Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have for a salt?
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do a lot to tackle this morning. So
Speaker 1: first of all, we've got updates for you. Of course,
Speaker 1: out of Israel, we're asking the question this morning if
Speaker 1: Israel is actually losing this war. They are a number
Speaker 1: of analysts who are making that case, and this comes
Speaker 1: as Israel's caught lying about casualties. And also a new
Speaker 1: report has revealed that they use US supplied white phosphorus
Speaker 1: in Lebanon, So we'll break all of that down for you. Also,
Speaker 1: Zelenski is in town trying to secure additional aid that
Speaker 1: looks increasingly in doubt. It's certainly done for this year,
Speaker 1: but trying to push forward next.
Speaker 4: Year, so we'll give you those updates. We also have a.
Speaker 1: Trump case that is headed to Scotus breakdown those details
Speaker 1: for you. We've got updated numbers about how housing is
Speaker 1: less affordable than ever.
Speaker 4: We're also going to tell you about the.
Speaker 1: Lemonade from Panera that allegedly could kill you, the Gift
Speaker 1: Loco Summer Colony.
Speaker 3: We will be sampling the lemonade here live on the air.
Speaker 2: Just see what all the fuss is about, why everybody
Speaker 2: want this lemonade band, why has it become such a
Speaker 2: big meme online, and what.
Speaker 3: Is actually in said lemonade. Anyway, we will.
Speaker 4: Discuss all the details.
Speaker 3: See if we dropped dead, We've got ems on standby.
Speaker 1: Griffin says he's ready with that. On taking a look
Speaker 1: at some of the biggest lies that the US has
Speaker 1: been telling about Israel's war on Gosden, about the Israeli
Speaker 1: US relationship in general. We also have a fantastic report
Speaker 1: from journalist Leefong about the information war that is being waged.
Speaker 1: But before we get to any of that, a reminder,
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Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, so let's go ahead and get to
Speaker 1: the latest down of Israel. Go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. So this is Hamas propaganda videos.
Speaker 1: It is violent, so you know, just be aware if
Speaker 1: you choose to continue watching this. And as I said,
Speaker 1: this is Hamas propaganda. But we want what we wanted
Speaker 1: to take a look at this morning is how is
Speaker 1: Israel's offensive going. Are there anywhere close to achieving their
Speaker 1: alleged supposed goal of eliminating Hamas. I think what these
Speaker 1: images show, which again this is from one side, and
Speaker 1: this is you know, the Hamas militants targeting Israeli tanks
Speaker 1: here and firing on them. But it shows you the
Speaker 1: horror and the brutality of urban combat and how even
Speaker 1: the most well equipped and well trained militaries in the
Speaker 1: world are going to you know, suffer casualties and setbacks
Speaker 1: when you're talking about this type of environment. This is
Speaker 1: something that certainly US troops found when they were engaged
Speaker 1: in urban combat in various situations as well.
Speaker 4: You can see them targeting their IDF soldiers.
Speaker 1: They're being highlighted by these red triangles that Hamas loves
Speaker 1: to use in their propaganda videos. So that just gives you, look,
Speaker 1: we don't have a lot of insight. This is the
Speaker 1: only window that we get into the fighting that is
Speaker 1: happening on the ground in Gaza. So that's why we
Speaker 1: show you these videos. And let's go and put this
Speaker 1: next piece up on the screen from the Nation, which
Speaker 1: raises really, you know, provocative question. This is two analysts
Speaker 1: and they argue Israel is losing this war despite the
Speaker 1: violence that is unleashed on Palestinians, Israel is failing to
Speaker 1: achieve its political goals.
Speaker 4: One of these.
Speaker 1: Analysts is Daniel Levy, is the president of the US
Speaker 1: Middle East Project, a former Israeli negotiator at Taba under
Speaker 1: Prime Minister a who Brock and also at Oslo B
Speaker 1: under Prime Minister Jitsak Rabin. They say that both Israel
Speaker 1: and Hamas appear to be resetting the terms of their
Speaker 1: political contest, not to the pre October seventh status quo,
Speaker 1: but to the nineteen forty eight one. Not clear what
Speaker 1: comes next, but there is no going back to the
Speaker 1: previous state of affairs. They make a comparison to the
Speaker 1: US's failures in Vietnam, and they write here the Vietnamese
Speaker 1: leadership measured the impact of its military actions by their
Speaker 1: political effects, rather than by conventional military measures such as MENI,
Speaker 1: material loss or territory gained. Thus, Henry Kissinger's nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine lament, we fought a military war, our opponents fought
Speaker 1: a political one. We sought physical attrition. Our opponents aimed
Speaker 1: for our psychological exhaustion. In the process, we lost sight
Speaker 1: of one of the cardinal maxims of gorilla war. The
Speaker 1: gorilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army
Speaker 1: loses if it does not win. They also saber site here,
Speaker 1: John Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Speaker 1: you know this is a relatively hawkish organization. These are
Speaker 1: not You know, these are not squishes by any means.
Speaker 1: Writing about how Hamas's concept of military victory is all
Speaker 1: about driving long term political outcomes. Hamasi's victory not in
Speaker 1: one year or five, but from engaging with decades of
Speaker 1: struggle that increase Palestinian solidarity and increase Israel's isolation. In
Speaker 1: this scenario, Hamas rallies a besieged population in Gaza around
Speaker 1: it in anger, helps collapse the Palestinian authority government by
Speaker 1: ensuring Palestinians see it even more as effectless adjunct to
Speaker 1: Israeli military authority. Meanwhile, Arab states move strongly away from normalization.
Speaker 1: Global selth aligned strongly with the Palestanian caused Europe recoils
Speaker 1: at the Israeli armies excesses, and an American debate erupts
Speaker 1: over Israel destroying the bipartisan support Israel has enjoyed here
Speaker 1: since the early nineteen sevenis I'm sure you can see
Speaker 1: already many of those things unfolding. So just to sort
Speaker 1: of sum up the argument that they make here, it's
Speaker 1: provoking a global outcry, unifying Palestinians across the West Bank
Speaker 1: and Gaza, and relieving Hamas of the need to govern,
Speaker 1: which you know, with Israeli stated goal of taking Hamas
Speaker 1: out of the governance's position, which that is the piece
Speaker 1: they will probably be able to achieve. It's not clear
Speaker 1: that that's even a setback for Hamas, who doesn't really
Speaker 1: want to have the responsibility of day to day governing.
Speaker 3: A very complicated situation.
Speaker 2: I know it might sound crazy, you know, the idea
Speaker 2: of a Western sire military that is quote unquote losing,
Speaker 2: but it really all depends on how you define winning.
Speaker 2: And something that they very aptly point out is the
Speaker 2: Tet Offensive, which was a military defeat for the viet
Speaker 2: Cong and for the North Vietnamese Army and their backers,
Speaker 2: but a strategic and political military disaster for the United
Speaker 2: States for LBJ, because it showed us all that we
Speaker 2: would have to commit tens of thousands of American soldiers
Speaker 2: to even have a chance of being able to quote
Speaker 2: unquote pacify and to defeat the viet Cong and to
Speaker 2: save South Vietnam.
Speaker 3: And ultimately they were correct.
Speaker 2: It was a major turning point in the American political
Speaker 2: history for that reason, if we take it back, and
Speaker 2: I've been comparing a lot of Israeli actions to the
Speaker 2: US campaign. Whenever we were initially fighting in the early
Speaker 2: days of Vietnam so sixty four through nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: where there was a big debate happening in the US military.
Speaker 3: LBJ was led to.
Speaker 2: Believe by Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor, and his military advisors,
Speaker 2: as well as McGeorge Bundy, that what we could do
Speaker 2: is we could use the overwhelming power of the American
Speaker 2: Air Force to bomb the North Vietnamese and viet Cong positions,
Speaker 2: and also to destroy as much of the infrastructure as possible,
Speaker 2: to force the population to rise up against the VC,
Speaker 2: and to then turn it into a political victory for
Speaker 2: the US and for South Vietnam. By the time of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six, there was a major battle. I'm blanking
Speaker 2: on the name, but if you've ever watched the movie
Speaker 2: We Were Soldiers, it's that battle which demonstrated the military
Speaker 2: capability to fight and also just how difficult it was
Speaker 2: going to be for American forces and for the South
Speaker 2: Vietnamese to go up against the North Vietnamese, where several
Speaker 2: hundred American soldiers were engaged in I think it was
Speaker 2: like thousands of NBA and they fought viciously and brutally,
Speaker 2: and it was a major turning point because it demonstrated
Speaker 2: to the US military they're like, look, in this current
Speaker 2: advisor format, given the enemy that we're up against, there
Speaker 2: is no way that even with the bombing and even
Speaker 2: with all of our military capability and all that, that
Speaker 2: we're going to be able to accomplish this mission. So
Speaker 2: that is when there was a major divide in the
Speaker 2: White House, and there was only one man who actually
Speaker 2: spoke up at the National Security Council. He said, mister President,
Speaker 2: there's no way that we can win this war. We're
Speaker 2: going to have to have some sort of political negotiation
Speaker 2: with the with Ho Chi Minh, and we're gonna have
Speaker 2: to come to some sort of understanding because if you
Speaker 2: send in troops there, I will fear that we are
Speaker 2: going to get bogged down into a jungle and that
Speaker 2: we are going to lose thousands and thousands.
Speaker 3: So obviously he was right. I guess, you know, at least.
Speaker 2: Courage to him for speaking up. The reason why all
Speaker 2: that matters is that when we're starting to look now
Speaker 2: at the Israeli casualties and that the strategic situation, the
Speaker 2: question remains, how sustainable is this for Israel? And again
Speaker 2: you might you might say, of course, they can go
Speaker 2: on forever. It's like, well, it's kind of like the
Speaker 2: US campaigns, you know, in Vietnam and all that. Theoretically
Speaker 2: we could have sent millions more men to Vietnam, but
Speaker 2: politically that was never sustainable. And the Israeli population, they've
Speaker 2: only got a small country, you know, a couple million people.
Speaker 3: You've got three hundred thousand at full strength.
Speaker 2: With reservists of the IDF, and some of the numbers
Speaker 2: that are coming out show us that even in just
Speaker 2: two months, there's a lot of people who have either
Speaker 2: lost their lives or who have been maimed irrevocably for
Speaker 2: time to come. And some of these are some of
Speaker 2: the most elite combat fighters in the entire IDF. So
Speaker 2: now you've got questions about who's going to backfill all
Speaker 2: these empty jobs in Israel.
Speaker 3: The war is costing one hundred million dollars a.
Speaker 2: Day because they have to pay all of these reservists,
Speaker 2: and the Israeli economy is really suffering. They have to
Speaker 2: then make a choice or we're going to go into
Speaker 2: a total war footing, or are we going to continue
Speaker 2: this fight?
Speaker 3: And then you've got the political.
Speaker 2: Pressure, the grand strategic pressure, I guess, if you will,
Speaker 2: of the US of Europe and everybody else pretty much
Speaker 2: getting fed up with a lot of what is going on,
Speaker 2: and eventually that's going to break. Apparently Secretary Blincoln in
Speaker 2: his last visiness, I know that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan,
Speaker 2: after Zelenski's business, is going to get on a plane and
Speaker 2: go to Tel Aviv. But the apparently the message has
Speaker 2: been delivered. You guys got to wrap this thing up
Speaker 2: by the end of the year. But then, you know,
Speaker 2: this is why I keep saying, now, what what's the
Speaker 2: day one of after the war?
Speaker 3: Look like? I genuinely believe that the worst is far
Speaker 3: you have to come in this war.
Speaker 2: I think the bombing campaign and all of that the
Speaker 2: initial shock very much like Iraq. It will take a
Speaker 2: long time for us to see what chaos emerges from
Speaker 2: the vacuum. But we know that the vacuum exists, and
Speaker 2: the Israelis themselves are they're going to pay a price
Speaker 2: for what type of price?
Speaker 3: We have no idea.
Speaker 1: Well, and there's a lot of ways to look at this,
Speaker 1: and it's very difficult to say is Israel winning or lose?
Speaker 1: Are they accomplishing their objectives? When we don't really know
Speaker 1: what their objectives are. They won't say what they actually
Speaker 1: want day after Now you can look at the plans
Speaker 1: that have been released of quote unquote fitting out the population,
Speaker 1: of pushing everybody into Egypt. You can listen to the
Speaker 1: alleged stated goal of destroying Hamas, which I think is
Speaker 1: an impossible goal. So they've set themselves an impossible standard
Speaker 1: that almost guarantees their failure. You can look at what
Speaker 1: they've been able to accomplish on the ground. Hamas has
Speaker 1: certainly taken a heavy hit, they claim, the Israeli's claim
Speaker 1: that they've killed thousands of Hamas fighters, that's still a
Speaker 1: fraction of the of their total fighting force, not to
Speaker 1: mention the fertile ground for recruiting that they have created,
Speaker 1: which will undoubtedly lead to more radicalization and will create
Speaker 1: more militants, more jihadists than they will be able to.
Speaker 4: Destroy through their operations. So there's that.
Speaker 1: There's also the fact that listen, this massive civilian carnage
Speaker 1: which is horrific, which is unjustifiable. This in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways serves Hamasa's ends because when they're talking about here, listen,
Speaker 1: the status quo pre October seventh, was the Palestimian cause.
Speaker 4: Was basically forgotten.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was dead.
Speaker 1: I mean Benjamintanyahu is able to go to the UN
Speaker 1: and hold up a map of Israel that does not
Speaker 1: include the West Bank, that does not include Gaza, that
Speaker 1: shows it as all Israeli territory from the river to
Speaker 1: the sea, which by the way, is closer to the
Speaker 1: reality than anything else. At this point, Israel controls all
Speaker 1: of that land and the destinies of all the people who.
Speaker 4: Live in that area.
Speaker 1: They're able to do that and able to work on
Speaker 1: normalization of relationships with Saudi Arabian with other countries with
Speaker 1: men attention to the basically like lip service to any
Speaker 1: sort of concessions to the Palestinians. That was the status quo.
Speaker 1: Now the Palestinian cause is front and center worldwide. There
Speaker 1: has been a massive backlash here throughout Europe, certainly around
Speaker 1: the world, the Arab world, the Arab street is enraged
Speaker 1: at what they see unfolding. And so you know, for
Speaker 1: those people who say, listen, Hamas is happy to sacrifice
Speaker 1: civilian lives of Palestinians in service of their cause, that's true.
Speaker 1: I think that is absolutely accurate. And so in many ways,
Speaker 1: the horror and the brutality of the Israeli response, it's
Speaker 1: almost like a jiu jitsu move. Hamas is using their
Speaker 1: own power against them to achieve.
Speaker 4: Their political goals.
Speaker 1: Over and above, you know, the military realities on the ground,
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of questions about like what is
Speaker 1: actually unfolded, how is it actually going for Israel in
Speaker 1: terms of their ground offensive, in terms of their bombing campaign.
Speaker 1: We certainly know about the massive death numbers, a massive
Speaker 1: toll it's taken on the civilian population, but you know,
Speaker 1: how is it going for their own fighters. There were
Speaker 1: questions that begun to emerge when this report was published
Speaker 1: and then altered. Put this up on the screen from Whyett.
Speaker 1: They originally reported that five thousand IDF soldiers had been injured,
Speaker 1: and then it was taken down and change presumably this
Speaker 1: person opines by military censorship to two thousand. So this
Speaker 1: raised questions, Okay, well what is the real number. Haretz
Speaker 1: decided to do an investigation to see how the purported
Speaker 1: IDF numbers match up with what hospitals in Israel are
Speaker 1: reporting in terms of the number of injured soldiers that
Speaker 1: they are taking in and that they are taking care of.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So Israel, first of all, was extremely cagy. They did
Speaker 1: not want to release numbers at all. Then, under pressure,
Speaker 1: they stated that one five hundred and ninety three soldiers
Speaker 1: had been wounded since October seventh. However, when Hara actually
Speaker 1: went to the hospitals, they say the results of their
Speaker 1: investigation showed a considerable and unexplained gap between the data
Speaker 1: reported by the military and that from the hospitals. As
Speaker 1: of Sunday, the number of fallen soldiers in the war
Speaker 1: that Israel had dubbed Swords of Iron stands at four
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five ninety seven of whom have been
Speaker 1: killed since the launch of the ground operation. An examination
Speaker 1: conducted by Herrets with the hospitals where the wounded soldiers
Speaker 1: have been in our treated shows a considerable gap. They
Speaker 1: found that the hospital's data shows the number of wounded
Speaker 1: soldiers to be twice as high as the army's numbers.
Speaker 1: For one example, one single hospital alone reported treating more
Speaker 1: soldiers close to two thousand soldiers who were hurt in
Speaker 1: the war since October seventh. That is more than the
Speaker 1: total number that the Army reports have been injured. So
Speaker 1: one hospital is saying we treated almost two thousand injured
Speaker 1: soldiers and the Israeli Army is saying only fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: have been wounded. And again that's just one hospital. There's
Speaker 1: additional data from the Health Ministry. They say that ten thy,
Speaker 1: five hundred and forty eight soldiers and civilians were wounded
Speaker 1: in the war and have been admitted between October seventh
Speaker 1: and October tenth. The army's figure of fifteen hundred wounded
Speaker 1: soldiers accounts for only fifteen percent of that total number
Speaker 1: of admissions, which seems unusually low since one would expect
Speaker 1: a significant portion.
Speaker 4: Of the war related casualties to be soldiers.
Speaker 1: So Harat's basically catching the idf here lying about the
Speaker 1: true casualty numbers, which also, of course raises a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about how many have actually been killed in
Speaker 1: action as well well.
Speaker 2: A lot of that comes through from this person who's
Speaker 2: quoted in the article. She's the head of the rehabilitation
Speaker 2: department for the Ministry of Defense in Israel. She says
Speaker 2: that more than fifty eight percent of wounded who are
Speaker 2: taken in by US have quote severe injuries of hands
Speaker 2: and feet, among others, that those require amputation. Twelve percent
Speaker 2: are internal injuries spleen, kidney laceration of internal origins. There
Speaker 2: are also head and eye injuries, and seven percent are
Speaker 2: mentally injured, a number that will surely skyrocket. She's talking
Speaker 2: also about some of the horror right now in side
Speaker 2: of these hospitals because a lot of these soldiers are
Speaker 2: being rushed through by They're immediately taking care it's like
Speaker 2: a triage care type situation where they're sending them home
Speaker 2: almost immediately, so they're not having long term care that
Speaker 2: a lot of them are required. She notes, like, who
Speaker 2: who's gonna make sure these guys take a shower, Who's
Speaker 2: gonna make sure they're okay? I mean, they're basically sending
Speaker 2: them a home and hopefully that their parents or somebody
Speaker 2: in their family is going to be able to care
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 3: That's the reality for a lot of these soldiers.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: So this is a full blown triage care type situation.
Speaker 2: And they say that the amount of new wounded coming
Speaker 2: into the single hospital every day is sixty So sixty
Speaker 2: IDF wounded every single day, with the vast majority of
Speaker 2: them being pretty seriously injured and in some cases requiring amputation.
Speaker 2: A lot of that fits with some of the video
Speaker 2: that we showed you, which is the you.
Speaker 3: Know, the horror of what urban combat looks like. You
Speaker 3: saw there.
Speaker 2: You had RPGs, you had, you know, small arms or grenades,
Speaker 2: you have presumably there's IEDs and this is why it's
Speaker 2: such a nightmare to fight in an urban combat situation
Speaker 2: like this. And if this keeps up, the thing is
Speaker 2: is that if this just keeps up for days and
Speaker 2: days and days, then that.
Speaker 3: Wound or that wounding number continues to climb. The number
Speaker 3: of soldiers.
Speaker 2: You know, there have been some serious casualties already amongst
Speaker 2: those that have been confirmed killed. And we saw in
Speaker 2: one of the opening things from there is just what
Speaker 2: asymmetric warfare looks like. You have a cheap little drone
Speaker 2: where you take a grenade and you just take it
Speaker 2: right over the target and you drop it. That's something
Speaker 2: that the Russians have done to the Ukrainians. Some of
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians have done to the Russians. We first saw
Speaker 2: a lot of it pioneered in the Battle of Mosul
Speaker 2: and by Isis. They were very very effective at using
Speaker 2: this against both American forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces
Speaker 2: as well as the Iraqi security forces. And that leads
Speaker 2: us again to the question of occupation, which is, if
Speaker 2: you're going to occupy this territory and you're going to
Speaker 2: be military responsible for this, that is going to take
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of troops on a long timeline, because
Speaker 2: you are going to need at least one hundred two
Speaker 2: hundred kant the initial and then you've got to cycle
Speaker 2: those guys in and out. We ran into manpower problems
Speaker 2: for Iraq here in the US, and we have a
Speaker 2: massive population and they don't even have anything even close
Speaker 2: to that. Possibly why the Israelis want us to latch
Speaker 2: on and become the peacekeeping force.
Speaker 3: But we'll talk about that, I think at another day.
Speaker 2: Last thing I want to flag is this, and this
Speaker 2: is by a very respected military analyst. Go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. It was in Foreign Affairs.
Speaker 2: His name is Robert Pape. I encourage everybody to go
Speaker 2: and read this full thing if you are able. In
Speaker 2: Foreign Affairs, which can be iffy in terms of their paywall,
Speaker 2: but they have something which I think is really important
Speaker 2: around the failed bombing campaign, around collective punishment, and really
Speaker 2: about what the actual military goals for all of this
Speaker 2: will look like. They say that since the dawn of
Speaker 2: air power, countries have sought to bomb enemies into submission
Speaker 2: and to shatter civilian morale push to their breaking point.
Speaker 2: The theory goes, populations will rise up against their governments
Speaker 2: and will switch sides. The strategy of coercive punishment reaches
Speaker 2: apogee in World War Two. Histories remembers the indiscriminate bombing
Speaker 2: of cities in war by the place of the targets Hamburg, Dramstart, Dresden,
Speaker 2: now Gaza can be added to this list. And what
Speaker 2: they point out is some of the problems that I
Speaker 2: raised from Vietnam for Russia and it's war on Ukraine
Speaker 2: even if you go back to World War Two and
Speaker 2: how it actually animated a lot of the German population
Speaker 2: who weren't even Nazis to back the government because they
Speaker 2: felt as if it was a rally around the flag issue.
Speaker 2: He basically arrives at an issue where the current bombing campaign,
Speaker 2: the current military style operation is not one which historically
Speaker 2: has ever been successful at accomplishing their military ends. And
Speaker 2: he really lands on something that we've been trying to
Speaker 2: highlight here a lot which is around the civilian population.
Speaker 2: They remained the center of gravity inside of this. To
Speaker 2: destroy Hamas, you could kill every single fighter. But I
Speaker 2: mean we initially there were no terrorists in Iraq. We
Speaker 2: went in and we killed what one hundred or so
Speaker 2: or whatever that existed. By two thousand and four, two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, there were tens of thousands of jihattists,
Speaker 2: some of them were foreigners, but a lot of them
Speaker 2: were Iraqi too, and why well they became terrorist because
Speaker 2: we were there, and it became a chicken in the
Speaker 2: egg situation is to try and to fight them, and
Speaker 2: I really believe that that is almost certain to be
Speaker 2: the case here in Gaza. I mean absent basically two options.
Speaker 2: You can full scale militarily occupied is it take hundreds
Speaker 2: and hundreds of thousands of people and you're going to
Speaker 2: lose people every single day to id's and all this
Speaker 2: other way you work to a political solution, or you can.
Speaker 3: Try and kill them all.
Speaker 2: And neither really an actual option for the IDF or
Speaker 2: from a realistic point of view. So I do think
Speaker 2: they're in a big problem. I think they're much more
Speaker 2: in a bind than a lot of their military backers
Speaker 2: and propagandas here in the US are making them out
Speaker 2: to baby.
Speaker 1: There were two pieces in this analysis that really stood
Speaker 1: out to me. One is what you just said, which
Speaker 1: I just want to emphasize. It has never in history
Speaker 1: worked to bomb the population into turning on their leadership.
Speaker 4: It has the opposite effect.
Speaker 1: We saw this in World War Two with the Germans
Speaker 1: bombing of London. We saw this from our side bombing
Speaker 1: German cities. We saw this in Va Vietnam. We see
Speaker 1: it with Russia bambing Ukrainian cities. Okay, this idea that
Speaker 1: again we've covered multiple times, so it is worth emphasizing
Speaker 1: that their goal is to intentionally hit.
Speaker 4: These quote unquote power targets.
Speaker 1: We're talking about high rise apartment buildings, we're talking about homes,
Speaker 1: we're talking about public infrastructure. And shock the civilian population
Speaker 1: into turning on Hamas is fantasy. It will will have
Speaker 1: and has already had the opposite effect. So that's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two and I had never seen this research before.
Speaker 1: He is an expert on what leads people to become
Speaker 1: terrorists and become jihadis. He says, most people who become
Speaker 1: terrorists do so because their land is being taken away.
Speaker 1: What ninety five percent of the suicide terrorists in my database,
Speaker 1: and this is across religions, regions, grievances, etc. What ninety
Speaker 1: five percent had in common is they were fighting back
Speaker 1: against a military occupation that was controlling territory they considered
Speaker 1: their homeland. He also goes on to say, in the
Speaker 1: long run, the only way to defeat HAMAS is to
Speaker 1: drive a political wedge between it and the Palestinian people.
Speaker 1: Unilateral Israeli step signaling some kind of serious commitment to
Speaker 1: a new future would change the framework and dynamics in.
Speaker 4: The Israeli Palestine relationship.
Speaker 1: Get Palestinian's a genuine alternative to simply sut supporting hamas
Speaker 1: and supporting violence. If the end goal for Israel, which
Speaker 1: is what it should be, is peace and security for
Speaker 1: their own people, then they are going in the polar
Speaker 1: opposite direction. They are failing to make their own people warsake.
Speaker 1: Their people will face only additional heightened terrorist attacks and
Speaker 1: insecurity if they continue in this direction.
Speaker 4: I'm fraid, frankly, the damage has already done.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, that very might well be true.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's go on to what was uncovered
Speaker 1: in this Washington Post report yesterday. We had received reports
Speaker 1: of the potential use of white phosphorus in this conflict
Speaker 1: by Israel in a number of places.
Speaker 4: They have now confirmed.
Speaker 1: Put this up on the screen, that Israel used US
Speaker 1: supplied white phosphorus and the place that they confirmed it
Speaker 1: was in an attack in Lebanon. So this is a
Speaker 1: civil rights rights group is saying this should be investigated
Speaker 1: as a war crime.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: To give you some of the details here, there are
Speaker 1: circumstances where white phosphorus can be used in warfare, but
Speaker 1: it cannot be used against a civilian population. Is supposed
Speaker 1: to be used as like a smoke screen, effectively where
Speaker 1: it's not going to injure civilians. What they found were
Speaker 1: the remnants of artillery rounds fired into a Lebanese town
Speaker 1: near the border of Israel, which incinerated at least four homes.
Speaker 1: The rounds, which eject felt wedges saturated with white phosphorus
Speaker 1: that burns at high temperatures, produce billowing smoke to obscure
Speaker 1: troop movements As they fall haphazardly over a wide area.
Speaker 1: The contents can stick to this skin, causing potentially fatal
Speaker 1: burns and respiratory damage. It's use near civilian areas can
Speaker 1: be prohibited under international humanitarian law. What they track here
Speaker 1: in talking to residents as well, is that Israel shell
Speaker 1: the hell out of this town for hours and hours,
Speaker 1: trapping people in their homes until they could escape the
Speaker 1: next morning around seven am. Residents refer to that attack
Speaker 1: as the Black Knight. These chemicals, if they're left in
Speaker 1: the body, can damage internal organs, sometimes fatally, and they
Speaker 1: also go on to say, which I think is noteworthy.
Speaker 1: Unclear why the Israeli military would use these rounds at night,
Speaker 1: because it's already dark. So if it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: as some sort of smoke screen, you're not accomplishing anything.
Speaker 1: Residents speculate that the phosphorus was meant to displace them
Speaker 1: from the village and to clear the way for future
Speaker 1: Israeli military activity in the area. So again, these are
Speaker 1: US supplied US supplied white phosphorus used against civilians in
Speaker 1: up and on. This is something that our own officials
Speaker 1: have been asked about and sort of deflected and denied.
Speaker 4: Now confirmed.
Speaker 1: This had already been investigated by a number of human
Speaker 1: rights groups, now confirmed by the Washington Posts.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The Biden administration also now under scrutiny for this.
Speaker 2: Let's going to put this up there on the screen,
Speaker 2: because they actually used an emergency declaration. This is another
Speaker 2: interesting little bureaucratic thing which shows you the immense power
Speaker 2: of the executive and what we really.
Speaker 3: Should all be trying to rein in.
Speaker 2: The Biden administration invoked a power that they have as
Speaker 2: the executive to send military arms if the United States
Speaker 2: remains under imminent national security threat. So remember that is
Speaker 2: what they invoked to supply tank shells to Israel. They
Speaker 2: all they have to do is give a notification to
Speaker 2: Congress to bypass the official arm sales. These are ones
Speaker 2: that they could use on Ukraine. Theoretically, they could use
Speaker 2: it anywhere around the world. Of course, they get away
Speaker 2: with it because most people in Congress just support it,
Speaker 2: or they don't support they supported it enough not to
Speaker 2: do anything about it. And Crystal this really aligns with
Speaker 2: the fact that the Biden administration here is caught in
Speaker 2: a position where they both out of one side of
Speaker 2: their mouth. Like just yesterday, John Kirby is like, well,
Speaker 2: we're very concerned anytime somebody uses white phosphorus that we
Speaker 2: provide to them, and at the same time is using
Speaker 2: emergency National Security Law, which is created to protect American
Speaker 2: citizens as one where we can supply tank ammunition to Israel.
Speaker 2: It also just raises a question to me, do these
Speaker 2: reelis actually need this tank ammunition or is this symbolic?
Speaker 2: Both are pretty bad for Israel. One is you've only
Speaker 2: been fighting for two months. You've only been fighting for
Speaker 2: two months, you need tank Amo from the Big bad America.
Speaker 3: What have you guys been doing? You know?
Speaker 2: One of the things that they like to brag about
Speaker 2: is how they are self sufficient in a way, and
Speaker 2: that they're like, well, we've used your arms to either
Speaker 2: purchase more from you or your money. We've invested in
Speaker 2: our own defense supply chain, whereas the leaders in military technology.
Speaker 2: You can't even fight two months in an urban combat situation.
Speaker 2: You already need tank Amo. We're already supplying Ukraine. And it's like, well,
Speaker 2: what's happening here? You've been basically a nation in war
Speaker 2: for your entire existence for the last seventy five years.
Speaker 3: So that's one.
Speaker 2: Number two here also is about the way that the
Speaker 2: administration can basically just bypass the will of the Democratic
Speaker 2: American people through Congress, which is supposed to have all
Speaker 2: power whenever it comes to war, to just supply basically
Speaker 2: whatever they want to any long standing US ally, which
Speaker 2: I think is crazy. I think if this is going
Speaker 2: to happen, I think the Congress should and have had
Speaker 2: to have voted for it. He does, though, demonstrate how
Speaker 2: the difficult bind I think that the Biden administration finds
Speaker 2: himself in where they're both I believe President Biden at
Speaker 2: a Christmas party, a Hanuka party yesterday said quote, I
Speaker 2: am a Zionist, so he's like standing strongly with Israel,
Speaker 2: but then also is caught not only with his base,
Speaker 2: but I think increasingly with the international community, especially with
Speaker 2: the especially with the hypocrisy around Ukraine, because and we
Speaker 2: went back and looked, of course the Ukrainians whenever the
Speaker 2: Russians used white phosphorus on them, like this is war crime,
Speaker 2: this is horrible, this is evidence that they're trying to
Speaker 2: take us out.
Speaker 3: They try to cover up that they use white phosphorus too.
Speaker 2: Then you know, I remember also I covered a lot
Speaker 2: of this at the time during the Syrian Civil War,
Speaker 2: the Russians would use white phosphorus against civilians, which is horrible.
Speaker 3: But you know that.
Speaker 2: Obama, Biden and all these people had a lot to
Speaker 2: say about that at the time. And now we're the
Speaker 2: ones who are providing the white fosphus, Like what are
Speaker 2: we doing here?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And get this, So, first of all, what Kirby said
Speaker 1: in responses, he's an NSC spokesperson. We've seen the reports,
Speaker 1: certainly concerned about that. We'll be asking questions to try
Speaker 1: to learn a little bit more. Okay, imagine if the
Speaker 1: report was about Russia, how they would be reacting to
Speaker 1: the use of white phosphorus against civilians in a way
Speaker 1: that appears to violate international law.
Speaker 4: That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two with that Guardian article details is not only
Speaker 1: did they bypass Congress in terms of these tank munitions,
Speaker 1: but they also cite unnamed officials as admitting than in
Speaker 1: Israel's case, the US is not even following guidelines that
Speaker 1: Biden himself established in February that require all arms transfers
Speaker 1: to foreign governments to be subject to rigorous and continual
Speaker 1: examination of the recipient's record on the Geneva Conventions and
Speaker 1: other global norms.
Speaker 4: We're conducting warfare.
Speaker 1: We have provisions in place that are supposed to make
Speaker 1: sure any weapons sales that go through, any arms transfers
Speaker 1: that occur, that these things are not being used against civilians.
Speaker 1: Why this report matters so much outside of the horror
Speaker 1: of what is being done to these civilians, these are
Speaker 1: US supplied white phosphorus being used, credible reports being used
Speaker 1: against civilians in a way that is tantamount to a
Speaker 1: war crime. And when it comes to Israel, just we're
Speaker 1: not going to look, we're not going to investigate, We're
Speaker 1: going to pretend this is not going to go going on.
Speaker 1: We'll do a little bit of handra we're a little
Speaker 1: bit concerned, maybe we'll ask some questions about it.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 1: All of the normal protocols that are typically in place,
Speaker 1: which you're already probably too weak as it is, those
Speaker 1: are out the window when it comes to Israel. And
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of the fact early on in this conflict
Speaker 1: you had a State Department official, Josh Paul, who resigned
Speaker 1: over the fact that they were giving Israel carte blanche
Speaker 1: and completely circumventing all of the normal checks and procedures
Speaker 1: in terms of arms transfers. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: what he had to say to Christian Amanpor.
Speaker 6: What was so different that made you resign publicly?
Speaker 7: Well, in all the arms transfers I've been a part
Speaker 7: of discussing before, including to Israel, there has always been
Speaker 7: space for discussion and debate. You can raise concerns about
Speaker 7: how are these arms going to be used? Do we
Speaker 7: have confidence that laws of war, laws of proportionality are
Speaker 7: going to be respected, Do we have concerns about some
Speaker 7: of the units that these arms might be going to,
Speaker 7: and their track records. What was different here was that
Speaker 7: there was no discussion, There was no space for that discussion.
Speaker 7: There was simply an approach of essentially, the barn doors
Speaker 7: are open, and that remains the case. You know, the
Speaker 7: Wall Street Journal reported the last couple of days that
Speaker 7: America has transferred over four thousand dumb bombs to Israel,
Speaker 7: several thousand guidance kits, and forty five thousand artillery shells.
Speaker 7: So the bundles remain open. And while I'm certainly encouraged
Speaker 7: to hear what Vice President Harris said, what Secretary Austin
Speaker 7: has said, for as long as those bundles remain open,
Speaker 7: I don't know why Israel would take those warnings seriously.
Speaker 1: So he's right, I don't know why Israel would take
Speaker 1: those warnings seriously either. So keep in mind as we're
Speaker 1: watching this devastation unfolded northern Gaza, now move to southern Gaza,
Speaker 1: the huge civiliantol, the children who have been killed, all
Speaker 1: of that. It's twenty two thousand US made bombs that
Speaker 1: have been dropped on this population an incredibly short period
Speaker 1: of time. Do you think that any of the Biden
Speaker 1: administrations little like we're going to ask some tough questions
Speaker 1: and leak into the press. Do you think anyone in
Speaker 1: the world believes that believes they actually care. No, we
Speaker 1: are directly complicit in everything the israelis doing on the
Speaker 1: ground in Gaza.
Speaker 2: That's another question I raised for Israel, which is from
Speaker 2: a strategic point of view, why would you want to
Speaker 2: put yourself in this position to be wholly reliant on
Speaker 2: us to resupply you.
Speaker 3: That's an incredible choke point.
Speaker 2: I mean, this again raises something that they brag all
Speaker 2: the time about how they have they've well prepared about
Speaker 2: their military, about how this how strong they are, and
Speaker 2: from what I can tell, basically on this they're relying
Speaker 2: on us not only so resupply their tanks, but basically
Speaker 2: all of the precision guid ammunitions are sold to them
Speaker 2: by the US. They don't even have a domestic they
Speaker 2: don't have the same level of domestic arms that they
Speaker 2: have once bragged about. This puts them in a position too,
Speaker 2: where you're basically reliant on us and our domestic political
Speaker 2: whims as to whether you're going to get it, and
Speaker 2: you might get it now but what about five years
Speaker 2: from now, whenever you're going to need it. This raises
Speaker 2: only once again some of the excellent points made in
Speaker 2: that Nation article about their own Basically, they have destroyed
Speaker 2: the bipartisan consensus on Israel. It may not feel that way,
Speaker 2: but the process began the uring the Iran deal. I
Speaker 2: think today is a genuine breaking point. Yeah, for a
Speaker 2: huge portion of the American public. Ten years from now,
Speaker 2: the next Gaza war or the next whatever war that
Speaker 2: they find themselves in.
Speaker 3: It's not even even close to the same.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, imagine a new generation of democratic lawmakers. And
Speaker 2: then you've got millennials and people who are our age
Speaker 2: and younger, who are aging into their forties and their fifties.
Speaker 2: These are well established, tax paying adults who usually vote
Speaker 2: a lot. A lot of the boomers at that point
Speaker 2: are either gone or fading off. I mean, that's one
Speaker 2: of those where it's a totally changed domestic political situation.
Speaker 1: And let's also talk about, like you know, crass naked
Speaker 1: political calculations, which is what you know, the people in
Speaker 1: this town.
Speaker 4: What they care about. Very possible.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden loses reelect because of his unconditional support for Israel.
Speaker 1: Previously all of the pressure had been on the other side.
Speaker 1: But I mean we talked about yesterday Pullan of Michigan
Speaker 1: that has him down by ten points, and a part
Speaker 1: of that is no doubt attributable to discussed from young people,
Speaker 1: from Arab Americans, from Muslim Americans for our complicity in
Speaker 1: Israeli war crimes and atrocities in Gaza. And the last
Speaker 1: piece that I wanted to highlight here just to always
Speaker 1: keep the focus on the human beings who are trying
Speaker 1: to live their lives, trying to survive right now under
Speaker 1: complete siege, is you know, the bombs are just the
Speaker 1: beginning of the pain and the heartache. Put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. The hunger war has started. This is
Speaker 1: a report from the AP. A bag of flour now
Speaker 1: goes for one hundred and twenty dollars in Gaza. There's
Speaker 1: a black market for sugar. You can forget about eggs.
Speaker 1: Thousands of people pounce on AID trucks when they arrive.
Speaker 1: Crowds ransacked a warehouse where food had piled up before distribution.
Speaker 1: There's also now mounting reports of illnesses that are running
Speaker 1: rampant given the lack of food, lack of medicine, lack
Speaker 1: of basic sanitation, lack of sewage. This is, you know,
Speaker 1: completely predictable. Chaotic scenes they say, of sickness and filth
Speaker 1: are unfolding at shelters in Rafa, bursting at the scenes.
Speaker 1: The UN Humanitarian Office said Wednesday the poor sanitation had
Speaker 1: led to rampant cases of scabies, life's diarrhea, of raising
Speaker 1: fears more serious disease may soon spread. Aid workers have
Speaker 1: reported outbreaks of the liver disease hepatitis A. And this
Speaker 1: is all a direct result of the complete siege that
Speaker 1: the two point two million residents of Gaza have been
Speaker 1: under since the very beginning days of this war.
Speaker 2: On there again the ancient like we said day day five,
Speaker 2: six ten, twelve afterwards, two months, three months, what's that
Speaker 2: going to look like? What about food? Who is going
Speaker 2: to foot the bill? Are you now responsible? Who's going
Speaker 2: to be in charge of distributing it? It's looking more
Speaker 2: and more like total chaos, as already reports out of
Speaker 2: a Gaza crystal of full blown looting, I mean Somalia
Speaker 2: Mugadishu level looting of some of these aid convoys. That
Speaker 2: leads to what warlords who are going to take control
Speaker 2: or the IDF is going to take control.
Speaker 3: I mean that none of this ends up in a
Speaker 3: good situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all of it really bad.
Speaker 2: President Zelensky big Z himself is here on the ground
Speaker 2: and here in Washington. He's been here since Monday, flying
Speaker 2: from Argentina to attend the inauguration of the new president there.
Speaker 2: And he gave an interesting speech, I think, which demonstrates
Speaker 2: his complete lack of political skill and not lack of
Speaker 2: knowledge about any of his so called opponents. Let's put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. So in his speech
Speaker 2: that he gave yesterday to the National Defense College, speaking
Speaker 2: to military leaders, but in attendance for several reporters, he says, quote,
Speaker 2: if there's anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol.
Speaker 3: Hill, it is just Putin and his sick clique.
Speaker 2: So let's really think and digest that Zelenski comes to Washington.
Speaker 2: The sole people he needs to convince are Speaker Mike
Speaker 2: Johnson and Senate Republicans to do what to drop their
Speaker 2: insistent on their it has to be border security funding
Speaker 2: if we're going to fund Ukraine, and his way of
Speaker 2: doing that is not.
Speaker 3: Here's why it's good for you. Here's what I can
Speaker 3: do for you.
Speaker 2: Here are the questions that Here are the answers to
Speaker 2: the questions which you have asked me, which is what
Speaker 2: is my plan for victory? What am I realistically going
Speaker 2: to do with the sixty one billion? Instead, his plan
Speaker 2: is to call them basically accomplices of Putin. That is
Speaker 2: not going to go down well, I think with a
Speaker 2: lot of the people who are in opposition, And just
Speaker 2: to highlight this, we've got some of the plans about
Speaker 2: what exactly he wants to do.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: His plan right now, Crystal from Axios and others, is
Speaker 2: to basically try and emotionally blackmail the House of Representatives
Speaker 2: and the Senate Republicans as the clock ticks.
Speaker 3: Because the House is set.
Speaker 2: The House and the Senate are both set to leave
Speaker 2: at some time at the end of this week.
Speaker 3: Thursday is done for the entire year.
Speaker 2: Already, people on Capitol Hill and others say that there's
Speaker 2: no way. So he's coming here effectively in a last
Speaker 2: ditch effort. I also just saw his schedule for the day.
Speaker 2: He's not meeting with the White House. First President Biden
Speaker 2: alleged that he was inviting Zelensky to Washington.
Speaker 3: For them to parlay No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: His entire bulk of his day, Crystal is spent on
Speaker 2: Capitol Hill, starting actually only fifteen minutes from right now,
Speaker 2: where he will be speak meeting with Speaker Johnson and
Speaker 2: then with Senate Republicans. And I think the biggest mistake
Speaker 2: that he seems to have internalized is he genuinely seems
Speaker 2: to believe that Mitch McConnell is speaking for Republicans, because
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell is very supportive of Ukraine AID. He tried
Speaker 2: to get the party to not insist on border security
Speaker 2: funding to pass the stand Along supplemental and there was
Speaker 2: a full blown revolt inside of the GOP caucus, and
Speaker 2: we played even here on the show, even freaking Lindsey
Speaker 2: Graham says, look, guys, like we.
Speaker 3: Got to have some sort of border security funding. There's
Speaker 3: no way.
Speaker 2: He does not seem to actually understand the American political
Speaker 2: system currently at all. I actually think him coming here
Speaker 2: is a tremendous show weakness, because how does it make
Speaker 2: you look if you come all the way to Washington
Speaker 2: with hat in hand and they basically just leave town
Speaker 2: and go home for Christmas break. Yeah, after that you
Speaker 2: have done so. I think this is the final breaking
Speaker 2: point for Selensky. I'm not saying he'll never get aid.
Speaker 2: I would never put it past the establishment for fur
Speaker 2: the rest of the year.
Speaker 3: I think it's dead. I don't think he has a
Speaker 3: chance in hell.
Speaker 1: I mean to be honest with you, Ever since we
Speaker 1: really had it confirmed that it was the US and
Speaker 1: the UK that blocked that early peace deal and like
Speaker 1: force them to continue fighting. And again, listen, there's no
Speaker 1: guarantees of whether it would have come together, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But I have a lot more empathy for
Speaker 1: Zelenski's position because we did hang him out to dry,
Speaker 1: you know, we did lead him along the garden path
Speaker 1: and effectively say like we've got your back and you know,
Speaker 1: say no to the peace deal, keep fighting. We're going
Speaker 1: to be with you, brother. And then here he is desperate,
Speaker 1: you know, low on manpower, low on supplies, and very
Speaker 1: unlikely to be able to come back home with anything
Speaker 1: to say for it. So you know, in a sense, I,
Speaker 1: like I said, I have a lot more empathy for
Speaker 1: their position than I did previously. Really understanding the way
Speaker 1: that all of these things unfolded. I think it's disgraceful
Speaker 1: what we've dragged the Ukrainians through. I think the amount
Speaker 1: of death and destruction that has been wrought over these
Speaker 1: past years, this past year, since the beginning of this
Speaker 1: conflict is really you know, there's a lot of blood
Speaker 1: on our hands for the way that we pushed them
Speaker 1: to pursue this war.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of how I'm looking at I.
Speaker 3: Will parse a little bit.
Speaker 2: I don't have any empathy for Zelensky. I think he's
Speaker 2: basically been a blackmail artist from day one. I have
Speaker 2: incredible empathy for the Ukrainian fighting man and for all
Speaker 2: of those who laid there their lives because they took
Speaker 2: Zelenski's orders. And we'll get to this a little bit
Speaker 2: later in the show, but even they are like, hey man,
Speaker 2: you got to start telling us the truth. All this
Speaker 2: rose tinted speeches and all that that ain't going to cut.
Speaker 3: It for us anymore. We got average age of forty three.
Speaker 2: Just to give people an idea too of what the
Speaker 2: dynamics are on Capitol Hill, here's Senator JD.
Speaker 3: Vans.
Speaker 2: He spoke a little bit about this yesterday on Zelenski
Speaker 2: is the leading opponent of Ukraine aid in the Senate.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say. Look, Steve, it's gross.
Speaker 8: You have a foreign leader coming to the United States
Speaker 8: like we're some sort of geopolitical salvation army. That is
Speaker 8: not the role of the United States here is to
Speaker 8: hand out money to every beggar who comes into our
Speaker 8: country and demands that we fund there foreign conflict.
Speaker 5: This is back a second, Steve.
Speaker 8: We have to understand that Republicans, for once in this
Speaker 8: town have actually stood pretty firm the last couple of
Speaker 8: weeks on the question of border security and said you're
Speaker 8: not going to get another dime for Ukraine unless you
Speaker 8: do something serious about the American southern border. So Zelensky
Speaker 8: is parachuting into this domestic political debate about prioritizing our
Speaker 8: own border. He's not here to tell us anything we
Speaker 8: haven't heard before. He's here to badger and browbeat Speaker
Speaker 8: Johnson and Senate Republicans into foregoing our negotiations on border
Speaker 8: security in order to write him another blank check. I've
Speaker 8: never seen anything like this. This's not Churchill coming in
Speaker 8: the midst of world wars. This is literally a guy
Speaker 8: begging for a handout and telling Republicans to stop negotiating
Speaker 8: over your own border security. I'm offended by it. As
Speaker 8: a United States senator, I'm offended by it. We should
Speaker 8: be focused on our own boarder and be having that debate.
Speaker 8: We don't need Zelenski to parachute and tell us how
Speaker 8: to run our country.
Speaker 2: As I understand it that a lot of Republicans are
Speaker 2: not actually taken kindly to that. Senator ran policy that
Speaker 2: he wouldn't even attend the Zolenski meeting. He's like, I
Speaker 2: don't have anything to say to him. I have nothing
Speaker 2: that I want to hear from him. I think it's
Speaker 2: a big, big mistake that he's making, and just agree.
Speaker 4: It's not sure what else he's supposed to do.
Speaker 2: Well, Honestly, what Zelenski is supposed to do is instead
Speaker 2: of he needs to realize the political reality and he
Speaker 2: needs to make sure that he's not seen as basically
Speaker 2: aligning himself completely with the Democratic Party. What he should
Speaker 2: have done is stayed at home and allowed Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 2: the Establishment and others to try and to slip Ukraine
Speaker 2: aid at every turn for the next year, which don't
Speaker 2: get they are going to do that. This debate is
Speaker 2: not done. They are going to every writer, every government
Speaker 2: funding bill. There's going to be some last ditch effort
Speaker 2: to try and to slip something in there. He should
Speaker 2: have had the knowledge that this was dead. JD actually
Speaker 2: raised Churchill, which is a good example. Churchill privately loathed
Speaker 2: the US Senate. I believe he once said that you
Speaker 2: can always count on the American Senate should do the
Speaker 2: right thing after they've exhausted every other option. He was
Speaker 2: furious about len Lease, but he was incredibly grateful every
Speaker 2: time he came to Washington. He always met with people
Speaker 2: behind the scenes. He understood the American political system. Maybe
Speaker 2: because he's spent a lot more time here and he
Speaker 2: himself was half Us, or he was born to an American.
Speaker 2: I think Zelenski just has zero understanding the political system.
Speaker 2: He seems to believe that MSNBC and the Atlantics speak
Speaker 2: for America and that you know, all these neo cons
Speaker 2: or whatever who will go on.
Speaker 4: I don't agree with that.
Speaker 1: It's to me, it's very clear from the fact that
Speaker 1: he is showing up here now that he.
Speaker 4: Realizes how we could position he's.
Speaker 1: In and how much potential additional Ukrainian aid is on
Speaker 1: the rocks, and the only thing he can think to
Speaker 1: do is rather than just like staying in Ukraine and
Speaker 1: hoping for the best topin Mitch comes through, is to
Speaker 1: come here and try to reassert Ukrainian pre eminence in
Speaker 1: terms of American foreign policy, because the obviously the American
Speaker 1: foreign policy the landscape has completely shifted since October seventh.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainians are completely on the back burner, and so
Speaker 1: to me, I'm just I don't know that he has
Speaker 1: a better hand to play. I think the best thing
Speaker 1: he probably can do is to come here and meet
Speaker 1: with the people who are sympathetic to him and just
Speaker 1: remind them like, hey, you guys were supposed to be
Speaker 1: backing us up, and remember we still have this righteous
Speaker 1: cause fighting back against Russian imperialism and you know this
Speaker 1: territorial land grab, so try to keep us front and center.
Speaker 1: I don't know that he has a better move that
Speaker 1: he could really play.
Speaker 3: Maybe you're right.
Speaker 2: I just think that it puts him in a weaker
Speaker 2: position to come here to advocate for it and to fail,
Speaker 2: whereas I think he probably could have gotten something over
Speaker 2: the next year if you'd buy it. Both are terrible,
Speaker 2: I mean they're spread.
Speaker 3: I mean they should be.
Speaker 2: I mean they in many ways this too where you know,
Speaker 2: you can't put a lot of all the blame here
Speaker 2: on America.
Speaker 3: A lot of this is their fault too.
Speaker 2: They seem to believe and have ridiculous expectations and have
Speaker 2: never decided to even change any of their public positioning, which,
Speaker 2: as we hinted at, let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. From the Financial Times, even people inside the
Speaker 2: Ukraine quote former and current advisors saying that the lack
Speaker 2: of realism in the president's messaging is undermining confidence and
Speaker 2: that basically a lot of the Ukrainian people do not
Speaker 2: want to hear that everything is moving forward and that
Speaker 2: everything is rosy and that everything is going to be great,
Speaker 2: and that they're going to achieve a total victory. And
Speaker 2: while they may want that to happen, they also are
Speaker 2: friends with enough people who have either been killed or
Speaker 2: who know people who have been wounded, or know people
Speaker 2: who are now getting drafted to understand at a basic
Speaker 2: level that is just not the military reality on the ground.
Speaker 2: I increasingly believe, and I've said it here, I don't
Speaker 2: think that Zelenski's political leadership will last for all that
Speaker 2: much longer, simply because he's an open war with his
Speaker 2: own military commander. He's being his political opponents, Poroshenko and
Speaker 2: the mayor of Kiev are outwardly coming and blasting him.
Speaker 2: The military commander himself is going on the record to
Speaker 2: the economists saying it's a stalemate and there's basically nothing
Speaker 2: else that we can do. So much of the ground
Speaker 2: that he was fighting from, like the United Country that's
Speaker 2: moving forward, and even most of his legitimacy was under
Speaker 2: the idea that he was the only one who could
Speaker 2: convince the West to give him made a lot of
Speaker 2: that is just not materializing now. So, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of his like recent raison detra i guess
Speaker 2: if you will, just doesn't exist, especially if this aid
Speaker 2: bill goes down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and they give this example that's kind
Speaker 1: of devastating in this piece about the rose colored glasses
Speaker 1: and how all of the videos that he puts on
Speaker 1: or about how they're moving forward and they're winning and
Speaker 1: they're gaining ground, et cetera. When people aren't stupid. And
Speaker 1: this is also like not that in nineteen eighties, you
Speaker 1: can't just control all of the information that's coming in
Speaker 1: it's also a country is small enough that, yeah.
Speaker 4: People are getting direct reports of.
Speaker 1: What's actually going on in the front lines. But this
Speaker 1: example they cite was Ukraine's frequent use of counter propaganda
Speaker 1: during the ten month battle for Bakmut. This mirrored Russian
Speaker 1: tactics and trying to maintain an image of success. Official
Speaker 1: channels on telegram and other social media brand in the
Speaker 1: fight with slogans such as fortiss Bakmut and Unbreakable Bachmut,
Speaker 1: which disappeared in the days before Russia declared victory in May.
Speaker 1: Zelenski never officially acknowledged Ukraine's retreat from Bachmut, and in
Speaker 1: June the Defense Ministry presented continued Ukrainian attacks from the
Speaker 1: edge of the town as evidence that it had not
Speaker 1: in fact lost the battle. So it's becoming impossible, I think,
Speaker 1: has become impossible to maintain this happy face of we're
Speaker 1: making gains, we're gaining ground, everything's going on in our direction,
Speaker 1: We're on the brink of victory any day now.
Speaker 4: And you know, when.
Speaker 1: Things are so sort of desperate for the Ukrainians in
Speaker 1: terms of manpower, in terms of you know, the failures
Speaker 1: of the counter offensive, in terms of being able to
Speaker 1: garner additional aid from US and other places around the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have now this specter of people turning on each other,
Speaker 1: casting blame, going to the press, you know, criticizing Celensky
Speaker 1: in a way that we've never seen before. So certainly
Speaker 1: there is no doubt there is a lot of turmoil
Speaker 1: domestically in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely right, and I do think that
Speaker 2: is really going to be a problem for him in
Speaker 2: the next months to come. And don't forget the winter.
Speaker 2: You know, it's getting cold and things are only getting worse.
Speaker 2: The Russians are actually firing i think cruise missiles and
Speaker 2: some of those for the very first time in a
Speaker 2: long time, and largely because they're trying to degrade as
Speaker 2: much of the infrastructure as possible and make it as
Speaker 2: painful on the civilian population before they get to the
Speaker 2: next fighting season. That's before there's even questions of USA.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a lot to be said here. Anyway,
Speaker 2: let's talk about Trump.
Speaker 1: So Jack Smith has asked the Supreme Court to get
Speaker 1: involved preemptively in one of the cases against Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court responding here pretty quickly put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen I'm gonna give you all of
Speaker 1: the details momentarily. Supreme Court has agreed to consider Jacksmith's
Speaker 1: petition for it to establish whether Donald Trump is immune
Speaker 1: from prosecution. Trump has until four on December twentieth to respond.
Speaker 1: Put the next piece up on the screen that gives
Speaker 1: the backstory here, So Special Counsel Jacksmith asks the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court on Monday to swiftly decide whether former President Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes allegedly
Speaker 1: committed while he was in office. This has to do
Speaker 1: with the election interference case, not the document's case. One
Speaker 1: of the arguments that the Trump team has been making is, Listen,
Speaker 1: these are things that were done when he's president of
Speaker 1: the United States, and we believe that means that he's immune.
Speaker 1: Jack Smith is arguing, Listen, we need to expedite this process.
Speaker 1: We need to circumvent we're gonna skip the appeals level.
Speaker 1: We want the Supreme Court to decide this right now,
Speaker 1: so that we can expedite this try and get some
Speaker 1: sort of a resolution in a timely fashion, you know,
Speaker 1: before we're in the height of the presidential election season
Speaker 1: and before there's a possibility of Donald Trump getting elected,
Speaker 1: So Sager, you know, incredibly important obviously in terms of
Speaker 1: the campaign, in terms of the timeline, because one of
Speaker 1: the biggest questions with all of these cases hasn't been
Speaker 1: so much will Trump be found guilty, but when will
Speaker 1: the trials unfold? When will will be the possibility of
Speaker 1: some sort of conviction. Is it going to conflict with
Speaker 1: the hid to presidential campaigning? Is it going to occur
Speaker 1: after November when Trump can just onn the federal charges,
Speaker 1: you know, get his DOJ to drop the charges, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So a major move by Jack Smith here, which is
Speaker 1: unusual but not unprecedented, to jump up to the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court and try to get them to expedite what's happening.
Speaker 3: I actually think this is a good thing.
Speaker 2: And the reason why is it raises like these mega questions,
Speaker 2: and this is something if people go watch our initial
Speaker 2: coverage and all this, I have so many its. I
Speaker 2: was like, they're going to be a crazy amount of
Speaker 2: Supreme Court cases around presidential immunity because the main question
Speaker 2: at hand before the Court is around the immunity provisions
Speaker 2: of the president as previously established in DOJ policy and
Speaker 2: in some existing case laws. But none of it has
Speaker 2: ever happened before where president is actually being put on
Speaker 2: trial for deeds that allegedly occurred while he was the
Speaker 2: president of the United States, and not only that he
Speaker 2: was the outgoing president of the United States, actually as
Speaker 2: a successor had already been certified by the Congress, which
Speaker 2: raises just all kinds of crazy questions around presidential power
Speaker 2: about what it actually means. The immunity claim itself is
Speaker 2: that Trump has said not only that he denies the
Speaker 2: truth of any allegations in here, but that all of
Speaker 2: the underlying charges against him occurred during his sitting presidency,
Speaker 2: which shields him from any prosecution the initial immunity grounds.
Speaker 2: So the judge in the case has already rejected it.
Speaker 2: But this is like a democratic appointed judge. I mean,
Speaker 2: even put that aside, it's not the way that this
Speaker 2: gets litigated. Is why it was immediately escalated and accepted
Speaker 2: now by the Supreme Court. Then it raises even crazier
Speaker 2: political questions about Trump's got three people who we have
Speaker 2: pointed to the bench, So are they going to rule
Speaker 2: against him? They have had no problem doing that previously.
Speaker 2: But this also falls into big questions that go beyond Trump,
Speaker 2: because people like Justice Alito and others Brett Kavanaugh as
Speaker 2: well are big defenders of the idea of the Supreme
Speaker 2: executive and executive power. This is something that they've ruled
Speaker 2: about previously. Justice Thomas probably a little bit more libertarian.
Speaker 2: Maybe he swing there as well, obviously, I think I
Speaker 2: know all the liberals will go on there. Justice Roberts
Speaker 2: as well, we don't actually know, because he's also a
Speaker 2: big defender of kind of the unitary executive model and
Speaker 2: what that looks like for presidential power. So there's some
Speaker 2: actually some major constitutional questions that are at play before
Speaker 2: the Court.
Speaker 1: So just to make it really clear to people in
Speaker 1: case it's not, what the Trump team is arguing is
Speaker 1: basically that if you're present United States, you can do anything,
Speaker 1: you can break any law, and you have complete and
Speaker 1: total immunity forever. The analysis that Jack Smith is offering
Speaker 1: here is that you can't be charged while you are president,
Speaker 1: but if you commit crimes during your tenure in office,
Speaker 1: then after you are out of the presidency, you can
Speaker 1: be charged and you can be found guilty for crimes
Speaker 1: that you committed while you were president. You know, the
Speaker 1: legal analysis that I saw for what it's worth, seem
Speaker 1: to indicate that they they thought it was more likely
Speaker 1: that Jacksmith would prevail on this question, and that you know,
Speaker 1: Trump's assertion that listen to you're immune for absolutely anything
Speaker 1: you do, even if it's on the periphery of your
Speaker 1: powers as president the United States, You're good to go
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life, that that was likely
Speaker 1: to be rejected. The bigger question, again was the timeline.
Speaker 1: Will the Supreme Court take this up when this is
Speaker 1: you know, would be highly unusual for them to do so,
Speaker 1: or are they going to let the appeals process play
Speaker 1: out and go through the normal sort of chain of
Speaker 1: command here in terms of the US judiciary, which of
Speaker 1: course would take a much longer period of time. And
Speaker 1: this is the Trump team's strategy. Their strategy is to
Speaker 1: delay as much as they possibly can, to try to
Speaker 1: push things out to ideally after the election has already happened.
Speaker 1: And so Jack Smith coming in here to try to
Speaker 1: short circuit that potential direction of their you know, of
Speaker 1: what they're doing here, just a little bit of historical background.
Speaker 1: They write that the Supreme Court rarely moves with the
Speaker 1: speed that Smith is proposing here. But there is president
Speaker 1: for doing so in the nineteen seventy four case involving
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon in a subpoena for tape recordings issue during
Speaker 1: the Watergate investigation. The Supreme Court granted the government's request
Speaker 1: to resolve the dispute one week after it was filed
Speaker 1: and issued a decision less than two months later. I
Speaker 1: read another analysis that said this move of jumping over
Speaker 1: the appeals Court and going straight to the US Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has been very rare in history, but actually has
Speaker 1: been used more frequently. Believe the number was like nineteen
Speaker 1: times over the past several years. So it's become a
Speaker 1: little bit more commonplace and interesting that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has agreed very quickly to consider this so very noteworthy.
Speaker 1: This is probably, you know, one of the biggest political
Speaker 1: stories in the country, hanging over whatever is going to
Speaker 1: happen in twenty twenty four, and really the timeline is
Speaker 1: kind of the key piece here.
Speaker 4: Also, another reminder.
Speaker 1: Of Trump's dominance in the Republican primary currently came yesterday
Speaker 1: in a new to Mooin registered pole.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen. De Moin.
Speaker 1: Registered poles are considered, you know, sort of like the
Speaker 1: best poll of Iowa and of potential caucus goers. They
Speaker 1: now find Donald Trump with a majority, an outright majority,
Speaker 1: fifty one percent in the state of Iowa. This is
Speaker 1: an incremental improvement from their last poll. They find DeSantis
Speaker 1: hanging on to the number two slot at nineteen percent,
Speaker 1: nikkiy Haley in third at sixteen percent, the VIK is
Speaker 1: at five, Chris Christi at four. So that is where
Speaker 1: things stand today, and Sager, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I took note of here is, first of.
Speaker 4: All, Nicky Haley is struggling to grow beyond.
Speaker 1: This point because a number of voters see her as
Speaker 1: like too moderate and sort of like too critical of Trump.
Speaker 1: The other thing I take note of is there's always
Speaker 1: been this theory of, oh, we need to consolidate the
Speaker 1: Republican field. As people drop out, then there a one
Speaker 1: Trump alternative could emerge. Guess who benefited most from people
Speaker 1: dropping out of the.
Speaker 4: Race was Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Donald Trump is benefiting the most as people drop
Speaker 1: out of the race, because that analysis relies on a
Speaker 1: fantasy world in which you know, there's this majority of
Speaker 1: the Republican coalition looking for Trump alternatives. No people who
Speaker 1: are backing Tim Scott or others. Apparently many of them
Speaker 1: their second choice was Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: So here we are.
Speaker 2: Also, what was really noteworthy to me is that three
Speaker 2: quarters of the Republican fields a Republican caucus goer, say
Speaker 2: that Trump can defeat Biden despite his legal challenges. And
Speaker 2: you know what, I think they're right. I actually think
Speaker 2: that they're one hundred percent right. We had some of
Speaker 2: that polling that we covered yesterday which showed that it
Speaker 2: would have a slight impact on the way that people voted.
Speaker 3: Look, nobody knows for sure until it actually Yeah.
Speaker 2: So nobody can really nobody can think about what will
Speaker 2: happen until it really does. But you know, you can
Speaker 2: presuppose it a little bit in terms of how would
Speaker 2: it impact your vote, and the vast majority of people,
Speaker 2: or at least independence and others, it's not going to
Speaker 2: have such a massive impact on your vote. I think
Speaker 2: that Biden is under so much. I think Biden is
Speaker 2: underwater in so many ways, more so than the legal problems,
Speaker 2: that it just dwarfs everything else. So, for example, Crystal,
Speaker 2: I was looking yesterday in the crosstabs of that Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal pool. This was highlighted by Josh Crossauer. If
Speaker 2: you ask people did Biden's policies help you or hurt you?
Speaker 2: Fifty four percent say they hurt me. Only twenty some
Speaker 2: percent say that they helped you. If you ask them
Speaker 2: about Trump, it's actually flipped.
Speaker 3: It's not an.
Speaker 2: Overall majority, but it's this minority who say hurt, majority
Speaker 2: who say or plurality who say helped.
Speaker 3: How can you overcome that?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like the ultimate test, especially when
Speaker 2: you've got this mirror image of these two candidates. I
Speaker 2: think Trump benefits the most from I wouldn't call it
Speaker 2: rose colored glass syndrome. More just he was president when
Speaker 2: it wasn't COVID, and post COVID, shit's gone bad and
Speaker 2: you've got high gas, you've got an international global crisis.
Speaker 2: Some of that he was responsiblere in twenty nineteen, some
Speaker 2: of it he's not. Biden is definitely a casualty of
Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve and of COVID policy. Some of it
Speaker 2: is the own making in terms of vaccines and masks
Speaker 2: and all that other stuff that he decided to do
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one. But nonetheless, put the two times
Speaker 2: together and Biden Trump can ask the most basic question,
Speaker 2: would you rather live in twenty nineteen or would you
Speaker 2: rather live today? Most people are going to say twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: That's what the vast majority of people want to return to,
Speaker 2: inflation wise, price wise, life wise. That he's got a
Speaker 2: lot going for him. From a structural advantage point.
Speaker 1: Of view, Trump has never been in a stronger position
Speaker 1: to win in his previous two races than he is now.
Speaker 1: I mean, just to put yourself back in the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen polling and in the twenty twenty polling, Remember it
Speaker 1: had him down consistently by big numbers in some of
Speaker 1: these states. Now you got him up by double digits
Speaker 1: in Michigana state that wasn't all that close last time around.
Speaker 1: You cannot look at this landscape and think that it
Speaker 1: is anything but a catastrophe for Joe Biden. Now what
Speaker 1: they're betting on is these court cases. They're betting on
Speaker 1: you know, Trump's disposition and people being reminded that this
Speaker 1: man is like chaotic, chaotic asshole. They're hoping that abortion
Speaker 1: continues to be a dominant force in politics. And what
Speaker 1: they would point to is listen, a lot of the
Speaker 1: same analysis held in the you know, anticipation of the
Speaker 1: red wave in the last midterms, it didn't come through.
Speaker 1: People were still they were very upset about the economy,
Speaker 1: They were not happy with Biden, they were not happy
Speaker 1: with his leadership.
Speaker 4: His approval rating.
Speaker 1: Was very low, and nevertheless Democrats overcame historical norms in
Speaker 1: terms of midterm election. It was a very disappointing night
Speaker 1: fe or Republicans. They would also point to special elections
Speaker 1: that we've had where Democrats have been consistently outperforming what
Speaker 1: the polls have expected them to do. So that's what
Speaker 1: they would say. But I think, frankly, it's cope. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't look at these economic numbers. You can't look
Speaker 1: at the head to head numbers and think that this
Speaker 1: is you know that this is going well for the
Speaker 1: Biden team. And the other piece of this is, you know,
Speaker 1: Biden is not capable of really campaigning. He's not campaigning.
Speaker 1: They really aren't even building out campaign operations in these states.
Speaker 1: Saw an article about that about how they're way behind
Speaker 1: even just organizationally in terms of their campaign apparatus. He's
Speaker 1: not able to effectively debate, he's not able to effectively communicate,
Speaker 1: he's not able to effectively go out and do rallies
Speaker 1: and really persuade people that he's got the vigor for
Speaker 1: another four years and a plan and an agenda that they,
Speaker 1: you know, may have some interest in. So I think there,
Speaker 1: I think they're in a terrible position. And when you
Speaker 1: add the third party candidates into the mix, it just
Speaker 1: gets even.
Speaker 3: More Die check this out, just more I pulled up.
Speaker 2: Trump has double digit leads on handling the economy, inflation, crime,
Speaker 2: securing the border, Ukraine War, Israel conflict. Biden has a
Speaker 2: double digit lead on only one.
Speaker 3: Issue, abortion. Well, I mean, if I were him, that's
Speaker 3: basically all I would be doing.
Speaker 2: And what Sean Trendy over at RCP highlights is that
Speaker 2: while Biden has a single digit lead on healthcare and
Speaker 2: on social Security, Democrats are supposed to have double digit.
Speaker 3: Leads on those.
Speaker 2: So even in the places where he's beating Trump, supposedly
Speaker 2: he's not beating him by the margin that you're supposed
Speaker 2: to just as a baseline generic Democrat in this race.
Speaker 3: So will abortion save his ass? Actually?
Speaker 2: Maybe that's one of those the craziest part of American politics.
Speaker 1: We covered that Texas case yesterday of the mother of
Speaker 1: two who was going through a process to try to
Speaker 1: get an abortion for the baby she's caring now, who
Speaker 1: has a fatal defact too, is expected only days outside
Speaker 1: of the womb. Two updates for you on that. And
Speaker 1: again this was in the state of Texas. Number one,
Speaker 1: she decided she's going to go out of state to
Speaker 1: have the abortion, and she's suffering massive health impacts also
Speaker 1: of carrying this pregnancy, which she.
Speaker 4: Would love to have a healthy baby.
Speaker 2: Girl.
Speaker 1: This isn't that she doesn't want children, it's that this
Speaker 1: particular baby is unable to live. So she decided to
Speaker 1: go out of state. At the same time, the Texas
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled against her. So it shows you how
Speaker 1: even in this extraordinary circumstance where she knows the baby
Speaker 1: is not going to survive, they would force her to
Speaker 1: carry it to term. And those are the sorts of
Speaker 1: stories that are unfolding and sorts of court cases that
Speaker 1: are unfolding day after day after day that Trump is
Speaker 1: going to have to grapple with that he hasn't really
Speaker 1: had to grapple with. And it ties into a whole
Speaker 1: picture of him and the Republican Party as extremists where
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, and this is again this is the
Speaker 1: democratic case. Well, you may not be happy with me
Speaker 1: on any number of issues, but these people are crazy
Speaker 1: and so we can't put them back into power. And look,
Speaker 1: it has worked pretty well in these certainly in these
Speaker 1: midterm elections, in the special elections. It has been a
Speaker 1: pretty compelling case. So you can't just dismiss it totally
Speaker 1: out of hand.
Speaker 2: I think you are absolutely right. So look, we'll cover
Speaker 2: everybody what happens. He's got until he's only got eight
Speaker 2: days Trump to give his response to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: We theoretically could have a ruling by the end of
Speaker 2: the year, which is nuts, and that would be it.
Speaker 3: Boom, We're going to trial.
Speaker 2: So the days for trial look closer and closer, I think,
Speaker 2: although if the Supreme Court rules the other way, that
Speaker 2: would be even grazier.
Speaker 1: So we really have no idea, that's my idea, but
Speaker 1: definitely something to keep to waking, keep watching.
Speaker 3: Let's go to housing.
Speaker 2: Obviously an issue we know that so many of you
Speaker 2: are fascinated by and really affected by. If you were
Speaker 2: to again ask me why people hate the economy so
Speaker 2: much today, this has got to be the most central
Speaker 2: story and nobody really talks about it. We did at
Speaker 2: least get one question about it at the GotoP debate
Speaker 2: responded to an idiotic.
Speaker 4: Fashion line answer.
Speaker 2: We will move past that and just at least give
Speaker 2: people credit for asking it. But there are some new
Speaker 2: charts here which highlight a terrible reality. The math for
Speaker 2: buying a house no longer works. It's one of the
Speaker 2: biggest flip I guess you could say in almost fifteen
Speaker 2: twenty years since the great recession of two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: So let's put this up there on the screen. We've
Speaker 2: got a lot of these that show you that the
Speaker 2: cost now of an average monthly new home payment is
Speaker 2: now almost one thousand dollars dollars higher than the average
Speaker 2: monthly new lease payment. Whereas the math on that largely
Speaker 2: worked in your favor for buying a house for more
Speaker 2: than a decade twenty ten onward in a lower interest
Speaker 2: rate environment. But with the massive spike that everybody saw
Speaker 2: from those new monthly home payments with these interest rates,
Speaker 2: you makes it so that it doesn't make a whole
Speaker 2: lot of financial sense.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The reason why that's bad is twofold. Obviously, owning a home,
Speaker 2: especially your first home, is usually the first path that
Speaker 2: you have to net worth that actually will set you
Speaker 2: up for retirement and intergenerational wealth.
Speaker 3: Two.
Speaker 2: Whenever you have it make more sense to rent. That
Speaker 2: gives all the leverage in the world to the people
Speaker 2: who are the landlords. And we can see this in
Speaker 2: some of the other prices that we have access to
Speaker 2: in some of these other charts, if we want to
Speaker 2: go ahead to the next one. For example, the average
Speaker 2: rate on the thirty year fixed mortgage has now skyrocketed
Speaker 2: to between six and ten percent. Now, that doesn't sound
Speaker 2: like a lot to people who are alive in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, but when you pair it with the median
Speaker 2: sale price at a literal all time high four hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars for the median sale price. On top of that,
Speaker 2: it's actually over half a million for people who live
Speaker 2: in a metro area. You're at a point where even
Speaker 2: coming up with the downpayment cash seems like a nearly
Speaker 2: impossible task. And then having to keep up with mortgage payments,
Speaker 2: which are in some cases with interest, going to be
Speaker 2: more than your actual paycheck.
Speaker 3: Why what are you supposed to do? Right now?
Speaker 2: They have crystal the total cost of a mortgage for
Speaker 2: a four hundred thousand dollars home at different interest rates.
Speaker 2: I mean, the difference right now is that for a
Speaker 2: four hundred thousand dollars home at three percent, the overall
Speaker 2: cost with interest leaves you roughly shy of half a
Speaker 2: million dollars, whereas today with the eight percent interest rate
Speaker 2: or even the five percent interest rate, you are way
Speaker 2: past that half a million. You're getting into the eight
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars territory of the amount of interest that
Speaker 2: you're paying. So then think of all two about you
Speaker 2: have to the house has to appreciate more than what
Speaker 2: like forty percent or whatever over the value by the
Speaker 2: time you pay it for.
Speaker 3: You to even make any money on the damn house.
Speaker 2: So at like every level to buy, to keep, and
Speaker 2: to sell, we're in a bad market such that people
Speaker 2: are probably more trapped in housing and from housing scenarios
Speaker 2: than ever before. This is a terrible impact on the
Speaker 2: overall economy and it's really like shrinking upward mobility for
Speaker 2: an entire generation. I think, especially people who are between
Speaker 2: thirty and thirty five, people who would traditionally have bought
Speaker 2: their first home starter home type situation with one kid,
Speaker 2: maybe two kids, and would have leveled up after that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you've got people who we either did that and are
Speaker 2: not locked in. Maybe they don't have any more kids
Speaker 2: because of that, maybe they're driving longer commutes, you know,
Speaker 2: all kinds of things. It really freezes people, I think,
Speaker 2: at a phrase in their life and it's just so frustrating.
Speaker 2: I mean, imagine working your whole life almost a decade,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're elder millennial, and then you get
Speaker 2: to a point where you found you you planned the
Speaker 2: entire time, you're going to be ready, and now you
Speaker 2: can't do it. Yeah, you can see all of it
Speaker 2: right here in the data.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this show's the median age of home buyers, which
Speaker 1: is now up to thirty six or thirty five years old.
Speaker 1: Only a decade ago it was thirty years old. I
Speaker 1: mean that's a really significant difference. Are you, you know,
Speaker 1: heading into your thirties or are you heading out of
Speaker 1: your thirties when you're able to aspirationally buy a home.
Speaker 1: Some of the numbers in here were pretty shocking to me,
Speaker 1: even though we've been covering this a lot. They found
Speaker 1: that before the FED started raising rates, a person with
Speaker 1: a monthly housing budget of two thousand dollars could have
Speaker 1: bought a home value at more than four hundred thousand dollar. Today,
Speaker 1: that same buyer would need a home valued at two
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety five thousand dollars or less. How many
Speaker 1: homes in your town go for less than two hundred
Speaker 1: ninety five thousand dollars, not a lot, And there is
Speaker 1: so little supply on the market, especially of quote unquote
Speaker 1: starter homes or homes that would be affordable to you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, this would take a significant amount of income
Speaker 1: just to be able to afford this. So it really
Speaker 1: is an extraordinary landscape. And to tie it in with
Speaker 1: the political conversation that we've been having, if I was Biden, not.
Speaker 4: Only would I be leaning into abortion.
Speaker 1: This is what I would be talking about relentlessly. It
Speaker 1: is such an undercovered issue. It gets so little focus
Speaker 1: and attention, and it causes pain at every level of society.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is almost no one who isn't impacted
Speaker 1: by the basic ability to afford shelter, especially in certain cities.
Speaker 1: You know, some of the numbers of renting versus buying
Speaker 1: in major metros, they found that the premium is one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five percent more to afford a house
Speaker 1: payment in cities like Seattle, Austin, and several cities in California.
Speaker 1: So it's even way worse in a lot of places
Speaker 1: in the country than you know, the overall numbers. There
Speaker 1: is a little bit of movement in Congress, or at
Speaker 1: least some ideas that are beginning to be formulated. And again,
Speaker 1: these are things that I would lean into like crazy
Speaker 1: if I was Biden, because I think it would put
Speaker 1: Trump in a very difficult situation, especially being the real
Speaker 1: estate developer, being very cozy with you know, hedge funders
Speaker 1: and carrying water for them while he was President of
Speaker 1: the United States.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: There's new legislation that Democrats in Congress have introduced, both
Speaker 1: in the House and the Senate that would ban hedge
Speaker 1: funds from buying and owning single family homes in the US.
Speaker 1: It will require them to manage funds pulled to sell
Speaker 1: off all the single family homes that they own over
Speaker 1: a ten year period, would eventually prohibit those companies from
Speaker 1: owning those single family homes at all. During the decade
Speaker 1: long phase out period. It would impost to tax penalties
Speaker 1: with the proceeds reserved for down payment assistance for individuals
Speaker 1: looking to buy homes from corporate owners. So it would
Speaker 1: basically get Wall Street out of speculating on single family homes.
Speaker 1: We've covered here extensively. How you know, this is a
Speaker 1: very uneven phenomenon, But there are certain cities and certain
Speaker 1: neighborhoods in America where the permanent capital coming in and
Speaker 1: buying up entire neighborhoods, really targeting the more affordable housing
Speaker 1: areas in major metro areas and making it possible for
Speaker 1: people to be able to buy homes in that area.
Speaker 1: Companies that are trying to turn themselves into America's landlord,
Speaker 1: and this has had a major impact both in terms
Speaker 1: of the housing stock that's for sale for just regular
Speaker 1: people and also in terms of the prices in those areas.
Speaker 1: So this would go directly after that.
Speaker 4: I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: There's another piece of legislation that would require corporate owners
Speaker 1: of more than seventy five single family homes, so sort
Speaker 1: of like larger landlords, to pay an annual fee of
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars per home into a housing trust fun
Speaker 1: to be used as down payment assistance for families. Because Sager,
Speaker 1: as you rightly identify. One of the big problems now
Speaker 1: is people being able to have enough cash upfront to
Speaker 1: be able to compete in the market and be able
Speaker 1: to secure housing. So it's not just about affording that
Speaker 1: monthly payment. It's obviously being able to afford that down payment.
Speaker 1: And so both of these pieces of legislation would try
Speaker 1: to provide some funds to give people a boost in
Speaker 1: that area as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean, look, I hope that some of
Speaker 2: this stuff goes through. This is arguably the single most
Speaker 2: important thing. I know that there are some metropolitan areas
Speaker 2: which have down payment assistance. It has a limited track record,
Speaker 2: largely because those exist in areas where the property values
Speaker 2: are already so DC for example, they have a one
Speaker 2: I think it can go up to like seventy thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: which of course is.
Speaker 3: A lot of money.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's one of those where if you're trying
Speaker 2: to buy a house is one point two million dollars,
Speaker 2: it's not going to and you.
Speaker 1: Got investors coming in all cash, as.
Speaker 3: You've got people who are not even investors.
Speaker 2: Another problem I often see and speaking to people, especially
Speaker 2: living in California and in New York and Miami as well.
Speaker 2: The amount of foreign capital. There's really rich hedge funders,
Speaker 2: people from all over the world. People forget California and
Speaker 2: New York, Miami. These are some of the most desirable
Speaker 2: real estate, not in America but the whole world. Because
Speaker 2: you have access to the US legal system. It's a
Speaker 2: great place to park cash. But it increases the property values.
Speaker 2: It makes it very difficult for a lot of local
Speaker 2: residents to be able to buy in. So structurally, I
Speaker 2: think there were things that are really not looking good.
Speaker 2: Housing is becoming effectively a luxury good, which I think
Speaker 2: is one of the worst developments that we could have
Speaker 2: in our modern economy, and yet nobody's talking about it,
Speaker 2: and very few are actually trying to do.
Speaker 3: Anything about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, even these bills, which I fully support, I
Speaker 1: think they'd be good. You know, this would nibble around
Speaker 1: the edges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You really need a multi pronger. You've got one big things.
Speaker 1: You've got to surge a huge construction boom of more
Speaker 1: affordable units both to rent and to buy. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a big piece of the puzzle here. But to
Speaker 1: get Wall Street out of speculating on housing, which you
Speaker 1: know housing should be sheltered for people to live in,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I think that would be I think it
Speaker 1: would be huge. I think it would be very difficult
Speaker 1: to accomplish because you would have massive the lobbying, moneyed
Speaker 1: interests push back on this idea. But again, if Biden
Speaker 1: was able to take up this mantle and really lean
Speaker 1: into it, I do think it would put Republicans and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in particular in a very difficult spot. So
Speaker 1: we'll see if they have two brain cells to rup
Speaker 1: together to actually get their act together.
Speaker 4: On this one.
Speaker 3: Not going to take that bet now.
Speaker 2: In much less serious news, but equally very important according
Speaker 2: to some is the Panera lemonade and the controversy around it.
Speaker 2: So Chrystal and I have actually procured these lemonades. We
Speaker 2: will give you the news before we try them live
Speaker 2: on the air. Neitherus have ever tried it before. Let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: There are currently two lawsuits that Panera is facing for
Speaker 2: its highly caffeinated charge lemonade, blamed for two separate debts.
Speaker 2: One gentleman, Dennis Brown, drank three charged lemonades from a
Speaker 2: local Panera on October ninth and suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.
Speaker 2: Sadly actually had an unspecified chromosomal deficiency disorder and a
Speaker 2: develop mental delay. He actually lived independently and he would
Speaker 2: often stop at Panera Bread after the shift. The legal
Speaker 2: complaint says that because he had high blood pressure, he
Speaker 2: did not consume energy drinks. The lawsuit that was filed
Speaker 2: on behalf of his family for Panera alleges that he
Speaker 2: drank three of these charged lemonades and then less Sadly suffered.
Speaker 3: Another lawsuit, which was first.
Speaker 2: Reported, called the beverage quote a dangerous energy drink and
Speaker 2: argues that Panera has failed to appropriately warn consumers about
Speaker 2: its ingredients, which include the stimulant guaron extract.
Speaker 3: It's a common ingredient in many energy drinks.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm not one hundred percent sure if this is fair, Crystal,
Speaker 2: because Panera, in its advertising has advertised said lemonade as
Speaker 2: quote plant based and clean, with as much caffeine as
Speaker 2: our dark roast coffee. Now, let's be clear here, though,
Speaker 2: it has a lot more caffeine than met dark roast coffee,
Speaker 2: unless you're talking about the biggest size like we have
Speaker 2: in front of us and in fact, describing it as
Speaker 2: clean maybe one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: If you want to see what's actually in this thing,
Speaker 2: and we have some of the ingredients, please put it
Speaker 2: up there. Five hundred and thirty calories in this drink, one.
Speaker 3: Hundred and thirty grams of sugar. That is more carbohydrates
Speaker 3: than I eat in like three days. I mean, what
Speaker 3: is that? Like three cookies, like three jumbo.
Speaker 4: Is quite a bit worse than soccer, Okay, but.
Speaker 2: Even then, that's like three chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker 3: Like that is a crazy amount of sugar.
Speaker 2: And then three hundred and not three hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: milligrams of caffeine. Now I get it. I think it
Speaker 2: does certainly sound like a lot. But if we think
Speaker 2: about this, let's look at like a monster energy drink.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite energy drinks is the Black Rifle coffee,
Speaker 2: the three hundred milligram the espress our drink. We've had
Speaker 2: them here on the air before, courtesy of Evan Hayfer.
Speaker 2: By the way, out to my man, Evan, those got
Speaker 2: three hundred milligrams of caffeine. And so there's a big
Speaker 2: I think, like witch hunt right now. It's become a
Speaker 2: big meme to try and get these things banned where. Look,
Speaker 2: I think it's tragic that this man suffered a cardiac arrest.
Speaker 2: That said, like, people are adults, and if you can
Speaker 2: walk into a seven to eleven in this country and
Speaker 2: buy two monsters, then why can't you walk into a
Speaker 2: Panera and buy this big gas drink with three ninety
Speaker 2: milligrams and even one hundred and thirty grams of sugar.
Speaker 2: Look ice gross, There's no way I'll be drinking this
Speaker 2: whole thing because I'm not going to drink that amount
Speaker 2: of sugar.
Speaker 3: But people drink that amount in Coca Cola every single day.
Speaker 2: Actually, arguably it's way worse for you than way worse
Speaker 2: for you to drink that amount of sugar. Coca and
Speaker 2: it used to drink that amount of caffeine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: I just looked it up. A can of coke I
Speaker 1: think has thirty nine grams of sugar.
Speaker 3: You need like four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have a lot of people do that, A
Speaker 1: lot of coke to match that amount of sugar. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: my heartbreaks for these people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel about it. Lois like, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess what I'm looking at is is is
Speaker 1: this really Panera's fault or is this like a regulatory issue,
Speaker 1: because I don't think there's any mandatory requirements that you
Speaker 1: put extra warnings on, you know, super caffeinated drinks, and
Speaker 1: if there's a genuine health danger, it seems like that
Speaker 1: would be a reasonable standard to apply. So it's I
Speaker 1: don't know that. Like listen, companies Panera does this all
Speaker 1: the time. They describe a lot of their food as
Speaker 1: quote unquote clean. It doesn't mean anything. It's not regulated.
Speaker 1: It's like utterly meaning a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: when you go to the grocery store and you see
Speaker 1: these labels put on, they're not certifying anything real. They're
Speaker 1: just aspirationally describing the product in the way that you
Speaker 1: want to associate with it. So so yeah, it's hard
Speaker 1: for me. First of all, I definitely don't think it
Speaker 1: should be banned. I don't know that it's Panera's fault
Speaker 1: or that they should be punished, but I would like
Speaker 1: to see it spark a conversation about whether there should
Speaker 1: be more warning labels on highly caffeinated drinks, because I
Speaker 1: just say, like, thinking about you know, I take my
Speaker 1: kids supreneura. Sometimes if I wasn't really paying attention, I
Speaker 1: don't really let my kids have caffeine because they're crazy
Speaker 1: enough as it is. And if I just saw lemonade
Speaker 1: and I wasn't really paying close attention, I could see
Speaker 1: them filling up a cup of this and me not
Speaker 1: even knowing that they were having this level of intake.
Speaker 4: Now, would that be like really dangerous there? I doubt it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know they're healthy. They don't have any
Speaker 1: underlying health condition, so I don't think they would be
Speaker 1: put at considerable risk. But as a parent, I would
Speaker 1: like a little additional information or a little additional flag,
Speaker 1: because I would never think even if I took note
Speaker 1: of quote unquote charged lemonade, I would never think it
Speaker 1: had that level of caffeine because that's insane.
Speaker 3: So cool. That's why I was cool.
Speaker 2: Three hundred and ninety milligrams, all right, So I looked
Speaker 2: at it. Regulation regulation around caffeine and energy drinks is
Speaker 2: that they are classified as dietary supplements, thus they are
Speaker 2: not required to have FDA approval before production or sale.
Speaker 2: Is not currently regulate the amount of caffeine and other
Speaker 2: stimulants that are found in energy drinks again. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that's fine, especially we have a current system,
Speaker 2: especially right now, is that things don't really get banned
Speaker 2: unless you can prove some sort of public health crisis
Speaker 2: and specifically targeting to teenagers. So, as I said, many
Speaker 2: people are calling it the fifth Loco. I actually think
Speaker 2: what happened to for Loco is bullshit if you look
Speaker 2: back on it. Their argument against for Loco in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine was that the amount of caffeine had
Speaker 2: to be banned specifically because it was being marketed to teenagers.
Speaker 2: I mean that's a obviously false because it was being
Speaker 2: marketed to people who can legally consume alcohol. Now, in
Speaker 2: terms of its marketing and all, that wasn't targeting young people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and as a participant in for Loco Fridays, it was awesome.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: I also remember though that when four Loco was banned,
Speaker 2: what did people start doing. They started buying red Bull
Speaker 2: and pouring into Loco because and I think Vodga Red
Speaker 2: Bull at that time also took off as one of
Speaker 2: the more popular bar drinks. It was just the it's
Speaker 2: like a natural combination that people who are really drawing
Speaker 2: frat culture and all that are going to indulge in regardless.
Speaker 2: So to me, it seems very nanny state when we
Speaker 2: look back on it, it's a lot like what happened
Speaker 2: to Jewel in the same way, or we're going to
Speaker 2: ban Jewel because they're targeting children, and by that, we're
Speaker 2: going to destroy this multi billion dollar American company, so
Speaker 2: that cheap Chinese vapes where those elf bars and all
Speaker 2: those other things can be widely available in every vape
Speaker 2: store in the entire US, and you can buy Zen
Speaker 2: and all you can buy like twelve milligram like Zin
Speaker 2: and nicotine packets that are out there right now, which
Speaker 2: tons of teenagers.
Speaker 1: But so I'm I don't know that I've really seen
Speaker 1: people calling for a ban. Maybe somebody out I've seen it.
Speaker 1: Is it more like what do you think about additional warnings?
Speaker 1: What do you think about, you know, being more easily
Speaker 1: available than information about how much caffeine it has?
Speaker 4: What do you think about those sorts of things?
Speaker 1: Because to me, that's just like transparency and then people
Speaker 1: can make up plansformed decisions about what they're going to
Speaker 1: purchase and what they're going to consume, and that I support.
Speaker 2: I support information for consumers. The calorie content is available
Speaker 2: by law in Panera bread. Whenever you order one of
Speaker 2: these things, I think you order these are Uber eats, right, yes,
Speaker 2: right there, it's in the Uber Eats app.
Speaker 3: It tells you exactly how many calories it is, how
Speaker 3: many calories in it, and.
Speaker 1: If I were they huge now, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they did before, but now when you order them, they
Speaker 1: have a warning on it that says like, not for kids,
Speaker 1: not for people pregnant, not for people with underlying health conditions.
Speaker 1: I'm not quoting verbatim, but there was some sort of
Speaker 1: a warning that came up.
Speaker 2: If I were to choose any warning label to put
Speaker 2: on this thing, it would not be about caffeine, and
Speaker 2: it would be about sugar. One hundred and thirty grams
Speaker 2: sugar and call them this thing out unquote clean.
Speaker 1: That would really bend all of our entire food systems.
Speaker 2: I support if you were to ask me what's more
Speaker 2: dangerous in this thing, it is not the caffeine, and
Speaker 2: a one hundred percent is the sugar. And I would
Speaker 2: support that for every drink out there on the planet,
Speaker 2: some sort of massive warning label as to what's actually
Speaker 2: going to kill you.
Speaker 3: But we have we talked around this enough. Should we
Speaker 3: try it?
Speaker 4: Let's try?
Speaker 3: We drink it? All right?
Speaker 4: Cheers, cheers?
Speaker 2: Okay, mine is pretty tasty.
Speaker 4: I got a strawberry lemon mint.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, I hate to say it's a little sweet.
Speaker 3: I was, what am I drinking? Mango?
Speaker 1: U zoo is yours and minus strawberry lemon mint, and
Speaker 1: that's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago. This thing is definitely.
Speaker 4: A lot of sugar. Yeah, you can get it. It's
Speaker 4: very sweet.
Speaker 3: Your tongue is like dripping.
Speaker 2: I don't drink regular soda or regular but you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes when you accidentally get one or something, you can
Speaker 2: feel coat your teeth.
Speaker 4: I can't.
Speaker 3: That's the mouthfeel that I'm getting from this one thing.
Speaker 1: I was a little surprised by is given the amount
Speaker 1: of sugar and caffeine. I actually thought the cups would
Speaker 1: be larger because this doesn't even approach like a big
Speaker 1: large one size, and this is the large size. That
Speaker 1: being said, I cannot imagine drinking three of these things.
Speaker 1: That would be wild on every level. I can't really
Speaker 1: imagine drinking any beverage the size three of them, which fullish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, but unfortunately a lot of people I mean,
Speaker 2: how many how many times you've been in the seven
Speaker 2: eleven and you see people walk out of there with
Speaker 2: double double big gulps that are full of like full sola.
Speaker 1: Too young to have been involved in the like big
Speaker 1: gulp wars when Bloomberg was Mayor.
Speaker 3: Of Needs or well, I do remember you remember it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was a that was the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's listen, I'm I am much more
Speaker 1: in support of transparency and changing incentives than like outright bands.
Speaker 1: I think are generally generally not the way to go
Speaker 1: unless it's like a really exceptional circumstance. But I don't
Speaker 1: know that this qualifies as an exceptional circle.
Speaker 3: It certainly doesn't in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Anyway, thank you for indulging us, letting us have fun
Speaker 2: on this, Crystal.
Speaker 3: What are you taking a look at?
Speaker 6: Well, tell me name me one more nation, any other
Speaker 6: nation that's doing as much as the United States to
Speaker 6: alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Gazwa.
Speaker 6: You can't, You just can't. The United States, through President Biden,
Speaker 6: is leading the effort to get trucks, food, water, medicine,
Speaker 6: and fuel into the people of Gaza.
Speaker 5: Wait.
Speaker 6: Wait, name another nation. Name an other nation that's doing
Speaker 6: is more than the United States to get hostages out
Speaker 6: or to get people foreign nationals out of Gaza. You
Speaker 6: can't do it. And name another nation that is doing
Speaker 6: more to urge this is Israeli counterparts. Our Israeli counterparts
Speaker 6: to be as cautious and deliberate as they can be
Speaker 6: in the prosecution of their military operations. You can the
Speaker 6: United States is at the forefront of this.
Speaker 1: That was NSC spokesman John Kirby and one of the
Speaker 1: greatest feats of gaslighting I have literally ever seen, positioning
Speaker 1: the US is a great humanitarian savior even as our
Speaker 1: bombs are being dropped on thousands of Palestinian babies.
Speaker 4: We are aiding and a betting a medigal.
Speaker 1: Siege, the worst massacre of civilians in modern history, the
Speaker 1: mass displacement of nearly the entire population of Gaza what
Speaker 1: Nick Christoph is now calling Rwanda level atrocities, and still
Speaker 1: have the gall to posture like we are humanity's last
Speaker 1: best hope. It is literally unreal, as in thoroughly disconnected
Speaker 1: from reality. If I spent the entire day, I could
Speaker 1: not possibly untangle all of the twisted delusions and outright
Speaker 1: lies that the US is pushed in order to justify
Speaker 1: the unjustifiable and in order to wash the Biden administration's
Speaker 1: hands of the blood being spilled and chaos being sewed
Speaker 1: in Gaza and more broadly in the Middle East. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to spend a little bit of time today
Speaker 1: tackling some of the greatest absurdities being peddled from the
Speaker 1: White House and State Department podiums, taking apart the elaborate
Speaker 1: fairy tale that Biden and co. Must push lest they
Speaker 1: just admit that they are dedicated to helping Israel commit
Speaker 1: war crimes. So let's start with mister Kirby. Here, he says,
Speaker 1: to name one nation that is doing as much as
Speaker 1: the US to alleviate the pain and suffering of the
Speaker 1: people of Gaza. As a starting point, how about literally
Speaker 1: every other member of the UN Security Council, all of
Speaker 1: whom voted for an immediate ceasefire and release of all hostages,
Speaker 1: save for the UK, which abstained the US vetoed that resolation,
Speaker 1: making clear that are hosed. Concern for the hostages is
Speaker 1: just an empty pack of lies, and our alleged concern
Speaker 1: for civilians is even more of a cruel joke. More
Speaker 1: to the point, it is the height of insanity to
Speaker 1: claim you are the humanitarian savior of Palestinians for giving
Speaker 1: a little, perfunctory lip service to concerns for civilians and
Speaker 1: sending in a few aid trucks while your state department
Speaker 1: is working feverishly to ship as many weapons and munitions
Speaker 1: as possible as fast as you can, knowing that these
Speaker 1: weapons are being used overwhelmingly to massacre Palestinian civilians living
Speaker 1: on how about we check in with the State Department.
Speaker 1: Their spokesman, Matthew Miller, is doing his absolute best to
Speaker 1: pretend that life for Palestinians and Gaza is anything but
Speaker 1: absolute hell on earth. Fresh off being rebuked as irresponsible
Speaker 1: by the IDF for suggesting that Hamas was not releasing
Speaker 1: hostages because they had been raped, Matthew Miller decided to
Speaker 1: give the residents of Gaza a little advice on how
Speaker 1: they could keep themselves and their families safe. Miller's guidance,
Speaker 1: just go to the yuon designated sites.
Speaker 7: So where should people go?
Speaker 9: People should go to the site. Let's take it one
Speaker 9: question time. Before you asked a question, let me answer.
Speaker 9: People should go to the UN designated sites where that
Speaker 9: are on Israeli lists as deconfliction zones that should not
Speaker 9: be the target of military campaigns.
Speaker 1: Now Listen to a UNISEF official on that very same day,
Speaker 1: in response to a similar question about where people should
Speaker 1: go to be safe, there is.
Speaker 10: No way safe. This place is not safe under that title,
Speaker 10: is not safe. Children in that hospital is not safe.
Speaker 10: There are no bond because he that would offer a
Speaker 10: modicum of safety, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 4: Nowhere is safe.
Speaker 1: Matthew Miller's fantasy in which UN flag facilities offer some
Speaker 1: sort of safe harbor was also just rebuked by the
Speaker 1: Secretary General of the UN itself, who wrote in a
Speaker 1: statement quote, the people of Gaza are being told to
Speaker 1: move like human pinballs Rickichet, between ever smaller slivers of
Speaker 1: the south without any of the basics for survival. But
Speaker 1: nowhere in Gaza is safe. At least eighty eight UN
Speaker 1: Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near
Speaker 1: East shelters have been hit, killing over two hundred and
Speaker 1: seven people in injuring over nine hundred. In another exchange,
Speaker 1: Miller was confronted with the actual horrors that our government
Speaker 1: is standing firmly behind, and it gets a little uncomfortable
Speaker 1: for him, this fairy tale of safe zones and humanitarian
Speaker 1: assistants collapsing. He reaches for the only other option, pleading ignorance.
Speaker 9: There was a report that Israel's assault forced the nurse
Speaker 9: to leave babies behind.
Speaker 5: They were found decomposing. Are you aware of the story.
Speaker 3: I am aware of that report.
Speaker 7: Y and do you take it as it happened, or
Speaker 7: if it did happen, is at the walk line sight?
Speaker 9: I would say that is a tragedy. It's a tragedy
Speaker 9: for those babies, It's a tragedy for their family members,
Speaker 9: It's a tragedy for the Palestinian people, and it is
Speaker 9: a tragedy for the world. It is why we have
Speaker 9: made clear that far too many Palestinians have been killed
Speaker 9: in this conflict, and that of course includes far too
Speaker 9: many Palestinian children and of course Palestinian babies, And it
Speaker 9: is why we have taken every measure we could to
Speaker 9: speak loudly and clearly to the government of Israel that
Speaker 9: it needs to do everything it can to minimize civilian harm.
Speaker 9: And it's why we have worked to try and move
Speaker 9: humanitarian assistance in and it is also why I will
Speaker 9: say we have said that Hamas should stop hiding its
Speaker 9: fighters in hospitals. So it gets to the very difficult
Speaker 9: nature of this war and the immense human tragedy that
Speaker 9: has been inflicted on far.
Speaker 5: Tell better if it's happened. It's not a work, right
Speaker 5: or is there a work.
Speaker 9: I'm never going to be able to make an assessment here.
Speaker 9: You saw us today make a conclusion about war crimes
Speaker 9: after a very deliberate fact finding process where we then
Speaker 9: apply the factor a lot. It's not something I can
Speaker 9: do responding to just please let me finish my answers
Speaker 9: before you interrupt. I will take all your questions. It
Speaker 9: is not something I can do responding to a report
Speaker 9: from the podium.
Speaker 1: Amazingly, on the very same day that Miller plot ignorance,
Speaker 1: the State Department didn't miraculously remember what war crimes actually are,
Speaker 1: sending out this tweet announcing they had to Herman the
Speaker 1: Sudanese armed forces had committed war crimes and ethnic cleansing
Speaker 1: in Sudan.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they can use these new powers to figure out
Speaker 1: the immensely complicated riddle of whether premature babies in the
Speaker 1: Niku are legitimate military targets. Now it's complete, our partial
Speaker 1: exploration of US fairy tales, fantasies, and outright falsehoods. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to where we started, because John Kirby has
Speaker 1: been routinely turning in oscar winning performances in defense of
Speaker 1: the Israeli government.
Speaker 4: Just take a listen to this one.
Speaker 6: It is not the Israeli defense forces strategy to kill
Speaker 6: innocent people. It's happening. I admit that each one's a tragedy,
Speaker 6: but it's not like these Raelis are sitting around every
Speaker 6: morning and saying, hey, how many more civilians can we
Speaker 6: kill today? Let's go Obama. Let's go Obama school or
Speaker 6: a hospital or a residential building and just and cause
Speaker 6: civilian casualties. Not doing that, they're trying to go after Hamas,
Speaker 6: and it's a very difficult task when Hamas, oh, by
Speaker 6: the way, in addition to deliberately slaughtering people, is deliberately
Speaker 6: hiding themselves in residential buildings, in hospitals, in tunnels, make
Speaker 6: putting the innocent people of Gaza directly in the crossfire.
Speaker 6: Now you tell me, is that right?
Speaker 1: Peddling oh, so many lies in such a short period
Speaker 1: of time.
Speaker 4: It's almost impressive.
Speaker 1: Frankly, first claim from Kirby quote it is not the
Speaker 1: IDF strategy to kill innocent people.
Speaker 4: Actually it is.
Speaker 1: This is blindingly, undeniably obvious if you just look at
Speaker 1: the death toll. The very lowest civilian death rate estimate
Speaker 1: I have seen comes from an Israeli university studies published
Speaker 1: in Haretz, which found that sixty percent of all deaths
Speaker 1: in Gaza were civilians. Other estimates have placed that number
Speaker 1: closer to eighty or ninety percent, But even taken the
Speaker 1: low number, it would be significantly higher than the civilian
Speaker 1: death toll of all twentieth century conflicts combined. That includes,
Speaker 1: of course, intimously brutal wars like World War One, World
Speaker 1: War II, Vietnam, etc. What's more, this same Israeli study
Speaker 1: confirmed the reporting of nine seven two, which found that yes,
Speaker 1: in fact, Israel is intentionally bombing civilians in hopes of
Speaker 1: creating a quote shock that would turn the population on humas.
Speaker 1: So when Kirby says, quote, it's not like the Israelis
Speaker 1: are sitting around every morning and saying, hey, how many
Speaker 1: more civilians can we kill today? Let's go Bama school
Speaker 1: or a hospital or a residential building, and just cause civilian casualties.
Speaker 4: They actually literally are doing that.
Speaker 1: Kirby goes on to say what the Israelis are actually
Speaker 1: doing is hunting Hamas. This may be the biggest fairy
Speaker 1: tale of the mall Adam Johnson lays this out well
Speaker 1: in his new piece for The Nation, The Hunt from
Speaker 1: Hamas narrative is obscuring Israel's real plans for Gossap. In it,
Speaker 1: he asked us to consider the hunt for Hamas narrative
Speaker 1: that surrounded the attack, for example, on Alshif, the hospital
Speaker 1: we were told Al Shifa was the beating heart of
Speaker 1: Hamas Hq, complete with this computer generated image of hamas
Speaker 1: command and control center doctor Evil's style layer where Hamas leaders, militants,
Speaker 1: and hostages could all be located. In the end, the
Speaker 1: IDF was able to produce roughly a dozen guns, one
Speaker 1: tunnel shaft, and a box of dates, and then everyone
Speaker 1: moved on to con Unis, which we are now told
Speaker 1: is the real Hamas Hq. As Johnson writes, quote, looking
Speaker 1: at Israeli attacks through a countert pkeral Lens makes Israel's
Speaker 1: military decisions seem perplexing. Why would Israel attack a hospital
Speaker 1: if it didn't think it was a Hamas command center.
Speaker 1: The Israeli military has shelled and attacked a number of hospitals,
Speaker 1: most of which it didn't even bother to claim more
Speaker 1: Hamas military basis. This is because the hunt for Hamas
Speaker 1: framework continually adopted by US media is the wrong framework.
Speaker 1: The government is doing forcible population transfers, and this means everyone.
Speaker 1: It's the simplest way to explain Israel's actions. Yet American media,
Speaker 1: tied to counter terror narratives can't or won't get their
Speaker 1: minds around the obvious fact that Israel's attempting to depopulate
Speaker 1: Gaza in stages. Not to mention, given the high rate
Speaker 1: of civilian death, Israel is without a doubt, creating more
Speaker 1: Hamas militants than they are destroying. Taken together, the US
Speaker 1: is mounting an all out assault on reality in order
Speaker 1: to continue to justify are unconditional, no redline support for
Speaker 1: Bibi's war on Gaza. The impossible and failing nature of
Speaker 1: perpetuating this elaborate mythology is why have they resorted to
Speaker 1: increasingly desperate distraction. Oh my god, it's TikTok, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: A rally chant meets someone somewhere feel unsafe. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: a university president actually stood up for free speech. Can't
Speaker 1: have any of that free speech lest someone actually tells
Speaker 1: the truth. And the level of gaslighting here has been
Speaker 1: truly extraordinary.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Joining
Speaker 2: us now is independent journalist Lee Fong. He's got a
Speaker 2: great new piece out. Let's go and put it up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. Inside the pro Israel information war israelly,
Speaker 2: government led zoom calls, WhatsApp chat logs, and other documents
Speaker 2: provide a window into the massive effort to shape online
Speaker 2: discourse and silence pro Palestinian voices. Lee, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining us, first of all, and why don't
Speaker 2: you break down a little bit of what you uncovered
Speaker 2: from behind the scenes of some cancelation campaigns that we've
Speaker 2: seen in front of us.
Speaker 11: Well, good morning, thanks for having me, And before I begin,
Speaker 11: I just want to give a big shout out to
Speaker 11: my co author, Jack Bolsen. Really fantastic journalists. Check out
Speaker 11: a substact, check out tech inquiry to Watchdog group that
Speaker 11: he runs. We did this story looking into there's really
Speaker 11: let me just say that there's two wars going on.
Speaker 11: There's the physical war in Gaza, but there's also a
Speaker 11: propaganda war. There's a war to win public opinion, to
Speaker 11: shape the online and public discourse. This story looks into
Speaker 11: that many of the participants in this organization and these
Speaker 11: groups that we looked into, they call it the information war,
Speaker 11: also the second battlefield. And we looked at documents, planning documents,
Speaker 11: activist documents, videos, and webinars with training seminars on how
Speaker 11: to engage in this information war. And we've got access
Speaker 11: to this three hundred person WhatsApp group Pro Israel Group,
Speaker 11: many prominent members, officials from APAC, the very influential pro
Speaker 11: Israel lobbying group here in the US, Venture Capitalists, Tech Leader.
Speaker 11: There's a lot of prominent names in there, and they're
Speaker 11: basically organizing to support Israel. Some of the work is
Speaker 11: fairly benign or you know, normal charitable work. You know,
Speaker 11: they're raising funds to provide humanitarian assistants to communities that
Speaker 11: impacted in Israel. But some of the other work is
Speaker 11: perhaps a little bit more problematic that raises certain concerns.
Speaker 11: They're organizing as well to silence Palestinian voices. To silence
Speaker 11: pro Palestinian voices, They're organizing the pressure campaigns on universities
Speaker 11: and other groups to cancel pro Palestinian speakers. They've gone
Speaker 11: after and successfully canceled events from Congresswoman Rashida t Lei,
Speaker 11: a Democrat from Michigan, Muhammad al Kurd He's a fairly
Speaker 11: prominent writer from Jerusalem and writes for the Nation and
Speaker 11: other US based publications. He was scheduled to speak at
Speaker 11: the University of Vermont, and you know, members of this
Speaker 11: group mobilize the pressure effort to cancel that event.
Speaker 5: It was canceled. They're pooling money into.
Speaker 11: AI based tech tools to automatically flag and report pro
Speaker 11: Palestine and content on various social media platforms Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 11: what have you.
Speaker 5: They're organizing to send.
Speaker 11: Even even arms and weapons to Israel, although it seems
Speaker 11: like some of those efforts were not successful because of
Speaker 11: customs efforts or customs issues. But you know, there's there's
Speaker 11: just it's a sprawling effort. I mean, these are these
Speaker 11: are mostly volunteers. Of course, any group on either side
Speaker 11: of this, pro Palestating or pro Israel has a right
Speaker 11: to speak out.
Speaker 5: There's no issue with that.
Speaker 11: We all have a First Amendment right here. But what's
Speaker 11: kind of interesting and again kind of unusual here is
Speaker 11: that many Israeli government officials have participated in these efforts.
Speaker 11: They've sat in on the chats, they've helped guide the
Speaker 11: advocacy on webinars. So, you know, I've looked at a
Speaker 11: lot of different interest groups and you know, effort.
Speaker 5: To shape public policy, public discourse.
Speaker 11: The role of a foreign government in such a heavy
Speaker 11: handed role here, you know, that's that's something that's that
Speaker 11: I haven't seen before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lee, perhaps you could take us through one example
Speaker 1: of someone that they targeted for cancelation getting there, you know,
Speaker 1: getting them fired, getting a taught canceled, so we can
Speaker 1: see how this network sort of operates.
Speaker 11: Well, the story goes through a lot of different examples,
Speaker 11: but you know, one we open with and this was
Speaker 11: publicly reported, you know, shortly after the October seventh terrorist attack.
Speaker 11: You know, you saw a wave of cancelations. You know,
Speaker 11: one employee from the website building Wix, it's an Israeli
Speaker 11: company in Ireland, posted on LinkedIn Free Palestine. She later
Speaker 11: posted other comments criticizing the kind of exclusive Zion estate
Speaker 11: of Israel. You know, these are potentially controversial comments, but
Speaker 11: you know this is her political opinion. By look at
Speaker 11: this WhatsApp group, we see kind of a very rapid
Speaker 11: effort to identify tech employees and academics and activists for cancelation.
Speaker 11: So someone took a screenshot of her simply saying free Palestine,
Speaker 11: shared with the group immediately, and an executive from WIS,
Speaker 11: from this tech company that employed said, you know, we're
Speaker 11: already working on it. Someone else confirmed that she'd work
Speaker 11: on it. She's the WIS executive says, you know, we'll
Speaker 11: look for a statement tomorrow. You know this has been
Speaker 11: taken care of, and indeed, within twenty four hours, this
Speaker 11: employee was fired. And you know the WhatsApp group is
Speaker 11: just littered with examples of this. Uh, they're going after,
Speaker 11: you know, very kind of even minor or relatively minor
Speaker 11: student groups, pressuring universities to cut their ties with them.
Speaker 5: They're mobilizing.
Speaker 11: Donors and alumni from various elite colleges NYU, Columbia and
Speaker 11: others to support decisions to revoke the status of student group.
Speaker 11: You know, Jewish voices for Peace as Students for Palestine.
Speaker 11: These are kind of left wing groups that are more
Speaker 11: on the very much so on the pro Palestinian side.
Speaker 11: They're really targeting these organizations and getting them removed or
Speaker 11: canceled from university campuses.
Speaker 1: Lee Another part that I've thought was really fascinating because
Speaker 1: it rang so true is you talk about some of
Speaker 1: the training that's done in this group, and in particular
Speaker 1: you've got information about and Israel based venture capitalists. Who
Speaker 1: outlined three categories of people that it was worth reaching
Speaker 1: out to and trying to persuade. One group was dubbed
Speaker 1: the impressionables, typically young people. They reflexively support the weak,
Speaker 1: opposed the oppressor, but are not really knowledgeable. For this
Speaker 1: category of people, the goal is not to convince them
Speaker 1: of anything, but to see doubt.
Speaker 4: That was one group.
Speaker 1: The second group was what was described as the uncomfortable
Speaker 1: sympathizer group that wants to support Israel, typically more liberal, but.
Speaker 4: Opposes net and Yahoo.
Speaker 1: These types can be won over by pointing out we
Speaker 1: are a multi ethnic, diverse, democratic liberal society with rotten apples.
Speaker 1: The like Israeli gay pride flags sort of come to
Speaker 1: mind in that genre of outreach The final group consists
Speaker 1: of those who are reflexively pro Israel, kind of Israel
Speaker 1: right or wrong. Members of this group are not actually
Speaker 1: very knowledgeable, so they needed to be equipped with the
Speaker 1: right facts to make them more effective in advocating for Israel.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 11: I mean these are just I mean, some of these tactics.
Speaker 11: I guess you kind of see them on any controversial
Speaker 11: emotionally related topic.
Speaker 5: But it's really interesting to see. You know, this was.
Speaker 11: A high level official runs the Israel office of Bessemer
Speaker 11: Venture Partners. This is one of the biggest VC firms
Speaker 11: in the world. You know, they help seed LinkedIn, Yelp, Shopify,
Speaker 11: you name it. I mean, this is a very big
Speaker 11: VC firm, a lot of money under management, a lot
Speaker 11: of influence. And one of their partners, Andy David, led
Speaker 11: this talk and gave as that you just referenced, and
Speaker 11: he did it so alongside an IDF spokesperson in uniform
Speaker 11: for this kind of training session for tech leaders in VC,
Speaker 11: VC folks to engage in the social media debate. And
Speaker 11: you know, he was kind of bragging that he had,
Speaker 11: you know, ridiculed and rebutted Paul Graham and other very influential,
Speaker 11: influential venture capitalists who has made comments that people perceive
Speaker 11: as pro Palestinian, talking about the civilian body count on
Speaker 11: both sides and how it's hire on the Palestinian side.
Speaker 11: But you know, this is just that's just one of
Speaker 11: many of these webinars, and they're really focused on social media.
Speaker 11: They're the pro Israel side, and I think both sides
Speaker 11: really are concerned about how this conflict is perceived. And really,
Speaker 11: if you open up any of these social media platforms,
Speaker 11: you do see hateful stuff on both sides. You know,
Speaker 11: you see anti Semitic convents, you see Islamophobic, anti Arab comments,
Speaker 11: you see people justifying the slaughter of civilians.
Speaker 5: Really again on both sides.
Speaker 11: But really it is also a lopside of debate because
Speaker 11: the vast majority of people who are losing their academic freedom,
Speaker 11: who are losing their free speech, are getting kind of
Speaker 11: removed from social media because they're getting constantly flagged, whether
Speaker 11: by bots or by volunteers, it's not really clear or
Speaker 11: by these kind of the black box of who makes
Speaker 11: decisions at the social media companies. They're seeing more of
Speaker 11: the pro Palestinian side getting silenced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have that example that you mentioned. We could
Speaker 2: put it up there on the screen just to show
Speaker 2: people the level of state support even for this where
Speaker 2: it shows a graphic here for those who are just
Speaker 2: listening that says Israel needs you now. Special guests include
Speaker 2: a major in the IDF spokesperson unit, Libby Weiss, who
Speaker 2: previously I know, I believe she was an American citizen
Speaker 2: who made ali a, went to Israel and now works
Speaker 2: as a spokesperson for the IDF. And then Adam Fisher,
Speaker 2: who's a partner at that venture firm that you mentioned.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is right up like a government organized
Speaker 2: effort to and who were the people then lee who
Speaker 2: participated in this. It's very what high net worth individuals
Speaker 2: who then were encouraged to participate in cancelation campaigns here
Speaker 2: in the United States.
Speaker 11: Yes, it's largely folks in the Bay Area, people at
Speaker 11: work who work at VC funds, family offices, tech firms,
Speaker 11: tech lawyers. But you know, it's a loosely organized group
Speaker 11: of volunteers essentially. I mean, these are people who are
Speaker 11: very concerned about the conflict, you know, who want to
Speaker 11: do who want to play a part. Again, that's that's there, right,
Speaker 11: But you know, there's also some people in DC in
Speaker 11: New York. I don't have the full list of this
Speaker 11: particular zoom call, but you know, we we we have
Speaker 11: viewed quite a few.
Speaker 5: We watched some of these videos.
Speaker 11: Some of these videos were actually posted online that anyone
Speaker 11: can see, but just in very kind of hidden corners
Speaker 11: of the Internet. Even just within the first few days
Speaker 11: after the conflict started on October seven, you know, you
Speaker 11: had almost immediately you had idf of spokespeople, people from
Speaker 11: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israel organizing these zoom
Speaker 11: calls to say, hey, look for you know, people who
Speaker 11: support Israel, who are traumatized by this this terror attack.
Speaker 11: You can play a part too. You can be a
Speaker 11: frontline soldier. We need you to influence universities. We need
Speaker 11: you to influence your elite circles of donors and other.
Speaker 5: Influential people in the media.
Speaker 11: We need you to pressure Congress to maintain strong support
Speaker 11: for Israel. We need munitions, we need armaments, We need
Speaker 11: Congress to send US military support to win this war.
Speaker 11: And you know, even though there are people fighting in
Speaker 11: the physical battlefield, you can play your part back in
Speaker 11: the United States. And indeed that's what we've seen over
Speaker 11: the last two months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Lee, it actually reminds me of I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is not new for the Israeli garment
Speaker 1: that always been very savvy about shaping public opinion, especially
Speaker 1: in the places where they need public opinion to be shaped.
Speaker 1: I mean, this goes all the way back to the
Speaker 1: early Zionists, you know, trying to secure the ball for
Speaker 1: declaration from Britain and trying to shape the media coverage
Speaker 1: in England of what was happening in historic Palestine there.
Speaker 1: So it has a lot of echoes around history of
Speaker 1: this sort of like organized effort, which again may not
Speaker 1: be illegal, but it's nevertheless interesting to see how these
Speaker 1: things that feel like they're organic unfolding online and the
Speaker 1: types of arguments that are being made and the type
Speaker 1: of sweeping cancelations that we've seen across the country, to
Speaker 1: see some of the nitty gurdy of how this is
Speaker 1: actually organized behind the scenes. The last question I had
Speaker 1: for you is has there been any descent within these networks.
Speaker 1: Has there been a moment where someone raised their hand,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is too far, or this person
Speaker 1: shouldn't be fired, or you know what, this rhetoric I
Speaker 1: really object to.
Speaker 11: Yes, yeah, you know, this is not like this is
Speaker 11: a three hundred person WhatsApp group, you know. And again,
Speaker 11: this is a snapshot into what are probably there are
Speaker 11: probably a lot of other WhatsApp groups and other organizing efforts.
Speaker 11: This is just one that we got access to. But
Speaker 11: there was some pushback against some of these demands to
Speaker 11: cancel the Netflix film far Ha. It's a Jordanian film
Speaker 11: that depicts a scene or you know, a moment in
Speaker 11: the nineteen forty eight war, you know what Palestinians called
Speaker 11: the Nakba, when many Palestinians were forced out of their
Speaker 11: homes and pushed out of Israel. You know, there's there's
Speaker 11: a very gory scene. I you know, I just recently
Speaker 11: watched the film in which Israeli militant soldiers kill civilians US.
Speaker 11: You know, heart wrenching film, our heart wrenching scene. And
Speaker 11: there is an effort in this onsapp group to apply
Speaker 11: more pressure to Netflix to cancel this film, to stop
Speaker 11: it from being streamed. And one of the members of
Speaker 11: this group said, you know what, you know, even Israeli
Speaker 11: historians have confirmed that some of these activities indeed took
Speaker 11: place but this person was kind of over over road
Speaker 11: by the other members who said, look, this is still
Speaker 11: incitement against Jews as anti semitism.
Speaker 5: This is blood lebel at this point, at this point.
Speaker 11: In time, you know it's not even if it's historically accurate,
Speaker 11: we still need to get this consul.
Speaker 5: Wow. Again, this is not that.
Speaker 11: There was some lively back and forth, you know what,
Speaker 11: It's not. Everyone was in an agreement.
Speaker 3: All right, I guess we'll take it.
Speaker 4: What's that Netflix film again?
Speaker 3: I want to check it out far far ha.
Speaker 5: Lee.
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's a fantastic report. I really encourage people
Speaker 1: to read it in depth because, like I said, it
Speaker 1: is really fascinating just to see the way these things
Speaker 1: develop behind the scenes versus just the public face that
Speaker 1: we all have access to.
Speaker 4: So thank you so much for your work and always
Speaker 4: great to see you.
Speaker 2: Absolutely everybody subscribed to Lee's substack. We'll see you later, man,
Speaker 2: appreciate that.
Speaker 5: Take care.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: We got a great counterpoints show for everybody tomorrow, so
Speaker 2: you guys can enjoy that. Otherwise, we'll see you all
Speaker 2: on Thursday.