Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: We have a great show for everyone today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal, Indeed we do.
Speaker 1: We've got, of course, the very latest for you out
Speaker 1: of the Middle East. Hard to believe, but it is
Speaker 1: one month ago today that the war on Gaza officially began,
Speaker 1: So we've got a little bit of a look back
Speaker 1: and also first indications from NETANYAHUO directly as to what
Speaker 1: the future of Gaza may look like, so we'll bring
Speaker 1: you all of that. We also have a little bit
Speaker 1: of a focus on the journalists who have been targeted
Speaker 1: in this war and the silence from a media that
Speaker 1: used to care about pretend it please to care about
Speaker 1: such things, So I'll get into all of that. We
Speaker 1: also had testimony from Trump in his civil fraud trial.
Speaker 1: Break that down for you. Apparently it's pretty wild in
Speaker 1: the courtroom. I guess that's not really unexpected when you're
Speaker 1: talking about the former president. We also have Dems who
Speaker 1: are really freaking out about that recent New York Times
Speaker 1: poll that we brought you yesterday showing Biden losing to
Speaker 1: Trump in nearly every swing state that they surveyed, and
Speaker 1: new calls for him to step Aside from perhaps some
Speaker 1: surprising places, we also have a major change of tune
Speaker 1: from Jim Kramer over on CNBC with regard to the
Speaker 1: United Autoworkers and also guys in his election day. It's
Speaker 1: the election day in Virginia, in Kentucky, and Mississippi. I
Speaker 1: think there are some thirty seven states that have something
Speaker 1: on the ballot today. So we're going to give you
Speaker 1: a little bit of a preview of some of the
Speaker 1: top things to watch for. Of course, Counterpoints will have
Speaker 1: full coverage of the results tomorrow, but happy to have
Speaker 1: j Miles Coleman with us this morning to break all
Speaker 1: of that down. Forest Let's go ahead and jump into
Speaker 1: the latest out of the Middle East. Put this first
Speaker 1: element up on the screen. This is something that we
Speaker 1: are watching very very carefully as we worry about the
Speaker 1: risks of this conflict widening into a broader war directly
Speaker 1: involving US. This is via Politico attacks on US troops
Speaker 1: in the Middle East spike amid military build up. The
Speaker 1: US publicized the deployment of warships and a submarine that
Speaker 1: were sent into the region over the weekend.
Speaker 4: Let me give you the details here.
Speaker 1: US troops station in Irock and Syria have been attacked
Speaker 1: by rockets and drones thirty eight times since October seventeenth.
Speaker 1: That's according to a Pentagon spokesperson. That is an increase
Speaker 1: from thirty one on Friday afternoons. Today. They're considering that
Speaker 1: an escalation. Forty six service members at this point in
Speaker 1: total have now self reported injuries from the attacks, which
Speaker 1: he called harassing. All of the forty six service members
Speaker 1: who did sustain those injuries were hurt during earlier attacks
Speaker 1: prior to October six. The injuries were sustained primarily in
Speaker 1: attacks on Alasade in Iraq and Al Tomp Garrison in
Speaker 1: Syria on October seventeenth and eighteenth. One additional service member
Speaker 1: was wounded in an incident in a rock on October
Speaker 1: twenty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the headline news to me was that the
Speaker 2: Sunday was actually the most violent day five rocket in
Speaker 2: one way drone attacks near Alasad Air Base in Iraq,
Speaker 2: two locations in Syria.
Speaker 3: That was from the DoD.
Speaker 2: What's even worse, Krystal is that all of this is
Speaker 2: being leaked behind the scenes. The official number was hid
Speaker 2: from the American people of twenty one US service members,
Speaker 2: it now appears to be at least forty six US
Speaker 2: service members who have sustained injuries were hurt during these attacks.
Speaker 2: Some of them experienced traumatic brain injuries. Many of them
Speaker 2: are now in Germany actually seeking further treatment. So, look,
Speaker 2: this was not just like some something that happened far
Speaker 2: away or you know, even away from the service members
Speaker 2: that they happened to be completely safe, like obviously they
Speaker 2: were either caught off guard or they were attacked and
Speaker 2: they suffered some sort of injury, and the extent to
Speaker 2: these injuries are being totally hid from. The Sunday attacks
Speaker 2: are very significant because they came on the exact same
Speaker 2: time and Secretary Blincoln was actually present on Iraqi soil.
Speaker 2: So when you consider that and the amount of now
Speaker 2: visits that the United States and ministers and other officials
Speaker 2: have been present there, the attacks begin to ramp up
Speaker 2: as a signal to us, really, they're like, hey, we
Speaker 2: know who are you supporting. We also want you to
Speaker 2: know that you are not going to be go away unscathed.
Speaker 2: Not to what extent, obviously, it's unclear. Yesterday we brought
Speaker 2: everybody the news, but all those significant military assets, the
Speaker 2: Ohio class submarine that is present. Now we have seventeen
Speaker 2: thousand now US service members who have been redirected to
Speaker 2: the Middle East since the beginning of October seventh. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you think about that in a single month, to
Speaker 2: mobilize seventeen thousand US service members, multiple marine Expeditionary Force,
Speaker 2: two carrier strike groups, and all the attendant firepower on
Speaker 2: top of the existing military assets. It's only one month
Speaker 2: ago that the terrorist attack on on Israel and here
Speaker 2: we are sitting that much later. It just goes to
Speaker 2: show you how all the pieces are our place for
Speaker 2: broader escalation if needed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, to put it in layman's terms, given
Speaker 1: the amount of military assets that we have rushed to
Speaker 1: the region, I mean, it certainly looks like we are
Speaker 1: preparing for World War three, or at least to be
Speaker 1: ready in case that is what breaks out. And let's
Speaker 1: also be really clear in layman terms, the longer that
Speaker 1: bombs stamped made in America are being dropped on Gaza,
Speaker 1: the more risk to our service members and the more
Speaker 1: risk of this widening into a broader war. So when
Speaker 1: we're covering these escalations and attacks on service members, the
Speaker 1: rushing military assets into the region, this increase intention these
Speaker 1: are the concerns that we have about how this could
Speaker 1: ignite into a broader and incredibly serious conflict for US directly,
Speaker 1: as if it's not already serious enough. At the same time,
Speaker 1: and another indication of how concerned Washington is about exactly
Speaker 1: this possibility. Put this up on the screen. The CIA
Speaker 1: director is visiting Israel and the Middle East amid Israel
Speaker 1: Hamas war. This is per The New York Times.
Speaker 4: William J.
Speaker 1: Burns, the CIA director, arrived in Israel on Sunday for
Speaker 1: discussions with leaders and intelligence officials, the first stop in
Speaker 1: a multi country trip in the region. They go on
Speaker 1: to say that he has extensive experience in the region,
Speaker 1: visited as key intelligence leaders in Israel have been heavily
Speaker 1: criticized for failing to detect the attack and.
Speaker 4: The threat from Hamas.
Speaker 1: More broadly, they also point out that he has actually
Speaker 1: very close personal relationship with King Abdullah of Jordan. He
Speaker 1: was the ambassador to Jordan when King Hossein died and
Speaker 1: Abdullah ascended to the throne. And this comes saga, of course,
Speaker 1: as we covered, we had Blinkeln going back to Israel
Speaker 1: again and going back to meet with his counterparts in
Speaker 1: both Jordan and Egypt and basically being rebuked at every turn,
Speaker 1: and you know, not surprising when they have told Israel,
Speaker 1: we give you the green light, no red lines, We're
Speaker 1: with you one hundred percent. And then behind the scenes, hey,
Speaker 1: pretty please, could you bomble little bit nicer, Could you
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a humanitarian pause so we
Speaker 1: can at least save some face for ourselves or save
Speaker 1: some space and buy some time for you.
Speaker 4: They said no.
Speaker 1: Then goes on and meets with his counterparts in Egypt
Speaker 1: and in Jordan, and they also said, listen, the real
Speaker 1: call here is for a ceasefire. This humanitarian pause thing
Speaker 1: that you're asking for is total nonsense. So again rebuked
Speaker 1: at every turn, and now we're sending another high level
Speaker 1: official into the region to see if they can have
Speaker 1: any more you know, I guess quote unquote success from
Speaker 1: their perspective.
Speaker 2: Well, the CIA director Burns actually has a lot of
Speaker 2: experience in the Middle East. Apparently he actually was the
Speaker 2: ambassador to Jordan whenever King Hussein died and the current
Speaker 2: king ascended to the throne. So he's got a very
Speaker 2: close relationship with King Abdullah, and he's going to try
Speaker 2: and broker at least some sort or reignite, you know,
Speaker 2: talks and the rebuke really that the president was given
Speaker 2: whenever his summit was canceled with all the Middle Eastern leaders.
Speaker 3: Also, CIA has long.
Speaker 2: Connections I guess you could say that with the Egyptians
Speaker 2: and with them a lot of the other people who
Speaker 2: are in the Middle East, especially the despotic regimes, and
Speaker 2: they're going to use and try and leverage those connections.
Speaker 2: Because William Burns has spent so much time in the region,
Speaker 2: he knows a lot of these leaders personally, and of
Speaker 2: course he's got the full force of the US government
Speaker 2: behind him. So this is probably more of a diplomatic
Speaker 2: trip than it is anything else. You know, Burns in particular,
Speaker 2: because of his own diplomatic experience. He did a lot
Speaker 2: of quasi diplomatic trips whenever it came to go into Ukraine,
Speaker 2: whenever it came to negotiating in some cases with high
Speaker 2: level Russians. That was some of the contact that was
Speaker 2: made even after the mostly breaking off of relations after
Speaker 2: what happened during the invasion. So this, I think is
Speaker 2: because of the failure of the Biden diplomacy and the
Speaker 2: Blinken diplomacy. They're sending somebody who's got a little bit
Speaker 2: more credibility in the Middle East to actually go and
Speaker 2: have face to face meetings. So this is far more
Speaker 2: of a sign of the failure of diplomacy, at least
Speaker 2: so far, than it is anything else, although who knows.
Speaker 2: Of course, the CIA director apparently also wanting to share
Speaker 2: intel with the Israelis about where American hostages are held
Speaker 2: or you know, we don't know the z act number,
Speaker 2: what is.
Speaker 3: It, less than a dozen.
Speaker 2: I think that's the official that are currently being held,
Speaker 2: so some American ISR. I saw a video of the
Speaker 2: pathways of US drones and air assets that are surrounding
Speaker 2: Gaza doing lots of loops. So there's a significant amount
Speaker 2: of US air presence over the Gaza Strip that is
Speaker 2: not necessarily being reported about, but we will get to
Speaker 2: that in a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and of.
Speaker 1: Course you know those hostages, their lives are also at
Speaker 1: risk in this Israeli bombing campaign, which is something that
Speaker 1: the hostage families in Israel have been very concerned about
Speaker 1: and really been pressuring the Nanyahu government over. Which a
Speaker 1: great transition into what we know about what's happening on
Speaker 1: the ground in Gaza, which is limited, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into the challenges of quote unquote journalism in this situation
Speaker 1: when you have journalisms journalists both targeted and killed, and
Speaker 1: you also have very few journalists allowed in, and those
Speaker 1: who are allowed in have to preview for the IDF
Speaker 1: every single piece of reporting that they're going to take
Speaker 1: to air. So really challenge to know exactly what's going
Speaker 1: on on the ground here. But this is what we
Speaker 1: can tell you. Put this up on the screen. It
Speaker 1: looks like Israeli troops tightening their positions around Gaza City.
Speaker 1: This is from the Wall Street Journal They say Israel
Speaker 1: deepens push into Gaza City. Israel is claiming much of
Speaker 1: Hamasa's military defenses its command, and many fighters are concentrated
Speaker 1: in Gaza City. Of course, it's always important to keep
Speaker 1: in mind here because this often gets left out of
Speaker 1: the conversation. Most of Hamas's leadership is not in Gaza.
Speaker 1: Much of it is in Qatar or in Lebanon and
Speaker 1: other places, so they are not there present on the ground,
Speaker 1: which I think speaks to what Israel's real goal here is,
Speaker 1: which their military offensive has never made sense in terms
Speaker 1: of just eradicating Hamas, which we've had from a number
Speaker 1: of military analysts saying exactly that in any case, if
Speaker 1: Israeli forces, they say, push into Gaza City, they will
Speaker 1: likely face Hamas militants that have barricaded themselves inside bombed
Speaker 1: out buildings and build a network of tunnels and underground
Speaker 1: command bunkers. Many civilians, it's important to recall, remain in
Speaker 1: that city and surrounding neighborhoods, unable or afraid to leave
Speaker 1: the north because of the continued fighting, despite repeated Israeli
Speaker 1: calls for non combatants to move south, and of course
Speaker 1: Israel has continued to bomb the south as well, so
Speaker 1: it's not like people who have moved to the south
Speaker 1: have been entirely safe from these bombing campaigns as well,
Speaker 1: and of course the entire territory is under an extended
Speaker 1: siege at this point, and Sager, from what we can tell,
Speaker 1: it seems at this point they haven't done a lot more.
Speaker 4: They've really gotten out of the tanks at this point.
Speaker 1: And so as far as we know, there have been
Speaker 1: few Israeli casualties, not zero, but relatively few. But again,
Speaker 1: this is all we're basically like flying blind here with
Speaker 1: what can be pieced together in terms of the operation
Speaker 1: that's been executed thus far.
Speaker 4: We're going to get into in a bit.
Speaker 1: How even the private companies that have these satellite images
Speaker 1: that they normally sell to news outlets, et cetera and
Speaker 1: to the public have blocked a lot of the images
Speaker 1: coming out.
Speaker 4: That makes it even more difficult.
Speaker 1: And Israel has been periodically imposing these complete telecoms and
Speaker 1: internet blackouts on Gaza, so no one can get on
Speaker 1: information about what is actually going on there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the difficulty.
Speaker 2: So Gaza City, they're saying, was the nexus of the
Speaker 2: planning of the attack on October seventh. They've pointed to
Speaker 2: the als chiefa hospital and others as one of them.
Speaker 2: The headquarters with a tunnel network underneath the hospital where
Speaker 2: they claim that HAMAS has much of its at least
Speaker 2: command and control infrastructure. So, as you said, I mean, really,
Speaker 2: what we've witnessed so far is, even though we're a
Speaker 2: month now, basically well really only two weeks or so
Speaker 2: into the actual military response, they've cut off Gaza City
Speaker 2: from a couple of angles.
Speaker 3: They've made sure that they've had it.
Speaker 2: In the south, civilians are fleeing at least I saw
Speaker 2: some videos to coming out this morning of that. And
Speaker 2: then in the north they've also isolated any sort of
Speaker 2: exit that HAMAS would try and have, so then they're
Speaker 2: trying to squeeze around the city and encircle it. Now,
Speaker 2: encircling it is one matter. As you said, that's why
Speaker 2: the casualties they have been taking have been limited, although
Speaker 2: of course they have said a couple hundred so far. However,
Speaker 2: what they say is they want to destroy the tunnel network.
Speaker 2: Now that is going to be incredibly difficult because there
Speaker 2: is basically no way to ensure that you're doing that
Speaker 2: keep the hostages alive without having to go in and
Speaker 2: send people and actually have fighting, you know, in these
Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of miles of tunnels.
Speaker 3: Now it's possible that they may not choose to do that.
Speaker 2: They may isolate it, try and take out as many
Speaker 2: civilians as possible, and then level the entire thing with
Speaker 2: bunker busting bombs. We've seen some that have been dropped.
Speaker 2: That actually might be the most plausible way if you
Speaker 2: want to take the minimal amount of casualties. But the
Speaker 2: problem is of the emotional issue of so many of
Speaker 2: these two hundred something hostages that are likely being held
Speaker 2: in that region as well. So this is a true
Speaker 2: like devil's bargain for the Israeli military planners and something
Speaker 2: that they're really going to have to decide, you know,
Speaker 2: which way they want to go. The other side of
Speaker 2: that problem is, you know, you can drop bunker busting
Speaker 2: bombs or you are going to destroy the entire city,
Speaker 2: like it's going to be gone and not even rubble,
Speaker 2: it's just gonna be like dust.
Speaker 3: That is left there.
Speaker 2: And you've even got your own troops now in there.
Speaker 2: This is a question then of you're really going to
Speaker 2: ignite you know, fears and outrage in the Arab world
Speaker 2: about like you've not even It's like, how can you
Speaker 2: return to absolutely nothing and a literal erasure. When we
Speaker 2: talk about the parking lot, you know me, it's effectively
Speaker 2: what they would be turning into. So there's regardless, it
Speaker 2: appears to be some sort of turning point. We're going
Speaker 2: to see how they decide to take care of quote
Speaker 2: unquote Gaza City. Are they going to go in have
Speaker 2: bloody hand to hand combat or are they just going
Speaker 2: to encircle it, try and get as many people out
Speaker 2: as possible and then flatten the entire thing. Both are
Speaker 2: you know, truly are both will be devastating really for
Speaker 2: everybody involved.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And of course, as we're watching this all unfold, you know,
Speaker 1: we brought you yesterday the comments coming out of the
Speaker 1: Israeli government, one minister saying, hey, maybe one option is
Speaker 1: we should is nuke and Gaza. That's one possibility, he said.
Speaker 1: He also said that the all the Palestinians should be dispersed.
Speaker 1: They can go to the desert, or they can go
Speaker 1: to Ireland. Additional comments like that, you have another member
Speaker 1: of net Nyahu's Likud party saying what we want is nakpa.
Speaker 1: We want a second Nakpa, more devastating than the first.
Speaker 1: Than paraphrasing, but those were essentially the words that were
Speaker 1: offered there. You have, of course multiple now reports, one
Speaker 1: from a think tank, one from an official Israeli government
Speaker 1: ministry laying out, Hey, what we really want to do
Speaker 1: is we want to push all of the Palestinians out
Speaker 1: of Gaza. So when you see these extremists who were
Speaker 1: saying what Soccer was alluding to there, you know what
Speaker 1: we should really do is just turn Gaza into a
Speaker 1: parking lot. That is a very real possibility of what
Speaker 1: could be happening here, And certainly it appears that the
Speaker 1: goal of pushing all of Palestinian, the Palestinians in Gaza
Speaker 1: out of Gaza is being pursued behind the scenes by
Speaker 1: the net Nyahuo administration. We've now had mainstream reporting about
Speaker 1: the pressure that is being put on Egypt to accept
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Now they claim, oh,
Speaker 1: it would just be temporary, it's just for humanitarian reasons.
Speaker 1: But given the communications that have been potentially intentionally leaked
Speaker 1: out of the Israeli government, I think there is deep
Speaker 1: reason for skepticism about that, especially when you consider that
Speaker 1: significant parts of the net Nyahuo coalition have always had
Speaker 1: this as their stated objective. Moving on, as I mentioned
Speaker 1: at the top, we are now it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to believe, but we're now officially one month from October seventh,
Speaker 1: when Hamas perpetrated those horrific attacks on many Israeli citizens,
Speaker 1: and that, of course, on that very day net Nyahu
Speaker 1: announced we are now at war, and they began their
Speaker 1: war on Gaza. And just the last evening we got
Speaker 1: a little bit of an indication from net Nyahoo about
Speaker 1: what he is thinking the future of Gaza may look like,
Speaker 1: or some aspect of it. In any case, let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to what he had to say on an
Speaker 1: English language. By the way, American broadcast take a lesson.
Speaker 5: President Biden has said that it would be a mistake
Speaker 5: for Israel to occupy Gaza.
Speaker 3: Who should govern Gaza when this is over?
Speaker 6: Those who don't want to continue the way of Hamas,
Speaker 6: and certainly is not. I think Israel will, for an
Speaker 6: indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility, because we've
Speaker 6: seen what happens when we don't have it. When we
Speaker 6: don't have that security responsibility, what we have is the
Speaker 6: eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn't imagine.
Speaker 1: So he's basically floating there a reoccupation. He's trying to
Speaker 1: parse the wording because the Americans, Biden has expressly said
Speaker 1: he thinks it's a bad idea for Israel to reoccupy Gaza.
Speaker 4: What did you make of this comment?
Speaker 2: Saga, Well, welcome to Iraq two thousand and four. You've
Speaker 2: broken it, and now you've bought it, and now you're
Speaker 2: going to have to live with the consequences. And this
Speaker 2: is where Look, they're in a hellish situation no matter what,
Speaker 2: because their past strategy was the only real politically.
Speaker 3: Viable one thing was going to happen. I mean viable.
Speaker 2: I didn't say it was just, but it was at
Speaker 2: least calm ish right before, you're talking about from an
Speaker 2: Israeli perspective, They're like, well, yeah, we know, we surrounded
Speaker 2: with a bunch of fences.
Speaker 3: Hamas governs it. It is what it is.
Speaker 2: You know, every once in a while, we mow the grass.
Speaker 2: That's how it goes. Then they said that that is intolerable. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're going to be responsible now for
Speaker 2: the security situation, that is going to mean a full
Speaker 2: scale military occupation. We're not even talking about settlers or
Speaker 2: any of that other stuff. I'm talking about Israeli IDF
Speaker 2: troops setting up checkpoints, letting people go through. Ask any
Speaker 2: American soldier who had to man a checkpoint interact. A
Speaker 2: lot of those guys, well, they were faced with suicide bombers,
Speaker 2: they were faced with horrible ambushes, attacks. They were the
Speaker 2: vector of like so much violence, not even to mention
Speaker 2: like the civil war situation. So if that is the case,
Speaker 2: if you're saying you're gonna have an indefinite occupation, which
Speaker 2: what the United States signed up for before the first
Speaker 2: Iraqi elections and you know, the Bunk elections honestly in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, well again, I mean, I would
Speaker 2: just say good luck to you, because you're going to
Speaker 2: need tens to hundreds of thousands of troops to have
Speaker 2: a security over two something million people. Let's say even
Speaker 2: that there is you know, one point five million or
Speaker 2: something like that left. I don't know, you know what
Speaker 2: the actual number will be. It's still so tremendously difficult
Speaker 2: in that small amount of area to have security to
Speaker 2: set up. And now this is the other thing when
Speaker 2: you say security situation, as America found out in Iraq.
Speaker 2: You can just want to be responsible for security. But
Speaker 2: when you're ending up responsible for security, now you're running
Speaker 2: the water system, now you're running the electricity grid, now
Speaker 2: you're running like civil services. Now you have to set
Speaker 2: up departments to make sure that you know, oh, well,
Speaker 2: what happens when one shake hates another shake and shoots
Speaker 2: at him, And you're like, well, I guess we got
Speaker 2: to figure this out. That's exactly what you are signing
Speaker 2: up for. So when he says indefinite occupation or indefinite
Speaker 2: security for a temporary pier or indefinite security situation, you
Speaker 2: are signing up for an occupation or you are signing
Speaker 2: up for a return to the status.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: I would personally hope, just for everybody's sake, that it's
Speaker 2: at least that as opposed to the other, because the
Speaker 2: other think about how incendiary it is to have IDF
Speaker 2: troops in a full scale military occupation of Gaza now
Speaker 2: for quote unquote an indefinite period of time. That just
Speaker 2: means that, and maybe we should have believed them at
Speaker 2: the top when they're like, yeah, it's going to go
Speaker 2: on for years in terms of the war. That is
Speaker 2: what low grade and I don't mean that, I mean
Speaker 2: low grade war that just goes on for years and years.
Speaker 2: And the real issue is if you don't have the
Speaker 2: political sustainability to sign up for something like that, and
Speaker 2: it will just lead to the worst of all worlds,
Speaker 2: where're going to have a massive deterioration of the security situation.
Speaker 2: And let's you know, just like what happened to America
Speaker 2: in Iraq is a lot of the populace got radicalized
Speaker 2: against us and it actually made things ten times worse
Speaker 2: than if we hadn't invaded in the first place. So
Speaker 2: I'm personally very dubious that this will I'm personally dubious
Speaker 2: that this is actually possible. But that does not mean
Speaker 2: that just like we did that they won't try. They're
Speaker 2: going to find out all the same lessons that we did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's and that's without even you know, discussing
Speaker 1: the utter humiliation, degradation, brutality that would be life for
Speaker 1: all of the residents of Gaza, the you know, the
Speaker 1: children there. Of course, it's one of the youngest populations
Speaker 1: in the entire world, and what that would look like
Speaker 1: for them on a day to day basis. And I
Speaker 1: think Sager's one hundred percent right when he says this
Speaker 1: is not a strategy to keep Israel safe, it's certainly
Speaker 1: not a strategy for the humanity and dignity of the
Speaker 1: Palestinian people. And you know, the other open question I
Speaker 1: think we always have to keep in mind is whether
Speaker 1: it's even going to be net and Yahoo in place
Speaker 1: leading this government. And also, you know, he is a liar,
Speaker 1: so what he says now could change a minute from now.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's I think the pressure that is
Speaker 1: being reported behind the scenes to just end the Palestinian
Speaker 1: statehood question once and for all, push all of the
Speaker 1: Palestinians out of Gaza. We already see the violent efforts
Speaker 1: for settlers backed by the IDF to aggressively push Palestinis
Speaker 1: off of their land in the West Bank as well.
Speaker 1: I think the writing is on the wall for a
Speaker 1: lot of these things. So, as we've been discussing, it
Speaker 1: is exactly one month to the day since October seventh.
Speaker 1: We can put up on the screen what we know
Speaker 1: of the death toll that has been exacted on Israelis
Speaker 1: and also on Palestinians. So fourteen hundred as we know
Speaker 1: Israel Israeli citizens killed on October seventh. Since then, we've
Speaker 1: had somewhere around ten thousand deaths in Gaza. Of course,
Speaker 1: it is very difficult to know because of all of
Speaker 1: the barriers that we've discussed before.
Speaker 4: There is actually an indicasion put this up on.
Speaker 1: The screen from a senior Israeli military source to an
Speaker 1: Israeli news outlet that they actually think that twenty thousand
Speaker 1: have been killed in Gaza by IDF attacks.
Speaker 4: They claim most of terrorists.
Speaker 1: I think we can see from the number of women
Speaker 1: and children have been killed that that is unfathomable that
Speaker 1: that would be accurate.
Speaker 4: So again, very difficult to say.
Speaker 1: Ryan over at the Intercept, they did some reporting to
Speaker 1: try to verify. Okay, you know the Health Ministry and Gaza,
Speaker 1: they're the ones we get the death numbers from, and
Speaker 1: the Biden Ad ministration has been trying to throw cold
Speaker 1: water in this because they're run by Hamas, even though
Speaker 1: in previous conflicts their death counts and casualty rates have
Speaker 1: been pretty accurate. But based on the list of individuals
Speaker 1: that they put out that had been killed, Ryan was
Speaker 1: able to cross check that with people that were known
Speaker 1: to have been killed in and actually understated by some
Speaker 1: amount the number of deaths. So in any case, whatever
Speaker 1: the number is, we know that it is significant. We
Speaker 1: know that there are a lot of civilians, and that
Speaker 1: this has been incredibly brutal of a response from the Israelis.
Speaker 1: We can also tell that by this math. Let's put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen that shows you the level
Speaker 1: of destruction in the Gaza strip. So keep this up
Speaker 1: on the screen, tie and explain a little bit of
Speaker 1: what you were looking at. The orange that you see
Speaker 1: on this map is damage that was inflicted in the
Speaker 1: first roughly two weeks, so from October seventh to October
Speaker 1: twenty fifth of this war on Gaza. The red areas
Speaker 1: that you see here are the damaged areas since October
Speaker 1: twenty fifth. You can see Israeli ground operation, you can
Speaker 1: see Israeli incursions, you can see Israeli artillery, air strikes,
Speaker 1: you can see reported fighting. And one thing while we
Speaker 1: have this up on the screen, that you can see
Speaker 1: very clearly, Yes, the northern part of Gaza that you
Speaker 1: see there has been i mean vast loss of it destroyed.
Speaker 1: But it's not like the south where people were told
Speaker 1: to flee, has been unscathed either. And you can see
Speaker 1: actually quite a lot of red, which is the more
Speaker 1: recent damage that has occurred in that area. Let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and put this next piece up on the screen.
Speaker 1: That gives you a sense of just how much firepower
Speaker 1: has been used in this, you know, month, which is
Speaker 1: in a grand scheme of things, a very short period
Speaker 1: of time. A European human rights group called the euro
Speaker 1: met Human Rights Monitor. They calculated that Israel has dropped
Speaker 1: more than twenty five thousand tons of explosives on the
Speaker 1: Gaza strip since the start of this bombardment on October seventh.
Speaker 1: That is roughly equivalent to two nuclear bombs of the
Speaker 1: variety that we dropped in Japan. So, you know, when
Speaker 1: we're talking about nukes and the Israeli minister who said, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe that's one option, Well, this isn't dropping a nuclear bomb,
Speaker 1: but the level of explosives have been just as catastrophic.
Speaker 1: Put this next piece up on the screen, just as
Speaker 1: another way of intellectualizing how much firepower we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: Israel dropped almost as many bombs in Gaza in one
Speaker 1: week one week as the US did in Afghanistan in
Speaker 1: their heaviest year of bombardment. And for reference here Gaza
Speaker 1: is just one hundred and forty one square miles. The
Speaker 1: whole thing Afghanistan, of course, Ava's country two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty two thousand plus square miles. So gives you a
Speaker 1: sense of just how intense and indiscriminate this bombing campaign
Speaker 1: has been thus far.
Speaker 2: Soccer, well, the issue that they really have is that
Speaker 2: in terms of the number of these munitions. I remember,
Speaker 2: because I covered this a lot, the Battle of Mosul
Speaker 2: also with Isis, we were actually dropping so many bombs
Speaker 2: that we ran out of precision guided munitions. So I
Speaker 2: actually do have a lot of questions here in terms
Speaker 2: of Israel and like are we going to restock this?
Speaker 2: If so, it actually took us years to restock the
Speaker 2: number that we were able to drop on them. Who
Speaker 2: are they manufacturing some of these what exactly some of
Speaker 2: these bombs are I actually recommend people go and read
Speaker 2: this piece.
Speaker 3: It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: It's about the quote secrecy shrouds the Israeli targeting process
Speaker 2: because the Israelis, and you know when I spend time there,
Speaker 2: they would always hammer this in. They're like, look, we
Speaker 2: have the most precision guided munitions, like we have a
Speaker 2: very They're like we have a process like we you know,
Speaker 2: the door knock, we knock on the roof, we send
Speaker 2: the text messages, we try and clear out as much
Speaker 2: as possible before we strike a building, and we have
Speaker 2: a pretty good ability to tell you, like which floor
Speaker 2: that we're able to strike. I heard a lot of
Speaker 2: this too from the Pentagon whenever that was happening. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that the biggest issue that they have is
Speaker 2: that it's just very clear when you have a massive
Speaker 2: intel failure on October seven, it really calls into question
Speaker 2: so many of the things that they were able to
Speaker 2: assure the US military.
Speaker 3: You know, even people like me, like while I was.
Speaker 2: There, who were listening and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, they say, we'll see and whenever
Speaker 2: you start to see some of this, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of the tens of thousands of munitions now that
Speaker 2: have been dropped, like I said, it really comes to
Speaker 2: question about the supply issues, about what their ultimate aims
Speaker 2: are and all that. So, look, the biggest issue I
Speaker 2: think is that as they continue to have a loss
Speaker 2: of the trust deficit with broadly the international community, including
Speaker 2: the United States, Let's be honest.
Speaker 3: I mean, John Kirby.
Speaker 2: Yesterday, the State NSC spokesperson was like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: we have some indication that they're trying to reduce similar
Speaker 2: civilian casualty, but that's not an endorsement of what they're doing.
Speaker 3: It's like, what what are you saying?
Speaker 2: Right, It's like it's like triple speak, just say what
Speaker 2: we actually think, man, right, And so anyway, I think
Speaker 2: that they are truly suffering from they feel and this
Speaker 2: is from what you know from my recent communications with Isra.
Speaker 2: They feel justified for the carnage of October seventh. They're like, look,
Speaker 2: we're the more powerful, so yeah, we're going to queue up,
Speaker 2: like that's how it works.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I think the issue is that they're losing political capital
Speaker 2: in the US and especially in the broader international world,
Speaker 2: and they feel especially like they don't have to justify
Speaker 2: a damn thing to America and to the rest of
Speaker 2: the world, and to them, I would say, you got
Speaker 2: to again think back to some of the lessons that
Speaker 2: we learned in Iraq, because a lot of early US
Speaker 2: commanders used to think the same way. By the time
Speaker 2: of two thousand seventeen rolled around. We and I talked
Speaker 2: about this yesterday. The Pentagon and everybody was doing extensive
Speaker 2: briefing operations to make sure every single target that was
Speaker 2: hit in Iraq and Syria. They showed you a video.
Speaker 2: They're like, Hey, here's the oil rig that they were using.
Speaker 3: Here's what we.
Speaker 2: Came in and we bombed it with. Here's why we
Speaker 2: bombed it. Here are the guys that we killed. It
Speaker 2: was like trying to get ahead of any potential outrage
Speaker 2: or ISIS claiming that civilians were killed and all that.
Speaker 2: I think it was a hard fought lesson that we
Speaker 2: had to learn in Iraq and Afghanistan, and eventually, how
Speaker 2: I watched the US military operate in the late twenty
Speaker 2: tens is we really learned that if you don't get
Speaker 2: ahead of it, and you don't have at least some
Speaker 2: level of trust for a lot of people that what
Speaker 2: you're doing is actually fitting with what you're saying, well,
Speaker 2: you're really gonna lose you know, a lot of people.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately for them, I think that they're heading very
Speaker 2: much down that road with the number of munitions dropped,
Speaker 2: with the level of secrecy that is involved, and everyone's
Speaker 2: like that's their right, Yeah, I'm not just you can
Speaker 2: do whatever you want.
Speaker 3: That's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: What I'm talking about here is if you want to
Speaker 2: live in the law, if you want to live and
Speaker 2: survive in the long run. I don't think that they're
Speaker 2: headed to us. I don't think they're operating in a
Speaker 2: sustainable way. I think something is going to break eventually.
Speaker 1: And they've been using through you know, throwing in our face,
Speaker 1: which putin did as well our conduct in Iraq and
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and the number of civilians that we killed, and
Speaker 1: there's no justification for the way that we conducted ourselves
Speaker 1: in those words, there was no justification for the Iraq
Speaker 1: invasion whatsoever, and there was no justification for the lengthy
Speaker 1: occupation of Afghanistan. Well, I think it was the you know,
Speaker 1: justified to go in to try to get Bin Lun
Speaker 1: when we failed at that, like that was the task,
Speaker 1: and then we stay there for forever. It really is
Speaker 1: shocking to me to see the you know, outright advocation
Speaker 1: for ethnic cleansing and outright like hey, there are no
Speaker 1: innocent civilians not only being advocated directly that perspective being
Speaker 1: laid out directly from the net Yahoo government, echoed by
Speaker 1: at least one member of the United States Congress here
Speaker 1: the total justification of killing of children. I mean, I
Speaker 1: saw Fox News segment yesterday where the dude was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, they could be stopping on suicide bombs these children.
Speaker 1: I really like, it is another level to me to
Speaker 1: see this just brazenly advocated for this viewpoint, the total
Speaker 1: indiscriminate bombing, the overwhelming nature of this, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just I truly am shocked by it, and so Sago
Speaker 1: when you're talking about like Kirby being like, well, it
Speaker 1: seems like they try maybe to do a little bit
Speaker 1: for civilians. But I'm not endorsing. I mean these liberals
Speaker 1: like Biden, who have put a lot of stock and
Speaker 1: said a lot of stuff about the international rules based order,
Speaker 1: they have no cover here whatsoever. And of course Israel
Speaker 1: is not going to respect any little like face saving
Speaker 1: humanitarian pause gestures, and they're certainly not going to respect
Speaker 1: any calls for a ceasefire when there is no willingness
Speaker 1: to use the incredible significant leverage that we have in
Speaker 1: the form of our military weapons and our aid dollars.
Speaker 1: There's no willingness to take that off the table. Of course,
Speaker 1: they're not going to listen to us. But you know,
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of like, well, why you know,
Speaker 1: Hamas targeted civilians, so why should they be held to
Speaker 1: a different standard than Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization.
Speaker 1: You're holding yourself out as like the beacon of the
Speaker 1: civilized world within the Middle East. Of course, there's a
Speaker 1: different standard, and it's insane to me that you would
Speaker 1: suggest otherwise. Like the number of documented likely war crimes
Speaker 1: that have been committed here in a month are I
Speaker 1: mean again, I expect brutality from the Israelis based on
Speaker 1: their previous mo the lawn operations, but this is another
Speaker 1: level and just the last piece that we have here
Speaker 1: before we get into you know what a difficult situation
Speaker 1: this has been for journalists, both in terms of coverage
Speaker 1: and also in terms of journalists on the ground just
Speaker 1: being able to live and have their families continue to live.
Speaker 1: Put this up on the screen, US reporting Israeli forces
Speaker 1: have killed eighty eight.
Speaker 4: UN AID workers.
Speaker 1: That is more than have ever been killed in a
Speaker 1: single conflict in history. Forty seven UN buildings, more than
Speaker 1: one hundred health facilities have been hit by Israeli airstrikes,
Speaker 1: and you know, to Sager's point about how you know,
Speaker 1: they don't even really try to justify a lot of
Speaker 1: these things.
Speaker 2: They do some they give them credit, like every once
Speaker 2: in a while they do actually put.
Speaker 1: But to give you a sense of how thin it is. Okay,
Speaker 1: when that convoy of ambulances was hit and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: it was terrorists, and they got asked on TV like okay,
Speaker 1: well who were they? What they They're like, we don't
Speaker 1: really know. It's like, okay, then how do you know
Speaker 1: they're terrorists?
Speaker 4: You don't even know.
Speaker 1: Apparently that October seventh was going to happen. We're supposed
Speaker 1: to take your word for it that you know that
Speaker 1: the you know who it was exactly in that ambulance
Speaker 1: you were targeting, and we're supposed to ta take your
Speaker 1: word for it. When you go on the television and
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, we don't really know, we'll go back
Speaker 1: to you on that.
Speaker 2: Come on, Well, it's like one in the US actually
Speaker 2: accidentally killed that guy at for the revenge and the
Speaker 2: ISIS attack on Afghanistan. It turned out to be a
Speaker 2: totally innocent guy who was like a water salesman or
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 3: We killed his family.
Speaker 1: I would just put it on a way out of it.
Speaker 4: He was an aid worker US the lined aid worker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's what I would say.
Speaker 2: If they militarily were actually doing something whereatch I thought
Speaker 2: that they could destroy Hamas, I would support them one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. I just don't actually think that they're doing that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that they're making the situation far worse.
Speaker 2: I think they're putting us at risk too. I mean
Speaker 2: this is the other issue. Everyone's like, oh, support Israel,
Speaker 2: support Palestine. I mean, personally, I don't really care about
Speaker 2: either of them. I care about the United States and
Speaker 2: I keep, you know, on a human level, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I wish you the best. I've got friends in both places.
Speaker 2: But for me, I'm like, I just don't want to
Speaker 2: see US service members in borld in the war. That's
Speaker 2: like my guiding north Star was on Ukraine is here too.
Speaker 2: I'm always going to care about us more first second
Speaker 2: on that is trying to actually keep us out of
Speaker 2: some sort of conflict. Then, you know, I would look
Speaker 2: at this and I would be like, all right, so
Speaker 2: with Israel, are you actually going to destroy Hamas? Now
Speaker 2: I actually support the destruction of Hamas, but I don't
Speaker 2: think that they're doing something to genuinely lead to that effort.
Speaker 2: I mean, the US campaign against ISIS with in conjunction
Speaker 2: with the Iraqi security forces, was genuinely a masterful operation,
Speaker 2: and you know, it took months, it was much more targeted.
Speaker 2: We killed, along with the Iraqis, thousands of ISIS fighters,
Speaker 2: and there was about a one to one civilian casualty rate.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that that's justified, but I mean, in retrospect,
Speaker 2: I think all the people who claim that was so
Speaker 2: brutal can see that if you have the similar number
Speaker 2: of civilians killed in a single month as opposed to
Speaker 2: a two year campaign, they really should shut up about
Speaker 2: what that looked like at the time. So anyway, if
Speaker 2: I thought that this was a genuinely successful military operation
Speaker 2: and had a chance of keeping both the US out
Speaker 2: and of creating some sort of sustainable situation in the future,
Speaker 2: I would cool. But the main issue for me really
Speaker 2: has been I think that they are both inflaming tensions
Speaker 2: against the United States. I don't think they're making themselves safer.
Speaker 2: I think that Netanyahu in particular is a genuinely like
Speaker 2: villainous figure, and I think that he's that so much
Speaker 2: of his personal conduct, and therefore Israel's conduct is tied
Speaker 2: up into his own ego and his own political future
Speaker 2: for the failure of that attack. And that's that's why
Speaker 2: I say that. I mean, whenever I see everything he does,
Speaker 2: his orientation is he wants to stay into power, and
Speaker 2: he wants to keep things on a longer basis so
Speaker 2: that he can keep away any sort of investigation into
Speaker 2: him in the future. And I'm like, hey, you're tied
Speaker 2: the entire nation's fate, possibly forever, onto your own political
Speaker 2: sustainable career. That's an insane thing to do. If you
Speaker 2: consider yourself a patriot. If you were to see some
Speaker 2: sort of conflict of interest like this, any genuine patriot
Speaker 2: be like, you know what, I'm too controversial.
Speaker 3: I'm out. You guys do a coalition government. You can
Speaker 3: figure it out.
Speaker 2: I'm you know, some sort of flame figure like this,
Speaker 2: I'll sit by on the sidelines and I'll support whoever
Speaker 2: so that we can get to some sort of solution
Speaker 2: which nobody can question, both in the world and here domestically.
Speaker 3: He's chosen not to do.
Speaker 2: That, so there's a lot of and by doing that also,
Speaker 2: he has to allow these guys Smotrich and all these
Speaker 2: other you know, nut jobs who we America has never
Speaker 2: signed on to any of these West Bank Settlement people
Speaker 2: to allow in power in the government and then inflame
Speaker 2: the situation even more, deteriorating again our long political capital
Speaker 2: that we've built up now for so long in the midleast.
Speaker 2: So that's a very long way of just saying, like, listen,
Speaker 2: I'm not above supporting Israel. If they were to actually
Speaker 2: doing something which I thought would work, I would be
Speaker 2: like absolutely, one hundred percent. But I haven't seen a
Speaker 2: lot of evidence from that from day one. And the
Speaker 2: Nets and Nahu piece is actually probably the one that
Speaker 2: bothers me the most is I'm like, you do not
Speaker 2: have a real, like political sustainable coalition at the top
Speaker 2: of your government which inspires confidence in your allies that
Speaker 2: you were acting on the best, you know, on the
Speaker 2: best behalf of the Israeli people.
Speaker 3: You're doing enough for yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's a real, real problem that
Speaker 2: years from now when we look back at the response
Speaker 2: and all that, as we can see, you know, with
Speaker 2: all the political shit show of the Civil War cabinet
Speaker 2: and they for the Chamberlain government in the early nineteen
Speaker 2: forties or even you know, the FDR government in the
Speaker 2: early years of World War One. You could see so
Speaker 2: much of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: We're going to look at this as one of the
Speaker 2: main problems for Israel and they could have massive ramifications
Speaker 2: I think for their history, you know, in the future.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean any of our pretense that like
Speaker 1: how much we care about human rights or the international
Speaker 1: rules based order, Like it's just.
Speaker 4: Completely I've just always thought that was fake, utter bull shite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I can't put the morality aside, like the
Speaker 1: number of atrocities and the mass killing of children and
Speaker 1: women and innocent civilians, and the complete effectively leveling of
Speaker 1: Gaza at this point, and the plans for an outright
Speaker 1: ethnic cleansing, like I can't just put to the side.
Speaker 4: But Sager is.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent right that even if like the humanitarian
Speaker 1: part of this and the atrocities don't move you, then
Speaker 1: Israel is not taking actions that will keep their own
Speaker 1: people safer, that will make them more safe, that will
Speaker 1: preserve Israeli security. They're also, as I said before, as
Speaker 1: long as American made bombs are being dropped on this
Speaker 1: trapped population in an open air prison.
Speaker 4: We're creating more and more people that.
Speaker 1: Will that absolutely hate us and will absolutely look to
Speaker 1: seek revenge. So is that keeping is that keeping us safer?
Speaker 1: This is in this idea of like, oh, we want
Speaker 1: to destroy Hamas, That's an impossible goal, Like no one
Speaker 1: has even really defined what that means. And I think
Speaker 1: the clear syndication that they are not serious about it
Speaker 1: whatsoever is number one, the collective punishment of the entire population,
Speaker 1: which is counterproductive because you need an accounter insurgency fight,
Speaker 1: you need people on the ground you can work with
Speaker 1: who are going to actually you have some sort of
Speaker 1: positive disposition towards you. And by the way, prior to
Speaker 1: this action, actually there was a Hamas had suffered a
Speaker 1: huge loss of support among the population in Gaza over
Speaker 1: basic governance issues where you know, they were under blockade.
Speaker 1: Obviously they understood that the Israeli government was the chief
Speaker 1: cause of their suffering, but they were very frustrated and
Speaker 1: upset with the governance of Hamas as well. So you
Speaker 1: can see from that, and you can also say, because
Speaker 1: the Hamas leadership isn't even in Gaza, and I don't
Speaker 1: see any efforts whatsoever to bring those dudes to justice.
Speaker 1: So you know they're not serious about this, and you
Speaker 1: know that they're not idiots, and they know that this
Speaker 1: is an impossible task to begin with. So, as I've
Speaker 1: said from the beginning, it's really clear what the goal
Speaker 1: here is.
Speaker 4: I think it's threefold.
Speaker 1: Number one, retribution blood letting just go in and get
Speaker 1: revenge for what they did to us. Number two, and
Speaker 1: this has been a consistent theme for Israel for decades now. Basically,
Speaker 1: they were humiliated on October seventh. They've got to go
Speaker 1: in and show they're the biggest bastards on the block.
Speaker 1: That's the other piece. To try to restore there what
Speaker 1: they view as their deterrence effect and prove that they're
Speaker 1: the biggest m efforts.
Speaker 4: In the area.
Speaker 1: That's number two and number three, and probably the most
Speaker 1: important goal, as Sager was just saying, is for NETANYAHUU
Speaker 1: to try to cling to power for another day. That's
Speaker 1: what's really going on here. All this talk about getting hamas,
Speaker 1: that's not what they're doing. That isn't I mean, there
Speaker 1: is barely a pretense of that.
Speaker 4: At this point. I would have to say, well.
Speaker 3: I would like for them to see that. We will see.
Speaker 2: It's very possible that they could have some political issues
Speaker 2: at home where the people wake up and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: hold on a second, they're really only a couple.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is the other thing.
Speaker 2: They haven't suffered any setbacks yet, and if they're lucky,
Speaker 2: they won't get any.
Speaker 3: But we'll see.
Speaker 2: You know, in war, the enemy does get a vote,
Speaker 2: So it's more possible that they could suffer some massive
Speaker 2: military disaster and that could lead to a re calibration
Speaker 2: of strategy, maybe a debate inside of the country about
Speaker 2: how they should conduct themselves and others. So look, we're
Speaker 2: still very early into this conflict, and that's part of
Speaker 2: why I can't help. But like when I see him
Speaker 2: say things like indefinite occupation, I'm like, you have no
Speaker 2: idea what you're saying, because a lot of people in
Speaker 2: O three they're like, it'll be fine. You know, what
Speaker 2: is it the iraqis freedom is a wonderful thing. Whenever
Speaker 2: Rumsfeld was asked about looting, he's like, you have the
Speaker 2: freedom to do this, but you also have the freedom
Speaker 2: to go around and to vote and to be empowered
Speaker 2: once again as an individual. And we saw how quickly
Speaker 2: the dark side of that can materialize, and how many
Speaker 2: Americans can suffer. And also hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
Speaker 2: you died in the security vacuum, they very much could
Speaker 2: be setting themselves up for that situation too, because once
Speaker 2: you set yourself up for the security situation, you're not
Speaker 2: just responsible for your own security, you're responsible for the
Speaker 2: security of everybody else who's inside. And that's a tremendously,
Speaker 2: tremendously difficult task. Let's move on then to the next
Speaker 2: part here around journalism, we've often stressed about just how
Speaker 2: difficult it is to have proper information about what's coming
Speaker 2: out of Gaza, about what's even happening in Gaza. Let's
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen, because this is
Speaker 2: a very significant, actually piece of news from Semaphore. Key
Speaker 2: providers of satellite photography to news organization and researchers have
Speaker 2: now begun to restrict imagery of Gaza after a New
Speaker 2: York Times report on Israeli tank positions that was based
Speaker 2: on the images. So the satellite image provider here is
Speaker 2: Planet Labs and a bunch of other competitors to them.
Speaker 2: They've revolutionized coverage of wars and disasters because they have
Speaker 2: commercial satellites that are up in the air that they
Speaker 2: can get real time footage. Not real time, but you know,
Speaker 2: maybe twenty four hours or seventy two hours delay to
Speaker 2: actually show exactly what has happened. And it's incredibly useful
Speaker 2: for reporting on the Syrian Civil War, for the emosul
Speaker 2: for ICE and especially in Ukraine. Anybody who has been
Speaker 2: watching the Ukraine situation knows how he use these comsat
Speaker 2: companies are well. The issue though, is that for some reason,
Speaker 2: these companies are now quote heavily restricting obscuring parts of
Speaker 2: images over the Gaza strip for users, including news organizations.
Speaker 2: So it's difficult to understand exactly why the subscribers, and
Speaker 2: again these are people who pay a premium for this product,
Speaker 2: have not had access to quote high resolution imagery of
Speaker 2: Gaza since October twenty second, ever since The New York
Speaker 2: Times actually reported on Israeli tank positions.
Speaker 3: So then the question comes.
Speaker 2: Is this at the behest of is the company owned
Speaker 2: by an Israeli guy and he's like, hey, we're just
Speaker 2: not going to do this. Is this maybe at the
Speaker 2: request the behest or the order of the Israeli government
Speaker 2: is at the US government because this is such like
Speaker 2: a new phenomenon in terms of commercial satellite analysis. Nobody
Speaker 2: really knows in terms of the jurisdiction on what you
Speaker 2: are aren't allowed, you know, in terms of other countries
Speaker 2: to be able to look at. But I think effect
Speaker 2: is obvious, which is we know less about what's going
Speaker 2: on in Gaza because of this.
Speaker 3: Even that Financial Times map that.
Speaker 2: We used previously that cut off at October twenty sixth, now.
Speaker 3: We know why. Yeah, because we didn't.
Speaker 2: We don't know about what's being held and what isn't
Speaker 2: and that previously I think we'd done brought people multiple analysises,
Speaker 2: like based on compsat imagery, we can say that twenty
Speaker 2: five percent of the buildings have been leveled.
Speaker 3: Now we don't know. Yeah, I don't know anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an important point because actually Axios and a
Speaker 1: number of other news outlets had done a really good
Speaker 1: job of putting together Okay, here's the satellite image of
Speaker 1: this neighborhood before the Israeli airstrikes.
Speaker 4: Here is it afterwards.
Speaker 1: And since you don't have you know, a lot that
Speaker 1: you can get from on the ground, this was a
Speaker 1: really important way to understand the extent of the damage,
Speaker 1: and so now we really are flying blind in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, what is really happening on the ground. You
Speaker 1: can't even get these satellite images to get a sense
Speaker 1: of that whatsoever. And then the other piece was that
Speaker 1: it seems to have been tied directly to this New
Speaker 1: York Times report that showed some of the Israeli tank
Speaker 1: movements and locations. And it's also important to point out,
Speaker 1: like it's not just one satellite company. There are a
Speaker 1: number of these satellite companies, and all of them seem
Speaker 1: to be effectively censoring this information at this point.
Speaker 4: So even from the air, we really can't.
Speaker 1: Get a sense at this now of what is actually
Speaker 1: happening on the ground. And that's before we would talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, the situation for journalists within Gaza.
Speaker 2: Well, why don't we get to that actually, because it
Speaker 2: just again goes to show you the shaping of the
Speaker 2: information environment is probably the single most important thing in
Speaker 2: modern warfare. And this is a clip from CNN where
Speaker 2: they describe the conditions about what it took to have
Speaker 2: one of their journalists in bed with the IDF.
Speaker 3: Let's take a.
Speaker 7: Listen yesterday's CNN's Jeremy Diamond went into Gaza on an
Speaker 7: IDFM bed. I should note that journalists embedded with the
Speaker 7: IDF in Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders
Speaker 7: in the field and are not permitted to move unaccompanied
Speaker 7: within the Gaza strip. As a condition to enter Gaza
Speaker 7: under IDF escort outlets have to submit all materials and
Speaker 7: footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication.
Speaker 7: CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide
Speaker 7: a limited window into Israel's operations in Gaza.
Speaker 3: That's as stark as it gets.
Speaker 2: Not only do you have to agree, you have to
Speaker 2: provide them with your footage, which you know, I was
Speaker 2: trying to think back to the early invasion of Iraq.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure even when US troops were or US
Speaker 2: journalists were embedded with Iraqi or US troops in Iraq,
Speaker 2: that there was never a condition now to this effect,
Speaker 2: I went back actually to try and to look there
Speaker 2: was basically real time, live shots that were happening as
Speaker 2: the humbies were rolling. And you know, there are multiple books,
Speaker 2: great one of them is Generation Kill. If you want
Speaker 2: to go and read it. I mean there's not a
Speaker 2: single drop a censorship in.
Speaker 3: That entire thing.
Speaker 2: And that guy wrote all the way to Baghdad with
Speaker 2: the Marines, So I mean, it just shows you, like
Speaker 2: if they're to the extent where they're like, no, we're
Speaker 2: going to review all the footage before you even broadcast that,
Speaker 2: we're not going to allow you to go live from Gaza,
Speaker 2: that just demonstrates like the level of the level of
Speaker 2: control that they are putting on what actually gets out
Speaker 2: of the country. It's also why they continue to cut
Speaker 2: off all those communications of course, whenever every time they
Speaker 2: have some sort of major military operation.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so you have satellite imagery mysteriously blocked, you have
Speaker 1: only certain hand picked journalists allowed to go in, and
Speaker 1: it's basically like you know how North Korea will sometimes
Speaker 1: allow yes, journalists to come in.
Speaker 4: But they get this like fake tour of what's going on.
Speaker 4: It's basically like that.
Speaker 1: Level of control over the war propaganda coming out of
Speaker 1: the Israeli side. So they pick the journalists, then they
Speaker 1: get to vet all of the footage before it gets
Speaker 1: to air, and then you have all so this you know,
Speaker 1: frequent communications, Internet and sell complete blackout so that any
Speaker 1: sort of real time reporting of what's going on in
Speaker 1: the ground. You're just hearing rumors from like one person
Speaker 1: who happens to have like a Turkish sim card or
Speaker 1: some way to get some sort of information out of
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, it really is astonishing.
Speaker 1: I think it also underscores not only how critical Israel
Speaker 1: sees the information war as being, but also just how
Speaker 1: much control Israel has long had over this little enclave,
Speaker 1: which you know they love.
Speaker 4: Ah we withdrew back.
Speaker 1: In the two thousands and so they were doing their
Speaker 1: own thing, but they controlled everything about the conditions of
Speaker 1: that life, what came in, what went out, how many
Speaker 1: Gosins were allowed into Israel. You know, there was only
Speaker 1: like a small percentage of Godsans who were allowed to
Speaker 1: see cancer treatment in Israel. It was complete control over
Speaker 1: their life. And I think when you see how easily
Speaker 1: they're able to turn on and turn on off the
Speaker 1: communications for the two point two million people in the strip,
Speaker 1: you can see how tightly everything really was controlled the
Speaker 1: whole time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that is an excellent point.
Speaker 2: And also it gets to you know, some of the
Speaker 2: toll that's been taken on some of the journalists who
Speaker 2: are covering this conflict. We have one clip we can
Speaker 2: put here up on the screen. I'll read from some
Speaker 2: of the tough subtitles. I'll warn everybody it's pretty disturbing
Speaker 2: if you do watch it here. He says, here we
Speaker 2: have become victims. He says, in a matter of time,
Speaker 2: we are going one after the other. He's reporting there
Speaker 2: from the hospital. The anchor is actually crying this from
Speaker 2: Palestine TV, the size of this catastrophe, the crime that
Speaker 2: we are experiencing here in godsg He's wearing full body
Speaker 2: armour just for context, and you can see obviously he's
Speaker 2: breaking down. She is breaking down also as he kind
Speaker 2: of is watching everything that is happening. He says that
Speaker 2: there's no international security here at all. There's no immunity
Speaker 2: or anything at all for these shields or these helmets.
Speaker 2: This is where it's a really dramatic slogan. He says,
Speaker 2: these are slogans that we wear, and that is all
Speaker 2: because he's wearing press. He says, they don't protect any
Speaker 2: journalists at all. So this is the dramatic moment. He
Speaker 2: just takes off his body armor and has kevlar helmet
Speaker 2: and he just says we're losing souls one after another.
Speaker 2: We're victims directly on live television, and he's reporting we
Speaker 2: are losing souls from one after another. That was a pretty,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously a harrowing situation to be in. And
Speaker 2: it's come after quite a few journalists actually have been killed.
Speaker 2: Bronco Marchetique actually wrote about this for Jacobin.
Speaker 3: We can put it up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: At least thirty six journalists now been killed during the
Speaker 2: bombing campaign in Gaza, and in some cases, as we
Speaker 2: showed previously the al Jazeer reporter, some families of these
Speaker 2: journalists have been killed as well, with many of them
Speaker 2: finding out on live television. And the quote media establishment,
Speaker 2: which a short time ago was rightly decrying the murdy
Speaker 2: of murder of Jamal Kashogi, hasn't said a thing. And
Speaker 2: so I mean, this is where I'll just return to something.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a little bit of crystal. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons why I reject most moral campaigns out right
Speaker 2: is because almost no person can be one hundred percent consistent,
Speaker 2: and so when you try an exert us power based
Speaker 2: on quote unquote moral terms like in I don't know,
Speaker 2: Ukraine and then you don't do anything. Whenever somebody does
Speaker 2: the exact same thing, whenever it's your ally, like in
Speaker 2: Yemen or in Israel, well then you look like an idiot.
Speaker 2: So it's better to just be honest about things from
Speaker 2: day one, which you know, look the Jaman Kushogi thing,
Speaker 2: they only cared because it was Trump who was the president,
Speaker 2: and Jared Kushner and then Biden becomes the president and
Speaker 2: goes in fist bumps MBS and they don't say anything
Speaker 2: because it's all fake. It's all just theater that they
Speaker 2: want everybody to indulge in. So it would actually be
Speaker 2: better if people were honest about their critiques about what
Speaker 2: they were doing. But you know, if that were true,
Speaker 2: then I guess we wouldn't even have jobs as journalists.
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure what the point is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in this period following October seventh, according
Speaker 1: to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more reporters have been
Speaker 1: killed in this period than any conflict that they've kept
Speaker 1: track of since nineteen ninety two. For reporters without borders,
Speaker 1: it's the deadliest conflict for reporters since the start of
Speaker 1: the twenty first century, out doing the wars in I Rock, Afghanistan, Yemen,
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, with Israeli forces killing war journalists in a
Speaker 1: matter of weeks than they had slain over the entire
Speaker 1: period from two thousand to last year. You've also seen
Speaker 1: direct targeting of fifty different media outlets in terms of
Speaker 1: partial or total destruction of the premises of where their
Speaker 1: offices are. According to also to Reporters Without Borders in
Speaker 1: a complaint that they filed with the International Criminal Court
Speaker 1: claiming that Israel's killing of journalists constitute war crimes. So
Speaker 1: again to lay out the situation here, you've got satellite
Speaker 1: imagery block, you've got communications frequently blocked, especially during the
Speaker 1: most intense time periods, and then you have journalists that
Speaker 1: are targeted. There was actually journalist's family that was killed
Speaker 1: in Lebanon where she told her kids to play by
Speaker 1: the car so that the Israelis could see that the
Speaker 1: were you know that these were children, and the car
Speaker 1: was blown up and they were killed in Lebanon. So
Speaker 1: the other effort that you see is because there are
Speaker 1: mostly only Palestinians who are in Gaza at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, the very little in terms of international press
Speaker 1: allowed in except unless you're CNN and you have to
Speaker 1: like submit your report before you put it on air.
Speaker 1: There's also an effort to claim, well, these aren't really
Speaker 1: journal they don't really count because they're Palestinian as well,
Speaker 1: to try to, you know, undermine the extent of the
Speaker 1: number of people who have been killed here. So yeah,
Speaker 1: complete silence from you know, Biden, all these people who
Speaker 1: when it was Trump and he was berating the press
Speaker 1: or whatever, Jim Acosta, remember that whole saga saga, and
Speaker 1: they were so up at arms. Oh, I got the
Speaker 1: freedom of the press and journalism and it's so important,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. I mean we've always knew they
Speaker 1: were full of it because they didn't care about Julian Assange, Right,
Speaker 1: how about that?
Speaker 4: And then with Jamal Cook Shogi same thing. There was
Speaker 4: a big show of this.
Speaker 1: Biden said on the campaign trail like We're going to
Speaker 1: make Saudi Arabia pariah. Okay, how did that work out?
Speaker 1: And now you have the most journalists killed in a
Speaker 1: single conflict since it's been tracked, and total crickets. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Blincoln got asked about this actually, and he did just
Speaker 1: like a little waxing poetic about the importance of journalism
Speaker 1: and then just kept it I haven't really heard about
Speaker 1: those reports and just kept it moving along.
Speaker 4: So it just shows you how full of it they've
Speaker 4: always been.
Speaker 3: For the course, I think.
Speaker 2: At the same time, democratic lawmakers here in the US
Speaker 2: starting to be faced with some protests reminiscent of some
Speaker 2: times during the Iraq War.
Speaker 3: First up was Senator John Fetterman, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: Don't plus that children who passed on five thousand plus.
Speaker 5: That civilian You will say.
Speaker 9: I don't care.
Speaker 4: Thentman says this, The.
Speaker 9: Joke is on you. I had a stroke. I can't
Speaker 9: fully understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2: All right, I got a handed to him. That was
Speaker 2: a clever response, but does show you that is beginning
Speaker 2: to happen. Senator Corey Booker was faced with something similar.
Speaker 2: Here's what happened there.
Speaker 10: There are so many places in our country right now
Speaker 10: where people want to make sure that we have this
Speaker 10: is what makes America great, the power to protest, the
Speaker 10: power to have free speech, the power of America.
Speaker 2: So a column ae from what we've been able to
Speaker 2: discern is like when you vote straight ticket. So that's
Speaker 2: he was there stumping for some sort of election, so
Speaker 2: that's what he was doing there. It also comes with
Speaker 2: some consternation here in Washington. Let's go and put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. There's a descent cable that
Speaker 2: is beginning to circulate within the State Department. US diplomats
Speaker 2: are slamming Israel policy in leaked memo. For those who
Speaker 2: don't know, inside the State Department, they have something called
Speaker 2: a descent channel where you're allowed, if you disagree with
Speaker 2: the Secretary of State, to send a memo via this
Speaker 2: classified internal system. Obviously, almost every single time the people
Speaker 2: who organize it end up leaking the descent cables. But
Speaker 2: it's supposedly supposed to be away where you can voice
Speaker 2: internal descent and to actually challenge administration policy.
Speaker 4: The bureaucrat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the dumbest ever.
Speaker 2: It's the dumbest thing, especially because they never stay secret,
Speaker 2: so every time somebody does one, they just immediately leak it.
Speaker 3: Opinion.
Speaker 2: There's a strongly voice demandem memo and opinion inside the
Speaker 2: State Department. That does show you some consternation which is
Speaker 2: brewing amongst US diplomats. Most of the people who have
Speaker 2: been assigned onto it and the organized of it are
Speaker 2: from the Middle East Desk. They say, quote, we must
Speaker 2: publicly criticize Israel's violation of international norms, such as failure
Speaker 2: to limit offensive operations to legitimate military targets. When Israel
Speaker 2: supports settler of violence and illeal land sizers or employees
Speaker 2: excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly
Speaker 2: this goes against our American values, so that Israel does
Speaker 2: not act with impunity. The memo then mark sensitive but unclassified,
Speaker 2: so unclear. Also they marked it that way so they
Speaker 2: could leak it, just to be clear. Anyway, it does
Speaker 2: show you, Crystal, there's signs of dissent brewing across the
Speaker 2: United States. But we should also be honest that you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of people still support Israel, although you know,
Speaker 2: position of ceasefire is very high. I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: that would stand if everybody like fully were to be
Speaker 2: articulated and bombarded with propaganda on all sides.
Speaker 4: But propaganda can change minds, that is.
Speaker 3: True, exactly so, But I don't actually.
Speaker 1: Astonished, Stay, I mean, there is already a lot of propaganda,
Speaker 1: and the numbers we've seen or two thirds of people
Speaker 1: are like stop the killing. I mean it's just such
Speaker 1: a like normy natural react to be like, yes, we
Speaker 1: want to cease fire. We see all these horrific images
Speaker 1: of babies and women and kids being pulled out of
Speaker 1: the rubble, like stop the bombing is such a just
Speaker 1: kind of human reaction that I think it would be
Speaker 1: very hard to move people off of that because of
Speaker 1: just how horrifying images are that are coming out at
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 4: And that doesn't mean.
Speaker 1: That people like hate Israel or even you know that
Speaker 1: they share my critique of is there any of that,
Speaker 1: They just are reacting to the horror of the violence
Speaker 1: that they see unfolding on the ground. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: it's really something when you think about all of the
Speaker 1: rhetoric that we've heard from democratic politicians about Ukraine and
Speaker 1: about democracy and about barbarism and you know, accusing justifiably
Speaker 1: by the way, accusing Putin of war crimes, and then
Speaker 1: you see refugee camps bombed, ambulances, hospitals bombed, schools bombed
Speaker 1: like this massive toll in a short period of time
Speaker 1: taken on women and civilians and children, and they have
Speaker 1: nothing to say. So yeah, for these politicians having to
Speaker 1: be confronted face to face with people who are calling
Speaker 1: for a ceasefire, who are putting in their face their
Speaker 1: own hypocrisy based on their previous statements. You know, it's
Speaker 1: something to see. And this was not even the first
Speaker 1: time that Fetterman has been confronted.
Speaker 4: Face to face.
Speaker 1: There was a video that went viral of a lawyer
Speaker 1: in one of his constituents, somebody who said, listen, I
Speaker 1: voted for you, you know, I believe you're a nice guy.
Speaker 1: But he was also pushing him on a ceasefire, and
Speaker 1: he was shoved aggressively. Yeah, he was dragged away by
Speaker 1: someone who I think was part of Fetterman's like security
Speaker 1: detail or whatever.
Speaker 4: Really aggressive response.
Speaker 1: Of course, as we covered yesterday here in DC, massive
Speaker 1: protests in favor of a ceasefire, largest anti war demonstration
Speaker 1: that we have seen since the Iraq War, certainly the
Speaker 1: largest pro Palestine march that we have ever had on
Speaker 1: US soil. So you can see the way that this
Speaker 1: is really escalating. And you know, the Biden administration they
Speaker 1: think like, oh, they'll get over it, this will die down,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. I don't think so, guys. This one,
Speaker 1: there's this has really viscerally touched in her with young people,
Speaker 1: with Arab Americans, and with muscle and Americans. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a collapse in polling support like what we saw
Speaker 1: from Arab Americans, in particular in this recent poll that
Speaker 1: came out you now have in Michigan. I just saw
Speaker 1: a poll that I think it was Arab Americans are
Speaker 1: actually supporting RFK Junior at a higher rate than Biden
Speaker 1: at this point in the state of Michigan.
Speaker 3: Just does to screw you.
Speaker 4: Just absolutely, and let's be clear.
Speaker 1: RFK Junior is terrible on this issue from my I mean,
Speaker 1: he's all the way in one hundred percent with Israel,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But as to screw you, it
Speaker 1: shows you how deep the upset goes. We had another
Speaker 1: thing that I wanted to show you that I also
Speaker 1: think is quite remarkable.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Pro Palestinian activists are blocking a ship from loading weapons
Speaker 1: and supplies being sent to Israel. This is the port
Speaker 1: of Tacoma in Washington, so you have a huge protest
Speaker 1: there to try to block one of the shipments of
Speaker 1: arms to Israel. I saw something similar happening, I believe
Speaker 1: with DOC workers in Spain. So this is a bit
Speaker 1: of an international effort. But you know this is only
Speaker 1: there is no end in sight in terms of the
Speaker 1: Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza, and I think that this
Speaker 1: sort of protest and resistance is only going to be
Speaker 1: ramping up and only putting increasing pressure on this administration
Speaker 1: which is already floundering. Very possible, all right, So to
Speaker 1: turn a little bit more to domestic politics here, we
Speaker 1: had our former president Donald Trump in the court room
Speaker 1: yesterday testifying. Now this is with regards to that civil
Speaker 1: fraud trial in the state of New York and to
Speaker 1: all the backstory here. This was brought by Letitia James,
Speaker 1: she's Attorney General of New York. It all is focused
Speaker 1: on the valuations of his businesses, the way that he
Speaker 1: would inflate different asset values in order to secure a
Speaker 1: certain loan or in certain certainces, he would deflate the
Speaker 1: values in order to get off from his taxes. Effectively,
Speaker 1: they've already found that he committed fraud. This part now
Speaker 1: is just to figure out exactly how big the penalty is.
Speaker 1: Trump reported lived pretty wild in the stand. This is
Speaker 1: what the man himself had to say after his testimony.
Speaker 11: This is a case that should have never been brought up.
Speaker 11: It's a case that should be dismissed immediately. The fraud
Speaker 11: was on behalf of the court. The court was the
Speaker 11: fraud stir of this case. I don't have to be
Speaker 11: here for the most part, but.
Speaker 12: I surely do have to be here because I want
Speaker 12: to be.
Speaker 11: Here because it's a scam and this is a case
Speaker 11: that should have never been brought and as the case
Speaker 11: that now should be dispissed.
Speaker 9: Everybody show what happened today.
Speaker 13: Everybody show what happened with this star witness who admitted
Speaker 13: that I never told him what he originally said I did.
Speaker 13: He admitted that he lied, and he has absolutely no
Speaker 13: credibility whatsoever.
Speaker 9: That's the only witness. And when you look.
Speaker 13: At the numbers, the full numbers that came out today
Speaker 13: from the New York Times and CBS, I'm sure the
Speaker 13: Times was not too happy, but people are sick and
Speaker 13: tired of what's happening.
Speaker 9: This is a sad I think it's a very sad
Speaker 9: day for America.
Speaker 1: Sad day for America. It's a scam case, never should
Speaker 1: have been brought. All kind of typical things you would
Speaker 1: expect Trump to say, there were no cameras in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: so it can just bring you what reporters say happened
Speaker 1: while the doors were closed. Put this up on the
Speaker 1: screen from Politico. They say, during this four hours on
Speaker 1: the windness stand, the former present lost his temper and
Speaker 1: attack the judge of the headline year is also amusing,
Speaker 1: I'm not a windmill person. Trump takes the witness stand
Speaker 1: and doesn't break character in a series of outbursts. While testifying,
Speaker 1: Trump assailed to judge who is overseeing his civil fraud case.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of back in between them. The
Speaker 1: judge reportedly was beseeching Trump's lawyer to try to get
Speaker 1: him under control. He wasn't really answering the questions. He
Speaker 1: was just you know, berating the judge and doing his
Speaker 1: typical Trumpian thing. At one point, the judge told Trump's
Speaker 1: lawyer Chris Kayes, if you can't control him, I will.
Speaker 1: I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that
Speaker 1: I can. This is not a political rally, this is
Speaker 1: the courtroom, he told Trump's lawyer, ordering him to counsel
Speaker 1: his client to provide answers responsive to the question.
Speaker 4: So, Sager, you and I both saw.
Speaker 1: This analysis, which as best I can tell, is probably accurate.
Speaker 1: The ship has already sailed in terms of he, you know,
Speaker 1: committed some level of fraud. There is going to be
Speaker 1: some penalty. I would say, based on his conduct, it's
Speaker 1: probably going to be pretty significant. I don't think the
Speaker 1: judge was too impressed with his presentation here, but also
Speaker 1: it feels like this was more of again a political
Speaker 1: response than really a legal response. And I did see
Speaker 1: some analysis that indicated he undercut some of the defense
Speaker 1: that his team had prepared, and that his adult children,
Speaker 1: two of whom Eric and Donald Junior are both involved
Speaker 1: in this as well. They tried to say basically like
Speaker 1: we got advice from accountants, we really weren't involved in this.
Speaker 1: That was kind of their approach, and he did at
Speaker 1: points undercut that and admit that he was involved in
Speaker 1: the crafting of these valuations.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So part of the issue is that one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why they are where they are right now is
Speaker 2: that their lawyers mishandled the case from the beginning in
Speaker 2: terms of having it a jury trial or not.
Speaker 3: So that was why they left it up to the
Speaker 3: judge itself.
Speaker 2: And we're going to make the declaration of fraud, which
Speaker 2: is why you're saying here in terms of the commitment
Speaker 2: in the eyes of the law around fraud about the
Speaker 2: overvaluation of assets. I know everyone was talking previously about
Speaker 2: the Marra a Lago thing, but actually goes deeper in
Speaker 2: terms of the mishandling actually on the Trump side of it.
Speaker 2: So whenever it comes to Trump himself and what he's
Speaker 2: actually going to be able to do, I think he's
Speaker 2: taking the correct course, which is, if you've already lost
Speaker 2: in terms of the legal minutia, what you do is
Speaker 2: you attack Letitia James and make this political, which it
Speaker 2: obviously is political. She literally ran on in going after him,
Speaker 2: so obviously that is going to play into it. She's
Speaker 2: even like, in my opinion, look, I think this is
Speaker 2: too much. She's like subtweeting him while the active case
Speaker 2: is going on.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's not like he's conducting himself.
Speaker 2: She's the attorney general, he's not the chief he's not
Speaker 2: the chief law.
Speaker 4: Enforcement president future president.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, I'm just saying he's not the one who's
Speaker 2: prosecuting her. It's vice versa. So maybe you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: doing that. But obviously that's how you get votes, and
Speaker 2: you're just validating that people think it's political, which it
Speaker 2: obviously is political.
Speaker 3: I don't actually know.
Speaker 2: I still I've been mostly checked out on the merits
Speaker 2: of this particular one because, I mean, while I think
Speaker 2: it will have an impact on him personally, yeah, and
Speaker 2: will significantly impact some of his decision making in the future,
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 3: I mean, don't forget.
Speaker 2: I believe he made himself alone in the last days
Speaker 2: of the twenty sixteen campaign.
Speaker 3: He probably won't have to do that again.
Speaker 2: In terms of his own personal well, this is far
Speaker 2: more personal for him and for is like family future. Wednesday,
Speaker 2: Evaga will take the stands, will be the final Trump
Speaker 2: family member to do so, and then we'll get some
Speaker 2: sort of determination. But this is not going to have
Speaker 2: the impact that I think most people think. Like the
Speaker 2: big convictions or legal problems for Trump are all going
Speaker 2: to be around his conduct on January sixth, the federal
Speaker 2: case and specifically the Georgia I still think George is.
Speaker 3: One of the worst ones for him.
Speaker 2: And then classified documents obviously is that's open and shut politically.
Speaker 1: You're right, I don't think that this like, no matter
Speaker 1: how big the penalty is or whatever it does, strike
Speaker 1: to the core of his whole persona though, because I
Speaker 1: mean this is really like a potential existential threat to
Speaker 1: his New York business operations. They've already suspended his business licenses.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about some of his most iconic properties,
Speaker 1: Trump Tower, right, could be forced into other hands or
Speaker 1: sold off by the stay. I mean, that's the sort
Speaker 1: of penalties that we're talking about here. What I see
Speaker 1: is significant about this is two things. Number One, you
Speaker 1: see the way that his antics, which work very well
Speaker 1: in the political arena, don't work at all in the
Speaker 1: legal arena. I mean, this is not going to sway
Speaker 1: the judge. Quite to the contrary, I think it probably
Speaker 1: makes it more likely that the judge is going to
Speaker 1: penalize him even more aggressively than he was likely to before.
Speaker 4: So the things that he.
Speaker 1: Does where we have this sense of like oh teflon
Speaker 1: don and wriggles himself out of every jam, doesn't work
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. And related to that, you know, we
Speaker 1: do always have this joke about like, oh, the walls
Speaker 1: are finally closed again. Well, this may be the first
Speaker 1: time where there really is some actual penalty and consequence
Speaker 1: for his actions and for the way that he has
Speaker 1: conducted himself.
Speaker 4: And I don't think it's going to be insignificant.
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of his personal situation and his
Speaker 1: wealth and what it's going to mean for him and
Speaker 1: his business. I think it could be quite significant. But
Speaker 1: to your point, Sager, you know, the bigger in terms
Speaker 1: of the political questions. And again this is a civil case,
Speaker 1: so keep that in minds different from a criminal case
Speaker 1: as well, but in terms of the larger political questions.
Speaker 1: We covered that New York Times poll yesterday that had
Speaker 1: Trump up on Biden in five of six swing states,
Speaker 1: So devastating picture for Joe Biden for his reelect. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of panic over that. We're going to get
Speaker 1: to that in just a moment. However, there is one
Speaker 1: piece of this that the Biden team might be able
Speaker 1: to take comfort in.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: As of right now, only thirty nine percent of voters
Speaker 1: in that New York Times Ciana pol actually think that
Speaker 1: Trump is going to be convicted.
Speaker 4: But if he is convicted, it really changes.
Speaker 1: The electoral landscape again, at least based on this poll,
Speaker 1: and people are not always good at predicting what they
Speaker 1: would do in certain circumstances.
Speaker 4: So I think that's important to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: However, if you just are asking Trump versus Biden, Trump
Speaker 1: is up by eleven in Nevada. If you say, okay,
Speaker 1: but what if Trump is convicted, it moves to Biden
Speaker 1: plus twelve. Okay, from Trump plus eleven to Biden plus twelve.
Speaker 1: In Arizona, it goes from Trump plus five to Biden
Speaker 1: plus five. In Georgia, it goes from Trump plus six
Speaker 1: to Biden plus twelve. In Michigan, Trump plus five to
Speaker 1: Biden plus twelve. In Pennsylvania, Trump plus four to Biden
Speaker 1: plus four. And in Wisconsin, this was the one state
Speaker 1: Biden had an egine Biden plus two to Biden plus fourteen.
Speaker 1: So this is a huge wild card hanging over this
Speaker 1: whole thing.
Speaker 4: And again, we're not.
Speaker 1: Talking about the civil case that he's testifying in right now.
Speaker 1: We're talking about those criminal cases. The Document's case, the
Speaker 1: one with regard to January sixth and stealing the election,
Speaker 1: also the Georgia case, which is also about fake elector
Speaker 1: schemes and stealing the election. Those are the ones that
Speaker 1: we're talking about here in terms of a criminal conviction,
Speaker 1: And I will say Zager that we did see when
Speaker 1: we did our Republican focus group, we did see some
Speaker 1: evidence of that. Were even people who were in the
Speaker 1: room who were maybe not like the biggest Trump fans,
Speaker 1: but they were generally on board with him, and you know,
Speaker 1: they were good with him and certainly going to vote
Speaker 1: for him, et cetera. When they were asked, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what if he's convicted, it was like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: think I could do that.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, I just don't know. It's one
Speaker 2: of those where people say a lot of things. Also,
Speaker 2: what does conviction mean? Which conviction are we talking about Georgia,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the Feds were talking about the classified
Speaker 2: documents case, like we're talking about they each one of
Speaker 2: these could be spun or Also what's the sentence. I mean,
Speaker 2: if he's sentenced to jail, I feel like that's one thing.
Speaker 2: If he's sentenced to parole, I think that's another thing.
Speaker 2: If it's a what if it's a mistrial and not
Speaker 2: even you know, a hung jury or a dismiss case.
Speaker 2: There's so many different scenarios I could go down. But
Speaker 2: something I have warned about previously is I was like, look,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of normy people in this country
Speaker 2: who if you say he was convicted by a court,
Speaker 2: they'd be like, wow, Okay, he was actually convicted, and
Speaker 2: they're like, that means he did something wrong. Now, as
Speaker 2: we all know, we don't knows the justice system can
Speaker 2: be very difficult and different sometimes about how that all goes.
Speaker 2: Most people do, not, however, mistrusted justice system enough to
Speaker 2: say that if someone does get convicted, they think that
Speaker 2: they probably did something and they could affect their overall vote.
Speaker 2: I think that's what's in the poll, and it does
Speaker 2: just show us that Trump will suffer something we don't
Speaker 2: know they sent to which, yeah, it doesn't count them
Speaker 2: out entirely, but also it's not good to me.
Speaker 4: It's more question of timing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whether or not he would actually be convicted. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: he'd have to run the table in all of these cases.
Speaker 4: I just don't see it.
Speaker 1: Especially think about the document's case, right, Like, what even
Speaker 1: is his defense at this point, They're not even really
Speaker 1: trying to amount of defense. It's just taking the political
Speaker 1: tactic hoping they can hang on, hoping they can exhaust
Speaker 1: the appeals process too. Keep that in mind before voters
Speaker 1: actually go to the polls. So I think Soger, it's
Speaker 1: not just this normy sense of like, well, it was convicted,
Speaker 1: so he definitely did something wrong. I think there's also
Speaker 1: just a sense of embarrassment, like, yeah, I'm sure we're
Speaker 1: going to elect an American president who's been who's like
Speaker 1: a you know, criminally convicted of a variety of crimes.
Speaker 1: That's just humiliating as a country to do. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have a revulsion to that.
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm I am just very reluctant to
Speaker 1: make any predictions about how this general election is going
Speaker 1: to go. You've got Biden, who has extraordinarily low approval writings.
Speaker 1: You've got you know, now involved in two increasingly unpopular
Speaker 1: and brutal wars. You've got you know, economic concerns that
Speaker 1: are overriding potentially everything else. You've got the wild card
Speaker 1: of RFK Junior, who has a lot of money in
Speaker 1: the bank and who you know is a Kennedy and
Speaker 1: is garnering significant support in these polls. You've got Trump
Speaker 1: out there and these criminal you know, possible convictions hanging
Speaker 1: over his head, and the question of the timeline and
Speaker 1: how that's all going to work out, and then you
Speaker 1: have the things that we don't even know about that
Speaker 1: are going to unf over the course of the coming year.
Speaker 1: So all I would argue for is a lot of
Speaker 1: humility in terms of, you know, how this is all
Speaker 1: going to shake out and what it's going to look
Speaker 1: like and who's going to have the edge. I could
Speaker 1: see everything from a Trump blowout to a Biden blowout
Speaker 1: at this point, yeah, and any outcome in between. And
Speaker 1: I think this is the this is he convicted? Is
Speaker 1: he sentenced to prison? Is one of the biggest wild
Speaker 1: cards that hangs out.
Speaker 4: There to the state.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, speaking of Biden and what's going on in terms
Speaker 2: of the fallout from that poll that showed him losing
Speaker 2: in five out of six states, there are several people
Speaker 2: who are now calling for him to just drop out.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was in very I think coded language. David Axelrod,
Speaker 2: the chief political advisor to Barack Obama, kind of the
Speaker 2: architect of a lot of Obama's career, says, quote, it
Speaker 2: is very late to change horses. A lot will happen
Speaker 2: in the next year. That no one can predict, and
Speaker 2: Biden's team says his resolve to run is firm. His
Speaker 2: divide defied conventional wisdom before, but this will send tremors
Speaker 2: of doubt through the party.
Speaker 3: Not bedwetting, but.
Speaker 2: A legitimate concern, saying it's a legitimate concern that he
Speaker 2: is losing. And he says the potus is justly proud
Speaker 2: of his accomplishments. Trump is dangerous, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Only Joe Biden can take this decision. If he continues
Speaker 2: to run, he will be the nominee of the party.
Speaker 2: What he needs to decide is whether that is wise,
Speaker 2: whether it is his best interest or the countries strongly
Speaker 2: implying drop the hell out, Joe and let somebody.
Speaker 3: Else in there.
Speaker 2: And this was picked up on over at MSNBC where
Speaker 2: Joe Biden found himself with a little bit of a defense.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: This person said, well, look, it's the really surprised. David
Speaker 6: Axelrod has consistently been a detractor of the Biden demonstration.
Speaker 3: What would you say?
Speaker 14: I would also argue, and I love acts, but he
Speaker 14: was also a detractor of the twenty twenty Biden campaign.
Speaker 14: I'm not surprised by this, but it's very disingenuous. Democrats,
Speaker 14: especially Democratic strategists know Republican strategists, one who was a
Speaker 14: professional political hell for reporters know. Joe Biden is the
Speaker 14: President of the United States of America. Therefore the head
Speaker 14: of the party that he is on the ticket of.
Speaker 14: He is a Democrat, and if the President of the
Speaker 14: United States of America can is eligible to run for
Speaker 14: reelection and decides to do so, that's your nominee.
Speaker 12: Baby.
Speaker 14: That's how it works. I know that they that might
Speaker 14: not sound democratic, but that is the game that's not works.
Speaker 14: And so David Aislerod's comments are kind of crazy because
Speaker 14: Joe Biden did make his decision.
Speaker 3: He has started a reelection again. But was the right decision,
Speaker 3: that's the question.
Speaker 14: Well he made it though, so like what we look like,
Speaker 14: Joe Biden has been trying to be president since before
Speaker 14: I was boorn. Okay, he literally he's ran for running
Speaker 14: for president since nineteen eighty eight. The idea that he
Speaker 14: would get the presidency beat Donald Trump, vaccinate America, finally
Speaker 14: have infrastructure week make the largest investment in infrastructure since
Speaker 14: like the people that invented the interstate and he's not
Speaker 14: going to run for reelection.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that is I know, democratic.
Speaker 2: As Nate Silver put it, he goes, yeah, it's usually
Speaker 2: that way because the vast majority of the people in
Speaker 2: the party want that person to run. The vast majority
Speaker 2: of the people in this party and in this country
Speaker 2: don't want him to run again.
Speaker 3: They think he's too freaking old.
Speaker 2: So in that case, then no, the traditional rules don't hold.
Speaker 2: It's not a given. It just has always been that
Speaker 2: way in the past because usually, at least a little bit,
Speaker 2: American politics was like.
Speaker 3: A relative meritocracy ish where.
Speaker 2: People got to know and to view these people and
Speaker 2: we're like, yeah, I support him, Okay, he wants to
Speaker 2: run for an election. I mean, think about four Republicans
Speaker 2: were gangbusters to renominate George W.
Speaker 3: Bush.
Speaker 2: The only time anyone had any doubt was Jimmy Carter,
Speaker 2: and we went through a primary people got the opportunity
Speaker 2: to vote for Kennedy was bloodthirsty and it was tough,
Speaker 2: and Carter came out on the other side and guess what,
Speaker 2: he actually almost won the election. So it just goes
Speaker 2: to show you, like, in terms of how it would
Speaker 2: all look I think that The fact is is that
Speaker 2: when you have such a low intra party approval rating,
Speaker 2: you have to subject yourself to that primary just to
Speaker 2: prove that you do deserve it, I mean, instead of.
Speaker 3: Like this no bless oblige that you have right now.
Speaker 1: It is amazing how she just comes on. So she's like, well,
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't sound democratic, but that's just the game.
Speaker 4: That's how it was, and it's like, okay, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, listen, I mean, and obviously that is the game
Speaker 1: because that is the way they've set it up. They
Speaker 1: rigged the primary state order to make it most favorable
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: They made sure there were absolutely no primaries.
Speaker 1: They were working the phones to make sure to enforce
Speaker 1: discipline on everybody. And really the key moment for them
Speaker 1: was when the midterms went better than expected.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think.
Speaker 1: If it had been a Republican red wave midterms, you
Speaker 1: might have had Gavin Newsom or somebody who jumps in
Speaker 1: the race. And of course Biden does have primary combatitors.
Speaker 1: Mary and Williamson's been in for quite a while. Djank
Speaker 1: Huger just jumped in. Of course, there's questions about whether
Speaker 1: he's constitutionally eligible Dean Phillips is now now just gotten in,
Speaker 1: but they've effectively made it so that there's no awareness
Speaker 1: that there's any sort of real democratic process playing out.
Speaker 1: And that's how they want it, because they know that
Speaker 1: he's incredibly vulnerable, and they also know that he can't
Speaker 1: actually stand up to the scrutiny of a primary process.
Speaker 1: I think they'd be less fearful of it if they
Speaker 1: thought that he could get on a debate stage and
Speaker 1: just absolutely rock everybody.
Speaker 4: But they know that that's not the case.
Speaker 1: So I just want to underscore David Axelrod, who is
Speaker 1: seen as one of the wise stages of electoral politics
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party, for him to come out and
Speaker 1: very strongly suggest that Biden is staying in because of
Speaker 1: his own personal ambition versus what is in the best
Speaker 1: interests of the nation is really, really something and everyone
Speaker 1: is going to take note of that.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Do I think that that means Joe Biden is going
Speaker 1: to do what he should do, which is step aside
Speaker 1: make room for a real, actual, dynamic primary process.
Speaker 4: Of course not. And that'smon.
Speaker 1: Sanders is one hundred percent correct when she was like,
Speaker 1: this man's been running for president since nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: and you think he's going to give.
Speaker 4: Up the brass ring. Now, she's right about that.
Speaker 1: There's no way that he's going to As long as
Speaker 1: he has one breath left in his body, he is
Speaker 1: going to hold on to the presidency because it has
Speaker 1: been his lifelong ambition and he doesn't actually care about
Speaker 1: whether he's the best person at this point to try
Speaker 1: to defeat Trump again. And by the way, I think
Speaker 1: he was he has genuinely convinced himself that he actually
Speaker 1: is that person who would be best positioned to defeat
Speaker 1: Trump another time.
Speaker 4: Just to remind you, guys of the.
Speaker 1: Details of that poll that we covered yesterday from the
Speaker 1: New York Times, so we've been talking a lot about
Speaker 1: what was really really noteworthy and shows you how far
Speaker 1: he's fallen. Is even Kamala Harris performed better than he
Speaker 1: did in that poll.
Speaker 4: That's a first.
Speaker 1: Consistently across the board when we've seen polling like this
Speaker 1: in the past, Biden has done not that great, but
Speaker 1: it's always been a little better than Kamala. Now in
Speaker 1: this one poll, at least, for Kamala even her to
Speaker 1: be doing all better than him is really something. And
Speaker 1: then the you know, theoretical generic unnamed democrat was like
Speaker 1: blowing everybody out of the water. But of course that's
Speaker 1: not the way reality works. In reality, you have an
Speaker 1: actual named person who is subject to all of the
Speaker 1: attacks and slings and arrows of political campaign. So you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite work out that way. But I guess
Speaker 1: Dean Phillips will like that particular number because he is
Speaker 1: kind of the quintessential generic unnamed Democrat.
Speaker 2: There is no such thing as generic, just an annoying metric.
Speaker 2: I'm not even really sure if it's useful at this point,
Speaker 2: because you can never separate personality. Let's put this one
Speaker 2: up there on the screen as well. Bill Crystal, you know,
Speaker 2: the prominent neocon former Republican, saying it's time President Biden
Speaker 2: has served our country. Well, I'm confident he'll do so
Speaker 2: for the next year, but it's time for an act
Speaker 2: of personal sacrifice and public spirit. It's time to pass
Speaker 2: the torch to the next generation. It's time for Biden
Speaker 2: to announce he won't run in twenty twenty four. And
Speaker 2: then you also had Primilla Jiapoul on MSNBC Jensaki Show
Speaker 2: saying that she was worried about the election let's take
Speaker 2: a listen.
Speaker 8: I will tell you this is the first time, Jen,
Speaker 8: that I have felt like the twenty twenty four election
Speaker 8: is in great trouble for the president and for our
Speaker 8: democratic control, which is essential.
Speaker 3: The first time.
Speaker 2: Well, if that's the first time in you're an idiot,
Speaker 2: but maybe it's the first time that you're willing to
Speaker 2: admit it on television. Anyway, I think the point being
Speaker 2: that clearly the bat signal is out, you're allowed to
Speaker 2: talk about it.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 3: We'll see what they do. We all know what they're
Speaker 3: going to do, which is that they're just going to
Speaker 3: keep Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they'll see how it works out for
Speaker 1: and then they'll pretend like this this conversation ever happened,
Speaker 1: And how dare you question his abilities or you know,
Speaker 1: any of that and be totally shocked and find a
Speaker 1: litany of people to blame if he loses that do
Speaker 1: not involve themselves or Joe Biden himself.
Speaker 4: There you go, all right, We had to update you
Speaker 4: on a change of heart, change of.
Speaker 1: Perspective from c NBC's Jim Gramer, who you'll recall and
Speaker 1: will play some of this in a minute, was just
Speaker 1: losing his mind over the president of the United Auto
Speaker 1: Worker Sean Fain as they were getting ready to strike
Speaker 1: the Big three automakers, and while that strike was ongoing, well,
Speaker 1: apparently now he thinks Sean Fain is actually just incredible, brilliant,
Speaker 1: He's a strategic genius. Let's take a listen to what
Speaker 1: Jim Kramer has to say.
Speaker 5: That I think that the UAW was underestimated Paul Way
Speaker 5: because Fain just beat them everywhere. It was very much
Speaker 5: grill action, was very smart. They were completely uh, they
Speaker 5: were out gained at every turn. I mean it was
Speaker 5: almost like there were they were and Fame was a
Speaker 5: great NFL coach who really figured out all the weaknesses
Speaker 5: of the other team and just came in and blew
Speaker 5: them away. And they were blitzing.
Speaker 3: They were doing everything right.
Speaker 5: I mean they had like linebacker and quarter blitches and
Speaker 5: safety blitches, and you know, they like the other guys
Speaker 5: like the like I love I.
Speaker 3: Love Farley and I love Barr, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: and I think that they were wow what happened?
Speaker 5: They were in the wow what happened camp, and you
Speaker 5: know when the game.
Speaker 3: Was over, it was just a real beatdown.
Speaker 1: I love when He's like, the UAW was really underestimated.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh really, by who by hoo Jim. You
Speaker 1: will recall this is the guy who was like, oh,
Speaker 1: they should just the automakers should just ship all their
Speaker 1: jobs to Mexico. That would really show the auto workers.
Speaker 1: He was saying, Sean Fain is you know, this is
Speaker 1: class war and it's shocking to say, and saying Sean
Speaker 1: Fain is a Marxist, et cetera, et cetera. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to what he was saying previously.
Speaker 5: I want you to compare the labor negotiations here to
Speaker 5: the ones in auto where I think there's going to
Speaker 5: be a strike and I think.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be horrible.
Speaker 9: You're making that call September.
Speaker 3: Fourteen, I think they're going to strike.
Speaker 5: This the Chauvain, the guy who runs UAW, I find
Speaker 5: him frightened.
Speaker 2: And Teamster's ups didn't give you any solid.
Speaker 3: Teams turned out to be get a good deal.
Speaker 5: Teams's strongally very powerful union rich youan, but the the
Speaker 5: UAW leader one there was a contestant very boot between
Speaker 5: the company the union that wants to work with the
Speaker 5: autos together to try to preserve some jobs and give
Speaker 5: the elder people a good, good pay. And then this
Speaker 5: man Sean who is just talking about capitalism and the
Speaker 5: nature of capitalism and how it's really hurt workers.
Speaker 3: This is very Walter Ruther language.
Speaker 5: It's it's the kind of language that when we when
Speaker 5: we had in this country, will take you down if
Speaker 5: you don't play ball. That's the language I'm hearing for
Speaker 5: uaw and look, I mean it's the kind of language
Speaker 5: where you just say, you know what, we should have
Speaker 5: built all our evs in Mexico.
Speaker 3: It's that bad.
Speaker 5: I don't think people are paying enough attention the man
Speaker 5: is I'm not saying he's irrational. I'm saying he was
Speaker 5: elected sure in order to make it so that there's
Speaker 5: a very short week to find benefit back. And then
Speaker 5: the notion that that we're fat cats. The shareholders are
Speaker 5: fat cats and have been overly rewarded. We haven't seen
Speaker 5: this as pleased class warfare. And it's very shocking to
Speaker 5: hear a class class very shocking, very shocking.
Speaker 4: There's going to be a start. I think it's going
Speaker 4: to be horrible.
Speaker 1: I mean, this gets to also, there was so much
Speaker 1: especially from him, like oh, this is going to be devastating.
Speaker 1: Car prices are going to go through the roof, and
Speaker 1: the economy is going to a crater.
Speaker 4: And now he's like, oh, that was great. Sean Fayne
Speaker 4: did a great job, workers got a good deal.
Speaker 1: Look at him, he's an amazing quarterback, brilliant NFL coach.
Speaker 1: They were doing everything out there, they were making all
Speaker 1: the right plays.
Speaker 4: A little bit of a change of heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a complete change it also, I guess we
Speaker 2: should all. I don't know if it's a victory, because
Speaker 2: you don't really really want Kramer on your other side.
Speaker 2: So if I were Faine, I would want him to
Speaker 2: just continue worried. But I guess he doesn't care because
Speaker 2: he's bathing in victory now at this point. In a
Speaker 2: certain sense, I mean, it's heartening, right, It's a good
Speaker 2: thing to see somebody actually admit that they were completely wrong.
Speaker 2: Although I'm not really sure he admitted it. He was
Speaker 2: just like, man, he kind of came out the gate.
Speaker 2: But we wanted to bring everybody a very rare Kramer
Speaker 2: of actually admitting or at least saying that somebody who
Speaker 2: we very much underestimated, very obviously won against all these CEOs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and you know they are continuing.
Speaker 4: We covered Toyota.
Speaker 1: Looks like they gave their workers directly in response to this.
Speaker 1: Their autoworkers arrays there are now union efforts ongoing at TESLA.
Speaker 1: Fine is calling on other unions to align their contract
Speaker 1: end dates with their end date, which is twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: to try to set up a potential general strike.
Speaker 4: So some ways this is just the beginning.
Speaker 1: I think we'll be hearing a lot more from Sean Fain,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure Jim Kramer will have more changes of
Speaker 1: heart along the way.
Speaker 2: That's right, all right, we got a great guest standing
Speaker 2: by Jamils Coleman.
Speaker 3: Let's get to it. Joining us now is j Miles.
Speaker 2: Coleman is the associate editor at the Center for what
Speaker 2: is it the Center for Politics at Sabato's Crystal Ball,
Speaker 2: no relation as the joke that we always make here,
Speaker 2: Ja Miles is here to join us. He's going to
Speaker 2: talk to us about these upcoming elections. Let's go and
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen. We've got a
Speaker 2: lot for him to go ahead and break down for
Speaker 2: us places to watch in Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: Miles.
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about Virginia yesterday, So why
Speaker 2: don't we start with Kentucky, which arguably is one of
Speaker 2: the more important races in the country. Have got a
Speaker 2: gubernatorial race there going on, give us a lay of
Speaker 2: the land, the polls, where things are, and what you
Speaker 2: we think may happen.
Speaker 12: Yeah, So in Kentucky, it is it's an interesting situation
Speaker 12: because usually national Poland's governor and Shah Rank says, the
Speaker 12: most popular Democratic governor anywhere. But you're basically why this
Speaker 12: race is so close because it's Kentucky. You know, this
Speaker 12: is a state that normally goes to the Republicans.
Speaker 9: Governor.
Speaker 12: She is probably a uniquely strong Democrat that it comes
Speaker 12: from a very big political family there. His father was
Speaker 12: the governor about ten years studying ago. It seems like
Speaker 12: he's done everything right. Daniel Cameron, who's the who's the
Speaker 12: attorney general. It is known as a protege of Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 12: He's really tried to nationalize the race, basically trying to
Speaker 12: tie you basically say, you know, you may think and
Speaker 12: this year is a different type of Democrat, but you
Speaker 12: know he's really no different than Joe Biden. You know,
Speaker 12: usually our sense to this race is there were some
Speaker 12: polls out out earlier where this year was up very
Speaker 12: fairly comfortably. It seems like Cameron has closed that gap
Speaker 12: a bit. Now, part of that could be just Republicans
Speaker 12: or coming home to the Republican but my sentence this
Speaker 12: year probably pulls this out by maybe two or three points.
Speaker 4: Gotcha.
Speaker 1: And so if Cameron's trying to nationalize things, what are
Speaker 1: some of the more local issues that the Seer is
Speaker 1: trying to put front and center.
Speaker 12: Yeah, So since this year has been been the governor,
Speaker 12: he he was elected four years. As I go, Uh,
Speaker 12: Kentucky has gone through a lot of natural disasters. You know,
Speaker 12: He's made He's always talks about that there were some
Speaker 12: out in western Kentucky, there were some torn tornadoes out
Speaker 12: in eastern k Kentucky.
Speaker 9: They had some record of uh blooding.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 12: He always makes a point to go to those places
Speaker 12: because you know, really for Democrats in a lot of
Speaker 12: these red states, just going there, you.
Speaker 9: Know, out to these rural areas is half of the
Speaker 9: back uh Right.
Speaker 12: So he talks about one one of the things his
Speaker 12: father did he was governor was medical expansion.
Speaker 9: That's something he talks about. Okay, we need to kind
Speaker 9: of keep this going.
Speaker 12: Uh, we don't want to elect someone who's gonna take
Speaker 12: us back to.
Speaker 9: Basically to undo all all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So, myles, why don't we talk a little bit about Mississippi?
Speaker 2: Then that was another gubernatorial race Tate Reeves. Usually this
Speaker 2: wouldn't really be a question, but out of the aftermath
Speaker 2: of scandal, maybe it is. Give us a sense of
Speaker 2: what's going on there.
Speaker 12: Yes, so Mississippi, you know, you would expect us the
Speaker 12: Republican to be a pretty strong position mayor.
Speaker 9: But Governor Tate Reeves four.
Speaker 12: Years as ago only one by four or five points.
Speaker 12: You know, he has a very you know, as Trump
Speaker 12: would say, he has a very high energy challenger and
Speaker 12: a Democratic name brand in Presley. He is a distant
Speaker 12: a distant relative of illness. So one thing I'm watching is, Okay, well,
Speaker 12: does the Presley name have any story.
Speaker 9: Of value in Mississipi? Pippy?
Speaker 12: But you know that's uh, we we were just talking
Speaker 12: about medicaid expansion in the context of Kentucky. Uh, that's
Speaker 12: something President is running on, you know, more of a
Speaker 12: local type issue where because Mississippi is one of the
Speaker 12: states that still hasn't expanded it, So that is something
Speaker 12: that president is trying to lack strong too. And you know,
Speaker 12: there have been some some scandals that Reeves has been
Speaker 12: tied to there, or there was this very big welfare
Speaker 12: scandal involving Brett Park. So that's my sense for that
Speaker 12: race is So in Mississippi, uh, they.
Speaker 9: Have this new system where they have run offs, kind
Speaker 9: of like Georgia.
Speaker 12: And Mississippi is a state because it's about forty black
Speaker 12: by composition. Now, if you're a Democrat, you can probably
Speaker 12: get to forty tell you maybe forty five percent of
Speaker 12: the vote pretty easily, but getting much past that it
Speaker 12: is very hard because white voters.
Speaker 9: Are just so Republican there. So that's gonna be President's challenge, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Now? In Ohio, and of course all of these races,
Speaker 1: what's been hanging over the political landscape is the reversal
Speaker 1: of Roe v. Wade and the dab's decision from the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court seems to have really chuced democratic turnout in
Speaker 1: a lot of races. And in Ohio you actually have
Speaker 1: an abortion issue on the ballot.
Speaker 4: Can you break that one down for us too?
Speaker 12: So basically this in Ohio basically established or constitutional right
Speaker 12: to abortion.
Speaker 9: You know, as your.
Speaker 12: Viewers may well remember, earlier this year there there was
Speaker 12: sort of a test run for this for and Republicans
Speaker 12: tried to raise the threshold for these bad bou measure
Speaker 12: to be accepted in anticipation for this abortion rights for
Speaker 12: random And you know, one of the things I've been
Speaker 12: kind of kind of tracking over the last year or
Speaker 12: so is since since Road was overturned last year, there
Speaker 12: have been eight referendums concerning abortion rights, and the pro
Speaker 12: abortion right side has won in all eight of those cases.
Speaker 12: And you know, the states ranging from you as red
Speaker 12: as Kentucky in Montana to states as blue as Vermont
Speaker 12: and cal California.
Speaker 9: The one thing I'm one thing.
Speaker 12: I'd be interested in watching is it gets a little
Speaker 12: down into the down into the leeds. But oftentimes on
Speaker 12: these referendums, if you're a voter, it's oftentimes easier just
Speaker 12: to vote no or whatever the politicians are proposing.
Speaker 9: Back in the early referendum in Ohio.
Speaker 12: The pro abortion side was no, basically no, we don't
Speaker 12: find to raise up the threshold to pass forfendoms.
Speaker 9: This time it's a little flip. The pro abortion right
Speaker 9: side is yet so small, but some and I'm looking
Speaker 9: at it seems like the consensus is it's on track
Speaker 9: to past.
Speaker 12: Although one thing I will know, it seems like the
Speaker 12: Republican governor of Ohio, right do you want, is fairly popular,
Speaker 12: He's been He's maybe a good messenger for the anti
Speaker 12: abortion right side just because the popular state Republicans.
Speaker 2: So my question, Miles for you is what are the
Speaker 2: national indicators that you're looking at. So obviously Ohio is
Speaker 2: going to be one, what are some other margins and
Speaker 2: other things that could tell us a little bit about
Speaker 2: what to expect in the next election a year from now.
Speaker 12: Yeah, it's it's you know, it's kind of funny because
Speaker 12: none of these states are really in question next year.
Speaker 12: You know, I have no question Biden is probably going
Speaker 12: to carry the state of burb Twitch and next year
Speaker 12: he's probably com going to lose, you know, Kentucky.
Speaker 9: Ohio, Mississippi. But I would look at, you know, if.
Speaker 12: Democrats, say, Virginia pulled up well in some of these
Speaker 12: districts in the higher income suburbs. Probably the textbook example
Speaker 12: of that in Virginia is Senate District thirty one, which
Speaker 12: is up in Loudon County. That's that's had something like
Speaker 12: a million buck some something like eleven million bucks spent
Speaker 12: for legislative seam and think of types of voters who
Speaker 12: Democrats have gained since that Trump emerald. It's basically Senate
Speaker 12: District thirty one. So if this is an area where
Speaker 12: Democrats hold up, well, that made me a good sign
Speaker 12: for them going into twenty twenty twenty four. Sort Of
Speaker 12: on the flip side of that, one one of the
Speaker 12: things that that Democrats still have to work on a
Speaker 12: bit is minority turnout in Virginia. We have a number
Speaker 12: of legislative seats that have on my minority poppulations but
Speaker 12: are still competitive to so if Republicans win those that
Speaker 12: may be assigned that Democrats have more work to do
Speaker 12: on that. Usually these trends don't happen in I elations.
Speaker 12: So if Democrats are still having problem next year with
Speaker 12: minority turnout in Burber virgin.
Speaker 9: Yet, you know it may not matter.
Speaker 12: But if they're having those same problems in Georgia and
Speaker 12: North Carolina state where it may matter, that would be key.
Speaker 1: All Right, Well, we've got our marching orders things to
Speaker 1: look for this evening, and I'm sure we all be
Speaker 1: following you on Twitter as well as the results come in. Miles,
Speaker 1: is always so great to see you. Thank you for
Speaker 1: helping break all of this down for us.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: We have a great counterpoint show for you all tomorrow Thursday.
Speaker 2: We've got a great guest. I think some of you
Speaker 2: are going to be enjoying. It will come after the
Speaker 2: GOP debate. We'll have breaking coverage on that and everything
Speaker 2: that's going on in Israel. Otherwise, we will see you
Speaker 2: all then.
Speaker 1: As became an ACTI