But
Speaker 7: here's the deal. They also have to take advantage of
Speaker 7: an opportunity to have peace and security for Israelis and
Speaker 7: Palestinians who are being used as pawns by Hamas. Israel
Speaker 7: has slowed down the attacks in Rafa. They have to,
Speaker 7: and they've made a commitment to me they're going to
Speaker 7: see to it that there's ability to evacuate significant portions
Speaker 7: of Rafa before they go and take out the remainder
Speaker 7: of Hamas.
Speaker 3: But it's a process.
Speaker 7: And look, Israel has had the overwhelming support of the
Speaker 7: vast majority of nations. If it keeps this up without
Speaker 7: this incredibly conservative government they have and Ben Gaverer and
Speaker 7: others the most I've known, every major foreign policy leader
Speaker 7: in Israel since go to Mayir, they're going to lose
Speaker 7: support from around the world and that is not an
Speaker 7: Israel's interest.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot there actually to say Sager first
Speaker 1: of all, on that last piece, you know, he wants
Speaker 1: to frame the problem with Israel as just being specific
Speaker 1: to these few extremists like BeneVir, just like with his
Speaker 1: settler policy. I'm going to sanction these four violent settlers,
Speaker 1: as if the problem with the settlements is just this
Speaker 1: fringe violent group, not the entire policy of settlements which
Speaker 1: has been ongoing since the Goldemeyer days. He wants to
Speaker 1: paint and is like, oh, it's just the problem is
Speaker 1: just this government which obviously is not the case, especially
Speaker 1: when you look at the fact that you know, all
Speaker 1: of the coalition members of the war Cabinet, even the
Speaker 1: ones that were quote unquote moderate, you know, people like
Speaker 1: President Isaac Hertzog, who's out there saying there's no uninvolved civilians.
Speaker 4: Like the overwhelming majority.
Speaker 1: Of Israeli society, regardless of where they situate themselves on
Speaker 1: the domestic political spectrum, is on board with this, you know,
Speaker 1: outrageous assault on the Gaza strip. So I think it
Speaker 1: is very disingenuous and really gas lighty to try to
Speaker 1: pin this just on Oh, it's just Ben Gavier. It
Speaker 1: is just these few extremists, that's the real problem here.
Speaker 4: That's number one. Number two.
Speaker 1: On Rafa, I noticed the language has shifted from originally
Speaker 1: the Biden administration was really warning net Yahoo against going
Speaker 1: into Rafa at all. Now he's saying, oh, I got
Speaker 1: this promise from bb that he's going to evacuate the
Speaker 1: civilians because you know, they've done such a great job
Speaker 1: of protecting civilians thus far. So I noted that shift
Speaker 1: in language, which we've seen some of before. The other thing, Sager,
Speaker 1: I find so disgusting this language about how if there
Speaker 1: wasn't an.
Speaker 4: Israel, there wouldn't be a Jew in the world who
Speaker 4: was safe.
Speaker 1: We have a huge Jewish diaspora here, and the idea
Speaker 1: that you are president of the United States and you
Speaker 1: don't think you can keep your own people safe is
Speaker 1: a real admission. That is, you know, that is sort
Speaker 1: of scary and disgusting all and pathetic all at once.
Speaker 1: But the other thing is here, in terms of Jewish secure,
Speaker 1: I would say that there is no country on the
Speaker 1: planet that is making Jews less secure than Israel. I
Speaker 1: think of those comments we played the other day of that,
Speaker 1: like you know, women's equality or whatever minister that they
Speaker 1: have in Israel who said she wants she is proud
Speaker 1: of the ruins of Gaza. She wants the children and
Speaker 1: the grandchildren of these Palestinians to know not what Israel did,
Speaker 1: what the Jews did to them. There is no country
Speaker 1: in the world that is filmenting more likely future extremism
Speaker 1: and radicalism against Jewish people than israelis right now. So
Speaker 1: on every level, I found those comments so obnoxious, abhorrent,
Speaker 1: disingenuous and just wrong that I can't even begin to
Speaker 1: describe it.
Speaker 2: But that line, too, has always bothered me, and it's
Speaker 2: like a typical Bidenism, So I just have it in
Speaker 2: front of me. There are seven point six million Jews
Speaker 2: in the United States who are living peacefully, freely as
Speaker 2: all other American citizens. There's only nine point three million
Speaker 2: people who live inside Israel. And if I have my
Speaker 2: math right, what is it? Around twenty percent of those
Speaker 2: are Arab.
Speaker 3: So what do we got.
Speaker 2: We have probably the same number of Jews who live
Speaker 2: in the US men who live in the State of Israel.
Speaker 2: So if Israel didn't exist, then the Jews in America
Speaker 2: wouldn't be safe. There have been Jews in this country
Speaker 2: since the Civil War. You know, there are people who
Speaker 2: Jews who fought on both sides whenever they didn't exist.
Speaker 2: They were proud patriots and they have a deep tie
Speaker 2: to our American history and they had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the State of Israel. Just so everybody knows. But
Speaker 2: this is the problem. You know, the Israelis want it
Speaker 2: that both ways too. They have it so that you
Speaker 2: have a conflation of Judaism and of their own sovereignty,
Speaker 2: which basically allows Israel not to be treated as a
Speaker 2: nation state like any other through which there are pluses
Speaker 2: and minuses. They imbue themselves with the religious sense. And
Speaker 2: then same thing here is that you conflate anti Zionism
Speaker 2: quote unquote with anti semit and with Jewish safety here
Speaker 2: in America. Now, the Jews themselves want to make the decision,
Speaker 2: that's your right as an American. But for an Irish
Speaker 2: Catholic president to say that, I think it's anti Semitic.
Speaker 2: I do because again it's a conflation of a nation
Speaker 2: statehood with the identity as a US citizen.
Speaker 3: I would say the same thing about India.
Speaker 2: You know, India's sovereignty or whatever has no place on
Speaker 2: my rights as or my conception or my identity as
Speaker 2: an American citizen. It happens to be a place where
Speaker 2: my family is from. There are a lot of countries
Speaker 2: that don't exist anymore. It'si Lesia or whatever. It's not
Speaker 2: a country but a region that people emigrated from to
Speaker 2: the US. But they don't think of their territorially integrity
Speaker 2: of that place. Let's say the Balkans Yugoslavia as conflating
Speaker 2: with their own identity and safety here in America. And
Speaker 2: that's the exact problem where a lot of domestic Jews
Speaker 2: want to have it both ways. But now the president
Speaker 2: wants to have it both ways too. I think that's
Speaker 2: really wrong.
Speaker 1: So I think part of this little, you know, late
Speaker 1: night appearance and whatever also has to do with the
Speaker 1: fact that the primary in Michigan is today. I think
Speaker 1: that the Biden campaign people have stopped diluting themselves about
Speaker 1: the idea that a lot of these people worried about
Speaker 1: the you know, our complicity and genocide and the Gaza.
Speaker 4: They'll get over it. They'll get over it, they'll move on.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. That's just this fringe group. They're really not
Speaker 1: that big a deal. I actually saw a poll that
Speaker 1: from yesterday from Emerson of the Michigan Democratic primary electorate
Speaker 1: that had roughly ten percent of voters planning to vote uncommitted,
Speaker 1: which pretty extraordinary, and almost thirty percent of young voters
Speaker 1: between eighteen and twenty nine planning to vote uncommitted. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like an ad hoc movement that just sprung up,
Speaker 1: that has next no money behind it, etc. And yet
Speaker 1: you have enough sentiment that it could potentially today take
Speaker 1: a significant chunk of the vote.
Speaker 4: So I think part of the why.
Speaker 1: He's out there, you know, doing his little ice cream
Speaker 1: ceasefire bit is to try to persuade people that, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in piece, Oh I'm really standing up
Speaker 1: to the Nat Yahoo government, etc.
Speaker 4: Etc. When it's going to take a lot more than that.
Speaker 1: At this point, you're going to have to actually change policy,
Speaker 1: not just pretend to be interested in peace for one
Speaker 1: late night appearance.
Speaker 4: In a sign of how concerned.
Speaker 1: They are about what the vote total will be in
Speaker 1: Michigan for uncommitted, they sent Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was
Speaker 1: way more popular in the state than Joe Biden by
Speaker 1: the way, out to try to get the vote out,
Speaker 1: to try to convince the Democratic faithful that they needed
Speaker 1: to go, they needed to show up, they needed to
Speaker 1: vote for Joe Biden. Let's take a listen to how
Speaker 1: she is making the case.
Speaker 11: Well, I'm not sure what we're going to stand on Tuesday.
Speaker 11: To tell you the truth, I can tell you this
Speaker 11: that Michigan has been so fortunate to be the home
Speaker 11: of a robust Arab Muslim Palestinian community.
Speaker 3: And a robust Jewish community.
Speaker 11: We've lived in harmony as neighbors for decades, and there's
Speaker 11: a lot of pain all across all of these communities
Speaker 11: because of what's happening halfway around the world. This is,
Speaker 11: I think a very high stakes moment. I am encouraging
Speaker 11: people to cast an affirmative vote for President Biden. I
Speaker 11: understand the pain that people are feeling, and I'll continue
Speaker 11: to work to build bridges with folks in all of
Speaker 11: these communities because they're all important to me, They're all
Speaker 11: important to Michigan, and I know they're all important to
Speaker 11: President Biden as well. Sounds like you're preparing for a
Speaker 11: sizable portion of the vote being uncommitted and sending that
Speaker 11: protest message to President Biden.
Speaker 3: You know, Dana, I'm just not sure what to expect.
Speaker 4: Just not sure what to expect. I mean, that's very interesting.
Speaker 1: So she doesn't want to set any expectations whatsoever for
Speaker 1: how it's going to come out. I mean, you can imagine,
Speaker 1: first of all, very clear, she's a much better politician
Speaker 1: than Joe Biden is. You know, she went on her
Speaker 1: way picked to vice president.
Speaker 3: She'd be way.
Speaker 4: Better than Tom Lays.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, in any case, you can see
Speaker 1: she's going out of her way to try to express
Speaker 1: her sympathy for Arab American populations. In the state, which
Speaker 1: she knows is a significant constituency in Michigan and very
Speaker 1: important to her electorally, not to mention Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: So you know, she's really trying.
Speaker 1: To express this sympathy while fully supporting the guy who
Speaker 1: was doing all the terrible things that are causing them
Speaker 1: so much pain and grief and causing them to turn
Speaker 1: away from the Democratic Party. But I found it extraordinary
Speaker 1: both that they felt the need to send her out
Speaker 1: to a variety of cable news shows, and I also
Speaker 1: found it quite extraordinary that she would not commit to
Speaker 1: what percent of the vote she thought Uncommitted would get.
Speaker 1: She did not want to set any sort of expectations
Speaker 1: so that they can spin after the fact. You know,
Speaker 1: if Uncommitted does get ten percent of the vote, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not that much, that's not that significant. In reality,
Speaker 1: that would be I think quite significant in the context of,
Speaker 1: you know, voting for literally Uncommitted over the guy who
Speaker 1: was president right now on this sort of like ad
Speaker 1: hoc shoestring effort that sprung up. Is uh, it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's interesting for a protest vote. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: No, I think they're I think they're worried about it
Speaker 2: a crystal, I really do, and because there's no other
Speaker 2: reason to have that. Also, I'm not sure if you
Speaker 2: saw Beto what he had. He had some sort of
Speaker 2: like maya culpa. He put out a statement He's like, actually,
Speaker 2: I do support President Biden.
Speaker 3: Just to be clear, my opinion of.
Speaker 4: Beato is back to what it used to be. That
Speaker 4: also shows their concern.
Speaker 1: They couldn't even let you know, the great influencer Beto
Speaker 1: O'Rourke to have them say on this. They had to
Speaker 1: completely log it down. What a what a weakling?
Speaker 4: That's so lame. I agreed, immediately caved.
Speaker 1: We also wanted to show you Nancy Pelosi was subject
Speaker 1: to something she's not used to, which was an actually
Speaker 1: tough interview, and there was a number of extraordinary moments,
Speaker 1: but one in particular where she's both exposed as completely
Speaker 1: ignorant and her attempted support for the Biden policy just
Speaker 1: crumbles in real time.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to how this went down.
Speaker 9: We have a.
Speaker 13: I don't want to call mister because I've lost so
Speaker 13: much respect for him. Nata Yahoo there, who seems to.
Speaker 12: Be you've lost respect for him?
Speaker 13: A long time ago. But nonetheless he seems to be
Speaker 13: calling the shots and he and his very extreme right
Speaker 13: wing I wouldn't even say conservative, because that's a legitimate
Speaker 13: place to be in the world of think England the spectrum,
Speaker 13: but right wing, radical, right wing cabinet.
Speaker 12: But there are leavers that Biden could use, which he
Speaker 12: hasn't used. There are leavers which previous presidents have used
Speaker 12: when Israel has, in their view, crossed the line.
Speaker 13: For example, go back.
Speaker 12: To the nineteen fifty six Eisenhower it's recum sanctions if
Speaker 12: Israel didn't pull its forces out of Sinai. Reagan, you know,
Speaker 12: held up delivery of fighter jets over Israel's action. Eleven
Speaker 12: George Bush Senior block loan guarantees because of settlement building.
Speaker 13: I was there the day that that. I know he
Speaker 13: went back to fifty six.
Speaker 12: I mean, so these levers are there.
Speaker 13: There's some, but the president has said something about the settlements.
Speaker 13: He has said something about the settlements, But.
Speaker 12: Saying and blocking weapons supplies for us very different things.
Speaker 13: It's not it's a path, it's a path.
Speaker 4: Path, it's a path.
Speaker 3: So the Reagan example was great, and she.
Speaker 1: Apparently, I guess it wasn't aware. She seemed to know
Speaker 1: about the bush one, lady, you.
Speaker 3: Were alive at that time. I'm pretty sure you were
Speaker 3: in Congress, so you know.
Speaker 1: And then this week like, well, the President has said
Speaker 1: something about the settlement. Oh wow, he said something about
Speaker 1: the settlements. What a brave warrior, really standing up for
Speaker 1: human rights here. And then when she's pressed on she's like,
Speaker 1: it's a path. It's like, well, yeah, I guess it
Speaker 1: is a path, isn't it. But you know, it's so
Speaker 1: rare that American politicians actually get pushed on any of this,
Speaker 1: and they're so locked into this mindset that, oh, well,
Speaker 1: Israel can just do whatever they want, we really have
Speaker 1: no power over them, et cetera, et cetera. I mean
Speaker 1: that is exposed right there then and there in real time.
Speaker 1: And she also sober echoes the same language about like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the problem is just this like extremist government, that's
Speaker 1: the real issue, trying to confine it to a few
Speaker 1: bad apples, so to speak, versus you know, the entirety
Speaker 1: of the project and the illegal occupation and the settlements
Speaker 1: and the you know, assault on Palestinians, the collective punishment
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is one of those where for
Speaker 2: a long for a while, there was a sizeable I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say anti settlement, but people who did not agree
Speaker 2: with the policy. It doesn't appear that they have any
Speaker 2: real power in Israeli society right now. A lot of
Speaker 2: that is downstream a demographic, a lot of it is
Speaker 2: downstream of how people feel.
Speaker 3: About Hamas about with the war.
Speaker 2: But there's no use in pretending that a society that
Speaker 2: exists doesn't exist. So we can't project, we can't project
Speaker 2: our own neurosies and desigres onto another country. I see
Speaker 2: this with American Indians all the time. They don't like
Speaker 2: Mody or a lot of the BJP, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well India does, and you don't live there anymore, so
Speaker 2: deal with it. It's one of those where you can't
Speaker 2: conjure up a fake country in your head. You just
Speaker 2: have to deal with what's actually in front of you.
Speaker 2: You also flag this crystal about the ICJ, and let's
Speaker 2: put it up there on the screen. They're currently filing
Speaker 2: their report to the ICJ by trying to protest the
Speaker 2: ruling that plausible acts of genocide were occurring and I
Speaker 2: think it fits very much with this where they both
Speaker 2: have their US politicians who are defending them, but at
Speaker 2: the baseline level, they are preparing and are worried about
Speaker 2: the continued pushback from the Community of Nations, even if
Speaker 2: there is no genuine enforcement mechanism, you know, per se,
Speaker 2: it's just you know, basically imagine it's like South Africa.
Speaker 2: Like if you find yourself basically, you know, at the
Speaker 2: crux of a global genuine BDS movement, then at post
Speaker 2: doctor seven, let's say two to three years from now,
Speaker 2: it's goin have some serious ramifications for your economy. I
Speaker 2: actually just saw a piece of news that flash this
Speaker 2: morning about how Secretary Janet Yellen just sent a letter
Speaker 2: to BB expressing concern about the situation of the Israeli
Speaker 2: economy and directly tying it to the West Bank and
Speaker 2: to continued settlement, saying that you have.
Speaker 3: A real problem here. So if our Treasury secretary is
Speaker 3: getting involved, you know, is bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So this report was mandated by the ICJ and their
Speaker 1: initial ruling saying that Israel is plausibly committing genocide, and
Speaker 1: they said you have a month to follow a report
Speaker 1: about how you're complying with these injunctions.
Speaker 4: They stopped short of.
Speaker 1: Overtly calling for a ceasefire, but they called on them
Speaker 1: to cease the actions that basically led them to that
Speaker 1: conclusion that you're plausibly committing genocide. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of focus on allowing in humanitarian aid, a lot of
Speaker 1: focus on accountability for those who are overtly inciting genocide.
Speaker 1: Now that's problematic for the Israelis since some of the
Speaker 1: comments cited in South Africa's filing go all the way
Speaker 1: up to the President and the Prime Minister and numerous
Speaker 1: Security Cabinet members, numerous LIQUD party members, etc. So this
Speaker 1: report that Israel filed, which unfortunately is actually private, is
Speaker 1: not made public, but reportedly they said it would be
Speaker 1: brief and that they were expected to assert this is
Speaker 1: per haurets, that it is permitting humanitarian aid including food,
Speaker 1: medical equipment, to enter Gaza in an organized manner, is
Speaker 1: permitting civilians to leave areas in which there is fighting in.
Speaker 4: Accords with international law.
Speaker 1: Report is also expected to state that Israel investigates the
Speaker 1: suspected war crimes in cases of incitement advocating harming civilians
Speaker 1: in Gaza to your point saga about how Israel does
Speaker 1: appear to be concerned about what happens at the Icy Jay,
Speaker 1: even as it doesn't, you know, as everyone always say,
Speaker 1: have an enforcement mechanism. Supreme Court also doesn't have an
Speaker 1: enforcement mechanism. It's all about the way that the institutions
Speaker 1: and bodies that are involved, whether they respect the decisions
Speaker 1: or not, they do seem to be concerned. They put
Speaker 1: out that memo, remember from a top leader of the Eye,
Speaker 1: basically being like, don't do any war crimes, guys, and
Speaker 1: definitely don't record yourself doing any war crimes. That was
Speaker 1: seen as basically, you know, a sort of like last
Speaker 1: minute attempt to cram for the exam of showing that
Speaker 1: they're serious about war crimes and human rights, etc. But
Speaker 1: let me show you the reality, which won't be any
Speaker 1: surprise to any of you who have been watching this show,
Speaker 1: because we've been covering the fact that they've been allowing
Speaker 1: these protesters to block AID from coming into the Gaza strip.
Speaker 1: So the idea that they've been you know, really expediting
Speaker 1: in AID and that that's been a top priority for
Speaker 1: them in compliance with what they're required to by the
Speaker 1: ICJ is obviously preposterous not to mention the fact that
Speaker 1: we now have confirmed reports of babies and others actually
Speaker 1: dying from starvation. But Human Rights Watch had specific numbers
Speaker 1: to Rebut what Israel is claiming here in their ICJ response,
Speaker 1: we can put this up on the screen. They say
Speaker 1: Israel is not complying with the World Court order in
Speaker 1: the genocide case, failing to ensure basic services and aid.
Speaker 4: Here's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: Fewer trucks have entered Gaza and fewer aid missions have
Speaker 1: been permitted to reach northern Gaza in the weeks since
Speaker 1: the ruling then in the weeks preceding it. According to
Speaker 1: the un SO data published by OCCHA and the UN
Speaker 1: Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East,
Speaker 1: say that the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza
Speaker 1: with food, aid, medicine, et cetera drop by more than
Speaker 1: a third in the weeks following the ICJ ruling. You
Speaker 1: had ninety three trucks posts per day post ICJ ruling
Speaker 1: versus one hundred and forty seven trucks per day, and
Speaker 1: you only had fifty seven trucks per day between the
Speaker 1: most recent time period between February ninth and February twenty first,
Speaker 1: so we're actually going backwards. We're going in the wrong
Speaker 1: direction in terms of humanitarian aid to a postulation that
Speaker 1: is now literally starving to death. And some portion of
Speaker 1: that certainly has to do with these protests that are
Speaker 1: being allowed, which are blocking the trucks. Another part of
Speaker 1: why this is occurring is because you've had now documented reports,
Speaker 1: including by CNN that Israeli forces have struck a food
Speaker 1: convoy that was back on February fifth. You've also had
Speaker 1: relief organizations saying that they can no longer operate because
Speaker 1: of their fear that they will be attacked. In spite
Speaker 1: of the fact that they're coordinating with the IDF, with
Speaker 1: Israeli authorities, they're giving them their coordinates to avoid being
Speaker 1: attacked standard deconfliction channels. That has been no guarantee whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So that's the other portion is that these aid convoys
Speaker 1: have no ability to move, especially to Dorlan Gaza, and
Speaker 1: remain safe. And you have very limited amounts coming into
Speaker 1: the Strip in the first place. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: preposterous to imagine that Israel has actually fulfilled their obligations
Speaker 1: that the ICJ ruled back a month ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it's the protests that they've allowed have been absolutely insane,
Speaker 2: especially considering their response that we covered yesterday to the
Speaker 2: protests there are against Bby. They just don't treat them equally.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, then you're basically allowing it to happen.
Speaker 2: And you know, people have eyes. Unfortunately for them, we
Speaker 2: all have. You know, there's video and Google Translate, and
Speaker 2: that's I honestly think if this had happened in the nineties,
Speaker 2: we've living in a totally different situation. Imagine no phones,
Speaker 2: you know, no footage, and I mean, in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways, it's kind of what two thousand and six
Speaker 2: was like. Two thousand and six was a brutal war.
Speaker 2: We didn't really learn that much. Most of it was
Speaker 2: totally controlled by the media apparatus. But in the current system,
Speaker 2: the stuff doesn't work anymore. There's some major media news
Speaker 2: which we've been wanting to cover now for quite some time.
Speaker 2: I have some mixed feelings about this. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Let's put it up there on the screen. Vice Media,
Speaker 2: which was once valued at five point seven billion dollars
Speaker 2: after filing for bankruptcy previously is now shutting down Vice
Speaker 2: dot Com and laying off hundreds of staffers.
Speaker 3: This is really extraordinary.
Speaker 2: So Vices were all remember, filed for bankruptcy last year.
Speaker 2: It was then bought by a consortium led by basically
Speaker 2: like one of those private investment groups. They're selling the
Speaker 2: company off piecemeal. They've come to a decision where what
Speaker 2: they've decided, We're just not going to publish on this
Speaker 2: website at all anymore. I don't really know what plans
Speaker 2: they have that remain for the brand, And hundreds of
Speaker 2: the people who worked there asked they're gone, on top
Speaker 2: of the hundreds of people that were already laid off previously.
Speaker 2: And I guess the only reason why I could say
Speaker 2: I have mixed feelings is I'm not quite sure that
Speaker 2: we would be at least I don't think I would
Speaker 2: be here without Vice. Vice was one of the major
Speaker 2: inspirations that I had for getting into this business. Watching
Speaker 2: the Vice Guides to Travel Shane Smith was a huge
Speaker 2: inspiration to me back in the early twenty tens, all
Speaker 2: of them, all of the original founders, kind of their
Speaker 2: image and the gonzo ability, but more importantly, it was
Speaker 2: a story of legitimately in the mainstream, and the.
Speaker 3: Millennial aspect was played up a bit too much.
Speaker 2: But the thing that they did get right was that
Speaker 2: the staid and the like boring aspect and the propagandistic
Speaker 2: ways that original media worked was not something that the
Speaker 2: new generation wanted, and I think early early days of
Speaker 2: Ice genuinely spoke to that, and that spoke to a
Speaker 2: lot of their success. But look, you know, at the
Speaker 2: same way, Shane has also been a very cautionary tale.
Speaker 2: One that I think about for our business all the
Speaker 2: time is I'm like this guy. I mean, he was
Speaker 2: raising billions and billions of dollars to turn into a
Speaker 2: Ponzi scheme where he's like taking money out inflating the value.
Speaker 2: At one point he admitted to somebody that there was
Speaker 2: no grand plan. It was to try and sell to
Speaker 2: the latest idiot who was buying their marketing place. You know,
Speaker 2: now he's living in luxury and Los Angeles last time
Speaker 2: I checked, Yeah, and all these people are screwed.
Speaker 1: That was what a lot of people pointed out. That
Speaker 1: executives were still getting big book fat bonuses last year
Speaker 1: as recently as last year, even as you know, their
Speaker 1: business model was completely crumbling. It is old for me
Speaker 1: to think about. First of all, it's sad for the
Speaker 1: people who worked there. And you know, this is part
Speaker 1: of a broader trend of massive media layoffs that we've
Speaker 1: been see La Times, BuzzFeed, you know, the collapse of
Speaker 1: the Messenger. That's a whole other story, but there's clearly,
Speaker 1: you know, a failure of some of the business models
Speaker 1: that supported, especially these digital focused companies for a long time.
Speaker 1: I agree with you the early days advice. You know,
Speaker 1: I was at MSNBC when Vice was really hot, right
Speaker 1: and they were terrified, the terrified advice because they could
Speaker 1: go out, they could send someone on a freaking ice.
Speaker 3: This ride along, which was wild.
Speaker 1: Any established media outlet, you know you have to have.
Speaker 1: First of all, you just probably wouldn't do it, but
Speaker 1: if you did, the expense involved, the caution involved, the
Speaker 1: number of fixers that you'd have to have, the amount
Speaker 1: of security you'd have to have, All of that would
Speaker 1: have to be in place for understandable good reasons, because
Speaker 1: you want to protect your people. And here comes Vice
Speaker 1: just willing to go balls out into all kinds of
Speaker 1: crazy stuff, and people were glued to it because it
Speaker 1: did have that like authentic, unvarnished, unpackaged, non corporate feel,
Speaker 1: and so it really was a glimpse and a preview
Speaker 1: into you know, some of the media brands now, the
Speaker 1: alternative media brands that are.
Speaker 4: Successful, you know, in terms of their business.
Speaker 1: I looked at their YouTube channel yesterday to see what
Speaker 1: kind of things they're doing.
Speaker 3: I mean there's, yeah, what's top was very like, it's very.
Speaker 1: Niche, but some of their stuff still pops off, you know,
Speaker 1: it still gets millions of you sometimes on YouTube. And
Speaker 1: so I was thinking, you know, Vice, at this point,
Speaker 1: it probably makes sense as like an operation a little
Speaker 1: bit larger than what we do, you know, to just
Speaker 1: put out like video content on these you know, interesting
Speaker 1: or edgy or whatever topics that have a real audience
Speaker 1: that people still are interested in. But and I think
Speaker 1: this is the case for a lot of these news
Speaker 1: organizations that have failed. But to have this like nine
Speaker 1: hundred person operation with this giant headquarters in Brooklyn or
Speaker 1: wherever and support all of that, there's just that's just
Speaker 1: not going to work.
Speaker 4: It's just not going to work.
Speaker 1: The other company that was the you know, big hot
Speaker 1: company at the time when Vice was coming up, and
Speaker 1: that everybody was terrified of and trying to get in
Speaker 1: on their success was BuzzFeed and as the same deal,
Speaker 1: I mean completely completely hollowed out. You know, that business
Speaker 1: model is also completely collapsed, and so you know a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, it really is an end, the end
Speaker 1: of an era for Vice and BuzzFeed and these other
Speaker 1: auntlets of feet totally hollowed out. But there was a
Speaker 1: moment there when there was a lot of dumb money
Speaker 1: flowing to these companies, many of which were much less
Speaker 1: credible than Vice or BuzzFeed. You think about like mic yeah,
Speaker 1: dot com and all these all these companies that sprung up.
Speaker 4: Then there were finally multiple.
Speaker 1: One hundred million dollars valuations and whatever, and money was
Speaker 1: flown out.
Speaker 4: What was the there was just recent with the recount.
Speaker 1: Was the video play that raised millions and millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: And it's like, I just want to know how that
Speaker 1: ever penciled out, however penciled out that that was going
Speaker 1: to work out from a business perspective, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: really make sense to me.
Speaker 3: It doesn't well.
Speaker 2: And the reason, look, it's funny whenever the rich people
Speaker 2: go bust, but it's not funny whenever you hire people
Speaker 2: and then they get screwed, but you legitimately sell them
Speaker 2: a vision. It also, there are hundreds of people who
Speaker 2: are now out of work. Let's put this up there
Speaker 2: on the screen. Just in January twenty twenty four or
Speaker 2: five hundred journalists were laid off from the La Times,
Speaker 2: from Vice, from so many different places, GQ Sports, Illustrated.
Speaker 2: So a lot of this is ideological, a lot of
Speaker 2: it is just bad business, as you point out with BuzzFeed.
Speaker 2: I just looked up their stock currently trading at thirty
Speaker 2: three cents a share. Whenever it debuted, it debuted at
Speaker 2: ten dollars a share.
Speaker 3: So what is that.
Speaker 2: You can do the math in terms of what the
Speaker 2: overall loss and their stock value is. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: basically a bargain company just waiting and being chucked off,
Speaker 2: you know, piece by piece. It's kind of humiliating for
Speaker 2: not only a lot of the money that was put in,
Speaker 2: but just for the game that a lot of those
Speaker 2: people talked at the time. It's one of those it's
Speaker 2: a good lesson in humility, but also just you know,
Speaker 2: you got to run scared, You got to be careful
Speaker 2: whenever you're running a company and I don't think a
Speaker 2: lot of these people did, so it's sad what happened.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite Vice docs was the guy Heimo,
Speaker 2: the one who lived in the Arctic Circle. It came
Speaker 2: out in like two thousand and nine. I remember watching him.
Speaker 2: I've never seen anything like this. I just watched you
Speaker 2: went on YouTube debut eleven years ago, now at some
Speaker 2: point has like eight and a half million views. I
Speaker 2: mean that was the heyday, the Vice Guide to North
Speaker 2: Korea with the cannibal thing from like Berria. I mean,
Speaker 2: these were incredible, incredible to watch. They changed the whole game,
Speaker 2: and then boom, you know, for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 2: most of them their own fault, it just.
Speaker 3: All went away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that ad supportive model just it just
Speaker 1: doesn't It doesn't work.
Speaker 4: It just doesn't work. It just doesn't pencil out.
Speaker 1: There just isn't the money there, And so you have
Speaker 1: to be able to switch to you know.
Speaker 4: Reader supported or viewer support, some sort.
Speaker 1: Of membership model, and to make that work, you have
Speaker 1: to be providing something that is really meaningful to people
Speaker 1: where they feel like they want to be invested into it.
Speaker 4: And even then, you know.
Speaker 1: It will be difficult to support, you know, nine hundred people.
Speaker 1: It's just an insane size and overhead to be able
Speaker 1: to support. I think there used to be, you know,
Speaker 1: going back in the day, there used to be like
Speaker 1: a prestige ethos around media where it wasn't so much
Speaker 1: about like this is a money making venture. It was
Speaker 1: more about, like, this is a civic commitment. This is
Speaker 1: a you know, prestige for me, my family, my whatever,
Speaker 1: my business. And so the profit making was also not
Speaker 1: as central. But also the business models worked a bit
Speaker 1: better than they do now. So I think we're very
Speaker 1: much in a transitional phase right now, and it's not
Speaker 1: clear whether what comes out on the other end is
Speaker 1: better or worse.
Speaker 2: I'd say big time, big time. All right, let's move
Speaker 2: on to the next part here. There was a very
Speaker 2: interesting exchange between Joe Rogan and Kid Rock on the
Speaker 2: war in Gaza that we wanted to break down for everybody.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 14: If you lived in Gaza, you would be convinced that
Speaker 14: it's the end of the world, right because it is
Speaker 14: the end of the world in one place, in that spot,
Speaker 14: it's the end of the world, but where you are
Speaker 14: it's not. And you got to look at it that way.
Speaker 14: And when I look at it that way, I'm.
Speaker 9: The only wars we won were fucking ones. We were
Speaker 9: the most brutal motherfuckers on the planet. Which I don't
Speaker 9: disagree with what Israel's doing. It's like they should just
Speaker 9: go in there and be like, you know what, we
Speaker 9: want our hostages back. If we don't have them back,
Speaker 9: clock starts now in fucking twenty four hours, we're gonna
Speaker 9: start bombing motherfuckers and killing fucking civilians thirty forty thousand
Speaker 9: a fucking time. So you civilians better fucking pack up
Speaker 9: and fucking get these fucking motherfuckers and you go against
Speaker 9: the oas you fucking go against them. We're not playing
Speaker 9: fucking games with you.
Speaker 3: That's the only thing people understand.
Speaker 9: This is what happened Nagasaki in Hiroshima, Boom swiped out.
Speaker 9: They're like, oh, yes, we don't have Supreme Leader more.
Speaker 9: We did not know you had such big bombs.
Speaker 14: Yeah, but everybody has big bombs.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 14: The problem is you use a big bomb, you set
Speaker 14: a precedent that they can use a big bomb. They
Speaker 14: don't have one, well they don't, but their allies too.
Speaker 3: That's the real.
Speaker 9: Problem out of them, someone's gonna learn.
Speaker 14: Yeah, but you can't just nuclear bomb people. I didn't
Speaker 14: say the nuclear bomb you back, No, I didn't. Okay,
Speaker 14: he said you here as Shima in Nagasaki. I thought
Speaker 14: you meant it like No, No, I.
Speaker 9: Was saying just the brute force of strength used in.
Speaker 14: Those Yeah, but even even a conventional bombing campaign, if
Speaker 14: you want to do that somewhere, they can do that
Speaker 14: to your place. And this is what we have.
Speaker 9: To fuck around and find out.
Speaker 14: Yeah, until someone launches nukes. Yeah, but if you think
Speaker 14: about you're a kid and you don't know why there's
Speaker 14: a conflict between Palestine and Israel, and you're living in Palestine,
Speaker 14: and then they start bombing and then they kill your mom.
Speaker 14: Yeah but you didn't do it. But right, but you
Speaker 14: didn't do anything.
Speaker 9: It sounds like butling.
Speaker 14: And then you get guns. You're gonna go want to
Speaker 14: attack people, You're going to want to avenge them, You're
Speaker 14: gonna want to join whatever group whatever World War two end.
Speaker 9: Now, I'm sorry, man, this is fucking war. It's terrible.
Speaker 9: It's the worst thing on earth. I'm a peaceful man.
Speaker 14: Right, but you're not supposed to pick civilian targets that's actually.
Speaker 3: Supposed to targets they are.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of I think going on there.
Speaker 3: I think it's okay.
Speaker 2: First of all, what I find interesting about Kid Rock
Speaker 2: is he clearly, uh, you know, no offense, mister Rock.
Speaker 2: But it appears you haven't done actually a little bit
Speaker 2: of reading about the Second World War and exactly why
Speaker 2: Hiroshima and Nagasaki and those targets were picked. You know,
Speaker 2: even at that time, the explicit justification Crystal was not
Speaker 2: to hit civilian targets for the sake of them. It
Speaker 2: was to wipe out mechanical centers and specifically centers of production.
Speaker 3: The only time where there was an.
Speaker 2: Explicit goal of basically burning an entire city of civil
Speaker 2: billions and all that to the ground was dressed in
Speaker 2: that was actually not the US.
Speaker 3: It was a UK centered operation.
Speaker 2: But even then there was a lot of consternation in America,
Speaker 2: in the UK government and elsewhere when that decision was made,
Speaker 2: and it was never justified in the terms that Kid
Speaker 2: Rock is laying out there.
Speaker 4: And it didn't work.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, but there's let's presume that it did work.
Speaker 2: I think there's a case for the atomic bomb, that
Speaker 2: it definitely compelled right the surrender. But my point is
Speaker 2: that throughout the entire justification of the firebombing campaign on Tokyo,
Speaker 2: on all of the major cities in Japan, it was
Speaker 2: always to center industrial production. It was never a primary goal,
Speaker 2: including of Curtis LeMay and of bomber Command. You can
Speaker 2: go and read the history if you would like to.
Speaker 2: I have done extensive, deep dive into the topic, and
Speaker 2: it was explicitly agreed from the chiefest Staff, the President
Speaker 2: of the United States, Harry Truman, and everybody involved that
Speaker 2: it was not the quote unquote the purpose of the operation,
Speaker 2: and that was when we had atomic and air supremacy.
Speaker 2: Rogan's best point there is like, well, first of all, dude,
Speaker 2: you know other people can also do that. And this
Speaker 2: the reason I'm talking this way is let's accept that
Speaker 2: this actually would work.
Speaker 3: Well, it didn't work, number one.
Speaker 2: You know, it may have worked in the atomic case,
Speaker 2: but the atomic supremacy and all that we had at
Speaker 2: that time no longer applies in this. And then whenever
Speaker 2: we did firebomb Dresden and in much of the lat
Speaker 2: later stages of the war, the veracity of the ferocity
Speaker 2: of the fire botting campaign compelled many Germans, including Luffwaffa
Speaker 2: pilots weremox soldiers, children, older men, to fight even more
Speaker 2: for Hitler because they didn't want to repeat the same
Speaker 2: humiliation of Versailles, which made it much more bloody and
Speaker 2: much more difficult to compel victory in the first place.
Speaker 2: So that's if you just don't even accept much of
Speaker 2: the morality. And then Rogan's point of course is like,
Speaker 2: hey man, that's also a war crime, Like you're not
Speaker 2: supposed to do that. And that's the thing what shocks
Speaker 2: me is even you know, everybody just tries to retcon
Speaker 2: World War Two. They didn't even talk like this then,
Speaker 2: and we were fighting the Nazis the Japanese.
Speaker 1: And they hid the photos and videos of what was
Speaker 1: done to civilians.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, for that kid, because they knew the whore.
Speaker 1: And there's also a reason why after World War Two
Speaker 1: we say, all right, we got to have some rules
Speaker 1: of the road here, because to your point, even at
Speaker 1: that time, it was clear that the US wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be the only one with nuclear capabilities, and so
Speaker 1: you know, that was why we had to establish, all right,
Speaker 1: we have to protect civilians number one, because this shit
Speaker 1: that just happened cannot happen again, and why there was
Speaker 1: so much policy around nuclear deterrence, because it is a
Speaker 1: very different deal when you are the one and only
Speaker 1: batty out there with a nuke and now you know
Speaker 1: Israel had Iran is closed.
Speaker 3: You have numerous Saudi scouty's to have nukes, You.
Speaker 1: Have numerous global powers with nuclear massive nuclear capabilities that
Speaker 1: could literally destroy the world, and actually appreciated Brogan bring
Speaker 1: that up because that is the facet of this that
Speaker 1: we actually don't that often we talked about it. We
Speaker 1: talk about it more with regard to Russia and Ukraine
Speaker 1: because the conflict there is so direct. But that is
Speaker 1: the logic of you know, kid rocks, idiotic, fuck around
Speaker 1: and find out. Mentality is like, oh really, let's explore
Speaker 1: where that actually goes. He raises not only the fact of,
Speaker 1: you know, the escalation that you do not ultimately want,
Speaker 1: which could have massive implications for everyone in the globe.
Speaker 1: He raises the morality of you can't target civilians, that's
Speaker 1: a war crime. There's a reason why we put that
Speaker 1: out of bounds. But he also talks about the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, even in terms of even if you
Speaker 1: put aside the morality of it, which I don't think
Speaker 1: we should do. But even if you put that aside,
Speaker 1: these little kids we just had their mom killed, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is going to happen to them?
Speaker 4: They're going to be radicalized, They're going to grow up and.
Speaker 1: Join whatever militant terrorist organization is available, and they're going
Speaker 1: to try to come and kill you. So even just
Speaker 1: from a logical like all right, we got to win
Speaker 1: and we got to keep our people safe, etc. Perspective,
Speaker 1: this is foolish. And it has been clear that this
Speaker 1: is foolish from the very beginning. So I actually thought
Speaker 1: he did a good job raising some very salient points
Speaker 1: in a very accessible way. And I mean, kid Rock
Speaker 1: is just embarrassing. Sometimes people think Joe is just going
Speaker 1: to go along with whatever insane bullshit they're going to spell,
Speaker 1: and he has this normal instinct of like, you know,
Speaker 1: other people have big bombs too, and by the way,
Speaker 1: those are war crimes, so maybe we shouldn't be going
Speaker 1: in that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's also it actually doesn't make sense too.
Speaker 2: I mean, what everybody where the instinct comes from is
Speaker 2: it's an obvious instinct and It's one that a lot
Speaker 2: of Americans said after World War or sorry, after nine
Speaker 2: to eleven.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, it's bomb back to the Stone Age.
Speaker 2: Everything I learned about Islam I learned about on nine
Speaker 2: to eleven.
Speaker 3: But here's what people don't get.
Speaker 2: I think the only historical precedent for the mindset that
Speaker 2: he's talking about there is Jenghis Khan and the Mongols
Speaker 2: in terms of the way that they were able to
Speaker 2: subjugate many of the powers that.
Speaker 3: Were under them. Here's where everybody forgets.
Speaker 2: After a while, those people, all, you know, they may
Speaker 2: have acquiesced in the beginning, they mostly fought back, and
Speaker 2: in the end they threw off the Mongols after let's
Speaker 2: say one hundred years or so. My point only being
Speaker 2: that it doesn't really ever work. You know, in the
Speaker 2: long run. The best empires, the ones that were ever
Speaker 2: able to successfully conquer, which even the Mongols eventually resorted to,
Speaker 2: was listen, you know, we're in charge. You pay us
Speaker 2: some tax, but you do what you want to do.
Speaker 2: As in, trying to compel people through force for a
Speaker 2: long and sustained period of time is very rarely a
Speaker 2: winning solution.
Speaker 3: That's again the point that I would make.
Speaker 2: I would also say, you know, look at the number
Speaker 2: of people that they've already killed. If it was if
Speaker 2: the logic was theirs, we're going to continue to kill
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of people without the hostages being turned over.
Speaker 3: Well it hasn't worked so far, Yeah, you know, it hasn't.
Speaker 2: If anything, also, I mean, what's the most common talking point,
Speaker 2: Hamas doesn't care about the population. Well, if that's true,
Speaker 2: then why would they care if you continue to massacre
Speaker 2: the population. What's the population supposed to do about it?
Speaker 2: You think they know where all the hostages are? No,
Speaker 2: they don't. I just saw video yesterday, I think yesterday
Speaker 2: of Ryan that Ryan highlighted people of Hamas explicitly, you know,
Speaker 2: having a conflict or whatever with the local population. But
Speaker 2: it's one of those where you really still obscure, you know,
Speaker 2: the actual.
Speaker 3: People who are on the ground, and you're genuinely defensive.
Speaker 2: So that's something that I've taken away from a lot
Speaker 2: of the reading on the Tokyo campaign, on the fire
Speaker 2: bombing campaign, and on Dresden and all of that as well.
Speaker 3: These really were ordinary folks.
Speaker 2: I'm talking like farmers daughters, people who were sixteen seventeen
Speaker 2: years old, little kids, and they burned alive. And it's
Speaker 2: one of those where the people around them never forgot it,
Speaker 2: and they fought.
Speaker 3: To the death as a result of what they saw, in.
Speaker 2: Many cases executed prisoners of our prisoners of war and
Speaker 2: others as explicit revenge for those past which I do
Speaker 2: not hope or want invite. It was a horrible time
Speaker 2: and it's not something we would ever want to repeat again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we don't want to go backwards there, Crystal,
Speaker 1: What are you taking a look at? A massive scandal
Speaker 1: is developing the New York Times, where it has now
Speaker 1: been revealed but the co author of a discredited article
Speaker 1: on rape on October seventh, liked genocidal posts on social media,
Speaker 1: is a former member of an IDF intelligence unit and
Speaker 1: had not even worked as a journalist at all prior
Speaker 1: to taking on a central role in Times coverage. The
Speaker 1: Times is now investigating the journalists, a woman by the
Speaker 1: name of a Not Schwartz. But the questions about this
Speaker 1: incident go so far beyond this one journalist and her
Speaker 1: appreciation for psychopathic social media posts. So here is the backstory.
Speaker 1: On December twenty eighth, the New York Times published and
Speaker 1: News alerted what appeared to be an extensive investigation into
Speaker 1: one of the most fraught and contested parts of the
Speaker 1: Israeli October seventh narrative, that sexual assault was used by
Speaker 1: Hamas systematically as a weapon of war on that day.
Speaker 1: The piece was headlined screams without words, how Hamas weaponized
Speaker 1: sexual violence on October seventh, and the byeline name three
Speaker 1: different authors, Jeffrey Gettelman, Anna Schwartz, and Adam Sella. Now,
Speaker 1: the fact that Hammas committed atrocities on October seventh is
Speaker 1: not in dispute. However, certain particularly horrifying anecdotes claimed by
Speaker 1: the Israeli government had fallen apart under scrutiny by Israeli
Speaker 1: outlet Haretz. These debunked claims include that forty babies were beheaded,
Speaker 1: that a baby was found in an oven, and that
Speaker 1: a pregnant woman had her baby cut out of her,
Speaker 1: among others. It is no accident, of course, that these
Speaker 1: stories were propagated. This ajic prop about the barbarism of
Speaker 1: Hamas was crucial for Israel in their attempt to justify
Speaker 1: a barbaric assault on the Gaza Strip. So this piece
Speaker 1: Screams Without Words was published by the New York Times
Speaker 1: purporting to back up Israeli assertions about widespread rape on
Speaker 1: October seventh. It was incredibly significant, but no sooner had
Speaker 1: the piece been published that major problems emerged. The family
Speaker 1: of a woman murdered by Jimlas, who was presented as
Speaker 1: a central figure in the New York Times narrative about
Speaker 1: widespread rape, denounced the story in furious and unequivocal terms.
Speaker 1: They claimed that when The Times interviewed them about their
Speaker 1: murdered loved one, Gal Abdush, under false pretenses. The family
Speaker 1: said that they had no indication Gal had been raped,
Speaker 1: no evidence to support such claims, did not believe them
Speaker 1: to be true, and that they had no idea that
Speaker 1: The Times had planned to say.
Speaker 4: That Gal had been raped.
Speaker 1: Multiple family members told the Israeli press that the media
Speaker 1: invented the story and demanded that they stop spreading lies.
Speaker 1: Gal's story comprised no less than one third of the
Speaker 1: lengthy Times report, and that was really just the beginning
Speaker 1: of the problems with that report. Key witnesses were caught
Speaker 1: telling inconsistent stories to different news outlets. Screams Without Words
Speaker 1: had relied on the testimony of a volunteer with an
Speaker 1: ultra orthodox nonprofit called Zaka that had been caught fabricating
Speaker 1: some of the most visceral debunked anecdotes about October seventh,
Speaker 1: including that one about the forty beheaded babies, and the
Speaker 1: Times itself, well, they appeared to lose confidence in the reporting,
Speaker 1: as our colleague Rian Graham, along with Daniel Bogislaw reported
Speaker 1: for The Intercept, an episode of the New York Times
Speaker 1: flagship podcast, The Daily had been planned to detail the
Speaker 1: reporting from the sexual assault piece, which had originally been
Speaker 1: much hyped by the New York Times newsroom. But as
Speaker 1: the quote unquote reporting in the piece fell apart, the
Speaker 1: Times was left with a major dilemma about what to do.
Speaker 1: Should they ignore the problems, stand by their shoddy reporting
Speaker 1: and push out the Daily episode as recorded.
Speaker 4: Should they edit the Daily.
Speaker 1: Episode and attempt to correct the record, add caveats and
Speaker 1: effectively admit the problems with that original report, or should
Speaker 1: they take the coward's way out and just shelve the
Speaker 1: episode entirely. Now, a responsible outlet would either correct the
Speaker 1: original story or retract it. Given these serious journalistic failings
Speaker 1: that have been brought to light, but the Times shows
Speaker 1: to keep their propaganda piece as is, shelve the daily
Speaker 1: episode and hope that everyone just moved on. Incredibly, the
Speaker 1: lead author of that piece, Jeffrey Gettleman, was at great
Speaker 1: pains to explain that as a journalist, he did not
Speaker 1: see his job as providing evidence for his reporting claims.
Speaker 4: Take a listen.
Speaker 5: I don't want to even use the word evidence because
Speaker 5: evidence is almost like the legal term that suggests you're
Speaker 5: trying to prove an allegation or prove a case of court.
Speaker 5: That's not my role.
Speaker 8: We all have our roles, and my role is to document,
Speaker 8: is to percent, is to give people of voice.
Speaker 1: So if this investigation didn't include evidence, what the hell
Speaker 1: are we doing here? But as if all of that
Speaker 1: wasn't wild enough, we are now learning some absolutely shocking
Speaker 1: things about the background of the second reporter on that piece,
Speaker 1: the aforementioned A not Schwartz. Shout out to the Squirrel
Speaker 1: for doing this digging online. First of all, on October seventh,
Speaker 1: a not like to post calling for Gaza to be
Speaker 1: turned into a slaughterhouse. This post was so overtly genocidal
Speaker 1: in its rhetoric that it was actually cited in South
Speaker 1: Africa's filing at the HEGG. The post read, in part one,
Speaker 1: principle that needs to be abandoned today proportionality need a
Speaker 1: disproportionate response. May Israel see what she is hiding in
Speaker 1: the basement. If all the captives are not returned, immediately
Speaker 1: turn the strip into a slaughterhouse. If a hair falls
Speaker 1: from their head, execute security prisoners violate.
Speaker 4: Any norm on the way to victory.
Speaker 1: The post goes on to explain quote those in front
Speaker 1: of us are human animals and not also apparently liked
Speaker 1: a post about that forty beheaded babies lie, and another
Speaker 1: one calling for an effective propaganda operation to equate humas
Speaker 1: with isis love for our journalists to be out here
Speaker 1: explicitly advocating for propaganda campaigns. This is completely insane. If
Speaker 1: a journalists had liked similarly genocidal post calling for Israel
Speaker 1: to be turned into a slaughterhouse, it would be a
Speaker 1: national scandal. The entire New York Times leadership be dragged
Speaker 1: in front of congressional hearings and summarily fired. In fact,
Speaker 1: New York Times foresound a prominent staff writer who was
Speaker 1: not involved in Israel Palisi and coverage simply for signing
Speaker 1: a letter opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza. The International Court
Speaker 1: of Justice, of course, has now agreed that it is
Speaker 1: in fact plausible Israel is committing genocide. Now, after Annot's
Speaker 1: posts were exposed, she locked down her Twitter account deleted
Speaker 1: most of her history before returning. While she can delete
Speaker 1: her social media history, she can't really so easily delete
Speaker 1: her professional past, which, if anything, is actually even wilder so. Apparently,
Speaker 1: prior to landing this plum gig at the New York Times,
Speaker 1: a not Schwartz had never worked as a journalist, never
Speaker 1: published a single piece anywhere. Ever, before being scooped up
Speaker 1: by The Times in November, just after the October seventh attack,
Speaker 1: she had been working as a small time filmmaker. Perhaps
Speaker 1: the Times was looking for someone with a flair for
Speaker 1: the cinematic, but really think about this. Actual journalists spend
Speaker 1: their entire careers dreaming of a New York Times byline.
Speaker 1: The Times, after all, is the holy grail of elite journalism,
Speaker 1: and this lady with literally zero experience somehow gets brought
Speaker 1: in on a highly sensitive investigation on one of the
Speaker 1: most fraught topics imaginable.
Speaker 4: How the hell did this happen?
Speaker 7: But not?
Speaker 1: Is not only a former filmmaker, she is also a
Speaker 1: former IDF soldier who served, I kid you not, in
Speaker 1: an Air Force intelligence unit. So the lady with the
Speaker 1: genocidal social media posts, with no prior journalism experience and
Speaker 1: a background in Israeli military intelligence was contracted to report
Speaker 1: on a piece which perfectly served Israeli government propaganda efforts
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 4: What is happening here?
Speaker 1: Ryan, of course has been doing great reporting, as usually
Speaker 1: he has got it from several sources. The Times is
Speaker 1: parting ways with a not It's already been reported she
Speaker 1: is under investigation, but at this point those actions seem
Speaker 1: like convenience scapegoating to cover up much graver questions, who
Speaker 1: brought this lady in, how did they find her, who
Speaker 1: green let this piece? Why have they not addressed the
Speaker 1: journalistic collapse of their supposedly blockbuster investigation, and what other
Speaker 1: Israeli propaganda and lies are they currently laundering.
Speaker 4: It's not only The New York.
Speaker 1: Times, by the way, Wall Street Journal recently published a
Speaker 1: piece based on zero evidence that ran cover for Israeli
Speaker 1: claims about UNRA, which helped justify the US pulling aid
Speaker 1: at a time when Palestinians in.
Speaker 4: Gaza are starving to death.
Speaker 1: That piece, too, was co authored by a so called
Speaker 1: journalist named Carrie Keller Lynn with undeniable biases. She too
Speaker 1: served in the IDF, and Aaronview bragged about how her
Speaker 1: very close friend literally created social media for the IDF.
Speaker 4: Those are her words, not mine.
Speaker 1: Once these photos that you can see on your screen
Speaker 1: starts circulating, Carrie Keller Lynn also locked her accounts, scrubbed
Speaker 1: her history, or prevent anyone from gathering further insights into
Speaker 1: her pro Israel bias. Now this incident casts in a
Speaker 1: whole new light. The studies would show systematic bias across
Speaker 1: major news outlets when it comes to coverage of Israelis
Speaker 1: and coverage of Palestinians. Israelis are slaughtered, Palestinians just mysteriously die,
Speaker 1: great pains are often taken and make sure that Israel
Speaker 1: Is never directly ascribed blank. And as the Palestinian death
Speaker 1: toll has climbed, the coverage of their deaths has actually plummeted.
Speaker 1: It is a testament to the outrageous nature of the
Speaker 1: suffering that, in spite of this, onslaught of lies and propaganda.
Speaker 1: The American people still overwhelmingly support a ceasefire, even or
Speaker 1: not with her skills as a filmmaker with an Israeli
Speaker 1: intelligence background, can't craft propaganda strong enough to overcome the
Speaker 1: visceral horror of what has been done. And Sager Ryan
Speaker 1: has another piece.
Speaker 2: Which is going to post, and if you want to
Speaker 2: hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber
Speaker 2: today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 3: All right, well see you guys. Was later
Speaker 13: Mhm