Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 2: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent.
Speaker 3: Coverage that is possible.
Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means
Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: let's get to the show.
Speaker 4: Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints.
Speaker 3: How you doing, Emily, I'm good, cold but good.
Speaker 5: So we've got the world on the custom of World
Speaker 5: War three, and we've got big news out of all three.
Speaker 4: Branches of the federal government today.
Speaker 5: I also did an pre interview yesterday with giamm Long,
Speaker 5: former Foreign Minister of Ecuador, that we'll play either later
Speaker 5: today or later this week. But we're not going to
Speaker 5: be able to talk at length about the Supreme Court today,
Speaker 5: which is hearing a case that could upend basically everything,
Speaker 5: So tell us a little bit about that before we
Speaker 5: get into the rest.
Speaker 6: So Chevron deference is essentially what's on the table at
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court oral arguments.
Speaker 5: I mean, basically the ability of the administrative state to
Speaker 5: administer state.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, So the Supreme Court decided a long time
Speaker 6: ago that deference if there is no clear direction from Congress,
Speaker 6: then the federal agency. The federal agencies have deference to
Speaker 6: essentially make their rules for how things run. So what's
Speaker 6: on the table, for example, in this case is some
Speaker 6: herring fishermen off in New Jersey. There are federal mandates
Speaker 6: that say you have to pay for federal observers, and
Speaker 6: they're challenging that because it's just a I think it's
Speaker 6: an EPA either way, it's one of the Cabinet agencies rules.
Speaker 6: They don't want to have to pay for the federal observers.
Speaker 6: So that's what's getting tangled up. There's something called major
Speaker 6: questions doctrine, which I know you know about. Yeah also
Speaker 6: says that in yeah so, but this is not a
Speaker 6: major question, is the And that's why it's made its
Speaker 6: way to the Supreme Court. This is something that the
Speaker 6: federal society has been like salivating over, maybe literally for
Speaker 6: a very long time.
Speaker 3: I hope Chevron tefference falls.
Speaker 6: I know, right, and I disagree on that, but it
Speaker 6: does basically undo everything I will say. I've talked to
Speaker 6: lawyers even like sort of federal society aligned conservative lawyers
Speaker 6: who actually don't think that if this is overturned, which
Speaker 6: given the makeup of the court it looks like it
Speaker 6: will be overturned.
Speaker 3: We'll see more in the oral arguments to day.
Speaker 6: I've talked to lawyers though, who say, basically, it's not
Speaker 6: that big of a deal, that it's not the sort
Speaker 6: of one two punch that conservatives think it is if
Speaker 6: Chevron's overturned, because now there are so many different, you know,
Speaker 6: other machinations and things that are baked into the cake.
Speaker 5: Essentially, I would just say, be careful what you wish for,
Speaker 5: because the administrative state is what stitches together all of
Speaker 5: the laws, and if you get if you get rid
Speaker 5: of those laws, you know who would love that, plaintiffs.
Speaker 3: Lawyers, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 5: Then they are completely unshackled and they can do the
Speaker 5: heck out of everybody.
Speaker 6: And monopolistic corporations. I mean, it's yeah, it definitely. There's
Speaker 6: a lot on the table in the oral arguments today,
Speaker 6: so we'll be covering those in the future for sure.
Speaker 6: The decision, of course, will come down in June.
Speaker 4: Very end of the show.
Speaker 5: We're going to have Sam Goodaldig, a Republican lobbyist, and
Speaker 5: Mike Williams, a Democratic lobbyist, with kind of what I
Speaker 5: think is going to be a fascinating conversation.
Speaker 4: You don't want to stick around for that.
Speaker 5: I've got an interesting story that I'll talk about later
Speaker 5: in the show that Ukraine. The Ukrainian military is now
Speaker 5: using iba gain, an extremely powerful hallucinogen, in microdoses to
Speaker 5: treat both dramatic brain injury and also for battle readiness.
Speaker 4: This is new reporting I've got over in the intercept.
Speaker 5: It's kind of Ukrainians on iba gain versus Russians on
Speaker 5: meth is how one of my sources described it.
Speaker 4: So that's where we are at this point with that.
Speaker 3: One can't wait for that segment.
Speaker 6: That's really interesting reporting, Ryan, we are talking about the
Speaker 6: Republican primary, a horrible dispute happening at the southern border
Speaker 6: with the Texas government, the federal government. We're going to
Speaker 6: talk about updates from Israel. Let's start though, with the Houthies, so.
Speaker 4: They were fresh. We can put this first element up fresh.
Speaker 5: US aristraces, the third launched against the houthis coming at
Speaker 5: the same time as the United States is designating the
Speaker 5: Houthis as a terror organization. We will talk about later
Speaker 5: in this segment. There's this thinking among kind of American
Speaker 5: policy makers that all of the bombing of Yemen during
Speaker 5: the Obama administration didn't do it. All of the bombing
Speaker 5: of Yemen during the Trump administration through Saudi Arabia and
Speaker 5: the UA that didn't get the job done. And what
Speaker 5: we need now is just a little bit more bombing
Speaker 5: of Yemen and that's going to solve the crisis.
Speaker 6: Well, and you said something interesting there, which is a
Speaker 6: little bit more bombing, right.
Speaker 4: Because this is not the it's not Gaza level bombing, no.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, exactly, So it's this again, it's a
Speaker 6: tit for tat retaliation basically that to your point, comes
Speaker 6: on the heels of years and it's after October seventh now,
Speaker 6: so obviously things have changed a bit, but it's not
Speaker 6: an all out full scale and that's where it sort
Speaker 6: of becomes again. We talked about this yesterday for the
Speaker 6: Biden administration, what is the end goal of the bombing.
Speaker 5: Right, because a full scale like invasion of Yemen and
Speaker 5: occupation of Sana in order to stop attacks on the
Speaker 5: Red Sea is obviously not in the cars.
Speaker 3: No, nobody's even talking about it.
Speaker 5: And so if all the Huthis need is the access
Speaker 5: is access to a couple of missiles and a couple
Speaker 5: of drones to continue to threaten shipping, no amount of
Speaker 5: bombing is going to stop that. In fact, it's absurd,
Speaker 5: Like the more we can put up a three real quickly,
Speaker 5: just jump to this one and then we'll go back
Speaker 5: to a two. So Shell announced that it is shockingly
Speaker 5: suspending red sea shipments amid a war, like so we
Speaker 5: are escalating a war, launching regular air strikes and expecting
Speaker 5: that somehow, as a result of that, shipping company are
Speaker 5: going to be like, oh cool, we're good now. As
Speaker 5: long as the war is hotter and wider, then yeah,
Speaker 5: we'll send our ships through here. Right when these shipping
Speaker 5: companies like they actually don't care that much, Like if
Speaker 5: they have to go around the Horn of South Africa,
Speaker 5: they'll charge more. The people who get charged more on
Speaker 5: the other end are the ones that are going to
Speaker 5: start complaining. And also obviously all of the Israeli shipping
Speaker 5: companies in the ports that are now you know, mostly
Speaker 5: idly and sitting empty. It's grinding significant elements of the
Speaker 5: Israeli economy to a halt as a result of this.
Speaker 6: The journal notes around twelve percent of total global seaborne
Speaker 6: oil trade goes through the Red Sea.
Speaker 5: Right right, So then that is eventually going to drive
Speaker 5: up prices. And that's and that's what the US is
Speaker 5: responding to, which is why the US called its operation Prosperity.
Speaker 3: Guardian Prosperity Guardian.
Speaker 5: They then subsequently said that they didn't need congressional authorization
Speaker 5: for air strikes on Yemen because they were defensive in action,
Speaker 5: but defensive against what it's defensive of the global economy,
Speaker 5: not of the United States. And you also can't I've
Speaker 5: heard you say, well they attacked one of the ships.
Speaker 5: Well you're not allowed to introduce a ship into hostilities
Speaker 5: and then have that ship receive hostile fire and then say, okay,
Speaker 5: well now we have to defend ourselves. Like, that's not
Speaker 5: an end run around Article one of the Constitution, which
Speaker 5: gives Congress the authority to declare war.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean absolutely not.
Speaker 6: Let's put a two back up on the screen here,
Speaker 6: what you're going to see, Ryan, Can you tell us
Speaker 6: actually a little bit about this. This is a response
Speaker 6: actually from the Huthis, And if you're listening to this podcast,
Speaker 6: what you're seeing is a literal red sea and animation
Speaker 6: of a literal red sea and ships burning in the
Speaker 6: sea and over sunset. You're also seeing a rebel who's
Speaker 6: gone majorly viral. The meme calls him Tim Houthy Shalla
Speaker 6: may because it kind of looks like Timothy actually right,
Speaker 6: But tell us what we're seeing from propaganda channels here.
Speaker 5: So the first thing is the Houthis have been very
Speaker 5: clear that they want this, like they they are eager
Speaker 5: to have the United States launching a handful of air
Speaker 5: strikes at them, you know, they it is because it
Speaker 5: is useful to them domestically and regionally validating. Yeah, domestic
Speaker 5: domestically since the ceasefire with Saudi Arabia, that means the
Speaker 5: many public now has other demands of the government. They're
Speaker 5: they're de facto government that that the situation improve. And
Speaker 5: that's kind of for for a lot of kind of
Speaker 5: rebel or revolutionary forces that that part of the process
Speaker 5: is less interesting like then than the actual fighting part.
Speaker 5: When you are at war with a hated rival, it's
Speaker 5: much easier to govern domestically, and so you've seen now
Speaker 5: the many public rally behind the Houthis in a way
Speaker 5: they hadn't since say, the twenty fifteen twenty sixteen era.
Speaker 5: At the same time, regionally, polls among Palestinians and also
Speaker 5: around the Middle East are showing that the Huthis are
Speaker 5: now by far the most popular kind of regional actors,
Speaker 5: so they have a lot of their own interests. This
Speaker 5: and what's new about this I can't remember this happening
Speaker 5: in a conflict before. Is the way that the Western
Speaker 5: public is so readily able to identify with the people
Speaker 5: that are supposed to be the adversaries. You see it
Speaker 5: certainly in Gaza, with all of these kind of Palestinian
Speaker 5: journalists becoming kind of influencer level celebrities on Instagram and TikTok,
Speaker 5: And that allows the kind of Western public to identify
Speaker 5: personally with a lot of with with you know, real
Speaker 5: people who are under attack. Now you're you've seen the
Speaker 5: Houthis take this really interesting social media strategy where they're
Speaker 5: engaging directly with an American audience, like they will say
Speaker 5: death to America, but but you're cool, like you are
Speaker 5: not We're not considering you America. You're American but the
Speaker 5: government does not represent your values, and they there's they
Speaker 5: have been encouraged by this by a response from an
Speaker 5: American public that is, like you, You've had a lot
Speaker 5: of people say saying thank you hoo these for like
Speaker 5: standing up against what Israel is doing in Palestine, and.
Speaker 4: They seem encouraged by that.
Speaker 5: This one seems to go a little bit off the
Speaker 5: rails because now you've got this American public just going
Speaker 5: gaga over this, like super hot.
Speaker 4: Sailor he even he even responded.
Speaker 3: And I mean, like all of that is just incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 4: He's objectively hot though, right, I mean he's hot. This
Speaker 4: guy's hot.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's good like he's he's a good looking
Speaker 5: to now. Newsweek called him Newsweek. The Newsweek headline was hot, hoothy.
Speaker 5: Pirate becomes online sensations, God, you're beautiful. I object to
Speaker 5: the pirate part because they are a de facto government
Speaker 5: carrying out a government policy. Whether you like the government
Speaker 5: policy or not or support it, don't support it. It's
Speaker 5: not piracy, like they're not not grabbing ships and like
Speaker 5: keeping the stuff and selling it.
Speaker 3: It's not extra governmental.
Speaker 5: Other than the fact that they are not the recognized
Speaker 5: government yet, but they are the recognized negotiating partner in
Speaker 5: governmental negotiations with Saudi Arabia, for instance.
Speaker 6: It's actually I haven't ever had to parse the definition
Speaker 6: of pirate quite like this. Genuinely an interesting question, genuine interesting,
Speaker 6: but this is incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 6: I understand the social media back and forth. And in
Speaker 6: fact Ryan he responded, oh here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he said he's on Twitter because a lot of
Speaker 5: the Hohothies are on social media, and he wrote this
Speaker 5: is this is rough translate Google translation, but he wrote,
Speaker 5: responding to the Newsweek article, I did not talk about
Speaker 5: beauty or anything else. But our issue is Palestine and
Speaker 5: this is not the time to talk about beauty. I
Speaker 5: hope that my message will reach you a free Palestine
Speaker 5: and we will ignite it against the Israeli aggression that
Speaker 5: violates human rights. I was going through the replies to that,
Speaker 5: and I saw a lot of people saying, you're so.
Speaker 4: Right, give me a call.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about that, Give me a call, call me,
Speaker 5: you're right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Outrageous that people are objectifying you, call me.
Speaker 6: It sort of reminds me of when like a model
Speaker 6: tries to post a political opinion. And I'm not comparing
Speaker 6: him to model because obviously he's a political actor and
Speaker 6: nonem but it reminds me of that when people can't
Speaker 6: get past how hot the person delivering the political messages.
Speaker 3: You know, that happens to the best of us.
Speaker 5: So the United States, we can put up this next element.
Speaker 5: The United States A four has designated this guy and
Speaker 5: everybody else associated with the Huthis as a foreign terrorist
Speaker 5: now not organization. So this this tweet that we have
Speaker 5: up there, says sources tell Fox. Biden administration is expected
Speaker 5: to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist organization. After formerly
Speaker 5: removing the group from the FDO list in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: they're actually putting them on a slightly separate foreign terror list.
Speaker 5: They held a press call last night where they announced
Speaker 5: this decision and basically what they're they're they're allowing thirty days,
Speaker 5: so it'll start from thirty days from today they will
Speaker 5: get this foreign terror designation. The main, the main kind
Speaker 5: of consequence of that decision will be that it will
Speaker 5: be very hard for the Saudi Yea many peace talks
Speaker 5: to conclude because the number one thing that the Yamenis
Speaker 5: want out of the Saudi peace talks, is their money back. Basically,
Speaker 5: Saudi Arabia has had access us to a lot of
Speaker 5: you many money they basically their bank accounts.
Speaker 4: And they've seized it.
Speaker 5: And so many teachers, policemen, firefighters, public workers, and also
Speaker 5: soldiers have not been paid and there so there have
Speaker 5: been for years now and it has, you know, further
Speaker 5: this humanitarian crisis inside Yemen. So the main demand has
Speaker 5: been we want the money. For a while, the Saudis
Speaker 5: were saying, well, we'll pay some of the teachers, but
Speaker 5: we're not going to We're.
Speaker 4: Not we're not going to pay the police.
Speaker 5: And then it's and then eventually they are okay, we'll
Speaker 5: pay the police, but we're not going to pay the soldiers.
Speaker 5: And then eventually like, okay, we actually will pay the soldiers.
Speaker 5: Like because the Houthis are like, no, we're the we're
Speaker 5: the government. You're recognizing us as a government, you have
Speaker 5: to give us all of our money. If they're listed
Speaker 5: as a terror organization, they can't receive that money. At
Speaker 5: the same time, it will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. And
Speaker 5: there was a really interesting kind of element of this
Speaker 5: when the when the US announced it where they said
Speaker 5: that they're taking unusual and almost unique precautions to try
Speaker 5: to prevent these sanctions that they're applying to hurt the
Speaker 5: many civilian population because they are so aware of the
Speaker 5: current crisis that the many civilians are operating in. But
Speaker 5: to me, that is a rare admission that sanctions actually
Speaker 5: do hurt the civilian population, because normally the line from
Speaker 5: the State Department is sanctions only target the elites, they
Speaker 5: don't actually hurt people. But if they have to make
Speaker 5: kind of special carve outs for this, why would it
Speaker 5: be the case that other sanctions in the past.
Speaker 4: Have been different.
Speaker 5: Finally, and then gets your response to this, the fact
Speaker 5: that it's taking thirty days. They said, that's so that
Speaker 5: they can work out all of the logistics of this,
Speaker 5: so it has the least.
Speaker 4: Amount of harm to be many civilians.
Speaker 5: But the Hoothies have said that the attacks will stop
Speaker 5: and the Red Sea traffic can flow when the Israel
Speaker 5: Gaza war ends. The US says it wants this war
Speaker 5: to end, So the fact that they're not even implementing
Speaker 5: these sanctions for another thirty days suggests the US doesn't
Speaker 5: have any optimism that it's going to be able to
Speaker 5: get Israel to stop this assault.
Speaker 6: They should pressure and actually, I know we've talked before
Speaker 6: about how it's less clear cut because even Hamas doesn't
Speaker 6: know perhaps.
Speaker 3: Where all the hostages are the HOO.
Speaker 6: They should, of course, if they want to stop the blockade,
Speaker 6: they should pressure Hamas to release the hostages, which would
Speaker 6: be a huge step towards.
Speaker 4: Which there is news on that this morning. I don't
Speaker 4: know if you saw this report.
Speaker 5: The Cutter is very close to brokering another deal between
Speaker 5: Hamas and Israel. There was a small deal made that
Speaker 5: in exchange from more humanitarian aid getting into into Gaza,
Speaker 5: that they're bringing medicine to the hostages.
Speaker 4: Like that's kind of one of the Macaver deals that
Speaker 4: was just struggle marketing trip and that's part of.
Speaker 5: Part of this latter deal toward a bigger kind of
Speaker 5: hostage relief that could be coming very soon.
Speaker 4: But you're right that the.
Speaker 5: Who theis I mean, the who these are doing the HOO,
Speaker 5: these are trying to, you know, use what leverage they
Speaker 5: can to pressure Israel to end this and it would
Speaker 5: so yeah, well we'll see if this, if this hostage
Speaker 5: heel comes through the fighting that we're seeing last night
Speaker 5: and yesterday in Israel is like, I'm sorry. In Southern
Speaker 5: Gaza residents, they are reporting it's like nothing they've seen
Speaker 5: the entire time. You know, we've been hearing from Israel
Speaker 5: that they're moving soon to a lower phase of this conflict.
Speaker 5: But the descriptions of the air strikes coming out of
Speaker 5: southern Gaza from last night in this morning were extremely intense.
Speaker 5: Hamasa's telegram channel putting up lots of different reports of
Speaker 5: all sorts of.
Speaker 4: Battles throughout southern Gaza.
Speaker 5: BBC reporting that Israel is closing in on Al Nasser Hospital,
Speaker 5: which one of the few hospitals that in southern Gaza
Speaker 5: that remains kind of a refuge for you know, probably
Speaker 5: thousands of people.
Speaker 4: At this point. Israel also struck a Jordanian.
Speaker 5: Field hospital in Gaza, and so uh Jordan has now
Speaker 5: angrily responded to that, accusing Israel violating the you know,
Speaker 5: humanitarian law and laws of laws of war. Can't can't
Speaker 5: strike another countries field hospital and you know, threatn and
Speaker 5: threatening you know, not military retaliation, but threatening you know,
Speaker 5: political repercussions. And it shipped like Jordan did not want
Speaker 5: to be in this situation, like at the very beginning,
Speaker 5: Jordan was actually kind of sending UH supplies and such like.
Speaker 4: Two. I don't want I don't want to talk about
Speaker 4: the because I don't get it wrong.
Speaker 5: But there was Jordan was kind of caught cooperating with Israel,
Speaker 5: and in response to that kind of signed on to
Speaker 5: the South African complaint they had better relations. Now Israel's
Speaker 5: like attacking their field hospital and there denouncing them.
Speaker 4: It's like really spiraling.
Speaker 6: Well, this is a good transition actually into something you've
Speaker 6: been reporting on a lot, which is the potential responses
Speaker 6: from Congress. And I was going to say members of
Speaker 6: the left in Congress, but actually Senator rand Paul joined
Speaker 6: in a vote that happened just last night. We want
Speaker 6: to start though, with a clip of Bernie Sanders kind
Speaker 6: of talking about it, and maybe Ryan, you could.
Speaker 4: Set this up right.
Speaker 5: So this is Senator Bernie Sanders talking to Jake Tapper
Speaker 5: about a resolution that he forced onto the Senate floor
Speaker 5: last night that all it would have done is required
Speaker 5: the State Department to take thirty days and to study
Speaker 5: the question of whether or not Israel is violating human
Speaker 5: rights with US weapons. We'll talk about how that vote
Speaker 5: went on the Senate floor. First, but first, here's Bernie
Speaker 5: Sanders talking to Jake Tapper.
Speaker 7: The spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, responded
Speaker 7: to your plan, saying, quote, we do not believe that
Speaker 7: this resolution is the right vehicle to address these issues,
Speaker 7: and we don't think now is the right time. These
Speaker 7: relies have indicated they are preparing to transition their operations
Speaker 7: to much lower intensity, and we believe that that transition
Speaker 7: will be helpful both in terms of reducing civilian casualties
Speaker 7: as well as increasing humanitarian assistance.
Speaker 4: Unquote, what do you say to that? I strongly disagree, Jake.
Speaker 8: We've got, as Americans, take a very deep breath. What
Speaker 8: is going on in Gaza right now is a horrendous
Speaker 8: humanitarian catastrophe. We're looking at twenty three thousand people who
Speaker 8: have been killed, almost sixty thousand have been wounded, and
Speaker 8: two thirds of the people who have been killed are
Speaker 8: women and children. You're looking at seventy percent of the
Speaker 8: housing units in Godza that have been destroyed. Jake, if
Speaker 8: I use the word Dresden, Germany to you, you think
Speaker 8: about the horrific destruction during World War iiO of that
Speaker 8: city what is going on in Godza now in three
Speaker 8: months is worse than what took place in Dresden over
Speaker 8: a two year period.
Speaker 4: This is a catastrophe.
Speaker 8: And now, according to the United Nations, after you have
Speaker 8: one point nine million people displaced from their homes, they
Speaker 8: don't have food, they don't have water, they don't have
Speaker 8: medical equipment, they don't have fuel. What you are looking
Speaker 8: at is imminent starvation. Children are starving to death. So
Speaker 8: my view has been from the beginning, Israel has a
Speaker 8: right to respond to this horrific terrorist attack from Kamas,
Speaker 8: but you do not have a right to go to
Speaker 8: war against an entire people, women and children.
Speaker 6: So Ryan, that was to your point before Congress actually
Speaker 6: voted on this, What can you tell us about what
Speaker 6: was on the table as they went to vote yesterday
Speaker 6: late late last night.
Speaker 3: Actually right?
Speaker 5: And also so the backup what Bernie Center is saying
Speaker 5: about starvation. Un Special Rappertoire put out a joint statement
Speaker 5: yesterday saying currently every single person in Gaza is hungry.
Speaker 5: Order of the population are starving and struggling to find
Speaker 5: food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent. And so
Speaker 5: they put it on the they put it. Were you
Speaker 5: surprised to see Rampaul's I wasn't, no.
Speaker 3: Not at all.
Speaker 6: And actually I wasn't surprised specifically because when we had
Speaker 6: our discussion with him, was that about a month ago now,
Speaker 6: maybe a little longer than a month ago. I felt
Speaker 6: like he was really engaging with the questions.
Speaker 5: That he was pretty critical and willing to be thinking
Speaker 5: pretty openly about this.
Speaker 6: Right, and he's I feel like he's He's generally one
Speaker 6: of the standouts in the Republican Party when it comes
Speaker 6: to looking at our Middle Eastern policy and all of that.
Speaker 6: So not entirely surprising, although given how intense the sort
Speaker 6: of party line has been in the last couple of
Speaker 6: months on this one, I mean, vote your conscience.
Speaker 3: It's impressive always.
Speaker 5: So there were about eleven people who vote whose consciencence
Speaker 5: told them to vote with Bernie Sanders. If we can
Speaker 5: put the next element up there, LaFond of Butler, the
Speaker 5: new member of new Senator from California at Martin, Heinrich
Speaker 5: Masi Herono, Ben Ray Luhan, Ed Marky, Jeff Murkley, Ran Paul,
Speaker 5: Bernie of course, Chris van Holland, Elizabeth Warren, Peter welch.
Speaker 5: Chris van Holland probably the most important vote there because
Speaker 5: he is he and Chris Murphy are kind of collectively
Speaker 5: the two most respected Democrats in the Senate at the
Speaker 5: State Department.
Speaker 4: Like if you're a State Department official, you know you.
Speaker 5: Want the approval and you kind of fear the disapproval
Speaker 5: of both Murphy and Van Holland, and so to have
Speaker 5: Van Holland vote for that is will be noticed.
Speaker 4: In Foggy Bottom.
Speaker 5: Van Holland and Murkley both just were at the RAFA
Speaker 5: border crossing in Gaza.
Speaker 4: Van Holland came back.
Speaker 5: Van Hollen Murkley both came back and sensed at what
Speaker 5: they had seen there and said that Israel is deliberately
Speaker 5: withholding humanitarian aid and sparking the UNS describing as famine conditions.
Speaker 3: So the vote was seventy two to eleven, and Ryan,
Speaker 3: I think that.
Speaker 4: Was everybody else.
Speaker 3: I was just going to say.
Speaker 4: Republic was not there because there there was Democrats who
Speaker 4: missed it.
Speaker 3: I can look, but it's an interesting question.
Speaker 4: A bunch of Republicans had missed another, I had missed
Speaker 4: a couple other votes.
Speaker 6: This happened at eight pm last night, so on a
Speaker 6: Tuesday night, and so seventy two to eleven, it's pretty
Speaker 6: resounding no. And again, the element we just tied up
Speaker 6: on the screen was a tweet, and the way that
Speaker 6: it was put there is the Senator just voted seventy
Speaker 6: to eleven to kill Senator Sanders resolution to have the
Speaker 6: State Department report Israel's human rights abuses against Postinians and Ryan. Though,
Speaker 6: what you're saying is that it's a little different even
Speaker 6: than that, it's a little softer even than that, it's
Speaker 6: not so much report Israel's human rights abuses. It's report
Speaker 6: on potential investigating.
Speaker 5: Yeah, are they doing anything wrong? Kirby's response is interesting.
Speaker 5: He's saying, we don't need to do this because Israel
Speaker 5: has assured us that at some point in the near
Speaker 5: future it's going to.
Speaker 4: Slow down its attack.
Speaker 5: The only but back in Israel, the politicians are saying
Speaker 5: the opposite, like they're saying that this isn't stopping.
Speaker 4: Right, and the only reason it would stop is if.
Speaker 5: The United States kind of used its leverage to pressure
Speaker 5: it to stop. And I think that in the long run,
Speaker 5: this is not going to be beneficial to Israel either,
Speaker 5: and it's friends and allies who kind of enabled it
Speaker 5: in this moment are not doing Israel a favor.
Speaker 3: Now, tell us about this Haretz report.
Speaker 6: We can put this up on the screen where this
Speaker 6: is the first paragraph of the report. The Jewish Culture
Speaker 6: Department of the Ministry of Education has walked back it's
Speaker 6: agreement to help fund an annual Shavut event that took
Speaker 6: place in twenty twenty three organized by the Midge you know,
Speaker 6: Regional Council, due to Israeli Arab broadcast journalist Lucy Arisha's
Speaker 6: participation as the event's host. I am in shock, she
Speaker 6: told her. It's so hurtful to me, especially at the
Speaker 6: time we find ourselves in right now after October seventh.
Speaker 6: There's no other word for it except racism. In selling
Speaker 6: my good name, what's going on here.
Speaker 5: Ran, there is a a racist block that has significant
Speaker 5: power inside the Israeli government at this point. Is like
Speaker 5: when we say that this is the most far right
Speaker 5: Israeli government in Israeli history, it's not hyperbole like that.
Speaker 5: The Israeli government itself would say that that is that
Speaker 5: is the case, And there there is a there is.
Speaker 4: A faction within that, within that coalition that.
Speaker 5: Believes things that here in the United States are just
Speaker 5: abhorrent and repellent, such as you a woman who represents
Speaker 5: mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish.
Speaker 4: Culture according to this element of the ministry.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 5: And it's you know, as the spotlight shines on some
Speaker 5: of these some of these practices because the world is
Speaker 5: now paying so much close attention, the claim that Israel
Speaker 5: often uses in its defense that it is the only
Speaker 5: it is this beacon of democracy, it's the only democracy
Speaker 5: in the Middle East, you know, begins to fall apart, because, well,
Speaker 5: if you're the only democracy in the Middle East, what
Speaker 5: is this like this this we do not associate this
Speaker 5: type of state action with democracy.
Speaker 3: And they're saying okay.
Speaker 6: Regarding the event, appears that there was a failure in
Speaker 6: communication between the director and the supervisor, going full bureaucracy
Speaker 6: because the publication went to the group without receiving the
Speaker 6: approval of the supervisor. According to the procedures, the activity
Speaker 6: can't be approved. So we'll see how that unfolds.
Speaker 4: Going Hopefully the attention gets them to backtrack on this.
Speaker 6: But to your point, I mean, it is actually a
Speaker 6: really interesting question. Post October seventh, when attentions are as
Speaker 6: high as they are in Israel. Are they able to
Speaker 6: withstand the intense pressures and suspicions and yes, racism that
Speaker 6: exists and proceed in sort of seemingly democratic banal machinations
Speaker 6: like hosting a speaker at a government event. I mean,
Speaker 6: this is a very interesting sort of flare up I
Speaker 6: think culturally.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And we also wanted to play this clip from
Speaker 5: the European Parliament from an Irish member of Parliament yesterday
Speaker 5: who you know, she's a controversial figure within the European
Speaker 5: Parliament and I think but this clip of her denouncing
Speaker 5: both Biden and Israel has gone wildly viral.
Speaker 9: Despite the catastrophic debt toll it has inflicted, Israel is
Speaker 9: losing on the ground and in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 9: There's no way that this ends that doesn't leave Israel
Speaker 9: a pariah state with occupation and a paratheid on borrowed.
Speaker 9: And they know it. So they're doing everything they can,
Speaker 9: desperate acts of aggression to provoke a wider conflict with Lebanon,
Speaker 9: with Iran, with anybody to draw in the US to
Speaker 9: save them from the consequences of their own actions. And
Speaker 9: as Yemen shows, Butcher Biden is reporting for duty with
Speaker 9: Europe throut genocide by his side. They are the ones
Speaker 9: who have enabled the continuation of Israeli terror. Without them,
Speaker 9: it would already be over. So take notes, Butcher Biden,
Speaker 9: the ancestors of the Ireland that you claim to be from,
Speaker 9: disown you. Keep our country out of your mouth and
Speaker 9: ask for vonderlyon and genocidal Germany with your words, indeed
Speaker 9: supporting Israel in the ICJ, not.
Speaker 3: In our name.
Speaker 9: The people of Europe stand with Palestine and with South Africa.
Speaker 6: Particularly harsh words for Biden Ryan given that when Biden
Speaker 6: visited the Middle East as president, he specifically said that
Speaker 6: he can empathize with the plight of the Palestinians because
Speaker 6: he is Irish.
Speaker 4: He's very proud of his Irish heritage. When he was right.
Speaker 5: After he was won the election, a BBC reporter shouted
Speaker 5: out to him, you know, he was President Biden, BBC,
Speaker 5: BBC and he turned around.
Speaker 4: He's like, BBC, I'm Irish, what are you.
Speaker 5: I'm not talking to BBC. And he was steeped in
Speaker 5: this tradition he wants. In a speech, said that he
Speaker 5: was told that one of his ancestors was in the
Speaker 5: Molly mcguires, which is like this kind of mining, kind
Speaker 5: of terror group. And he said later they turned out
Speaker 5: heard they heard that that was not true, and he
Speaker 5: said they were all disappointed because they wished, they wished
Speaker 5: it was true, because Molly McGuire's are total folk heroes
Speaker 5: among kind of Irish Catholics in in uh in Pennsylvania
Speaker 5: and in that in that region where he's where he's from.
Speaker 5: So yeah, to have to have him called butcher bide,
Speaker 5: which is a very Irish kind of phrasing and denounced
Speaker 5: by denouncing those strong terms, you know, probably lands, even
Speaker 5: if it's not from the very top of the Irish government.
Speaker 3: Going after Germany too there also quite nerro.
Speaker 4: Doesn't spare anybody in general.
Speaker 6: No, the harsh words all around. All right, let's move
Speaker 6: on to New Hampshire. Actually, Ryan, because the entire country
Speaker 6: has moved.
Speaker 3: On to New Hampshire.
Speaker 6: I remember Nikki Haley when she was speaking on Tuesday
Speaker 6: night or Monday night when I really caucuses where it's
Speaker 6: all big blur in an election year, Monday night, she said,
Speaker 6: I love you Iowa, but now we're going on to
Speaker 6: New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: It's just so typical.
Speaker 4: Been fun I'll never be in this state again.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like, don't make me do this, please, we can
Speaker 6: go ahead and put the first element up on the screen.
Speaker 6: This is a poll from the American Research Group that
Speaker 6: was conducted between January twelfth and fifteenth, So January twelfth
Speaker 6: and fifteenth, right before the caucuses, So Nicki Haley can
Speaker 6: and third obviously in the caucuses. This is a New
Speaker 6: Hampshire Republican primary voters. They have her tide with Donald
Speaker 6: Trump at forty percent. So Haley forty percent, Trump forty percent,
Speaker 6: Disantus all the way down at four percent. Notably, Viveke
Speaker 6: Ramaswami is at four percent, so you can maybe expect
Speaker 6: that Trump has a little bit of a boost over
Speaker 6: that forty percent. Maybe it's not quite so tied now
Speaker 6: that Viveke has dropped out of the race, and in
Speaker 6: fact he is in New Hampshire, uh.
Speaker 3: Stumping for Trump as well.
Speaker 6: I think we maybe even have video of vivec in
Speaker 6: New Hampshire that we can play because they're.
Speaker 3: Sort of whispering in each other's ears really beautifully. Do
Speaker 3: we have that? Guys?
Speaker 10: Thank you?
Speaker 11: Wow?
Speaker 3: That's how is that pretty good?
Speaker 12: Right?
Speaker 2: I was pretty good?
Speaker 10: And he's a fantastic guy, and he's really he's got
Speaker 10: something that's very special because he started off with a
Speaker 10: zippo and he's got he ended up very strong. He
Speaker 10: did a great job. I was actually surprised when he
Speaker 10: called up because he was doing well and it's an
Speaker 10: honor to have his endorsepin. He's going to be working
Speaker 10: with us and he'll be working with us for a
Speaker 10: long time.
Speaker 6: So aftergetting about seven point seven percent in Iowa, if
Speaker 6: obviously dropped out indorse Donald Trump, he is now stumping
Speaker 6: for Donald Trump. He was drawing some pretty big crowds
Speaker 6: in Iowa, I think in part because whatever you think
Speaker 6: of the guy, he's.
Speaker 3: A compelling speaker, entertaining. He makes a very entertaining and
Speaker 3: energetic case for Donald Trump. So maybe a little bit
Speaker 3: of a weapon there.
Speaker 6: But Nicki Haley is pretty close to Donald Trump. And
Speaker 6: when I say pretty close, I mean relatively in the
Speaker 6: RCP polling average, so that pole has them actually tied.
Speaker 6: But in the RCP average going into the Iowa caucuses
Speaker 6: in New Hampshire, Nikki Helelly was still down double digits
Speaker 6: to Donald Trump, and so we're.
Speaker 4: Still the tie. Pole is a big outlier it's a.
Speaker 6: Big, big outlier, and if she was trying to get
Speaker 6: a bump going into New Hampshire, she probably would have
Speaker 6: had to do better than third place, Ryan, because the
Speaker 6: third place surge isn't gonna do much for you. She
Speaker 6: is at I think she's at like twenty nine in
Speaker 6: the RCP average latest year.
Speaker 5: I think that last one gave her a little bumps,
Speaker 5: and now they have her at Trump forty four point
Speaker 5: five percent, Haley thirty one point three percent.
Speaker 6: Just still technically double digits down. Yeah, in the polling average.
Speaker 6: So there's an outlierpole showing her there. The path even
Speaker 6: if she wins New Hampshire is I mean, you really
Speaker 6: have to squint to see the path for her, even
Speaker 6: if she wins New Hampshire. She is leaning on this
Speaker 6: next generation, new generation of leadership. When Dana Bash pressed
Speaker 6: her on the Egen Carrol defamation damage's case that was
Speaker 6: happening in New York yesterday, Nikki Haley had an interesting response,
Speaker 6: Let's play that this is an element too in this block.
Speaker 13: He's already been found libel for defaming Egen Carrol, who
Speaker 13: accused him of raping her thirty years ago. A jury
Speaker 13: found him libel for sexual abuse, and this trial that
Speaker 13: he's attending today is about damages that he must pay her.
Speaker 3: You're the only woman in this race.
Speaker 13: How do you feel about your party's front runner being
Speaker 13: held liable for sexual abuse?
Speaker 12: I mean, first of all, I haven't paid attention to
Speaker 12: is his cases, and I'm not a lawyer. All I
Speaker 12: know is that he's innocent until proven guilty. And when
Speaker 12: he's proven guilty and he's sitting in a courtroom, that's
Speaker 12: exactly what I'm talking about. You've got investigations on Trump
Speaker 12: and Biden.
Speaker 13: A lot of people forgive me, but a lot of
Speaker 13: people in the Republican Party blow it all off and
Speaker 13: say that it's all a witch hunt, and which is
Speaker 13: because I think some of the cases been particular.
Speaker 12: This one I haven't looked at. But look, if he's
Speaker 12: found guilty, then he'll he needs to pay the price.
Speaker 12: He needs to do what he's supposed to every one
Speaker 12: of these cases, they need to be heard out, he
Speaker 12: needs to defend himself. If he is found guilty, he's
Speaker 12: going to pay the price. If he's not found guilty,
Speaker 12: then we move forward. What I will tell you is
Speaker 12: I'm focused on the economy, the border and education and
Speaker 12: getting our country back on track. If he's sitting in
Speaker 12: a courtroom, that goes back to what I'm saying. We
Speaker 12: can't continue to be distracted, we can't continue.
Speaker 4: To be in chaos.
Speaker 12: We have a country to say.
Speaker 3: So for some.
Speaker 6: Context on that case that was just mentioned, here's from
Speaker 6: NBC News. They say testimony will begin Wednesday, So today
Speaker 6: in Egen Carroll's damages trials, that's the testimony is what
Speaker 6: is beginning today against Donald Trump, with the writer on
Speaker 6: the witness stand and the former president who was found
Speaker 6: liable for sexually abusing and defaming her expected to be
Speaker 6: in the courtroom. That decision came down several months ago.
Speaker 6: Carol eighty will tell the New York Federal Court jury
Speaker 6: and the defamation case how her life turned upside down
Speaker 6: after Trump. Then the President repeatedly slammed her publicly after
Speaker 6: she first came forward in twenty nineteen with allegations that
Speaker 6: he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in a
Speaker 6: Manhattan department store in nineteen ninety six. We don't have
Speaker 6: to debate the merits of the Egen Carroll case. We've
Speaker 6: covered this before. I honestly don't find that case particularly credible.
Speaker 6: She was though he was found liable for the allegations
Speaker 6: in New York, why they're now talking about the damages.
Speaker 4: And the fun detail, like he already got hit with damages.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this case comes from what he said after that,
Speaker 5: after that, So and immediately when I saw him defaming
Speaker 5: her again, I was like, you can't do this.
Speaker 4: You just got slammed for this.
Speaker 3: I mean, he can do it if he wants to pay.
Speaker 5: And she immediately sued him again, and this time they
Speaker 5: didn't have a trial because they're like, we already adjudicated
Speaker 5: the facts of the case. You said this again and
Speaker 5: worse stuff, so now you're going to pay again. So yeah,
Speaker 5: he can keep doing it. It's just going to cost
Speaker 5: him judgment after judgment after judgment.
Speaker 6: So this brings us to Niki Haley's point. She pivoted
Speaker 6: as Dana Bash was pushing her. Nikki Haley pivoted and said, listen,
Speaker 6: I haven't been paying attention to it, but this is
Speaker 6: what I'm talking about with all of the cases. She's actually,
Speaker 6: i think, going in the opposite direction of where the
Speaker 6: vast majority of Republican voters want her to talk about,
Speaker 6: which is if you look at everyone except for Niki
Speaker 6: Haley basically, but if you look at you know, over
Speaker 6: the course of the last year, as the indictments against
Speaker 6: Donald Trump have stacked up, I think it was you
Speaker 6: Ryan he said, it looks like a crocodile when you
Speaker 6: look at the polling with DeSantis in particular, Trump's polling
Speaker 6: keeps going up because the more oxygen that these cases
Speaker 6: are getting, the more Republican voters. I'm not talking about everybody,
Speaker 6: but the more Republican voters say he's got to be
Speaker 6: the one. He's the one that's being targeted by the
Speaker 6: political establishment, which we all agree sucks, so he has
Speaker 6: to be the one to carry the torch going forward.
Speaker 6: And Nicki Haley is really making the opposite argument, and
Speaker 6: perhaps that's because it's really her only opening politically. She
Speaker 6: has to then appeal if he's that and this is true.
Speaker 6: In the RCP average, he's around sixty percent, Donald Trump
Speaker 6: is and all the other candidates. I think Nikki Haley's
Speaker 6: around like twelve percent. De Santis is around ten percent
Speaker 6: in the RCP national polling average. Of course that was
Speaker 6: from before Iowa, but still that's a huge, huge margin
Speaker 6: for Donald Trump Ron de Santis voters, people that Nicki
Speaker 6: Haley is going to want to pick up to make
Speaker 6: up that about ten point difference roughly that she has
Speaker 6: a New Hampshire right now with Donald Trump. Those are
Speaker 6: not the voters that want her to be attacking Trump
Speaker 6: for being attacked with law fair and Again, whatever you
Speaker 6: think of all of these cases, I do think some
Speaker 6: of them are more serious than others. Whatever you think
Speaker 6: of that though, Republican voters are sick of it, but
Speaker 6: they're not sick of it to the extent that they're
Speaker 6: going to say, Hay lady from the Boeing board who
Speaker 6: sucked up to Donald Trump for a really long time
Speaker 6: then decided you kind of had different opinions on him,
Speaker 6: and now you're attacking him for being attacked.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that's the winning message.
Speaker 6: Nikki Hilly needs to cobble together the math for the coalition?
Speaker 4: Is there one like?
Speaker 5: It doesn't seem like there is a message or a
Speaker 5: coalition that is bigger than the MAGA coalition behind Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's the biggest problem.
Speaker 6: I think of the Republican elector at about thirty percent,
Speaker 6: I would say, are hardcore always Trump.
Speaker 3: As I think DeSantis has described them in the past.
Speaker 6: So with that old always Trump voting block and all
Speaker 6: of the attention on the indictments, yeah, I'm the more
Speaker 6: and more I think about it, there really was no room.
Speaker 6: And obviously we have the benefit of hindsight now that
Speaker 6: there's a year and all of these indictments in the
Speaker 6: rear view mirror to look back when Destantus and Haley
Speaker 6: and Tim Scott were launching their campaigns and Mike Pennce
Speaker 6: were launching their campaigns and say in retrospect, there wasn't
Speaker 6: going to be a lot of oxygen for anybody else.
Speaker 6: I think that was pretty evident why it was happening.
Speaker 6: But now it is just abundantly clear that when you
Speaker 6: stack together the always Trump voters with the people who
Speaker 6: are watching what's happening in the indictments, you know, it's
Speaker 6: I don't know what the path ever would have been realistically.
Speaker 5: David Axelrod just said the Republican Party is steaming toward
Speaker 5: nominating a candidate for president who is facing four criminal indictments,
Speaker 5: including one for plotting to overturn a free and fair election.
Speaker 5: He very well could be a convicted felon by the
Speaker 5: Republican Convention in July, and he could win all true facts.
Speaker 6: You know, I saw a lot of people having those
Speaker 6: sort of moments after the Iowa Caucus and he sort
Speaker 6: of cleaned up. Beth Moore, who's controversial and evangelical circles,
Speaker 6: was saying, you know, we really need to come to
Speaker 6: terms of trump is and it's like we needed.
Speaker 3: To do that eight years ago.
Speaker 6: If you didn't do that over the last eight years,
Speaker 6: and it speaks actually to I think one of the
Speaker 6: biggest problems is here. I think it was one of
Speaker 6: the biggest problems for Nikki Haley. I think it was
Speaker 6: one of the biggest problems for Destantas is that they,
Speaker 6: like a lot of the left, instead of kind of
Speaker 6: grappling with trump Ism head on, meeting Trump voters where
Speaker 6: they are, they try to kind of have it both ways.
Speaker 6: They tried to say, listen, like especially Haley and de
Speaker 6: Stanta's like, listen, Trump did some good things, but at
Speaker 6: the end of the day, you know, he's just a distraction.
Speaker 3: He's just you know, wild whatever it is. But voters
Speaker 3: like that. Not every voter likes that, but enough voters
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 6: And the other thing, and this is The last thing
Speaker 6: I'll say in this is if even if they're.
Speaker 3: Ambivalent on the mean tweets and whatever.
Speaker 6: Else, they really really hate the political establishment. So if
Speaker 6: you're juxtaposing main tweets with Nicki Haley, people are going
Speaker 6: to choose the mean tweets. If Nicki Haley's answer is
Speaker 6: ambivalence on some of these major questions, like she got
Speaker 6: into that really interesting bat with rond de Santa Son
Speaker 6: welfare reform, she got into really interesting spot on girls sports,
Speaker 6: all of these different things, or I think it was
Speaker 6: actually on locker rooms and bathrooms and some of the debates.
Speaker 6: So's if it's sort of like milk toast elite ambivalence
Speaker 6: versus mean tweets Republican voters. Enough Republican voters, in fact,
Speaker 6: a majority of Republican voters are going to go with
Speaker 6: the mean tweets.
Speaker 4: Well, they've got their man.
Speaker 3: Then are you not voting in the Republican primary.
Speaker 4: I'm voting in that primary that's delucked.
Speaker 5: Oh for people who are voting the New Hampshire primary,
Speaker 5: have you seen this? So there is a kind of
Speaker 5: an anti war kind of ground swell that is urging
Speaker 5: people who are voting in the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: The Democratic Primary is going to be competitive.
Speaker 5: They're telling people vote right in ceasefire, don't vote for
Speaker 5: Dean Phillip, don't vote for Marion Williams, and don't don't
Speaker 5: write in Jank, but vote right in ceasefire, and that
Speaker 5: they think if enough people can write in ceasefire against
Speaker 5: Joe Biden, that that will at least kind of show
Speaker 5: how much kind of public opposition there is to it.
Speaker 4: I don't know if there's.
Speaker 5: Time for that to catch on among kind of rank
Speaker 5: and file voters, but there's an effort underway, and you know,
Speaker 5: if it goes viral, you know, I could see it
Speaker 5: catching on well.
Speaker 6: In speaking of milk toast ambivalence centrist ambivalence, I think
Speaker 6: Dean Phillips has some really legitimate gripes with the DNC,
Speaker 6: is not going to be an attractive candidate, even though
Speaker 6: Bill Ackman just infused like a million dollars into his campaign.
Speaker 6: That said, because he now has money and attention from
Speaker 6: some people that have big platforms, this is definitely like
Speaker 6: there will be more New Hampshire's for Democrats down the line. Now,
Speaker 6: New Hampshire doesn't have a lot of delegates, and you're probably.
Speaker 5: Not to be zero because they're not supposed to be
Speaker 5: having their Democratic primary. Yes, like so DNC told them
Speaker 5: this doesn't even count, doesn't count, right, so just go
Speaker 5: ahead right and sees fire cares doesn't even count.
Speaker 3: It doesn't count.
Speaker 4: But that I can't throw away aboute you don't have.
Speaker 6: That's gonna I mean, to some extent, it does seem
Speaker 6: like that sort of shadow race, the side race is
Speaker 6: picking up steam in a way that could be something
Speaker 6: Biden has to respond to at some point.
Speaker 3: He's smart politically not to respond to it now.
Speaker 6: But uh, there's something's happening, something's brewing under the surface there.
Speaker 4: So let's talk about this scandal unfolding on the border.
Speaker 4: What's going on there?
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, so, there's just horrible news, and you know,
Speaker 6: predictably horrible news. But we can put the first tear
Speaker 6: sheet up on the screen. This is from CNN. I'm
Speaker 6: going to read a little bit from the article here.
Speaker 6: The drowning deaths of a woman and two children from
Speaker 6: Mexico near the US Mexico border have magnified the rift
Speaker 6: between Texas and federal officials over who has jurisdiction in
Speaker 6: that part of the Rio Grand area and how to
Speaker 6: tackle the migrant crisis. The tragedy happened days after state
Speaker 6: authorities blocked the US Border Patrol from accessing two and
Speaker 6: a half miles of the US Mexico border near Eagle Pass, Texas,
Speaker 6: which was recently the epicenter of the migrant crisis. That
Speaker 6: area includes Shelby Park, a city park on the Rio
Speaker 6: Grand that Texas authorities blocked off with fencing gates and
Speaker 6: razor wire, effectively denying access to federal Border Patrol agents.
Speaker 6: So that's what Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has been
Speaker 6: pushing for is sort of heightened state control in the
Speaker 6: absence of federal action, to sort of enforce stricter policies
Speaker 6: on the physical land the territory as migrants are making
Speaker 6: their way across the Rio Grand River over to the
Speaker 6: Texas side.
Speaker 3: And so what happened, Oh my gosh, it's Ryan.
Speaker 6: This story, I mean went it went viral right away,
Speaker 6: and then what we're going to talk about is that
Speaker 6: some different things, some new art.
Speaker 5: But the way it was originally framed was that the
Speaker 5: implication was that the border patrol we're trying would have
Speaker 5: been able to rescue this family, but the state troopers,
Speaker 5: you know, basically blocked them from getting there. One of
Speaker 5: the first things that immigrant advocates said when they saw
Speaker 5: that story circulating was that's odd because often border patrol
Speaker 5: is the one blocking activists who are trying to prevent
Speaker 5: people from drowning. So now when when all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: did border patrol you know, get getting you know, so
Speaker 5: enthusiastic about trying to trying to rescue people when in
Speaker 5: the past they've been in the way. Sometimes border patrol
Speaker 5: does rescue people, I don't, and there are a lot
Speaker 5: of you know, good brave people that work with them,
Speaker 5: with a lot of people who were also you know,
Speaker 5: have participated in you know, blocking access to people or
Speaker 5: knocking over water in the desert, putting people at risk.
Speaker 5: So then we discover that it seems like the timeline
Speaker 5: and line up right that the family had tragically drowned already.
Speaker 6: But that doesn't let anybody off the hook, and that's
Speaker 6: what we should get into here. So I'm now jumping
Speaker 6: back to an AP paragraph from January fourteenth, because I
Speaker 6: think it gives insight into what the story initially looked like.
Speaker 6: They reported the U s Homeland Security Department said Saturday
Speaker 6: that Texas denied federal agents access to a stretcher border
Speaker 6: when they were trying to rescue three migrants who drowned.
Speaker 6: The federal government's account came hours after Henry Kuayar said
Speaker 6: the Texas Military Department in Texas National Guard quote did
Speaker 6: not grant access to border patrol agents to save the
Speaker 6: migrants Friday night. Mexican authorities recover the bodies of a
Speaker 6: woman and two children Saturday across the border from Eagle Past, Texas.
Speaker 6: So just that first graph from the Associated Press mirrors
Speaker 6: the reporting that was happening over the weekend and into
Speaker 6: early this week when it says that Department of Homeland
Speaker 6: Security said Saturday Texas denied federal agent's access to a
Speaker 6: stretch of border when they were trying to rescue three
Speaker 6: migrants who drowned. What it looks like had happened is
Speaker 6: that the migrants drowned around eight pm, they didn't learn
Speaker 6: about it until nine pm, and then were denied axis
Speaker 6: when they were trying to rescue additional migrants who survived.
Speaker 4: Right. So it's still not cool.
Speaker 6: And what I think is extremely disturbing about this whole story,
Speaker 6: and this is a new again. I'm going back to
Speaker 6: the other ap story that's sort of reflecting on some
Speaker 6: of all of this after it has come down, is
Speaker 6: that there are lawsuits going back and forth between Texas
Speaker 6: and the Biden administration over who can do what at
Speaker 6: the border because Greg Abbott is saying and listen, there's
Speaker 6: even Republicans have lots of debate over the merits of
Speaker 6: Greg Abbott.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of Conservatives who.
Speaker 6: Are not happy with Greg Abbott in Texas. There are
Speaker 6: a lot of people in general are not happy with
Speaker 6: Greg Abbott in Texas. But the mass of human suffering
Speaker 6: that has poured into Texas and that is the border
Speaker 6: is an incredible challenge for any any governor, whether they're
Speaker 6: a Republican or a Democrat. And the Biden administration's policies,
Speaker 6: we've we've talked and debated this before, from my perspective,
Speaker 6: make this worse constantly by CBP one for example, by
Speaker 6: getting rid of Romain in Mexico, by all of those
Speaker 6: different things. And again, I know we've debated those and
Speaker 6: probably disagree on some of this stuff, but the fact
Speaker 6: of the matter is it's it's not crazy to look
Speaker 6: what the Biden administration has done and say this is
Speaker 6: creating a real problem for taxing.
Speaker 4: I think we agree.
Speaker 5: It's it's it's not a good situation on the border,
Speaker 5: and it's not it's not rational like it's it's not
Speaker 5: it's not well organized, and it's dangerous.
Speaker 6: And that's exactly the point that it's. It's it's leading
Speaker 6: to these bureaucratic disputes that are putting people in danger
Speaker 6: because when you're reading the filings from the Department of
Speaker 6: Justice about how people were going to different like people
Speaker 6: in the representatives of the bureaucracy when people needed to
Speaker 6: be rescued because there's dispute over who can do what
Speaker 6: on that land.
Speaker 3: It is just appalling.
Speaker 5: Right, you don't have time to file emotion if somebody
Speaker 5: needs to be rescued quickly. My understanding though, is that
Speaker 5: the states have no role in immigration policy.
Speaker 4: So where does AVOC get off here.
Speaker 6: They're litigating that in the courts and it's gone back
Speaker 6: and is.
Speaker 5: There any legal argument other than we're going to do
Speaker 5: it and then fight it in the courts.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I mean I think that's what the
Speaker 3: argument is.
Speaker 6: And one of the things that people target is it's
Speaker 6: USB Arizona. You remember the Jan Brewer a SB ten
Speaker 6: seventy case when then Arizona Governor Jan Brewer people may
Speaker 6: or may not remember from the Obama era, sort of
Speaker 6: a figment of the Tea Party heyday, she had passed
Speaker 6: a long called the SB ten seventy that was allowing
Speaker 6: I think it was Arizona state troopers to you basically
Speaker 6: ask people for their papers when they're pulled over for
Speaker 6: traffic stops. And Arizona the Supreme Court overturned that, but
Speaker 6: a lot of states like Texas under Republican leadership, think
Speaker 6: that's at an unfortunate precedent now that they feel like
Speaker 6: they're not getting enough support from border patrol and federal agencies.
Speaker 6: As you have a rampant cartel activity on their borders,
Speaker 6: human trafficking on their borders. And when I say human trafficking,
Speaker 6: I mean actually, you know, basically every migrant who crosses
Speaker 6: has paid the cartels, and that's all coming into Texas.
Speaker 6: Some people are coming into Texas with debts to the cartels.
Speaker 6: Actually a lot of people are coming into Texas with
Speaker 6: that's the cartels. There's just all kinds of abuse and
Speaker 6: human suffering. Again that we've talked about many times, but
Speaker 6: this is how Greg Abbott has handled it. We have
Speaker 6: a slot here from Texas Governor Greg Gabbott, who was
Speaker 6: talking to Dana Lash on her show.
Speaker 4: D three.
Speaker 14: Sorry, we are using every tool that can they use,
Speaker 14: from building a border wall, to building these border barriers, to.
Speaker 1: Passing this law that I signed that led to an
Speaker 1: open lawsuit by the biod administration where I signed a
Speaker 1: law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from
Speaker 1: another country and so and they're subject to arrest.
Speaker 11: And subject to deportation.
Speaker 14: And so we are deploying every tool and strategy that
Speaker 14: we possibly can. The only thing that we're not doing
Speaker 14: is we're not shooting people who come across the border,
Speaker 14: because of course the bid administration would charges with murder.
Speaker 6: Okay, so Greg Gabbott, and let's make sure we understood
Speaker 6: him clearly at the end here.
Speaker 4: The only thing we're not doing is shooting people because
Speaker 4: we would get charged with murder.
Speaker 3: We would get charged with murder.
Speaker 4: That's the reason why.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's the one.
Speaker 6: This went really viral in Texas media and he's getting
Speaker 6: a ton of fire for it. Again, I think we
Speaker 6: this is this is probably something house. He responded to
Speaker 6: it basically exactly as you expect and say, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm having this broader conversation about an invasion on the border,
Speaker 6: and you know that's what I was talking about. I
Speaker 6: was talking about, you know, acts that and I guess,
Speaker 6: so what.
Speaker 4: Do you want me to say? I said I wouldn't
Speaker 4: shoot that.
Speaker 3: I said I wouldn't shoot that.
Speaker 14: Right.
Speaker 6: So again, I think the outrage is really unfortunate from
Speaker 6: the media here because I think there's something Bill Malegion
Speaker 6: of Fox has said. There are people who are drowning
Speaker 6: every single day.
Speaker 4: You put up the Texas Tribune one that goes with this, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, here you can see this. This is the Texas Tribune.
Speaker 6: This is Abbot's response. But you know again, this is
Speaker 6: people are drowning every single day in their efforts to
Speaker 6: cross the Rio grand Part of ABBA's response actually was
Speaker 6: that nobody has ever drowned at a legal port of entry.
Speaker 3: So if you're.
Speaker 6: Crossing the Rio Grande, which I actually think it's it's
Speaker 6: probably lower numbers of illegal crossers who are swimming the
Speaker 6: river because there's so many legalized pass through CBP one
Speaker 6: to come in and make a dubious asylum claim. And
Speaker 6: that's part of the problem with the Biden administration's policy
Speaker 6: is that it has this.
Speaker 3: Overly brought right.
Speaker 5: Why are people Are people just not aware that they
Speaker 5: can just check in?
Speaker 4: Basically, It's like under the.
Speaker 5: New policy, you turn yourself over and then after a
Speaker 5: while you're released with a court date basically.
Speaker 6: And the problem is there's still quotas, and the quotas
Speaker 6: are different depending on where you were on the border,
Speaker 6: and every single day where you were on a border.
Speaker 6: Like I've seen a guy like I was at a
Speaker 6: restpite center once and watching this guy flip through WhatsApp
Speaker 6: messages on his phone with border patrol in the US
Speaker 6: and this was in Renos, and he's he's just going
Speaker 6: through his phone all the messages about who can come
Speaker 6: across on what.
Speaker 3: Day and how many people this day.
Speaker 6: They nobody day to day has any idea how many
Speaker 6: people are gonna be able to get across and why
Speaker 6: there's like no rhyme of reason to it other than
Speaker 6: you know what Border patrol knows about, what DHS knows about.
Speaker 3: And it's incredibly confusing.
Speaker 6: So I think desperate people I often wonder that too,
Speaker 6: like why not wait it out. But I think desperate
Speaker 6: people take desperate steps. They don't have the money. The
Speaker 6: cartel spread information, but they don't have maybe they don't
Speaker 6: have the money to sit and wait for their CDP
Speaker 6: one appointment because there's a backlog on the appointments, so
Speaker 6: they can, you know, pay less to cross something to
Speaker 6: that extent. So it's it's just an abject disaster. And
Speaker 6: a lot of times what you've seen are actual members
Speaker 6: of the cartel swimming people halfway through the river and
Speaker 6: then sending them off. And so the idea that there
Speaker 6: would be some like enforcement of cartel members who are
Speaker 6: breaching the border, I mean, I think Greg Abbott said
Speaker 6: something that sounded really callous and flippant, and that's a
Speaker 6: huge problem for Republicans when they talk about this issue,
Speaker 6: because I think the Biden administration is so clearly wrong
Speaker 6: on it and so clearly wrong on it from the
Speaker 6: perspective of human dignity and human suffering that there's no
Speaker 6: need to be casual and flip in a way that
Speaker 6: actually sounds like Republicans aren't taking seriously the moral high
Speaker 6: ground that they have on this issue, and not just Republicans,
Speaker 6: but anybody that looks at the Biden administration's policy and
Speaker 6: is like, this is a bureaucratic disaster that's putting.
Speaker 3: Lives on the line.
Speaker 5: Meanwhile, it seems like Republicans are going to end up
Speaker 5: rejecting any type of negotiated border or immigration deal in Congress.
Speaker 5: You can put this last Bloomberg element up. You've got
Speaker 5: Jim Jordan here saying that Speaker Mike Johnson is going
Speaker 5: to reject a Senate a Senate border deal, but if
Speaker 5: a Senate, even if the Senate can get something through.
Speaker 5: You know, the cynical assessment that I've been making the
Speaker 5: whole time has been that Republicans don't have an incentive
Speaker 5: to cut a deal with Democrats here because the crisis
Speaker 5: on the border is better politically than resolving it.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 5: They will use the argument that, well, we're not taking
Speaker 5: this bill that is eighty percent of what we want
Speaker 5: because we're going to wait until we're in full power
Speaker 5: and get one hundred percent of what we want.
Speaker 4: But that argument is in many.
Speaker 5: Ways just to cover for being actually okay with it
Speaker 5: with the crisis, so that they can use it now Democrats.
Speaker 5: You know, it's not unique to Republicans Democrats are I
Speaker 5: can't operate justice cynically. I'm curious for your take if
Speaker 5: that's why you think this deal's falling apart, or if
Speaker 5: it's or what like, why wouldn't Republicans take this moment
Speaker 5: where Biden is just trying to give away the store.
Speaker 3: I think it's not just Republicans.
Speaker 6: I think it's not just Democrats I should say that
Speaker 6: don't want to do anything about the border. To your point,
Speaker 6: I think it's also Republicans that you see the.
Speaker 3: Political benefit of it.
Speaker 6: But I think it's also Republicans that are fine with
Speaker 6: the unending flow of cheap labor into the country because
Speaker 6: to actually deal with this, you need to deal with asylum,
Speaker 6: and what the Biden administration is willing to do so
Speaker 6: far is not serious. It's saying things like, well, we're
Speaker 6: going to fund border patrol and things that make it
Speaker 6: really easy for Biden to go out in the campaign
Speaker 6: trail in twenty twenty four and say Republicans blocked this
Speaker 6: immigration effort that I made. I wanted to give border
Speaker 6: patrol more money, and Republicans didn't want to do it.
Speaker 6: Because you can have all the money for border patrol
Speaker 6: in the world and again, you are letting people make
Speaker 6: all of these appointments through CVP one. There's a huge
Speaker 6: CVP one backlog. There's asylum judication backlogs because the definition
Speaker 6: of asylum is confusing because the courts have these competing
Speaker 6: definitions that change all of the time.
Speaker 3: So the huge issue with Title forty two.
Speaker 6: Then you can fund border patrol all you want, you
Speaker 6: can give them all the money in the world. You
Speaker 6: can have all your fun little lasers and peter tail equipment.
Speaker 3: On the border.
Speaker 6: It's not going to matter unless you deal with asylum.
Speaker 6: So I think when you see the opposition from Freedom
Speaker 6: Caucus types type of people, they're saying, listen, it's not serious.
Speaker 3: It's going to give by in the talking point.
Speaker 6: When you see opposition from centrist type Republicans, I think
Speaker 6: it's less authentic.
Speaker 5: All right, Well, let's turn to Ukraine and talk about
Speaker 5: a wild story that I've got over at the intercept there.
Speaker 5: If you put up this first element here, say, the
Speaker 5: Ukrainian military is partnering with a founder of the Yippies
Speaker 5: for a ie Be Again research project, and the research
Speaker 5: project is aimed at two separate things. One is the
Speaker 5: use of I begain to treat traumatic brain injury TBI,
Speaker 5: and separately the use of I be again at a
Speaker 5: microdose level UH two for for battle readiness basically and morale.
Speaker 5: And so let's let's run through these. How much do
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 3: About ibogain just what I've heard from you?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 5: So I again is it derives from an African root
Speaker 5: and it is arguably the like the most potent hallucinogen
Speaker 5: you can think of. That is that is long lasting,
Speaker 5: similar to ayahuasca in some ways in that it sends
Speaker 5: you into I have never done ieb again. It's it
Speaker 5: sends you into this like dreamlike state for a deeply
Speaker 5: extended period of time. And is nobody I think would
Speaker 5: disc it as enjoyable like these are like haunting, a
Speaker 5: haunting dream like state. It was used traditionally an African
Speaker 5: like initiation ceremonies, write a passage ceremonies, and has developed
Speaker 5: into a therapeutic uses, particularly for addiction. The most famous
Speaker 5: person to have benefited from it Hunter Biden.
Speaker 4: It is illegal here in the United States. It's a
Speaker 4: schedule one drug.
Speaker 5: Hunter Biden in his memoir talks about how he went
Speaker 5: to Mexico and got an iebe gain treatment and it
Speaker 5: just seems to have been effective so far.
Speaker 4: You battle, you know, addiction battles are constant.
Speaker 3: Wasn't the man.
Speaker 6: Who was accused of and did attack Paul Pelosi mixed up.
Speaker 5: And he had he had there was some interesting involvement
Speaker 5: with ibogain with him where because because IBA gain is
Speaker 5: so effective at at helping people kick addiction, uh, and
Speaker 5: because it's illegal, then now you have it. You know,
Speaker 5: you have people who are trying to like kind of
Speaker 5: black market use it in San Francisco for instance. So
Speaker 5: it's not it's not clear exactly. People were saying, well,
Speaker 5: maybe he was on ib again and knowing a little
Speaker 5: bit about ivan, like, there's no way he was on
Speaker 5: ib again. You can't, right, you're like flat on your back.
Speaker 5: It's you're you can't go assault anybody. I mean that
Speaker 5: that's I wouldn't say that with one hundred percent certainty.
Speaker 5: Anything can happen, But for the most part, people are
Speaker 5: pretty immobilized.
Speaker 13: Uh.
Speaker 5: There is a risk of there's a cardiovascular risk associated
Speaker 5: with with IB again and some uh, some people with
Speaker 5: substance use disorders who are trying to overcome them and
Speaker 5: who are in you know, we pretty weakened conditions have
Speaker 5: died from like heart attacks or other cardiovascular issues. And
Speaker 5: so that's another reason that you would you want this
Speaker 5: to be you know, done clinically and with and with this,
Speaker 5: you know, with support systems in place in case, you know,
Speaker 5: you do have some cardiovascular side effect. So there was
Speaker 5: recently a nature medicine actually, UH, a study showing that
Speaker 5: it was effective against traumatic brain injury. They used this
Speaker 5: Stanford developed protocol that introduces magnesium with with I begain
Speaker 5: to try to mitigate some of the cardiovascular issues. Okay,
Speaker 5: setting So that that's the that's the background here. So
Speaker 5: when it comes to battle readiness, UH, militaries throughout the
Speaker 5: throughout history really have been giving soldiers stimulants basically for
Speaker 5: you know, you know, liquid courage, UH, A bunch of
Speaker 5: bunch of whiskey, a couple of shots of whiskey right
Speaker 5: before people would go over the trenches up to the
Speaker 5: Nazis using meth basically like you know, medical medical grade amphetamines.
Speaker 4: UH.
Speaker 5: The United States has used you know, plenty of meth
Speaker 5: amphetamines as as well with its with its soldiers. They're
Speaker 5: using that in UH in Ukraine as well. The Russians
Speaker 5: are on this like really kind of like low grade
Speaker 5: foul Syrian produced that sound. Yeah that uh, and that
Speaker 5: causes like any any amphetamine is is is uh is
Speaker 5: not basically healthy for you. But the trashy ones, the
Speaker 5: dirty ones, are much worse and cause premature aging, paranoias, psychosis,
Speaker 5: like all sorts of reasons that you would want some
Speaker 5: type of an alternative. If you can't have peace, piece
Speaker 5: is a better alternative. But if you can't atpiece, some
Speaker 5: other type of alternative to it. You know, silos cybin
Speaker 5: is becoming mushrooms or you know that's becoming I've become
Speaker 5: a convert to that. I used to think that because
Speaker 5: this stuff came out of Slogan Valley, that it was
Speaker 5: faced and nonsense is something that tech pros just made up.
Speaker 5: It's not legal in Washington, DC, like there was a
Speaker 5: ballot initiative past.
Speaker 4: You can walk into a.
Speaker 5: Store and buy like microdosis of shrooms and and you
Speaker 5: use them instead of coffee, for instance. So the proposal
Speaker 5: here from the IPPI co founder who names Dana biel
Speaker 5: H and it's it's funded by John Lubecki actually partly
Speaker 5: funded it, who we've had on this show.
Speaker 4: Before, as well as maps Rick Rick Doblin.
Speaker 5: Multi multi multi association discipline or psychedelic studies something like that.
Speaker 5: It's like the biggest, it's the biggest kind of psychedelic
Speaker 5: research organization in the world.
Speaker 4: So they came together. They're funding this project in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: So what they're saying is we will, you know, supply
Speaker 5: some Ukrainian troops with microdoses of IBA gain for battle readiness,
Speaker 5: but then separately treat them uh for traumatic brain inagury
Speaker 5: and see if we can replicate the results that that
Speaker 5: they got in this Nature Medicine article. And you know,
Speaker 5: I tease this quote at the beginning, but here Dana
Speaker 5: Biale told me, we think that what we'll do is
Speaker 5: we'll get our side to live longer. It'll be the
Speaker 5: Ukrainians on IBA gain versus the Russians on meth.
Speaker 3: It's incredible quote.
Speaker 4: So, but it's still war, and it's still it's still awful.
Speaker 5: But the hope is that I begain doesn't lead to
Speaker 5: as many kind of long term problems if people have.
Speaker 5: So I actually confirmed this with the with the Ukrainian military.
Speaker 5: I talked to a military psychologist who was was attached
Speaker 5: to the fifty seventh Motor Infantry Brigade Alexi skirt talk
Speaker 5: and he.
Speaker 4: What he said.
Speaker 5: He said, we really need as much i BE again
Speaker 5: as possible. Even if the war ends now, we'll have
Speaker 5: too many Rambos to come back home from the front line.
Speaker 5: It'll be a much more serious problem than the USA
Speaker 5: faced when thousands of veterans came home from the Vietnam War.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 5: There also has been a lot of work with MDMA
Speaker 5: when it comes to post traumatic stress syndrome.
Speaker 4: MAPS.
Speaker 5: Rick Doblin told me that because MDMA was flat out
Speaker 5: banned in Ukraine, they can't do any research projects there.
Speaker 5: So that's one reason that I begain was more appealing.
Speaker 5: MAPS has funded a lot of projects in Israel. Actually,
Speaker 5: Israel has been one of the leading kind of places
Speaker 5: to deploy md M A for PTSD among its troops there.
Speaker 4: And so you're seeing this kind of just this.
Speaker 5: You know what rose in the nineteen sixties with the
Speaker 5: kind of counterculture movement which Dana Biel was a central
Speaker 5: player in trying to bring about world peace, the kind
Speaker 5: of consolation prizes at least perhaps maybe the psychedelics can
Speaker 5: help people kind of clean up some of the psychic
Speaker 5: mess from our inability to end to bring about world peace.
Speaker 6: Once you rested out of the hands of the CIA,
Speaker 6: maybe some good can come from all of it, you know.
Speaker 6: The other thing to think about is Russia. Obviously to
Speaker 6: your point about the Russians being on meth.
Speaker 4: And it's called captagen.
Speaker 3: What's it called off brand meth is.
Speaker 6: The captive god, So what is called We're at what
Speaker 6: hundreds of thousands reporting at least hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 6: casualties between both sides here, and so Russia society reintegrating
Speaker 6: all of these deeply traumatized men who have just again
Speaker 6: they're literal trenches, like actual trench warfare, which is incredibly
Speaker 6: traumatizing thing. So Ukraine reintegrant, integrating these men from a
Speaker 6: war that was instigated by Russia important. Also, it's not
Speaker 6: good for anyone to have hundreds of thousands of deeply
Speaker 6: traumatized Ukrainian and Russian men reintegrating back into society after
Speaker 6: all of this and getting no help.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's also kind of appalling that the son
Speaker 5: of the President of the United States can get the
Speaker 5: benefit of this treatment, yes, but nobody else can. And
Speaker 5: lou backing his organization have been and others have been
Speaker 5: pushing to allow various psychedelic treatments, you know, at least
Speaker 5: for veterans to start with that it's obscene that they
Speaker 5: have to travel from the United States to a foreign
Speaker 5: country at the treatment that they need, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And what paid tons of money? I'm sure too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're not going to get the VA to reimburse
Speaker 5: you for your trip to the Mexican clinic for sure.
Speaker 5: And all this came about in a wild way, like
Speaker 5: Beale was bringing Eye again to a Mexican clinic, was
Speaker 5: stopped there because DHS had flagged him because of some
Speaker 5: of his previous like cannabis convictions, and he said he
Speaker 5: couldn't get into Mexico. As a result, they kicked him
Speaker 5: back to Spain, where his flight had come from. And
Speaker 5: then he connected with Doblin and Lubecki, who then connected
Speaker 5: him with the Ukrainians.
Speaker 4: And Ukrainians like, yes.
Speaker 5: Absolutely interesting, we would love to run a project on this.
Speaker 5: Interesting And so he's like all right, and so then
Speaker 5: he took a flight to Bucharest and a bust into
Speaker 5: Kiev and now we've got a project.
Speaker 3: Well, great reporting and good story of trusting story.
Speaker 6: Seriously, our guest. Next, this is this assignment that Ryan
Speaker 6: set up. Fascinating study congressional districts.
Speaker 5: Two corporate lobbyists did a did giant study on come
Speaker 5: and UH and caucus like representation. And so we're going
Speaker 5: to talk about you know which caucuses, the liberal, Moderate, Conservative,
Speaker 5: Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, Progressive Caucus, Freedom Caucus represent uh
Speaker 5: the richest to the poorest types of people. And I
Speaker 5: think you might be surprised by some of the results.
Speaker 5: Maybe not, but it's fascinating.
Speaker 3: It's a good teaser. So we'll be right back with that, and.
Speaker 5: We're going to be talking about a new report out
Speaker 5: on congressional members of Congress and the district the kind
Speaker 5: of economic uh distribution of resources in the district that
Speaker 5: districts that they represent. Are joined by Mike Williams and
Speaker 5: Sam Goodaldig of United by Interest. Gentlemen, thank you so
Speaker 5: much for joining.
Speaker 15: Us, Thank you thanks for having us.
Speaker 4: We can put this first element up on the screen.
Speaker 5: So this this report that that you guys put out
Speaker 5: goes through basically every member of Congress and all of
Speaker 5: the different caucuses and coalitions and tries to figure out
Speaker 5: which ones have the kind of highest average median income
Speaker 5: and which ones have the lowest average meaning income and
Speaker 5: draw some lessons out of that. So, and first of all,
Speaker 5: just just be clear here, you know I have interest
Speaker 5: this is you guys? Are you guys are Washington lobbyists
Speaker 5: like you represent like mostly corporate clients who have business
Speaker 5: before Congress and are trying to figure out that, you know,
Speaker 5: the smartest ways to navigate Congress in their interests. That
Speaker 5: an accurate description. How what would you guys say it
Speaker 5: is that you do here.
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 16: At its essence, yes, we are advocating on behalf of
Speaker 16: clients and yesterday are corporate, but we are trying to
Speaker 16: take a different approach relative to you know, your traditional
Speaker 16: lobby and firm.
Speaker 15: We're trying to find out middle ground.
Speaker 16: We're trying to find that common reality of interest between
Speaker 16: the two sides, right, and is there a way to
Speaker 16: have members to work cooperatively together. And what we have
Speaker 16: discerned is that there is right, there is a commonality
Speaker 16: of interest as it pertains to.
Speaker 15: Economic inequality.
Speaker 16: And I think that's the crux of this report where
Speaker 16: we wanted to demonstrate that there are more alignments of
Speaker 16: interest between Republicans and Democrats particularly on the sort of
Speaker 16: opposing side of the more polarized segments of the political spectrum.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Sam, let's get to the key finding of
Speaker 5: this report, what you found here, and to back up
Speaker 5: and as you guys say in your kind of a
Speaker 5: memo that is attached to this, it is the kind
Speaker 5: of wealthier liberal and moderate districts, swing districts that get
Speaker 5: almost all of the kind of pack money and political
Speaker 5: attention showered on them from K Street, with the rest
Speaker 5: of the districts kind of ignored because they're they don't
Speaker 5: face competitive elections for the most part, or they face
Speaker 5: competitive primaries, but they don't face competitive partisan elections. But
Speaker 5: your most fascinating finding is that the two kind of
Speaker 5: poorest caucuses in Congress are the anti Woke Caucus and
Speaker 5: the Congressional Black Caucus. Sam, can you talk a little
Speaker 5: bit about what you found here and whether it's surprised
Speaker 5: you or not.
Speaker 17: I got to be honest, it didn't surprise me. You know,
Speaker 17: Mike and I have been going to meetings, fundraisers. You know,
Speaker 17: I kind of consider the people that live in Washington,
Speaker 17: d c. And make a living here for you know,
Speaker 17: ten plus years. Ryan, Emily, you guys are part of
Speaker 17: this thing. It's the political industrial complex, and we are
Speaker 17: whether whether you hate to love it, you know we're
Speaker 17: all part of it. We never leave members of Congress do.
Speaker 17: And there's a lot of anger thrown at Congress. You know,
Speaker 17: they don't get it that you know, they're immature, their
Speaker 17: their hostile, their bomb throwers. You've heard all the names.
Speaker 17: The people that get to define those members of Congress
Speaker 17: is the political industrial complex. It's it's academia, it's think tanks,
Speaker 17: it's lobbyists, it's public affairs firms, it's law firms, it's journalists,
Speaker 17: it's cable news. And when when we call these people
Speaker 17: these names, you know, kind of it's almost like second
Speaker 17: nature anymore. In my opinion, it just reeks of class bias.
Speaker 17: We love to hate members of Congress from the poorest
Speaker 17: congressional districts. We love to and if we're not hating them,
Speaker 17: we're dismissing them as not important, not not important to
Speaker 17: the debate, not important to you know, the final end
Speaker 17: result product of whatever it is that needs to happen
Speaker 17: or shouldn't happen.
Speaker 11: And we just dismissed them so quickly, and in my opinion.
Speaker 17: When we do that, we're just dismissing the constituencies that
Speaker 17: live in those congressional districts. Often almost one hundred percent
Speaker 17: of the time, they're poorer than the median average of
Speaker 17: the United States. And to the you know, to the
Speaker 17: other point here is the wealthier districts represent politicians. They're
Speaker 17: kind of showered with love. You know, they're responsible, reasonable, thoughtful, productive,
Speaker 17: you know, those are the members from the wealthier districts.
Speaker 11: And to me, it just reeks of class bias.
Speaker 17: I know, I'm not saying anything new to your viewers,
Speaker 17: but to d C it's like someone needs to grab
Speaker 17: them by the you know, the lapels, and like your classests,
Speaker 17: it's terrible, like wake up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And so the average medium income you found, I think
Speaker 6: is so helpful to put numbers on this. The problem
Speaker 6: Solver's Caucus, which considers itself bipartisan, the average medium income
Speaker 6: is seventy nine thousand dollars a year Tuesday groups.
Speaker 3: So that's the Republicans.
Speaker 6: They're at seventy seven thousand, five hundred and fifty five
Speaker 6: thousand dollars a year. My favorite here is the Civility
Speaker 6: and Respect Caucus. There's seventy five thousand dollars for their
Speaker 6: average media and income. And what happens it's a denigration
Speaker 6: on class on class basis of populism in the House
Speaker 6: of Representatives, which are supposed to represent the people that.
Speaker 3: Elect you into the office.
Speaker 6: And Mike, one question I had for you is you
Speaker 6: talked earlier about how the numbers. The sort of end
Speaker 6: goal as you guys are putting these numbers together is
Speaker 6: to see where there's perhaps points of agreement, consensus, cooperation.
Speaker 6: And what's interesting about that project is it kind of
Speaker 6: turns consensus in Washington on it's head. Whenever there is
Speaker 6: bipartisanship and cooperation, it's typically coming out of the Problem
Speaker 6: Solvers Caucus, which just represents centrists that happen to come
Speaker 6: from the Democratic Republican parties, but they're from wealthy districts
Speaker 6: and have a lot of their same takes on salt
Speaker 6: and all that good stuff. So what would it look
Speaker 6: like actually to start targeting people those coalitions that come
Speaker 6: from you know, maybe it's anti woke and Congressional Black Caucus.
Speaker 6: Is there a way to find bipartisanship and cooperation among
Speaker 6: those different groups?
Speaker 2: You think so?
Speaker 15: Right?
Speaker 16: I mean, we've had some projects in the past where
Speaker 16: we've actually gotten members that have Black Caucus and the
Speaker 16: Tricoccus quite frankly work in cooperatively with Republicans once they're
Speaker 16: aware of the alignment relative to their constituencies. We did
Speaker 16: this report just so, and this is not the first
Speaker 16: version of this, right so something we have done something
Speaker 16: like this in the past where we've sort of demonstrated it,
Speaker 16: but not in the more in the most fulsome nature
Speaker 16: in which this report exists. But we want to share
Speaker 16: this with those members because they express these frustrations right.
Speaker 16: So on the right Sammy gets it, and he hears
Speaker 16: all of these things. I get it from the Black becus,
Speaker 16: the Hispanic Caucus, the you know, the entire Tricaucus and
Speaker 16: the ext it's there, but they just don't understand what
Speaker 16: is behind it, right because they feel like they're representing
Speaker 16: their districts. They feel like they're expressing the views that
Speaker 16: their constituents express on a day and day out basis,
Speaker 16: but they don't understand what that limitter is. And so
Speaker 16: I think that this report represents the fact that you
Speaker 16: have more alignment than you think. And maybe if you
Speaker 16: take the politics out the sort of raw larger politics
Speaker 16: out of it. There are items that you can work
Speaker 16: on together. In the past, we've pushed the funding mechanisms
Speaker 16: for infrastructure and UH and transportation spending and the methodology
Speaker 16: there was simply a sort of reallocation of you know,
Speaker 16: sort of government resources that would benefit by and large,
Speaker 16: and you know, we found the trillion worth a potential
Speaker 16: funding that wouldn't cost tax payers a dying. That was
Speaker 16: an idea that was quite frankly, well ahead of its time.
Speaker 16: And essentially what we ended up with in the end
Speaker 16: as a mechanism that increased a federal deficit right and
Speaker 16: increase the.
Speaker 15: Debt load in both.
Speaker 16: The IRA and the bipart is an infrastructure deal. So
Speaker 16: that deal was not cut with the folks that we
Speaker 16: are talking about in this report. That deal was cut
Speaker 16: without them. It was cut by the folks that are
Speaker 16: in the middle, who were in leadership, who are making
Speaker 16: these determinations.
Speaker 15: And yeah, I just wanted to add one more point.
Speaker 16: Right, it's going to be interesting to see how that
Speaker 16: money is in fact allocated to these poor districts, and
Speaker 16: so far the scorecard is not good.
Speaker 5: It's such a fascinating window into how Washington thinks when
Speaker 5: you when you understand the way that you and the
Speaker 5: way that Sam was describing the political industrial complex, basically
Speaker 5: producing an understanding among the among the public of who
Speaker 5: the people, who the adults are in the room, who
Speaker 5: the reasonable people are, and who the kind of crazies are.
Speaker 15: Uh.
Speaker 5: And then when you map that onto this income distribution,
Speaker 5: the classism behind it becomes just extraordinarily apparent. Because you
Speaker 5: also look at the what you call the squad extended
Speaker 5: nine nine members of kind of an extended squad, and
Speaker 5: they're not the they don't represent the poorest districts, but
Speaker 5: but very close, like the numbers are almost equal to
Speaker 5: the Anti Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus, and it
Speaker 5: and it is, Yeah, it is those people that are
Speaker 5: told kind of by the broader system here in Washington
Speaker 5: that you're the crazy ones and the people we need
Speaker 5: to listen to are the re ones. And yeah, it
Speaker 5: was just so perfect to me that this bipartisan Problem
Speaker 5: Solvers Caucus, which is a product of No Labels, which
Speaker 5: is this dark money group, and when they do release donors,
Speaker 5: it's hedge fund folks, it's private equity types, it's you know,
Speaker 5: it's billionaires. It's people who own you know, baseball and
Speaker 5: football teams, and they're the ones who you know, we're
Speaker 5: told we have to say, these are the ones who
Speaker 5: are kind of the upstanding members. But Sam, I'm curious, like,
Speaker 5: why why do we have to Why did you guys have.
Speaker 4: To be the ones to kind of point this out
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 5: It's I think a lot of viewers are gonna be like, well,
Speaker 5: we agree with all of this, but where are they
Speaker 5: coming from.
Speaker 17: Well, you know, Mike and I became business partners before
Speaker 17: Trump was inaugurated in twenty sixteen, and we knew the
Speaker 17: commonality between the Black Caucus and the Freedom Caucus or
Speaker 17: Anti Woe Caucus. I mean, you go up there every day,
Speaker 17: you kind of get a feeling for who represents what
Speaker 17: you know, and it's easy for the left to rip
Speaker 17: to shreds Marjorie Taylor Green, it's easy for the right
Speaker 17: to rip to shreds. You know, AOC or some other
Speaker 17: dem kind of lightning Rod go to the district that
Speaker 17: ask them to, you know, nominate a different politician and
Speaker 17: see you're not going to get a reasonable member that's
Speaker 17: going to join the Civility and Respect Caucus.
Speaker 11: It's just not going to happen.
Speaker 17: So in our view, it's a little bit like just
Speaker 17: gas lighting America. You know, we keep calling the politicians
Speaker 17: that they represent, that they elect to represent them, nuts, insane, terrorists, whatever,
Speaker 17: whatever the you know, the slander is, but you're really
Speaker 17: calling the people that live in the congressional district that name.
Speaker 17: And you know, the poorer America gets after COVID, the
Speaker 17: wealthier getting wealthier, the poor getting poor, the middle class
Speaker 17: is wiped out.
Speaker 11: And if we keep calling the.
Speaker 17: Politicians of the people that elect them in these districts nuts,
Speaker 17: you're really just calling half of America nuts at this point.
Speaker 11: And you know, Mike.
Speaker 17: And I joined up together talked about you know, the
Speaker 17: similarities between the two caucuses. And caucuses are important to
Speaker 17: lobbyists because they vote in blocks. So if you can
Speaker 17: get the entire Black caucus to vote yes, you know
Speaker 17: Nancy Pelosi or Hakeem Jefferies is going to take that
Speaker 17: very seriously, just like you know Kevin Kevin McCarthy or
Speaker 17: Mike Johnson would take the Freedom Caucus or Anti Wolcox
Speaker 17: voting in block. They take that extremely seriously. So if
Speaker 17: you can align the anti Woke Caucus and the Black
Speaker 17: Caucus on issues involving.
Speaker 11: The terrible poverty.
Speaker 17: You know, we looked at a bunch of statistics too,
Speaker 17: children living living in you know, below the poverty, the
Speaker 17: poverty line, with with with food issues, uh, military service
Speaker 17: life expectancy, average income on employment. It's all terrible. Like
Speaker 17: the stats are exactly what you'd expect. The poor districts
Speaker 17: have it worse, the wealthier districts have it better. We're
Speaker 17: not knocking the wealthier districts. It's just time to look
Speaker 17: at like who the poor the poorer districts are being
Speaker 17: represented by.
Speaker 11: Why are we calling them crazy?
Speaker 17: And how are we not figuring out a way to
Speaker 17: find some type of bipartisan win in this whole thing?
Speaker 11: And you're right, we do represent corporate interests, and a.
Speaker 17: Lot of the ideas that come out of you know,
Speaker 17: the Center are regressive in nature and they really hurt
Speaker 17: these districts. So Mike and I, you know, kind of
Speaker 17: became business partners with the idea that we could align
Speaker 17: Black Caucus members anti woke Caucus members on the principle
Speaker 17: that you know, you're both getting screwed your skin colors.
Speaker 11: The only only statistic that's different. Everything else is the same.
Speaker 17: You're living less long, you're less healthy, you're you're less wealthy.
Speaker 17: It's it's really tough in these districts, and it's time
Speaker 17: someone kind of paid attention to that.
Speaker 15: I think no.
Speaker 6: It reminds me of how John McCain famously derided the
Speaker 6: then Tea Party members as wacko birds, and that was
Speaker 6: the media absolutely loved that. And when we go back
Speaker 6: and look at the Tea Party era, we see that
Speaker 6: some of the denigration on a class basis of Tea
Speaker 6: Party activists gave way to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: People were so sick of it.
Speaker 6: And to your guys's point, the less tolerance there is
Speaker 6: for Descent, the wilder that descent is going to get.
Speaker 6: It's going to take all kinds of crazy forms that
Speaker 6: the media hates more and more and Ratchet's subtensions in
Speaker 6: the country without solving the very real problem that people
Speaker 6: are taking different sort of forms of expression to address.
Speaker 5: And you'll often hear AOC in particular, but also some
Speaker 5: other members of the squad when they're getting criticized by
Speaker 5: fellow Democrats say look, what do you want me to say? Like,
Speaker 5: I'm representing my district yeah. Yeah, like this's what you.
Speaker 4: Don't like it.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, Like this is like and I think Sam,
Speaker 5: your point is good. When if you get rid of them,
Speaker 5: who do you think is going to replace them? Somebody
Speaker 5: who's saying, you know, the same things, or or being
Speaker 5: even more aggressive about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So but anyway, feels weird to say. But I wish
Speaker 5: you corporate lobbyists good luck in this project.
Speaker 3: No, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: It's such interesting research. It'd be interesting to qualitatively map
Speaker 6: it onto or quantitatively map it on a media coverage too,
Speaker 6: because I think you would find what we all know
Speaker 6: to be true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but very interesting stuff.
Speaker 11: So the beautiful industrial complex.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 5: We'll put a link to the report in the in
Speaker 5: the show notes here so people can check it out.
Speaker 4: But Sam and Mike thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thank you all right, Well that does it for us
Speaker 3: today on common points.
Speaker 5: No, we'll see you guys next Wednesday, then, I guess right,
Speaker 5: nothing special going on between now and then, right, no
Speaker 5: shows or anything.
Speaker 3: Well, the Eagles aren't playing.
Speaker 4: They are definitely not. That was that was the easiest
Speaker 4: money anybody could have made. You keep saying you better.
Speaker 5: Get I never bet against the Eagles, but it was
Speaker 5: such easy money, like they were favored to win that game,
Speaker 5: which was utterly absurd. I think I would have taken
Speaker 5: the Bucks even if like they were giving like fifteen points.
Speaker 3: Such a principled stand thoughts. Never bet against this.
Speaker 4: It's crazy. I can't do that.
Speaker 5: My dad does that sometimes, and I understand it because
Speaker 5: then he feels better. He hasn't done it in a
Speaker 5: long time. Actually he did pretty recently now I think
Speaker 5: of it. But his rationale was, then the pain of
Speaker 5: the loss is offset by the fact that you made
Speaker 5: a little money.
Speaker 4: Off of it.
Speaker 3: We'll feel free to bet on the packers.
Speaker 15: There you go.
Speaker 3: It's a good bet right now.
Speaker 6: But there is of course results coming out of New
Speaker 6: Hampshire next week, so we will be all over that
Speaker 6: as well, heading into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday,
Speaker 6: because damn it, it's an election year, all right, all right, Well,
Speaker 6: we'll see you next week on Counterpoints. Make sure to like,
Speaker 6: subscribe comment. We appreciate all of it.