Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show everything. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday.
Speaker 2: We have a great show for everyone today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do, as has been the case, a lot
Speaker 1: to get into this morning. We're of course going to
Speaker 1: give you all of the updates from the ground in
Speaker 1: Gaza plans as Israel moves into what they're describing as
Speaker 1: the second phase of the wars. That will bring you
Speaker 1: everything that we know there. We also have a terrifying
Speaker 1: a mob swarming an airplane and an airport in Dagistan
Speaker 1: looking for any Jews on a plane coming in from Israel.
Speaker 1: Absolutely horrifying scenes, so we'll bring you everything that we
Speaker 1: know about that. We've also got a big panic over
Speaker 1: the way that young people are getting their news on
Speaker 1: TikTok some interesting numbers there that we want to share
Speaker 1: for you. We've also got some updates on how the
Speaker 1: new Speaker may be thinking about potential Ukraine AID. Sounding
Speaker 1: a little different now that he is Speaker of the
Speaker 1: House than he was previously on the issue of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: so we've got some thoughts on that one. We've also
Speaker 1: got some good news UAW winning another tentative agreement, this
Speaker 1: time with Stalantis that leaves only GM of the Big
Speaker 1: three remaining out. Of course, these agreements have to go
Speaker 1: to the membership to be voted in, but them winning
Speaker 1: some significant concessions from those auto companies. And also excited
Speaker 1: to be joined by Leifong, who's been looking at the
Speaker 1: religious connection between the way the right in American particular,
Speaker 1: but also parts of the Democratic base view the relationship
Speaker 1: with Israel and how that impacts my politives.
Speaker 3: I've been doing some great work. I'm excited to talk
Speaker 3: to him about.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely been trying to get Lee on the show
Speaker 1: for a while, so excited to have him in today.
Speaker 1: But let's go ahead and start with the very latest
Speaker 1: on the ground in Gaza. A lot of things to
Speaker 1: update you on here. Let's go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. We can take a look at
Speaker 1: some of the images that are coming out. These were
Speaker 1: actually released by the IDEA. If you can see these
Speaker 1: tanks massing as we brought you over the weekend, more
Speaker 1: significant incursions into Gaza that is part of that phase two.
Speaker 1: Now we can see some of the rubble here and destruction.
Speaker 1: This is a child being pulled out from underneath some
Speaker 1: of this rubble. This building that was bombed and collapsed.
Speaker 1: Horrifying scenes there. You also have here a rescue worker
Speaker 1: who is just completely breaking down. A member of the
Speaker 1: civil defense team. Similar seeing here you have paramedics, one
Speaker 1: of whom is trying to comfort a baby as best
Speaker 1: he can. He also ends up breaking down. Here you
Speaker 1: see some of the desperation. These are people who are
Speaker 1: masked outside of a bakery waiting in long lines just
Speaker 1: in an attempt to try to get any sort of
Speaker 1: food to feed themselves, to feed their families. Of course,
Speaker 1: this is going on multiple weeks now of a complete siege.
Speaker 1: Very little in terms of food, water, medical aid, anything
Speaker 1: being let in. I just saw a stat about the
Speaker 1: number of pregnant women who are drinking brackish water and children.
Speaker 1: It is a horrifying situation there. We also have an
Speaker 1: update for you on the death toll. Let's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. We have same number out of Israel,
Speaker 1: roughly fourteen hundred who have been killed there. We now
Speaker 1: have over eight thousand in Gaza who have been killed
Speaker 1: as part of Israel's war on that enclave, and the
Speaker 1: majority of these women and children. So it is just
Speaker 1: a horrific, horrific situation. We can also show you some
Speaker 1: additional scenes of desperation in terms of food and just
Speaker 1: being able to secure any sort of sustenance. Let's put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. This is people taking flower
Speaker 1: out of a un warehouse. This is in Conunis. That's
Speaker 1: in the southern part of Gaza where people people were
Speaker 1: told to flee. Now they have still faced bombings even
Speaker 1: in this part. This is one individual explaining we have
Speaker 1: no flower, no aid, no water, not even toilets. Our
Speaker 1: houses were destroyed. No one cares about us. We appeal
Speaker 1: to the people of the world. He says, all international
Speaker 1: powers are against us. We needed aid and we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done this if we were not in need. So Saary,
Speaker 1: you can see the way that civil society. You know
Speaker 1: the level of desperation here. Things are just completely breaking down.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing that I saw that completely
Speaker 1: broke me. There's a whole hospital wards full of pre
Speaker 1: term babies who were cut out of their dead mother's
Speaker 1: stomachs and who are now you know, have to be
Speaker 1: on ventilators in you know, the equivalent of a nic
Speaker 1: you and these hospitals are running out of fuel. They're
Speaker 1: also under right of potential imminent bombing. So you just
Speaker 1: can't overstate what a humanitarian disaster this is.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: It's full scoiled disaster going on. Doesn't sound on any
Speaker 2: signs of abating so far. These Raelies are calling this
Speaker 2: just the fourth day of a quote extended military operation.
Speaker 2: It does seem when we brought broke down the tactics
Speaker 2: for everybody last show around if you did miss it
Speaker 2: our Saturday update, the TLDR is basically tanks have now
Speaker 2: been inside of Gaza for last four days. It seems
Speaker 2: what people the is military strategy is to use the
Speaker 2: tanks for taking very minimal casualties at this time to
Speaker 2: try and encircle all of Gaza City, which they're saying
Speaker 2: is like the nexus of the Hamas terror attack, but
Speaker 2: also really of the militant organization itself at the same
Speaker 2: time saying that the residents should leave.
Speaker 3: There has been prior to that.
Speaker 2: We talked about the cutoff of electricity, of water, but
Speaker 2: also of telecommunications. Now we're going to get into that
Speaker 2: a little bit. But on the military side itself, what
Speaker 2: I think people need to understand is that there is
Speaker 2: a big war also over information. One of the things
Speaker 2: that we really wanted to highlight Crystal for everyone was
Speaker 2: after the cutoff of Internet and of tailcommunications, the IDF
Speaker 2: spokespeople came out with a message in English to the
Speaker 2: residents of Gaza, and we especially wanted to flag this
Speaker 2: because it just highlights something about the information war that
Speaker 2: is waging online. And we've told you before, if something's
Speaker 2: coming out in English from Hamas or from Israel, it's
Speaker 2: because they want you to hear it. This is one
Speaker 2: of the most blant examples. Let's plan take a listen,
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it on the other side.
Speaker 5: Attention, citizens of Gaza, listen carefully. This is an urgent
Speaker 5: military advisory from the Israel Defense Forces for your immediate safety.
Speaker 5: We urge all residents of Northern Gaza and Gaza City
Speaker 5: to temporarily relocate SEUs. Let me repeat, we urge all
Speaker 5: residents of Northern Gaza and Gaza City to relocate south immediately.
Speaker 5: This is a temporary measure. Moving back to northern Gaza
Speaker 5: will be possible once the intense hostilities end. Ramas puts
Speaker 5: your life in danger by placing weapons and forces within
Speaker 5: civilians area in Gaza, including schools, masques, and hospitals. The
Speaker 5: impending idea for pervasion is set to neutralize these threats
Speaker 5: of Ramas with precision and intensity.
Speaker 2: So, of course, people in Gaza, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 2: some do speak English, but I guess the predominant language
Speaker 2: is Arabic. But also people in Gaza were not going
Speaker 2: to be able to hear that because the Internet literally
Speaker 2: was cut off at the time that all of that
Speaker 2: came out. That was a very clear message to the
Speaker 2: West about like, hey, because the Biden administration has been
Speaker 2: heavily pressuring them like you need to minimize the visual
Speaker 2: civilian casualties. There's been a big war behind the scenes
Speaker 2: of the administration over restoring telecommunications access. But also, I
Speaker 2: think the key the most thing that struck out to me,
Speaker 2: I'm curious what you thought was you will be allowed
Speaker 2: to return. So they are making they are trying to
Speaker 2: hammer home. They're like, listen, this is not going to
Speaker 2: be a permanent occupation. You will be able to come back.
Speaker 2: They are trying to message to the Arab world, to
Speaker 2: the Western world. You're like, this is not going to
Speaker 2: be some colonization project.
Speaker 3: Now listen. Obviously we have no idea what things will
Speaker 3: look like.
Speaker 2: But I took it as a major note that this
Speaker 2: is in English, that this was broadcast immediately afterwards.
Speaker 3: It was obviously not about Gaza. It would have been
Speaker 3: more honest.
Speaker 2: They are like, listening, Western world, here are our intentions,
Speaker 2: or here is what we are at least saying that
Speaker 2: we're going to be doing here. But pretty significant in
Speaker 2: terms of releasing it in English at that time, especially,
Speaker 2: that's really when some of the major international condemnation on
Speaker 2: the Arab side started to roll in from the Kingdom
Speaker 2: of Jordan, from Egypt and from Turkey as well, which
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: Well to show you just how blatant and cynical this was.
Speaker 1: Even the Pods save Bros. Were not impressed with this
Speaker 1: English language messaging. I don't normally quote Tommy Veeder on
Speaker 1: this show, but I'm going to he reposted that message
Speaker 1: from that English language message for all of us from
Speaker 1: the IDF and said, an urgent message for the residents
Speaker 1: of Gaza telling them to relocate from north to south,
Speaker 1: delivered in English after Israel cutoff Gaza's telecoms and internet networks.
Speaker 1: Just a completely cynical pr move for Western audiences. And
Speaker 1: I saw, you know, a lot of folks who were
Speaker 1: saying the same, like this was lost on no one.
Speaker 1: This was clearly for us and for the Biden administration
Speaker 1: to try to show them like, look, we're doing everything
Speaker 1: we can, and a humanitarian is basically cover your ass
Speaker 1: for a Biden administration is effectively what it is now.
Speaker 1: At the same time, a very different language and rhetoric
Speaker 1: coming from bb Net Yahoo about what this is all
Speaker 1: about and Sager you were mentioning, they're trying to reassure oh,
Speaker 1: of course you're going to be allowed home, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. At the same time Netanyahoo likening this to
Speaker 1: what Israeli's call their war of independence, what Palestinians call
Speaker 1: the Nakba, the catastrophe in which they originally seven hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand lost their homes. So I doubt there's
Speaker 1: a single Palestinian who really truly trusts or believes that
Speaker 1: they're going to be allowed to come back home. Now,
Speaker 1: we don't know what the future holds, although we ca
Speaker 1: that in a moment there are some increasing signs of
Speaker 1: what the plans actually look like. But let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to what Yahoo was saying about this and the
Speaker 1: very existential and once again religious terms that he is
Speaker 1: framing this conflict, and take a listen.
Speaker 6: You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says
Speaker 6: our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting.
Speaker 6: Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza
Speaker 6: or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel
Speaker 6: are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that
Speaker 6: has started three thousand years ago, from Joshua Benon until
Speaker 6: the heroes of a nineteen forty eight, the Six Day War,
Speaker 6: the seventy three October War, and all other wars in
Speaker 6: this country.
Speaker 3: Our hero troops, they have.
Speaker 6: One supreme main goal to completely defeat the murderous enemy
Speaker 6: and to guarantee our existence in this country. We've always
Speaker 6: said never again, never again is now.
Speaker 1: So I'm learning more about the Bible in this kind.
Speaker 3: I also ask a Hebrew or a Jewish friend of
Speaker 3: mine to explain this.
Speaker 1: Well, I asked Wikipedia to explain this to me. Here's
Speaker 1: what Wikipedia says, for what it's worth. They say because
Speaker 1: the reference to Amelek here in Judaism, three of the
Speaker 1: six hundred and thirteen Mits voter commandments involve Amelek, to
Speaker 1: remember what the Amelek Guites did to the Israelites, not
Speaker 1: to forget what they did to the Israelites, and to
Speaker 1: destroy the Amelek utterly. The specific quote is, now, go
Speaker 1: and smite Amelek and utterly destroy all that they have,
Speaker 1: spare them, not but slay both man and woman, infant
Speaker 1: and suckling ox and sheep, camel and ass. So when
Speaker 1: he's talking about Amelek here, which is like the you know,
Speaker 1: historic foe, like the quintessential enemy of the Jewish people,
Speaker 1: the specific language that they're referring to here talks about
Speaker 1: destroying not just them, but everything their ox and their sheep,
Speaker 1: their infants, their children, everything and everyone associated with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is why again it is very important to
Speaker 2: try and understand what The message in Hebrew is also
Speaker 2: in Antayahu. The coalition that he has to deal with
Speaker 2: the Altra Orthodox and the Orthodox Jews as well. That
Speaker 2: is a message that they directly or not only relate to.
Speaker 2: They probably were already thinking it. So to see him
Speaker 2: say it and to resonate with it is going to
Speaker 2: be powerful for the domestic constituency he's speaking to. Let's
Speaker 2: actually put this up there on the screen because we
Speaker 2: want to dig into some of the maps. The economists
Speaker 2: actually did a pretty good job, and let's keep this
Speaker 2: up here, please, because it shows you the shaded area
Speaker 2: of the so called evacuation zone, but also the various
Speaker 2: tactics of the Israeli plans to try and to encircle Hamas.
Speaker 2: So we had an incursion that was up in the
Speaker 2: north for those who are watching, but also a simultaneous
Speaker 2: one from the south. The plan, as I said, is
Speaker 2: to try and encircle Gaza City, which is right in
Speaker 2: the middle of all of that, and with the c
Speaker 2: blockade that they also have going on, it's to try
Speaker 2: and squeeze all of the militant elements into a single area,
Speaker 2: which obviously makes it easier for air strikes, but also
Speaker 2: concentrates your enemy, and that is where the majority in
Speaker 2: the bulk of the fighting will remain.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: The IDF prior to the first day when they said
Speaker 2: they had only taken they had taken no casualties, they've
Speaker 2: taken some casualties. They're not releasing the official number, but
Speaker 2: the official number of IDF dead, you know, does remain
Speaker 2: in the hundreds now at this point, and every once
Speaker 2: in a while they're adding one or two or three
Speaker 2: to that. Now we don't know because they could also
Speaker 2: be killed in with military operations in the north against Hesbolah.
Speaker 3: Prior to that about five had been killed previously.
Speaker 2: They're not giving us all the details, but you know,
Speaker 2: once we do start to see casualties, that comes with
Speaker 2: some video which is beginning to come out of Gaza
Speaker 2: Crystal of there are ground troops that are there now. Again,
Speaker 2: they're not engaged in the heavy hand to hand combat
Speaker 2: yet that we do expect if there is some sort
Speaker 2: of like final matchup, but military operation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Fine, it's difficult to always talk about this and without
Speaker 2: video game reference, I guess the point just being that
Speaker 2: everything right now is about encircling. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: use of tanks, preparing everything with air strikes, and the
Speaker 2: big big battle, if there is one to come, still
Speaker 2: remains quote months away according to the Israelis, and that
Speaker 2: might be part of their battle plan. Again though that
Speaker 2: may not have never materialized simply because of international pressure,
Speaker 2: or you know, they may just want to say this
Speaker 2: is the actual quote unquote invasion, pull out and then
Speaker 2: deal with some diplomatics solution.
Speaker 3: We don't know what the end stage of this is
Speaker 3: going to look like.
Speaker 1: We certainly don't. We are getting more indications. We also
Speaker 1: have this which is reference in the economists piece laying out,
Speaker 1: you know, their best analysis of what the Israelis plans
Speaker 1: are at this point. You also had the former Prime
Speaker 1: Minister enough Tully Bennett with a long thread on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Now this is we have the Hebrew translated via Google,
Speaker 1: so you know this is their translation for what it's worth.
Speaker 1: But let's go and put this up on the Scare.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to read all of this obviously because
Speaker 1: it's way too long, but just to give you a
Speaker 1: sense of what he claims is the guy as a
Speaker 1: siege plan, he says that they want to surprise and
Speaker 1: not go deep into the Gaza strip as Hamas expects
Speaker 1: us to do, but to impose a complete siege on
Speaker 1: the north of the Gaza Strip, dry up and suffocate
Speaker 1: the Hamas terrace in the tunnels until they are forced
Speaker 1: to leave. So the idea being, all right, we're going
Speaker 1: to deny them any fuel that is going to make
Speaker 1: it so that you know, they're ventilators and lights in
Speaker 1: the tunnels, they are not able to sustain and they
Speaker 1: are sort of forced out of their holes. He also
Speaker 1: says they want to create a new security strip two
Speaker 1: kilometers deep into the territory of the Strip along our
Speaker 1: entire border, a permanent strip. This is through the use
Speaker 1: of massive firepower and ground forces and engineering. Imagine bulldozers
Speaker 1: simply leveling that area number three continuously use firepower on
Speaker 1: Hamas all over the strip. Israel conducts a continuous series
Speaker 1: of targeted ground operations with enormous firepower to separate neighborhood
Speaker 1: from neighborhood from Hamas. There's no need to hunt down
Speaker 1: every hamasnik in whole and tonn for the residence of
Speaker 1: Gaza State in the southern half of the strip or
Speaker 1: outside the strip. Outside the strip until the end of
Speaker 1: the war, when Hamas disarms you knowilaterally, and releases all
Speaker 1: the hostages, this of course, according to international law, to
Speaker 1: preserve their lives, Okay. And then the last piece here
Speaker 1: and again this was a lengthy thread. I'm only rating
Speaker 1: pieces of it, but I thought this part at the
Speaker 1: end was very noteworthy. A sustainable political line of defense.
Speaker 1: In other words, this is what we're going to present
Speaker 1: to the world to try to avoid World War three
Speaker 1: and try to keep the American opprobrium at a minimum
Speaker 1: until the Israelis return home. Neither will the Gazans return home.
Speaker 1: Everyone is going home together Israeli hostages or returning home
Speaker 1: to Israel. Families from the Gaza enclave will return only
Speaker 1: with the disappearance of Hamas. Residents of Gaza will also
Speaker 1: be able to return because the war is over and
Speaker 1: the danger to their lives has passed. So I mean
Speaker 1: effectively what he is out and not saying there is
Speaker 1: we are going to hold the citizens of Gaza hostage,
Speaker 1: we achieve our war aims and get our own hostages back.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Left un set, of course, is the fact that this
Speaker 1: you know, intense firepower that they're describing is going to
Speaker 1: kill some of their own hostages, put their own hostages
Speaker 1: at severe risk. And the other thing I would say,
Speaker 1: Cyber is just you know, to try to imagine as
Speaker 1: best we can an unimaginable situation to be in the
Speaker 1: place of the Palestinians and looking at all of this unfold,
Speaker 1: You've got the Israelis talking about the war of Independence,
Speaker 1: which again, as I said, you know, Palestinians think of
Speaker 1: as the Nakba. You have them being forced already out
Speaker 1: of you know, more than a million displaced out of
Speaker 1: their homes in the North, and at the same time
Speaker 1: you have increased settler violence in the West Bank, murdering.
Speaker 1: There was a young olive farmer who was you know,
Speaker 1: out harvesting his olives, doing nothing wrong, who was murdered
Speaker 1: by settlers and increased efforts to push them off their
Speaker 1: land as well. So if you're looking at all of
Speaker 1: this as a Palestinian and you're not thinking, oh, they're
Speaker 1: going to let me go back to my homes, you're
Speaker 1: thinking this is another knock. But that's what they have planned.
Speaker 3: Well especially I mean, look, I don't know what they have.
Speaker 2: Does enough Tilly benn In hold power, I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, does he speak for the Israeli government.
Speaker 3: Is he just a guy who's posting.
Speaker 2: I mean, I find it a little hard to believe
Speaker 2: that the Foreign Prime Minister. I mean, imagine if the
Speaker 2: middle of a you know, a former president who was
Speaker 2: involved in American politics who put out a long policy statement,
Speaker 2: like obviously the rest of the world would be forced
Speaker 2: to take that seriously.
Speaker 3: So that's the level that I would look at this.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at this, you're basically talking
Speaker 2: about collective punishment. You're talking about the establishment of some
Speaker 2: sort of two kilometer zone. I actually do think this
Speaker 2: is where we're going to end up. Just the reality
Speaker 2: of the fighting. Where he talks about no need to
Speaker 2: fight them in the tunnels or any of that. They
Speaker 2: are effectively talking about establishing like a massive DMZ, like
Speaker 2: some sort of North Korean style DMZ, with a fence
Speaker 2: where they currently are, but then a two kilometer like
Speaker 2: free fire zone, think of like the Berlin Wall or
Speaker 2: you know, West Berlin and East Berlin with some sort
Speaker 2: of gap in between that's like heavily militarized and land
Speaker 2: mind and that is it seems to me, you know,
Speaker 2: based upon this, that's what jumped out the most that
Speaker 2: they're going to go in, they're going to clear they're
Speaker 2: going to have some sort of you know thing.
Speaker 3: But in terms of destroying Hamas.
Speaker 2: It's clear even in what he says, well, whenever he
Speaker 2: says there's no need for us to fight them, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: if that's true, then you're not going to destroy the organize.
Speaker 3: It's not possible.
Speaker 2: How are you really going to destroy this militant or
Speaker 2: like what you think they're just going to surrender, Like
Speaker 2: they're not going to surrender.
Speaker 3: And look in terms of.
Speaker 2: The population and all that, I don't know, and you know,
Speaker 2: everyone's like, oh, well, they could rise up at this point.
Speaker 2: You know, we from the video that we played, they're
Speaker 2: most the basic threes like the food, shelter, water, That's
Speaker 2: what they're worrying about. They're not thinking about the political
Speaker 2: you know, construction. At this point, there probably is no
Speaker 2: even real government in Gaza anymore. You know, Mamas is
Speaker 2: off fighting, the people are basically left to survive, and
Speaker 2: everybody else is just trying to do their best. So
Speaker 2: this to me actually does read like what the real
Speaker 2: plan may be. And if that is, I mean the
Speaker 2: long term prospect of you know, of minimizing violence here,
Speaker 2: I mean, I just don't see a political sustainability to
Speaker 2: create some sort of massive DMZ which would require you know,
Speaker 2: raising all these towns and all this ground.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't really see the Arab world just sitting by
Speaker 2: and taking that and the interim, you know, even while
Speaker 2: any of that is constructed, as they keep saying, it's
Speaker 2: going to take months and months and months. Every day
Speaker 2: that goes by is a loss of public confidence for
Speaker 2: a lot of people in Israel, especially again in the world,
Speaker 2: and also increases tensions in the likelihood of the United States
Speaker 2: is going to get involved, which is ultimately what I
Speaker 2: honestly care about the most. So looking at this, I
Speaker 2: think that the explains also why the Biden administration is
Speaker 2: absolutely losing it behind the scenes, because they're like we
Speaker 2: They're like, we cannot co sign this. So like this
Speaker 2: is not fits in any way with the official US
Speaker 2: policy of a two state solution and of a political sustainability.
Speaker 2: They're like, this is not politically acceptable really to us
Speaker 2: at all. But that's part of the problem is there
Speaker 2: is real there's no there is really no I think
Speaker 2: like there is no shared goal right now between the
Speaker 2: Biden administration and the Israeli government, and I don't see
Speaker 2: there being for a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that may be true. But you also have
Speaker 1: the Biden administration stating very clearly publicly, we're not going
Speaker 1: to actually do anything. Yeah, So they're just like having
Speaker 1: you know, difficult conversations behind the scenes with net Nyaho,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I mean, he's nen Yahoo is balancing the
Speaker 1: fact that his political ass is on the line, you
Speaker 1: know if and he's trying to push off as long
Speaker 1: as he can any inquiry into the failures that led
Speaker 1: to October seventh, including his own admitted bolstering of Hamas
Speaker 1: over the years, because you know, while we sort of
Speaker 1: never gave up on this fiction in the US that
Speaker 1: there was some sort of peace process ongoing and that
Speaker 1: we were building towards one day having a two state solution,
Speaker 1: that has never been the policy of net Nya. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is not me like reading the tea lease.
Speaker 1: This is overtly what he says. He does not want
Speaker 1: a two state solution, He does not want peace. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to manage the boil and keep
Speaker 1: it at a low boil in terms of their occupation
Speaker 1: and their blockade and that was the idea of like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: bolster Hamas because they're the radicals. You know, everyone will
Speaker 1: understand we can't possibly have a piece deal with them,
Speaker 1: and you know, to try to minimize and undercut the
Speaker 1: more moderate Palestinian authority. So you have that piece, You
Speaker 1: have the fact that you know he is trying to
Speaker 1: somewhat balance or at least give the US some sort
Speaker 1: of cover as he watches protests rise not only here
Speaker 1: but around the world. You also have his you know,
Speaker 1: extremist parts of his coalition and a significant part of
Speaker 1: Israeli society by the way. That is, of course, they're
Speaker 1: all absolutely furious and there is this deep desire for vengeance.
Speaker 1: So he has to show enough of a tough response
Speaker 1: and you know, enough brutality to satisfy that piece. But
Speaker 1: also you know, there's a real possibility that Israeli public
Speaker 1: opinion turns against a ground invasion if you're taking signific
Speaker 1: losses in terms of Israeli IDF forces, and you already
Speaker 1: have seen a huge public opinion shift out of concern
Speaker 1: for the hostages who are being held inside of Gaza.
Speaker 1: You've had a huge drop in support for a full
Speaker 1: on ground invasion. So those are some of the political
Speaker 1: things that he is weigh and of course the lives
Speaker 1: of millions of Palestinians hang in the balance with all
Speaker 1: of this I just mentioned, you know, the rising protests
Speaker 1: around the world, including there's a big march plan for
Speaker 1: DC coming up this weekend. Well, there was a massive
Speaker 1: rally in Turkey led by Erdawan. Let's go and put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. I mean some of these scenes.
Speaker 1: Look at that they're waving Turkish flags and Palestinian flags.
Speaker 1: Huge rally and Erdawan, who is an Islamist, trying to
Speaker 1: to use the Palestinian cause in order to bolster his
Speaker 1: own previously rather precarious political position. But he's using extremely
Speaker 1: belicose rhetoric here. He says accurately that Israel is committing
Speaker 1: war crimes, but he also directly floats a possible war
Speaker 1: with Israel, something that this crowd seemed to be very
Speaker 1: supportive of. He said, according to translations, quote, Israel has
Speaker 1: been openly committing war crimes for twenty two days, but
Speaker 1: the Western leaders cannot even call on Israel for a ceasefire,
Speaker 1: let alone react to it. We will tell the whole
Speaker 1: world that Israel is a war criminal. We are making
Speaker 1: preparations for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal.
Speaker 1: And as I said, there were some direct sort of
Speaker 1: beating of the drums of possibly getting involved here. Turkey
Speaker 1: has a very real, very sizable military, is obviously a
Speaker 1: NATO ally, which is also significant here as well, and
Speaker 1: Israel in response has withdrawn all of their diplematic personnel
Speaker 1: from the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, the most important thing to understand about this
Speaker 2: with Erdowan is that prior to Erdowan's regime, the government
Speaker 2: in Turkey was much more secular. Airedowan of course awoke
Speaker 2: a lot of the Islamist elements inside of Turkey, and
Speaker 2: that is where his ruling coalition really comes from. So
Speaker 2: to this is such an emotional issue and strikes at
Speaker 2: the heart for a lot of Muslims all across the
Speaker 2: Arab world. A lot of leaders have used that to
Speaker 2: their advantage and used the Palestinians as ponds. But that's
Speaker 2: like a second kind of piece of commentary there. In
Speaker 2: terms of this, Turkey, as you mentioned, of course has
Speaker 2: a very very world class military, but at the same
Speaker 2: time they're a NATO ally. So to have the fracture
Speaker 2: inside of NATO over an issue like this, and also
Speaker 2: pressure from them on the West. It also raises the
Speaker 2: question of whether they would use this issue as some
Speaker 2: sort of croux or like a wedge in future NATO negotiations.
Speaker 2: Airedwan certainly would not be above that He's done it
Speaker 2: for his own domestic political purposes. So anyway, I'm looking
Speaker 2: at that, and I just see that as one of
Speaker 2: the most significant elements about the powers in the region.
Speaker 2: The Egyptians, of course, are going to go, you know,
Speaker 2: in whatever direction that CC wants. The Jordanians are basically
Speaker 2: boxed in to go on the Palestinian side.
Speaker 3: Much of the Arab world itself, they.
Speaker 2: Don't necessarily want to deal with this, but they know
Speaker 2: that their populations are very activated by it. Have the Turks,
Speaker 2: you know, come out so forcefully, and to see all
Speaker 2: those people out in the streets all across the country,
Speaker 2: that's a very very significant development.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course, I mean the utter brutality of
Speaker 1: the images that are coming out are only going to
Speaker 1: inflame those tensions. And also, you know the language that
Speaker 1: we played you before from Natan Yahoo like overtly flit
Speaker 1: framing this as a sectarian religious conflict doesn't help, and
Speaker 1: you know we're already seeing like mob violence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get to that, right.
Speaker 1: I mean I mentioned the what happened at the airport.
Speaker 1: We're going to show you those images. There were also
Speaker 1: far right Jewish extremists that were chanting death to Arabs
Speaker 1: and surrounding a college dorm inside of Israel that was
Speaker 1: housing some Arab students. I mean, when you frame things
Speaker 1: as this religious holy word sectarian violence, you know, these
Speaker 1: are the sorts of reactions that you get because then
Speaker 1: you're not separating out. These are the combatants. This is
Speaker 1: a political dispute, this is how we're going to handle it. No,
Speaker 1: then anyone who is of that religion becomes your enemy.
Speaker 1: So it is an absolute horror. As we've been discussing,
Speaker 1: you know, I sort of get irritated. There's all these leaks,
Speaker 1: the Washing Posts, New York Times, whatever about us is
Speaker 1: so concerned by him in the scenes, and they're talking
Speaker 1: to that Yahoo and they're trying to pressure them please
Speaker 1: turn the Internet back on, et cetera. Again, not willing
Speaker 1: to actually use any of the considerable power and leverage
Speaker 1: that we have in the situation. But you know they're
Speaker 1: going to ask some tough questions behind the scenes and
Speaker 1: leak it to the press. Here was John Kirby getting
Speaker 1: asked publicly, is the US setting any red lines for Israel?
Speaker 1: And he gives an unequivocal note, take a listen.
Speaker 7: You've said you'd.
Speaker 8: Asked them tough quessure.
Speaker 6: But has a US set or discussed any possible red lines? Nop.
Speaker 1: So there you go, no, no red lines whatsoever. You know,
Speaker 1: there's already, like with collective punishment, with the siege that's
Speaker 1: in place on the two point two million civilians. You
Speaker 1: cannot argue that there's not already collective punishment and international
Speaker 1: law being violated here. So you know, they're saying publicly,
Speaker 1: at least we're fine with this. And he also said
Speaker 1: something very similar to reporters indicating that you know they
Speaker 1: had not actually heart set any hard red lines for
Speaker 1: Israel at this point. At the same time, we've got
Speaker 1: a meeting from a high level Saudi official that happens
Speaker 1: to coincide with this time here. Apparently this was already
Speaker 1: previously planned, but still very noteworthy that this is happening. God,
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. So you've heard
Speaker 1: of MBS. This is KBS Saudi Defense Minister Khalid Ben
Speaker 1: Solomon is expected to visit DC today for talks with
Speaker 1: senior Biden administration officials. This is according to Axios. Why
Speaker 1: it matters The visit has long been scheduled, the sources said,
Speaker 1: but it will take place just days after Israel expanded
Speaker 1: its ground operation in Gaza and offensive ri Odd condemn
Speaker 1: and on Saturday. Also comes as the US and Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia express concerns that the fighting between Israel and Himas
Speaker 1: could widen into a regional war. He's expected to meet
Speaker 1: with Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin, Tony Blincoln, and several senators.
Speaker 2: According to this report, It's interesting I keep coming back
Speaker 2: to this news item about how the Saudi government told
Speaker 2: the propagandists. They're like, hey, They're like, we need to
Speaker 2: chill on any issues out coming from Palestine. All these images,
Speaker 2: all of the babies, the stuff that we're playing. A
Speaker 2: lot of people inside Saudi Arabia. If they are getting it,
Speaker 2: it's not at the encouragement of the government. And I
Speaker 2: think what people again need to understand is the populations there.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't have a lot of power, but
Speaker 2: if they all coalesce around one thing and they decide
Speaker 2: that government's not doing enough, then the Saudi royal family
Speaker 2: is going to feel as if they are in trouble.
Speaker 2: They don't care about the quote unquote Islamist. They struck
Speaker 2: this deal. You can go and read about it, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're interested. Back in the nineteen seventies, they let
Speaker 2: the Islamist do whatever they want because they pay them.
Speaker 3: But in exchange, you don't question it.
Speaker 2: Whenever they get to party on yachts and drink champagne,
Speaker 2: and that's the deal.
Speaker 3: That's how it's been.
Speaker 2: For a long time with this this type of stuff though,
Speaker 2: anything with ethno religious tones, like specifically with the Palestinians,
Speaker 2: that is a major threat to their regime because they're
Speaker 2: gonna be viewed as weak by their own population and
Speaker 2: they could possibly, you know, have some sort of Ilmus takeover.
Speaker 2: So that is the main motivation for them. They don't
Speaker 2: care about the Palestinians at all, but when they're coming here,
Speaker 2: they're basically and this has been communicated you know, in
Speaker 2: all the leaks that are happening behind the scenes. They're like,
Speaker 2: if you guys do not put pressure on these Raelis,
Speaker 2: we are going to be forced to do something. Now
Speaker 2: we don't know what that's something it looks like. And
Speaker 2: that's the main reason I think why we keep getting
Speaker 2: all these leaks crystal like this one we could put
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. We basically it's like we
Speaker 2: read this every day now. White House preps for broader
Speaker 2: war as concerns rise. And again it's just like the Ukrainians.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, we wish they wouldn't use the missiles
Speaker 2: in Russia.
Speaker 3: But what can you do.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, you could stop giving it to them,
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh no, that would be too crazy.
Speaker 2: They specifically cite the Saudi Defense minister coming on Monday.
Speaker 2: They also cite all of these calls going on behind
Speaker 2: the scenes between the Secretary of Defense and the Israeli
Speaker 2: Defense Minister about the Israeli Intelligence services quote which they
Speaker 2: say believe that Hezbolah will increase the intensity of its
Speaker 2: attacks against Israel on its northern border because of the
Speaker 2: Israeli ground operation inside of Gaza. Israeli officials think hezbola
Speaker 2: will try to escalate without leading to an all out
Speaker 2: war that could easily get out of control. But I mean,
Speaker 2: just think about the gray line that that is it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we're going to escalate right up.
Speaker 3: To the line. Well, who knows.
Speaker 2: We've already seen multiple instances of failures. We've seen, you know,
Speaker 2: Israeli bombs go off of target and kill a bunch
Speaker 2: of civilians. We saw the Israelis accidentally fire at the Egyptians.
Speaker 2: It only takes one you know, it takes one missile
Speaker 2: to go one wrong way and kill the wrong person.
Speaker 2: And now you're in a full blown war and you
Speaker 2: don't even know what the hell happened before that even occurred.
Speaker 2: So behind the scenes, it's very clear that the West
Speaker 2: wing is freaking out. I mean, we brought you everybody
Speaker 2: the news on Saturday about the White House was like, hey,
Speaker 2: just call off the invasion.
Speaker 3: They're like, don't do a full scale ground invasion.
Speaker 2: Just do what we did in Iraq, like joint surgical operations,
Speaker 2: special forces. But what you guys are about to do,
Speaker 2: you know, we really don't want you to do it.
Speaker 2: But then they did it anyway, or at least the
Speaker 2: tanks are going in. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: negotiations going on behind the scenes, and every statement now
Speaker 2: from the White House Crystal is basically like, you know,
Speaker 2: we need to respect humanitarian law, we need to respect civilians.
Speaker 2: And even it's not about even at this point, like,
Speaker 2: of course they're not going to change anything in terms
Speaker 2: of actual policy, but the fact that they keep saying
Speaker 2: it over and over again is also just an indication
Speaker 2: of how worried they are about spiraling of escalation.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it should be Yeah, they're worried about that.
Speaker 1: They're very worried about you know, public opinion here, which
Speaker 1: is already shifting, and you know the view of younger
Speaker 1: generations on this conflict is very different from older generations.
Speaker 1: And guess what, young people are a critical part of
Speaker 1: the democratic coalition. So I wish I could say like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're really concerned about the babies on the incubators and
Speaker 1: the kids being pulled out into the rubble, But let's
Speaker 1: be honest, like the concern is political, and the concern
Speaker 1: also has to do if they're not fools, they know
Speaker 1: what war with a run would be and that it
Speaker 1: would be an utter catastrophe and complete nightmare. So you know,
Speaker 1: that's why we keep getting these reports. Again this is
Speaker 1: more of the handwringing, like, oh, we're so worried about
Speaker 1: what they're doing. But you know, we're not going to
Speaker 1: draw any red lines or actually do anything. Have you
Speaker 1: seen Sager? There's this video that came out that's been
Speaker 1: confirmed of a net Yahoo from It was from many
Speaker 1: years ago, like probably twenty years ago, when he thought
Speaker 1: that the mics and the cameras were off, and he
Speaker 1: gets asked about, you know, how to deal with the
Speaker 1: Palestinian issue, and he's talking about how you go and
Speaker 1: you hit them hard, and someone asked him like, well,
Speaker 1: aren't you worried about them? What the Americans are?
Speaker 3: Oh I've seen this, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, well, I understand how Americans.
Speaker 3: America is easy.
Speaker 1: He's yeah, it's basically like they're very easy to persuade
Speaker 1: and very easy to maneuver. So basically he's like, now
Speaker 1: they give us cart launch and they're always going to
Speaker 1: and you know what, he's been one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 1: Just to show you how serious this is and it's
Speaker 1: not just leaks to axios. Take a look at the
Speaker 1: military assets which you're moving. Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: We've got this graphic here twenty four hours of US
Speaker 1: and Allied transport aircraft moving from the continental US to
Speaker 1: the Eastern Mediterranean scentcom including both US and the UK transports.
Speaker 1: So you can see a lot of activity here. And
Speaker 1: this person says as far from a complete list does
Speaker 1: not include tankers or other types of aircraft. So we
Speaker 1: already knew about the carrier groups that had moved to
Speaker 1: the region. This also shows you some of the air
Speaker 1: assets that have moved to the region. Now, they would
Speaker 1: probably say, oh, this is part of deterrence, we're trying
Speaker 1: to avoid this wider conflict. But you know, there's also
Speaker 1: this fine line between deterrence and provocation. And you know,
Speaker 1: anytime you see this amount of military firepower moving to
Speaker 1: one region, you have to ask what is this leading towards?
Speaker 1: And you one thing that really from this particular Axios
Speaker 1: report that we had up one line Zaga that really
Speaker 1: stuck with me is they had an official who said
Speaker 1: they continue to believe that diplomacy and Biden's experience can
Speaker 1: still help prevent worst case scenarios. However, they think that
Speaker 1: the most pessimistic outcome is the most likely outcome.
Speaker 3: Oh, I absolutely I agree with that too.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just I like to think of things
Speaker 2: in terms of systems, think about the American political system
Speaker 2: as it is current, not as we wish, as it
Speaker 2: is currently constructed. There is no scenario where Joe Biden
Speaker 2: is going to do anything to constrain Israeli military operations
Speaker 2: without freaking out the entire Democratic Republican establishment. He'd probably
Speaker 2: be censured by his own party, and it would be
Speaker 2: you know, it would be interesting if he were to
Speaker 2: do it, but he's.
Speaker 3: Not going to do it. He doesn't have that kind
Speaker 3: of courage.
Speaker 2: He's only displayed it one time in his life with
Speaker 2: Afghanistan took such a beating He's probably never going to
Speaker 2: do it again. And this is ten x more powerful
Speaker 2: in terms of that lobby. Then think about the Israeli
Speaker 2: political system. How can anyone in the Israeli political system
Speaker 2: at this current moment, especially a guy named Bibe Nathaniel
Speaker 2: who the day the military operation stops, he is going
Speaker 2: to get destroyed for allowing this to happen and for
Speaker 2: splitting the country apart where already the security apparatus and
Speaker 2: everybody was allied against him. It's in his direct interest
Speaker 2: to keep this thing going as long as possible. And
Speaker 2: then let's think about Hamasa's political interest. They didn't launch
Speaker 2: this attack because you know, they were afraid of retaliation.
Speaker 3: They want They're like Bin Lauded.
Speaker 2: They want Israel to come in and blow the shit
Speaker 2: out of Gaza because that helps increase the war. They
Speaker 2: want the war. The war is good for them. And
Speaker 2: so all three systems each one. There is no exerting
Speaker 2: pressure that can keep us away from that. And look,
Speaker 2: the most pessimistic outcome is the most likely. It's he
Speaker 2: should always and I wish it were different. We're gonna
Speaker 2: sit here. We've given so many alternative viewpoints on this,
Speaker 2: but like we cannot pretend that these viewpoints have any
Speaker 2: power in Washington.
Speaker 3: At the current moment.
Speaker 2: The only good thing I guess you could say about
Speaker 2: crisis is things move very very quickly. So two weeks
Speaker 2: from that, who the hell knows what kind of world
Speaker 2: that we are living in. And sometimes discourse is much
Speaker 2: more relevant. But as things stand right now, I don't
Speaker 2: see a single off ramp on this entire thing.
Speaker 3: I really don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is certainly what it looks like.
Speaker 2: In just a sign that this conflict is having international implications.
Speaker 2: There are horrific scenes coming out of Dagistan in Russia.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and play some of this video that
Speaker 2: has come out. This is from an airport, as I said,
Speaker 2: in Dagistan. It's actually in southern Dagistan where a full
Speaker 2: fledged riot broke out after some leaked reports on telegram
Speaker 2: informed the population that some passengers may be arriving at
Speaker 2: the airport from Israel and so therefore might be Jewish.
Speaker 3: A full fledged and I don't think you really.
Speaker 2: Call it anything else, basically attempted pogrom broke out here.
Speaker 2: You have an instance where one of the individuals was
Speaker 2: pulled off of the plane and they're asking questions and
Speaker 2: they're like, you have to wait here until we make
Speaker 2: a decision. He's trying to tell these people, He's like,
Speaker 2: I'm not Jewish, I'm not from Israel.
Speaker 3: I'm freaking Uzbek.
Speaker 2: He's an Uzbekistani or was an Uzbek resident coming to Dagistan.
Speaker 2: For those who don't understand Dagistan, we were trying to
Speaker 2: talk about the way to contextualize it. Most Americans probably
Speaker 2: first heard of it after the Boston bombing. Those two brothers,
Speaker 2: the Zarnaya brothers, were both Dagistani. You might have heard
Speaker 2: their citizens are very very good and the UFC, but
Speaker 2: Dagistan is a very interesting place, and even in saying
Speaker 2: it's Russia is like it kind of it's part of Russia,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of one of those areas with a
Speaker 2: very distinct ethnic history, long been part of the Russian Empire,
Speaker 2: but heavily Islamic population, very very fundamentalist, especially in recent times.
Speaker 2: They kind of have a daytant piece with the Moscow government,
Speaker 2: but the governmental structure is very similar to like Chechhnia
Speaker 2: where they have like armed warlords and all of that,
Speaker 2: but they're allied with the Kremlin.
Speaker 3: They get to do what they want.
Speaker 2: Moscow only troubles them if they start embarrassing them or
Speaker 2: doing terrorism, you know, like this. I'm sure you can
Speaker 2: expect a full scale crackdown after this one. So currently
Speaker 2: twenty people, including police officers, were injured. I mean, the
Speaker 2: crazy part of it really is just that they completely
Speaker 2: stormed the airport. Security authorities were totally overwhelmed almost immediately.
Speaker 2: The Kremlin spokesperson said on Monday that this they blamed
Speaker 2: quote outside interference for the riots. Crystal We have some
Speaker 2: information on that and they socided though no evidence to that. However,
Speaker 2: they are saying that this is quote Western attempts to
Speaker 2: use the events in the Middle East to sow discord
Speaker 2: in Russian society, but unfortunately it highlights one of the
Speaker 2: ugliest things about the Russian Empire for historically, which is
Speaker 2: it is the site of some of the worst pogroms
Speaker 2: against Jews in all of history. If you meet Americans,
Speaker 2: especially Jewish Americans whose roots go back to the nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: nine out of ten times, including many good friends of mine,
Speaker 2: their families were fleeing pograms in Poland and Ukraine and
Speaker 2: Dagistan all across this.
Speaker 3: You know, Dagistan in particular, they used to.
Speaker 2: Have a pretty thriving Jewish population, gone just completely driven out.
Speaker 2: Israel actually has many Russians who came to Israel after
Speaker 2: the fall of the Soviet Union just because they'd experienced
Speaker 2: such horrific anti Semitism. So this is a very very
Speaker 2: ugly thing that the world.
Speaker 3: Is getting to view.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, from someone like me and many
Speaker 2: others like you read about these things, you know, the
Speaker 2: pograma of nineteen oh six or whatever. But it's like
Speaker 2: when you see something like this just break out, it's
Speaker 2: a horrible reminder of what ethnic straight up ethnic violence
Speaker 2: looks like and every time you do, it's just like
Speaker 2: the most hideous and ugly thing. You know, imagine searching
Speaker 2: passengers to see if they're Jewish, to try and kill them.
Speaker 3: That's what they want. They wanted to lynch them.
Speaker 1: It is I mean, there are no words for it.
Speaker 1: It's really just unbelievable to watch that mob mentality take
Speaker 1: hold and you know, searching through the airport and surrounding
Speaker 1: the plane and searching the passengers for passport and this
Speaker 1: was ongoing for hours, complete insanity. You're talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about Dagistan. I was trying to also get some
Speaker 1: context from our friend Yegor about this. I mean, basically,
Speaker 1: the idea is like, this is a relatively poor region.
Speaker 1: It's actually very beautiful on the Casmian Z, but relatively
Speaker 1: poor and you know, poor in the context of Russia,
Speaker 1: which is much poorer than in the context of the
Speaker 1: United States, very religious and very conservative. So that's effectively
Speaker 1: you know, fundamentalists who are storming this plane and inciting
Speaker 1: these mobs and this riot. It's also worth noting that
Speaker 1: Dagistan was actually the only region in Russia that really
Speaker 1: violently protested against conscription. To be involved in the Ukrainian War,
Speaker 1: and because of that, there were all of these sort
Speaker 1: of like information operations coming from the Ukrainian side to
Speaker 1: try to sew that discontent and make the most of it.
Speaker 1: And so when they're saying, oh, this was like Western influence,
Speaker 1: that's what they're talking about. And I'll read to you
Speaker 1: from the New York Times what they've been able to
Speaker 1: suss out about the origin of these calls, Because a
Speaker 1: mom doesn't just appear out of nowhere. They were following
Speaker 1: directions and instructions and information about Hey, this plane from
Speaker 1: Israel's landing here and here's what you should go and do.
Speaker 1: So local authorities in Dagistan blamed extremist outlets administered by
Speaker 1: Russian enemies for inciting the unrest. Some of the protests
Speaker 1: were supported by a telegram channel linked to a former
Speaker 1: Russian lawmaker, Iliya Panamaryov, who had fled to Ukraine and
Speaker 1: has become a staunchly anti Kremlin politician. He basically fled
Speaker 1: because he was under in trouble for corruption, etc. So
Speaker 1: goes to Ukraine has been helping out the Ukrainians with
Speaker 1: these efforts to sow discontent within Russia. Plans to catch
Speaker 1: the passengers of the incoming flight were shared on that
Speaker 1: telegram channel associated with that dude, along with screenshots of
Speaker 1: the flight schedule on Saturday and Sunday. Local religious figures
Speaker 1: in the North Caucuses have condemned the clashes. But so
Speaker 1: that's the connection that they're pointing to, is that the
Speaker 1: guy who's an anti Kremlin dissident who works with the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian government, it was a telegram channel affiliated with him
Speaker 1: that basically like stoked and helped us spark this mob violence.
Speaker 3: Wow inside Ukraine. Huh, what's that about? Interesting?
Speaker 1: Just telling you what the New York Times is reporting.
Speaker 2: Don't blame us for reporting that, but you know, look,
Speaker 2: it illustrates something which we were able to talk about
Speaker 2: eventually for in a mainstream conversation. There is a lot
Speaker 2: of Nazi affiliated anti Semitism inside of the former Soviet
Speaker 2: Union and they find themselves I guess, temporary allies, which
Speaker 2: straight up Islamic fundamentalists in places like Dagistan. And it's
Speaker 2: so deeply disturbing, and it highlights the absolute worst of
Speaker 2: Russian history of state sponsored pograms of Jewish residents. So
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people, a lot of Jews
Speaker 2: were just absolutely shocked and I think really traumatized because
Speaker 2: and I saw many people saying, you know, my great
Speaker 2: great grandfather was killed in a pug ram in Ukraine
Speaker 2: or in what was at the time the Russian Empire,
Speaker 2: and this is you know, just gives me a flashback
Speaker 2: to what that is like.
Speaker 3: And I honestly cannot imagine.
Speaker 2: I just think it is so horrifying to watch the
Speaker 2: Russian authorities almost certainly going to crack that crackdown.
Speaker 3: That is one thing we should talk about.
Speaker 2: Everyone was interpreting this to like, oh, if this was
Speaker 2: an anti Ukraine protest or Ukraine war protests, they would
Speaker 2: have immediately done something. I'm like, I am not reading
Speaker 2: this as state sponsored, Like I'm reading this as the
Speaker 2: Dagastani's got out of control and now they've embarrassed the
Speaker 2: entire nation of Russia and they are about to have
Speaker 2: the wrath of the Kremlin and Moscow brought down upon them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for humiliating them in the eyes of the world.
Speaker 1: I don't really see an interest that serves the Russian government.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, maybe somebody can make the case for me,
Speaker 1: but I don't see I know, the Russian interest that
Speaker 1: they would have.
Speaker 2: They are antismatic, I mean mostly the very Greek Orthodox
Speaker 2: or the Russian Orthodox, and very Orthodox like in an
Speaker 2: exclusionary Jews in Russia have never been fully accepted as
Speaker 2: citizens despite their propaganda purposes. So it's one of those
Speaker 2: where it's been simmering below the surface. But something like
Speaker 2: this is very, very ugly, and we also wanted to highlight,
Speaker 2: you know, some other ethnic tension and violence, which again,
Speaker 2: this really connects back to what we started our a
Speaker 2: bloc with, which is unfortunately, the more that this is
Speaker 2: framed as some sort of religious holy war, people in
Speaker 2: those religions are going to basically heed that call into.
Speaker 1: Treat much like it's a freaking religious holy war.
Speaker 2: And to give an example, let's put this one up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. This was happening outside of Netanya
Speaker 2: Natanya College, which is a dorm in Jerusalem that was
Speaker 2: housing Arab students and some very hard right you know
Speaker 2: Israeli citizens gathered outside and started chanting, you know, death
Speaker 2: to Arabs and the protesters. They claim that the Arab
Speaker 2: students had disrupted their prayers at a Hubbad synagogue by
Speaker 2: hurling exit worshippers and playing loud Arab music. In the evening,
Speaker 2: they decided that they were going to take retaliation and
Speaker 2: say that they were going to gather around that the
Speaker 2: authorities had to break up all of this, and you know,
Speaker 2: allegations about eggs being thrown and all this. But you know,
Speaker 2: this is the simmering hatred that has been now in
Speaker 2: Jerusalem for quite some time, and then the war and
Speaker 2: the backdrop of that is making things so much worse.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just I really feel despair. You know,
Speaker 2: we've talked about last time around about the most pessimistic solution,
Speaker 2: the most pessimic outcome is the most likely, and this
Speaker 2: is a key part of that. It was one of
Speaker 2: the worst periods of the Iraq War. Was not just
Speaker 2: watching American soldiers, you know, die for basically nothing. It's
Speaker 2: was really to watch the full scale outbreak of sectarian conflict,
Speaker 2: of Sunnis and Shida's like killing each other in the
Speaker 2: streets and some of the most savage and horrific waves possible.
Speaker 2: And now you know, you're watching this and you can
Speaker 2: only think, if this is really operation last months and
Speaker 2: then whatever the how the political fallout on all that
Speaker 2: is going to look like, how many more scenes are
Speaker 2: we gonna we're going to see like this? You know,
Speaker 2: people deserve to be safe wherever they are, and it's
Speaker 2: just it's really horrible to watch.
Speaker 1: I was struck by what we interviewed. The host of
Speaker 1: The Martyr made podcast, long podcast about the history of Zionism,
Speaker 1: the history of this conflict. You know, very in depth,
Speaker 1: very thoughtfully done, and I know a lot of you
Speaker 1: all appreciate that interview that we did, as I did.
Speaker 1: He wrote in response to what happened in Dagistan, this
Speaker 1: is disgusting. It is also an example of why Israel
Speaker 1: must find a way to make peace and resolve the
Speaker 1: Palestinian conflict. Prior Israeli governments worked hard along with their
Speaker 1: Palestinian authority counterparts for peace. But Laku, that's net Nyahu's party,
Speaker 1: has shown no more interest in peace than Hamas net
Speaker 1: Nyahu stated openly, he prefers to keep the conflict at
Speaker 1: a low boil while settlers continue to occupy the West
Speaker 1: Bank to make a two state solution impossible. This is
Speaker 1: not to say, because I know some are already typing
Speaker 1: this response, that Israel is to blame for incidents like this,
Speaker 1: But incidents like that will never stop unless there is
Speaker 1: a just peace with the Palestinians. The Israeli government has
Speaker 1: an obligation not only to its own citizens, but to
Speaker 1: Jews around the world to stop pursuing a policy that
Speaker 1: can only intensify hatred and conflict. There is no way
Speaker 1: to fix this with bullets. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: that is very carefully worded and true. I mean, these
Speaker 1: sorts of horrors beget more horrors, and that's the unfortunate
Speaker 1: reality of human nature of world history. I mean, how
Speaker 1: many times we have to see this play out and
Speaker 1: what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza right now,
Speaker 1: Let's be honest, this is not going to make Israelis
Speaker 1: or Jewish people around the world safer, if anything, and
Speaker 1: not just if anything, very likely if not, you know,
Speaker 1: totally one hundred percent reality. They are sowing the seeds
Speaker 1: of more radicalism, They are creating more terrorists, and Yaho,
Speaker 1: especially with his sectarian Holy War language, is making horrific
Speaker 1: mob scenes like this much more likely to unfold around
Speaker 1: the world. So this is the sort of stuff that
Speaker 1: we're that they're playing with here, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Daryl also did a great job of talking about the
Speaker 1: fact that at its core, this isn't a religious comp
Speaker 1: it's a conflict over land. It's a political conflict over land. However,
Speaker 1: when you overlay it with religious justification, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about where the people of the light and they're the
Speaker 1: people of the darkness, the you know, direct quote from
Speaker 1: Netanyahu of how he's framing this conflict, think of what
Speaker 1: sort of things that justifies. And this is something we'll
Speaker 1: talk to Lefong about today too. When you believe God
Speaker 1: is on your side, when you believe your actions must
Speaker 1: be righteous because they are coming out of your religious context,
Speaker 1: and you know, when you have a lot of fundamentalists
Speaker 1: on both sides of this, this is how these things
Speaker 1: can spiral completely out of control. And so when I
Speaker 1: see what happened at that airport, I think that is
Speaker 1: the tiniest glimpse of where we could ultimately end up
Speaker 1: with these things. Spirally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very important. And look know what he's saying.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, they do this, and this is you know,
Speaker 2: this is just no one's justifying anything.
Speaker 3: But we live in reality.
Speaker 2: We know that these types of things are only more
Speaker 2: likely to occur as the violence escalates, and you know
Speaker 2: that is a real uh that is really sobering as always,
Speaker 2: just to be reminded of what that looks like.
Speaker 3: And I think it's it's really unfortunate. I think it's.
Speaker 2: Horrible, and I really hope that we don't see any
Speaker 2: more of it, and yet stealing. I think we should
Speaker 2: all steal ourselves for the unfortunate reality that we'll probably
Speaker 2: see you.
Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, let's turn to We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about the like information landscape, which is a really important
Speaker 1: part of this war, and all wars put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. This was interesting for a variety of reasons. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this guy Jeff Morris Junior, who I'd never heard
Speaker 1: of before, but he's apparently like a tech executive former
Speaker 1: Tender exactly. You want to like, is there any other context?
Speaker 2: Oh no, Yeah, we're gonna say he's a he's a
Speaker 2: tech guy, used to work at Tender.
Speaker 3: That's how I know him.
Speaker 1: And he's very you know, israelly sympathetic here. So he
Speaker 1: started taking a look at the data on TikTok to
Speaker 1: see what was going on because he's observing like, oh,
Speaker 1: young people have very different view of this conflict than
Speaker 1: older generations, so they get their information, you know, largely
Speaker 1: on TikTok. What's going on here? So he says, I
Speaker 1: looked at the data, saw that Israel is losing the
Speaker 1: TikTok war by a long shot. As an example, the
Speaker 1: top hashtag is three billion views for Palestine versus two
Speaker 1: hundred million views for Israel. If you look at the
Speaker 1: other hashtags, it is clear Israel has a distribution issue. Now,
Speaker 1: I would personally say Israel has probably some other issues
Speaker 1: than just distribution. But it was interesting the concern here
Speaker 1: that what was really to blame for the generational divide
Speaker 1: was the TikTok algorithm and the concern that I mean
Speaker 1: listen for a long time, for many years, just lockstep
Speaker 1: support for Israel, no matter what they did, was the
Speaker 1: bipartisan standard in Washington. It was what you got out
Speaker 1: of every single American media outlet, certainly on cable news,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And so this is a bit of a
Speaker 1: panic around the fact that there are these other platforms
Speaker 1: and other ways that people are getting their information that
Speaker 1: don't line up with the way the ADL guy would say,
Speaker 1: like getting the story right as they see.
Speaker 2: I think it's a generational in the sense that people
Speaker 2: did not come up in the same not even in
Speaker 2: the same information area. But I think that the biggest
Speaker 2: reality is at our age, you have never really known
Speaker 2: a time of war. The most you know, the thing
Speaker 2: the day I remember earliest from my youth is nine
Speaker 2: to eleven. So basically, like crystal memory on forward is
Speaker 2: just war, war, war, war.
Speaker 3: War, war.
Speaker 2: And when you have that, you were going to come
Speaker 2: at things from a very very different perspective than a
Speaker 2: lot of people who for them, nine to eleven was
Speaker 2: something that came in the context of they remember the
Speaker 2: Great Peace and winning the Cold War and all this
Speaker 2: other things that are foundational to their memory of like
Speaker 2: America as is trying great power. They think of Israel
Speaker 2: probably much more in that context of the older times,
Speaker 2: and they may even think of it, you know, with
Speaker 2: the the Intafada and PLO and Arafat, and also just
Speaker 2: the way that you think about these things is very
Speaker 2: different as opposed to let's say someone you're my age,
Speaker 2: I mean Gaza and the Hamas situation going on for
Speaker 2: fifteen years. That's pretty much all I know. I don't
Speaker 2: really remember a time pre Hamas. Most people don't either,
Speaker 2: who are right, especially younger. If you're really younger, say
Speaker 2: you're twenty one nineteen, that's quite literally the vast majority
Speaker 2: of your lifetime, and it's especially highlighted. Let's put this
Speaker 2: on the screen, you know, the CNN poll. This is
Speaker 2: going really viral, but it does show you, at sixty
Speaker 2: five years old and above, Israel's military response is fully justified.
Speaker 2: They say eighty one percent, fifty to sixty four, fifty
Speaker 2: six percent, thirty five to forty nine, forty four percent,
Speaker 2: eighteen to thirty four is only twenty seven percent. And
Speaker 2: I really believe that that comes from a place of
Speaker 2: war wariness more than anything. I've seen a lot of
Speaker 2: people be like and you know, including and look, I
Speaker 2: don't know Jeff, well, you know, I talked to him
Speaker 2: maybe once or twice. I'm assuming like this is someone
Speaker 2: who supports Israel and then is like, well, what is
Speaker 2: happening here? I would just really urge everyone for look
Speaker 2: with the TikTok algorithm, and you guys know, I would
Speaker 2: ban TikTok if I could, but it's not for reasons
Speaker 2: like this. It's for much bigger, like national security reasons
Speaker 2: about America owning this company. What does everybody tell you
Speaker 2: about the TikTok algorithm, what is it best at? It
Speaker 2: serves you what you already want. It's not like it's
Speaker 2: being created out of thin air, so that these people
Speaker 2: are ingesting his content and are sharing it around and
Speaker 2: are finding it compelling, which is very counter narrative, And
Speaker 2: it's not because it's being forced in front of them. Now,
Speaker 2: maybe if you can find out a case for why
Speaker 2: that it is, I would absolutely be willing to, you know,
Speaker 2: to learn and listen to it. But I suspect that
Speaker 2: that's really not the case here. I just think, based
Speaker 2: upon swimming in a very different media environment like our show,
Speaker 2: and just you know, in general, like keeping my finger
Speaker 2: on the pulse, I think we're living in.
Speaker 3: Two separate worlds.
Speaker 2: There are people who are on like establishment Twitter and
Speaker 2: on a cable and who are reading the papers, and
Speaker 2: then there.
Speaker 3: Are people like us who are swimming in the Internet.
Speaker 2: And if you're in the Internet, you have no choice
Speaker 2: but to engage with a lot of facts and video
Speaker 2: and elements and all these other things that you would
Speaker 2: never see if you were up there too.
Speaker 1: That's very true. And it's also the case that I mean,
Speaker 1: we see this with our show as well. If there
Speaker 1: is some perspective that is not being served by mainstream,
Speaker 1: guess what people go to use. People go to TikTok.
Speaker 1: People go to Twitter to try to find war and find,
Speaker 1: you know, more viewpoints that reflect the way that they
Speaker 1: are viewing the conflict. So there's certainly a generational divide here,
Speaker 1: and then there's also divide in terms of people who
Speaker 1: you know, people who are basically pro Israel and they think,
Speaker 1: you know, Israel's completely justified, et cetera, et cetera. They
Speaker 1: have all types of mainstream sources where they can go
Speaker 1: to see that viewpoint reflected. If your viewpoint diverges from that,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to be on TikTok. I also think,
Speaker 1: you know, you talked about the war weariness. I think
Speaker 1: that's a really important point, and when I didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: think of I also think, you know that the change
Speaker 1: in media is definitely part of it. The fact that
Speaker 1: you can even go anywhere and get those different views
Speaker 1: didn't used to be the case, you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of decades ago. You also have generations that have never
Speaker 1: really you know, we didn't grow up in the Cold War.
Speaker 1: So this just like it's there on our side to
Speaker 1: fight communism, and that's that they're the goodies, these are
Speaker 1: the baddies. Like that doesn't land for these generations the
Speaker 1: way that it does for you know, we have those
Speaker 1: numbers about eighty some percent of the oldest demographics, like, yes,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, Israel is fully justified. You also have
Speaker 1: with this generation in terms of this conflict specifically, there
Speaker 1: hasn't been a time in our adult lives when peace
Speaker 1: was really on the table.
Speaker 2: That's a good point too. We don't remember Oslo at all.
Speaker 2: I've only read about.
Speaker 1: Us exactly, So I mean, even me being significantly older
Speaker 1: than you, I mean that's distant. I was like a
Speaker 1: kid like sort of vaguely aware of what was going
Speaker 1: on and not really like viscerally engaged with it whatso
Speaker 1: app So you know, we have never really we don't
Speaker 1: have all this legacy of imagining that a two state
Speaker 1: solution is still on the table.
Speaker 3: Good point.
Speaker 1: So I think that really changes the way we view
Speaker 1: this as well. And then something that we've talked about
Speaker 1: before and you've pointed out before too, sober is Thattan.
Speaker 1: Yahoo has also made this conflict much more explicitly partisan.
Speaker 1: By coming to DC, by giving the speech against Obama.
Speaker 1: This was in the context of the Iran nuclear deal.
Speaker 1: You know, by putting a sum on the scales. He
Speaker 1: tried smooth things over by saying yes, Biden won, etcetera,
Speaker 1: etceter and pissing off Trump. But you know, the reality
Speaker 1: is he made this conflict much more explicitly partisan. So
Speaker 1: you have a variety of reasons why. You know, if
Speaker 1: you take your average eighty year old and you take
Speaker 1: your average twenty year old and you ask him about
Speaker 1: this conflict, you are going to get completely different views
Speaker 1: of what's going on. You know, the White House is
Speaker 1: apparently very concerned about the politics of how this is
Speaker 1: all going to work out for them. Put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. They privately concede things have never been
Speaker 1: worse since the eighty year old took office. Biden's dual
Speaker 1: horror shows threatened his reelection campaign. This is another Axios report.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that they cite here is look
Speaker 1: in the polls, he's tied or trailing Trump nationally. In
Speaker 1: swing states. He gets crushed on his handleing of immigration, crime,
Speaker 1: and inflation. They have a quote from one Biden official
Speaker 1: who says it's not death by one issue, by half
Speaker 1: a dozen hitting it once the load bearing wall breaks.
Speaker 1: Many of Biden's own voters do not want him to run.
Speaker 1: His popularity with his own supporters hit a new low
Speaker 1: in a poll this past week, and that seems to
Speaker 1: have been directly related to his approach to Israel's war
Speaker 1: on Gaza. You saw an eleven point drop among Democrats
Speaker 1: in their support for Biden, most of that coming from
Speaker 1: young demographics who are very unhappy with his just lockstep
Speaker 1: support for Israel and sending them whatever they want. You've
Speaker 1: got a quote here you say, the Middle East war
Speaker 1: gives the president a chance to protect stable leadership ahead
Speaker 1: of a general election, but the White House knows the
Speaker 1: war will likely widen. And so one last piece here
Speaker 1: in terms of showing the generational divide, You've got this.
Speaker 1: I thought it was kind of a weird question put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen, but they asked what should
Speaker 1: the US government say publicly in regards the Israel Hamas war.
Speaker 1: This was by generation, so silent and greatest jen eighty
Speaker 1: six percent say they should support Israel. You go down
Speaker 1: to millennial and gen Z, so not even just gen Z,
Speaker 1: but millennials and gen Z and it's less than half
Speaker 1: who say they should support Israel. So while Biden, you know,
Speaker 1: is satisfying one part of the Democratic base and certainly
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly the DC establishment, you know, in terms of young people,
Speaker 1: this is really becoming a litmus test issue and certainly
Speaker 1: for Arab Americans who've also been a key part of
Speaker 1: the Democratic coalition for them as well, and you can
Speaker 1: already see them paying the price in the polls. Now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that they said, I think it
Speaker 1: was in this piece that was like, oh, they think
Speaker 1: they'll get over it by the time they action comes up.
Speaker 3: I actually, I do kind of think that's right.
Speaker 2: I think that with the specter of Trump and the
Speaker 2: fear around that that the boogeyman. Look, the boogeyman has
Speaker 2: always worked for Democrats.
Speaker 3: That's what they're betting on.
Speaker 1: That's what they're betting on.
Speaker 3: I would never bet on that personally. You can ask
Speaker 3: Hillary help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But it's like, I guess it depends on how
Speaker 1: this all you know is this does this end in
Speaker 1: a week or are we still seeing you know, babies
Speaker 1: being pulled down a rubble and their incubators being shut
Speaker 1: off as we had into election day, which is real,
Speaker 1: you know, real possibility. So I think this represents a
Speaker 1: more consequential break young people had already there. It's easy
Speaker 1: to forget, but at the beginning of the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: young people were his most fervent supporters, his largest by
Speaker 1: you know, by the approval rating, his largest supporters, most
Speaker 1: fervent supporters, et cetera. That quickly fell off a cliff. Dude,
Speaker 1: I think some of his you know, economic handling, and
Speaker 1: now this represents for a lot of people, it's very emotional,
Speaker 1: it's very visceral, and a real break in terms of
Speaker 1: how they're seeing Biden where it's no longer like I
Speaker 1: kind of have affection for him, but you know, I
Speaker 1: don't love everything he's done. But whatever I was, not
Speaker 1: could have and vote Joe, especially when you've got other
Speaker 1: options on the ballot. So I think this is a
Speaker 1: real problem for them, and they apparently aware of that
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Certainly possible.
Speaker 2: Let's move on talking about the American political system a
Speaker 2: lot here. The Speaker of the House. Now, it's interesting
Speaker 2: we brought you the news before Speaker Mike Johnson. Prior
Speaker 2: to becoming the speaker, he was somebody who did not
Speaker 2: vote for Ukraine AID. Since May of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: had a very different tone, said that we needed to
Speaker 2: fund our border. He seemed very skeptical of the Neocon establishment.
Speaker 3: Well in his.
Speaker 2: Very first interview ever, things let's just say they changed
Speaker 2: pretty significantly in terms of how we started talking.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 8: We can't allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because
Speaker 8: I don't believe it would stop there, and it would
Speaker 8: probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move
Speaker 8: on Taiwan. We have these concerns, We're not going to
Speaker 8: abandon them. We want to be cooperative. We need to
Speaker 8: work together on this, but we owe it to the
Speaker 8: people to know what the plan is, where the money
Speaker 8: is going to be spent, and we need some auditing
Speaker 8: for the dollars that we've already sent over there. These
Speaker 8: are not tough questions, right. One thing that House Republicans
Speaker 8: are resolved on is that we must stand with our
Speaker 8: most important ally in the Middle East, and that's Israel.
Speaker 8: We will we certainly hope that it doesn't come to
Speaker 8: boots on the ground. If it comes to that, and
Speaker 8: we communicy this to the White House staff as well
Speaker 8: today that you know, we have the Article one power
Speaker 8: in the legislative branch of government, and they have Article two.
Speaker 8: They have very limited authority on what they can do
Speaker 8: to respond without coming to Congress to seek consent. I
Speaker 8: mean they tell us when we're in Israel, and you've
Speaker 8: been there, and they say, the reason that we're able
Speaker 8: to sustain ourselves and survive is because everyone knows that
Speaker 8: our big ally is America. We know that Iran is
Speaker 8: directly tied to all this. These are Hamas and Hezbeal
Speaker 8: proxies of Iran, and they're tied in now with Russia
Speaker 8: and China. I mean, it is a new access of evil.
Speaker 8: That's how we see it, and so it has to
Speaker 8: be addressed.
Speaker 9: State if Israel, with all the funding of terror and
Speaker 9: all these terror organizations, they within their right to fight
Speaker 9: back and course directly at Iran.
Speaker 8: Of course, that was the first, as you noted, the
Speaker 8: first act of my speakership is that we passed that
Speaker 8: resolution to articulate that and make it very clear where
Speaker 8: we stand.
Speaker 2: All right, So, as Michael Tracy summed it up, can't
Speaker 2: allow Putin to prevail in Ukraine, ties it to Taiwan,
Speaker 2: the most dishonest trick pulled by McConnell. Number two, boots
Speaker 2: on the ground may be required to stand with Israel.
Speaker 2: Number three supports Israel directly directly attacking Iran. Number four Russia,
Speaker 2: China and Iran are.
Speaker 3: The new axis of evil.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we are right back to where we started,
Speaker 2: arguably maybe even worse. However, there are at least some
Speaker 2: signs of hope if you do oppose more aid to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: New Speaker Johnson has now said, because of really pressure
Speaker 2: from within the Republican establishment that they want to split
Speaker 2: up Israel and Ukraine aid, which is setting up a
Speaker 2: showdown with Biden and the Senate. So remember in the Senate,
Speaker 2: which is controlled by Chuck Schumer, Schumer is talking about
Speaker 2: linking the two of Israel and of Ukraine. This was
Speaker 2: presented from the Biden administration of a or seventy billion
Speaker 2: some package ten billion for Israel, sixty billion for Ukraine
Speaker 2: that is added within there. The Speaker of the House says, no,
Speaker 2: that's not how we're going to participate. One of the
Speaker 2: reasons why that's important is that in terms of procedure.
Speaker 2: Remember this, the Senate cannot do anything where they have
Speaker 2: to where they basically can't spend money without making sure
Speaker 2: it's revenue neutral, Whereas the House can do whatever it wants.
Speaker 3: It has the power of the purse.
Speaker 2: So for the House, if they originate that position and
Speaker 2: they send it up to the Senate, the Senate and
Speaker 2: then Biden have to decide, well, okay, are we really
Speaker 2: going to veto Israel aid?
Speaker 3: You know, because it's not tied to you. There's no way.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: The other question though, is did Johnson strike a deal
Speaker 2: where he will bring Ukraine Aid to the floor where
Speaker 2: and give it an up or down vote? Because as
Speaker 2: we have always talked about Crystal, all the Democrats support
Speaker 2: Ukraine AID. Oh about half ish of Republicans in the
Speaker 2: House support Ukraine AID, so they have an outright majority.
Speaker 2: If it gets to the floor, the victory for the
Speaker 2: side would be just preventing it from getting into the
Speaker 2: floor in the first place. Where does Speaker Johnson fall
Speaker 2: on that? I have no idea, but starting to get
Speaker 2: some insight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if it's brought to the floor, it passes,
Speaker 1: that's the bottom line. And so I don't know either
Speaker 1: I never heard of the sky until like a week ago,
Speaker 1: so I can't claim to have any like inside knowledge
Speaker 1: into the way that he might operate. But the fact
Speaker 1: that he immediately goes on Hannity and starts sounding just
Speaker 1: like one hundred percent ne yo kon even using the
Speaker 1: acts like dredging up that access of evil language, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's not a good sign. And I will
Speaker 1: also say that it's very possible. He feels like by
Speaker 1: splitting the two Israel and Ukraine, splitting them apart, that's
Speaker 1: like his attempt to sort of appease, right the anti
Speaker 1: Ukraine peek part of his caucus. But you know, maintain
Speaker 1: like whatever deal he might have struck with Democrats or
Speaker 1: the White House or whatever. So I would guess that's
Speaker 1: the direction that things go in.
Speaker 3: But we'll see, we will see. I ask some people
Speaker 3: who are in the know.
Speaker 2: They said, it's not nearly as cut and dry as
Speaker 2: maybe we might think. That's very much still a possibility,
Speaker 2: but there is a lot of procedural effort to try
Speaker 2: and to deny it. There is, Yes, there is a
Speaker 2: majority of the Senate that does support a to Ukraine,
Speaker 2: but there are enough voices out there that there.
Speaker 3: Basically, it all comes down to this.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a death by a thousand cuts,
Speaker 2: a ton of procedural warfare. Split it apart, make sure
Speaker 2: it doesn't get to the vote. Even if it does pass,
Speaker 2: then hold it up. Make sure this doesn't happen at
Speaker 2: the same time. And this is the biggest problem. This
Speaker 2: is And you would think Israel is a number one priority, yes,
Speaker 2: but they already know it's passed. Ukraine is a very
Speaker 2: very close second. Like this is the clearest and dearest
Speaker 2: thing to Mitch McConnell's aging heart. It's like the last
Speaker 2: thing that he's like, I must get this through. And
Speaker 2: in general I do not bet against that man whenever
Speaker 2: he wants to get his things through the Senate.
Speaker 1: Very true.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: There are some other interesting conflicts unfolding on the Republic's
Speaker 1: line over the Israel issue. Another flare of between the
Speaker 1: Faik and Nikki Haley.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Let's move on, and I guess we have to peg
Speaker 2: and start with the news, which it was funny we
Speaker 2: were debating.
Speaker 3: We're like, are we even going to cover this? Is breaking?
Speaker 2: We're like, now we'll just put it in the show,
Speaker 2: because let's be honest, we all knew it was going
Speaker 2: to happen anyways. Mike Pence, Mike Pence, the former Vice
Speaker 2: president of the United States, is dropping out of the
Speaker 2: twenty fourty four race.
Speaker 3: Let's take a list.
Speaker 9: I'm traveling across the country over the past six months.
Speaker 9: I came here to say, it's become clear.
Speaker 6: To me.
Speaker 3: This is not my time.
Speaker 9: So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to
Speaker 9: suspend my campaign for president defective today.
Speaker 3: Now I'm leaving this campaign, but let me promise.
Speaker 9: You, I will never leave the fight for conservative values
Speaker 9: and I will never stop fighting to elect principled Republican
Speaker 9: leaders to every office.
Speaker 3: In the land. So help me God. Wow. Okay, came
Speaker 3: sooner than expected, but still happened. Now.
Speaker 2: The reason why it happened, Crystal, is because what he
Speaker 2: was slated to not make the third debate, and him
Speaker 2: and his team correctly were like, look, former vice president
Speaker 2: the United States not qualifying for a debate on the stage,
Speaker 2: while somebody like vike Ramaswami is especially after all the
Speaker 2: smack that we talked against all these people, we cannot
Speaker 2: have that reputational damage and so they decided to drop out.
Speaker 3: By the way, I fully support that.
Speaker 2: That said, it is one of those where it's deeply
Speaker 2: humorous just from the level of watching this man indulge
Speaker 2: in his own personal egotism while running but at the
Speaker 2: same time basically trying to run against any of the
Speaker 2: tides of moderate progress that have made in the Republican Party.
Speaker 3: When we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Populism, when we're talking about any questioning of the Ukraine
Speaker 2: consensus of Neocon foreign policy, to the limited extent it
Speaker 2: even exists, this man was the sworn enemy of that.
Speaker 3: So I cannot help but rejoice it.
Speaker 2: Also, though the same meeting, the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas, highlighted the two sides of where the
Speaker 2: debate is here right now. You had vivike Ramaswami, who
Speaker 2: has I don't even know how to describe him. He's
Speaker 2: one of those people who at the first was really
Speaker 2: sounding more of like a Tucker Carlson voice of like,
Speaker 2: we need to avoid war with Iran, we need to
Speaker 2: make sure that Israel does not escalate this to a
Speaker 2: situation which endangers America. Then you have people like Nikki Haley,
Speaker 2: who last I checked is now taking like an anti
Speaker 2: racism angle to anti Semitism. She's like, if you are not,
Speaker 2: She's like, she said, if you're anti Zionists, then you
Speaker 2: are anti Semitic. And she said she would even pass
Speaker 2: a law declaring that to an effect on should she
Speaker 2: be present.
Speaker 1: That's used to a lot of Jews who are anti Zionist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is like being That is like Ibrahem Kendy
Speaker 2: Department of Anti Racism level stupid. Well, that was fully
Speaker 2: on display here at the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting.
Speaker 3: Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 10: Would love nothing more than for the IDF to put
Speaker 10: the heads of the top one hundred hamas leaders on
Speaker 10: stakes and line them up on the Israel Gaza border
Speaker 10: as a sign that October seventh, twenty twenty three will
Speaker 10: never happen again, and then to use all of those
Speaker 10: saved resources to build the border defenses of the future.
Speaker 10: But that is Israel's decision to make, not ours. That
Speaker 10: is what David Ben Gurion would tell Israel to do.
Speaker 10: That is what George Washington would tell the United States
Speaker 10: to do.
Speaker 9: The steaks couldn't be higher, and given those steaks, we
Speaker 9: cannot have four years of chaos, vendettas and drama.
Speaker 1: We can't afford to.
Speaker 3: Go down that road, not now.
Speaker 9: Eight years ago, it was good to have a leader
Speaker 9: who broke things, but right now we need a leader
Speaker 9: who also knows how to put things back together.
Speaker 2: Well well, well there you can see about Nikki Haley
Speaker 2: voicing that and Vivek. I mean, he's trying his best
Speaker 2: because he got it on the chin, even basically saying
Speaker 2: what I think a lot of people are thinking about, Well,
Speaker 2: maybe we should watch out here.
Speaker 3: We definitely don't want to go to war with Iran.
Speaker 2: He's changed his tune now to now He's like what now,
Speaker 2: He's like the most raw ra like cheering on Israel.
Speaker 2: He's like, no, no, no, they can do what they want
Speaker 2: to do, but that needs to be Israel's decision to
Speaker 2: make and they need to own the consequences.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I do think it is a smart rhetorical play.
Speaker 2: I think it is the only one that you can
Speaker 2: exist as a capital R Republican in the party at
Speaker 2: this point because the level of pushback to the very
Speaker 2: basic rate of concerns, it's not possible right now in
Speaker 2: the Republican Party or even in Republican media. I mean
Speaker 2: the oh my goodness, I have never seen these people
Speaker 2: come out, you know, with their knives for anything more
Speaker 2: than they did for Vivac at that time, just being like, hey,
Speaker 2: we should watch out a little bit here.
Speaker 3: Who knows what's going to happen. That's too much for
Speaker 3: most of these people listen.
Speaker 1: And he had to know that it was going to
Speaker 1: be provocative. Yeah, I would interest that he took. So
Speaker 1: if you're going to take a provocative stance, like, be
Speaker 1: ready to take the heat and defend it. But you
Speaker 1: can see the rhetorical approach that he's taking here of
Speaker 1: basically like, let me say the most bloodthirsty shit anyone's
Speaker 1: ever heard, and then use that as like a distraction
Speaker 1: from my like and we should kind of stay out
Speaker 1: of it maybe anyway back to the heads on the pikes,
Speaker 1: am I right? Like clearly that's his approach now rather
Speaker 1: than really standing behind what he was articulating. And you
Speaker 1: even saw Trump, remember Trump, who has this personal now
Speaker 1: he's like mad at bb because Biebe said Biden won
Speaker 1: the election and so he's got this like personal grievance
Speaker 1: thing now with Netanyahu, and so he made some critical
Speaker 1: comments of him right after October seventh, which by the
Speaker 1: way puts him in line with like literally ninety percent
Speaker 1: of israelease. But here in the US there was this
Speaker 1: whole friga, how dare you criticize Netanyaho? How could you
Speaker 1: say anything about that about Netanyahu at this moment, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And so even he has like completely changed course,
Speaker 1: which for Trump, you know, he's normally the guy, he's
Speaker 1: the bull in the china shop. He'll say the stuff
Speaker 1: that you know, pisses everybody out off, and he'll just
Speaker 1: stand by it. But for him, even the pressure was
Speaker 1: too intense and heat was too hot. And so in
Speaker 1: terms of the Republican Party, like any sort of divergent
Speaker 1: views they may have on Ukraine or you know, other
Speaker 1: foreign policy approaches Afghanistan at times they've said certain things,
Speaker 1: all of that is completely out the window when it
Speaker 1: comes to Israel. Yeah, completely out the window. They are
Speaker 1: completely lockstep. You know, there's so much belligerent talk with
Speaker 1: regard to Iran. There was actually one Republican who did
Speaker 1: vote against the Israel resolution that had that belligerent language
Speaker 1: about Iran. That was Thomas Massey's like die in the
Speaker 1: wool libertarian. But that's it. That's as much as you
Speaker 1: get in terms of descent. So it does kind of
Speaker 1: expose that this idea that there was a different that
Speaker 1: there was a new direction towards paleo conservatism or a
Speaker 1: different approach under MAGA towards foreign policy. Maybe when it
Speaker 1: comes to Ukraine, maybe when it comes to a couple
Speaker 1: other issues, but when it comes to Israel, not even
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to put it like every party
Speaker 2: has a coalitional interest, which exposes a lot, right, So
Speaker 2: like think like the Squad and we had Rocanna on
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 3: He supports Ukraine to the hill.
Speaker 2: Every single member of the Squad votes for Ukraine on Israel,
Speaker 2: they're allowed to dissent, you know, I would put it
Speaker 2: basically is.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't say they're really allowed, huh, because they face
Speaker 1: a lot of political summer Lee and Jamal Bowman could
Speaker 1: very easily lose their seats over their support for Palestine.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, but they at least feel enough or let's say,
Speaker 2: they feel convicted enough.
Speaker 3: In order to speak. But they don't feel it Ukraine
Speaker 3: and it definitely didn't.
Speaker 2: So I would just say, like every party has its
Speaker 2: own thing, which is going to expose a lot of
Speaker 2: hypocrisy on this one. And yeah, Israel is definitely the
Speaker 2: absolute third rail whenever it comes to whatever it comes
Speaker 2: to the Republican polity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all their cancel culture, censorship, etc. That also
Speaker 1: out the window. DeSantis now trying to ban any like
Speaker 1: pro Palestine group on college campuses in Florida. Chris Christy
Speaker 1: saying the same thing like, I'm for free speech, he said,
Speaker 1: but this isn't free speech.
Speaker 3: This is hate speech.
Speaker 2: That's like the worst of the dumbest, like hall monitors
Speaker 2: who used to exist in the previous Twitter regime.
Speaker 3: That's a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1: We can talk about that, Yes, indeed, but it just
Speaker 1: exposes there are like three people who are actually committed
Speaker 1: to free speech.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Let's go to the next part.
Speaker 2: Representative Dean Phillips launching a primary challenge to President Biden.
Speaker 2: So we now have another Democrat in the race here.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he
Speaker 2: has to say.
Speaker 3: Are you running for president?
Speaker 11: I am?
Speaker 4: I have to.
Speaker 11: I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for
Speaker 11: our country. But it's not about the past. This is
Speaker 11: an election about the future. I will not sit still.
Speaker 11: I will not be quiet in the face of numbers
Speaker 11: that are so clearly saying that we're going to be
Speaker 11: facing an emergency next November. I think the time is now,
Speaker 11: because I think four years from now it might be
Speaker 11: too late.
Speaker 2: We were saying before. It's a little reminiscent of the
Speaker 2: case that tyts jenke Yuger is making. He's basically saying,
Speaker 2: the guy. Don't think the guy can get elected. Sure
Speaker 2: he has done a good enough job, but this is
Speaker 2: at least something that someone should do. He's been teasing
Speaker 2: this now for a long time. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen the Washington Post.
Speaker 2: He said, quote, I am the long shot. Dean Phillips
Speaker 2: is embracing the undergodog role in a shaky debut against Biden.
Speaker 2: The thing is, though, is that it's very smart because
Speaker 2: his very first thing he did is file to run
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire, where the press is mostly the one
Speaker 2: that showed up. But one of the reasons why he
Speaker 2: might have a leg up over everyone else is Biden's
Speaker 2: not on the ballot in New Hampshire. So it's a
Speaker 2: pretty good media story to come in and to win
Speaker 2: New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: This was always the case.
Speaker 2: I always thought that RFK Junior had He's like, man,
Speaker 2: if you can just win New Hampshire, Kennedy wins New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: I mean, what a story, right, Like it's a headline
Speaker 2: that nobody can look away from. So Phillips very much
Speaker 2: now trying to fill like a centrist Lane Biden alternative.
Speaker 2: People in New Hampshire already pissed off at Joe Biden
Speaker 2: for skipping the state, for removing their first in the
Speaker 2: nation status whenever it comes to the primary.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I might see a case where mister Phillips does win
Speaker 2: the primary just from the sheer like lack or from
Speaker 2: sheer inertia, and then gets himself some headlines.
Speaker 3: Do I think he's gonna win?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: But the other problem for me is he waited way
Speaker 3: too long.
Speaker 2: Why are you announcing you know during Israel you're gonna
Speaker 2: get washed out? Like this main gunman story was that
Speaker 2: would have been the biggest story in the country if
Speaker 2: Israel had not been happening, But it basically went from hey,
Speaker 2: a bunch of people died to local story after the
Speaker 2: guy's found dead and by the way, of course, as
Speaker 2: with every time we found out he was known to
Speaker 2: law enforce when visited six weeks before.
Speaker 3: Getting ahead of myself.
Speaker 2: But my whole point is that the entire country be
Speaker 2: scrutinizing this thing to death. Yeah, well with Dean Phillips,
Speaker 2: he blew it. You know, in terms of the timing.
Speaker 2: Now that he waited really till Israel, he basically guaranteed
Speaker 2: doesn't mean the month's long, biggest story in the nation.
Speaker 2: And I mean rightfully so, because mistakes are existential.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Dean barely made it into our show today.
Speaker 1: We feel like we should cover it, I guess, But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure anyone really cares all that much.
Speaker 1: I tried to figure out where he is politically. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a problem solvers caucus guy, frames himself
Speaker 1: as like a centrist or a moderate whatever. Whenever he
Speaker 1: critiques the Democratic Party, it's always from the right. But
Speaker 1: in terms of his voting record, he has voted with
Speaker 1: Biden one hundred percent of the time. Put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. I mean, he's been a chief Biden booster.
Speaker 1: So here this is just from you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago. President Biden issue now standing speech this evening,
Speaker 1: making a strong case for why we want to support Ukraine,
Speaker 1: Israel and all who seeks self determination, security and peace.
Speaker 1: That's what America does. So you're not gonna hear like
Speaker 1: a single word of criticism of Joe Biden. It's just
Speaker 1: all about basically like he's old and he's gonna lose,
Speaker 1: and so let's do something else. Do I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna work. I mean, to be honest with you. For
Speaker 1: a lot of the Democratic base, the majority of whom
Speaker 1: still would like an alternative to Biden, that is their concern.
Speaker 1: They aren't like you know now, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of dissent among young voters with regard to his approach
Speaker 1: to Israel. Not to say there aren't policy issues in
Speaker 1: there as well, but the biggest concern is just his age.
Speaker 1: And I'm worried is gonna lose. We're gonna get Trump again.
Speaker 1: So I don't actually think it's that crazy of a
Speaker 1: strategy to be fawningly supportive of Biden and vote with
Speaker 1: him on literally everything and just be making a case
Speaker 1: about electability. But you know, you're Dean Phillips. No one's
Speaker 1: ever heard what before do people really think you're going
Speaker 1: to be the guy to beat Trump? Like, that's hard
Speaker 1: to believe. I do think the fact that he's a
Speaker 1: member of Congress, you know, he's got his like credentials,
Speaker 1: mainstream credentials for the media to pay more attention to
Speaker 1: him than they would pay to like Jank or that
Speaker 1: they did pay to marry Anne. So if it wasn't
Speaker 1: happening right now, when there's wildworld news coverage about the
Speaker 1: you know, atrocities that are happening in Gaza right now,
Speaker 1: maybe he'd be able to build a little bit of
Speaker 1: a kernel of something. But don't see it.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think you're right. I think you're right too.
Speaker 2: I mean I honestly and something you and I have
Speaker 2: just kept our head on. But well, you know, we
Speaker 2: want to make sure people are getting our political coverage
Speaker 2: as well. Is the polls coming out for RFK Junior.
Speaker 2: This man is in the position that no man has
Speaker 2: been in since Ross Pro. I mean, it's like shocking,
Speaker 2: like when you're clocking twenty something percent and you're going
Speaker 2: to have that level of consternation. The interesting thing on
Speaker 2: Kennedy is if he wasn't as pro, if he tones
Speaker 2: down as pro Israel coverage where he has been in
Speaker 2: the past, and just really leans into being anti war,
Speaker 2: I could even scoop see him scooping up some of
Speaker 2: this young energy, you know that's surrounding Israel Palestine.
Speaker 1: So it's too late on that front.
Speaker 2: Well for the people who are on I'm talking about
Speaker 2: normal folks out there who had no idea what he
Speaker 2: said or whatever about Rabbi Schmooley and Israel and that
Speaker 2: stuff in the past. I'm saying, if he just talks
Speaker 2: about being anti war, which you can interpret anyway that
Speaker 2: you want, and just like the ad that.
Speaker 3: We played here previously where he's.
Speaker 2: Like, hey, you know, the American political system is bad,
Speaker 2: and my name is Bobby Kennedy and I have peace,
Speaker 2: Like that's a very potent message.
Speaker 1: I think it's very if he hadn't gone. I mean,
Speaker 1: what he has said about Israel was so unequivocal. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's true, and I think it's genuinely ideological for him.
Speaker 1: I mean, he got pressed on this a lot and
Speaker 1: did not back away from his positions on it, and
Speaker 1: I think he lost, you know, a significant chunk of
Speaker 1: his like online based support definitely over this issue. Specifically.
Speaker 1: So I think you're right. If he had not gone
Speaker 1: in that direction he had a dissenting view with regard
Speaker 1: to Israel, I think there would have been an even
Speaker 1: larger pool for him to scoop up. I mean, you
Speaker 1: still have Cornell West down. There's a lot of questions
Speaker 1: at this point about his campaign and where he's even
Speaker 1: going to be on the ballot since he you know,
Speaker 1: went from People's Party, Green Party now he's running as
Speaker 1: an independent and his campaign manager just left, so a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about whether he'll even be on the ballot.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's another bail on option for people
Speaker 1: who are like disgusted with Biden on the issue of
Speaker 1: Israel Palestine and you know, want to register their protest
Speaker 1: over that. They may have that option with regard to
Speaker 1: Cornell West, or they may just stay home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so well that's always the biggest one. Yeah, just
Speaker 3: staying home is a huge I think I've done it before.
Speaker 1: Very possible. I think that's very possible. But Bobby Kennedy
Speaker 1: is continued. I mean, this is the story we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to take a look at, and I think
Speaker 1: has been wildly undercovered because yeah, if you have he's
Speaker 1: got a lot of money. He's a Kennedy, so people
Speaker 1: may not know that much about him specifically, but he's
Speaker 1: a Kennedy, so he's got a huge name recognition. He
Speaker 1: you know, may have the operation be able to get
Speaker 1: himself on the ballot. He's taking He is sounding outside
Speaker 1: of put Israel Palestine aside. He is sounding these notes
Speaker 1: of just like I'm just disgusted. I'm disgusted with Biden,
Speaker 1: I'm discussed with Trump, I'm disgusted with the Democrats, IM
Speaker 1: discussed with the Republicans, which is a very mainstream, widespread sentiment.
Speaker 1: So he could really be the determining factor in how
Speaker 1: this all ultimately goes down. So we're going to keep
Speaker 1: our eye on our show.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: We got big news that actually just broke while we
Speaker 1: were doing the show about the UAW, which is they
Speaker 1: now have a tentative agreement with all three of the
Speaker 1: Big Three. The latest one that just broke this morning
Speaker 1: is reading from Bloomberg here, General Motors Company GM reached
Speaker 1: his head ative agreement with the UAW to end a
Speaker 1: six week old strike with similar terms to the deal
Speaker 1: signed by Ford Motor Company on October twenty fifth. That
Speaker 1: deal reached on Monday includes a twenty five percent hourly
Speaker 1: pay raise plus cost of living allowances over the more
Speaker 1: than four year contract. According to the person who was
Speaker 1: not authorized to speak publicly, so very few details here.
Speaker 1: We don't have Sean Feine, the President of uaw's comments
Speaker 1: on this or breaking down you know some of the
Speaker 1: concessions they were able to gain, but it sounds like
Speaker 1: it's along similar lines to what they were able to
Speaker 1: achieve with Ford Motor Company. This comes on top of
Speaker 1: very recent news that they were also able to reach
Speaker 1: a deal with Stalantis. Let's take a listen to Sean
Speaker 1: Fain explaining some of the highlights of that tentative agreement.
Speaker 7: Today, we reached a tentative agreement with Stillanis. Today is
Speaker 7: the forty fourth day of our stand up strike, forty
Speaker 7: four days. We called it the stand up strike as
Speaker 7: a tribute to the sit down strike which built our
Speaker 7: great union almost ninety years ago. Over the forty four
Speaker 7: days we were on strike, Stillanus more than doubled the
Speaker 7: total value of the proposals they had on the table
Speaker 7: at Stillanis. We not always secured a record contract. We
Speaker 7: have begun to turn the tide on the war on
Speaker 7: the American working class, and we truly are saving the
Speaker 7: American dream.
Speaker 1: So just to reiterate some of the details of this deal,
Speaker 1: let's put this up on the screen. They've got some
Speaker 1: of the high level concessions that they were able to achieve.
Speaker 1: So twenty five percent wage increase in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: This is again with Stilantis, but tracks pretty closely with
Speaker 1: Ford and the very basics that we know about this
Speaker 1: new GM tentative deal. All wage increases from twenty one
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty two were twenty three percent, So in
Speaker 1: a single year they're going to bigger wage hike then
Speaker 1: they got over the course of two decades. That seems significant.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put the next piece up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Current Stalantis temps get a one hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 1: percent raise through twenty twenty three. This was a big
Speaker 1: sticking point in terms of the treatment of those tempts.
Speaker 1: And another thing that came out of this Stalantis deal
Speaker 1: that was really significant to Soger is they actually secured
Speaker 1: the reopening of a plant, which that never happens, a
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred and fifty employee assembly plant in Belvedere, Illinois.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but they're also going to add an
Speaker 1: adjoining battery facility to that plant. So you know, again
Speaker 1: this all has to go to the members for approval.
Speaker 1: See what they think about it. I talked to, you know,
Speaker 1: someone in Kentucky, they have a big truck plant there
Speaker 1: for a forward to get a sense of like, how
Speaker 1: are the members they're feeling about it, And so far,
Speaker 1: at least, the feedback is they are delighted. They think
Speaker 1: this was you know, this appears to be an extraordinary deal.
Speaker 1: They're very excited about the gains that they were able
Speaker 1: to make here, and I think really validates the strategy
Speaker 1: that Sean Fain and the other leadership of the UAW
Speaker 1: put in place here with the stand up strike in
Speaker 1: order to secure these gains.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, the strike strategy.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, this is a big Now, of course, look, the
Speaker 2: union's got to ratify all this, so we'll see, you know,
Speaker 2: we'll see how I mean, Look, it's a.
Speaker 3: Pretty good deal.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I'm not in the union, but I
Speaker 2: mean I'm looking at it and I'm saying, listen, you
Speaker 2: can make like a pretty decent middle class wage now
Speaker 2: at the top, where we also get healthcare pension and
Speaker 2: some benefits.
Speaker 3: That's a great deal.
Speaker 2: It's a one that a lot of people in this
Speaker 2: country don't have, and if I were in that position,
Speaker 2: I would be very very happy, especially considering you haven't
Speaker 2: had a cost of living race since two thousand and
Speaker 2: nine and now you have some of that baked in. Overall,
Speaker 2: what I think it does validate is not only the
Speaker 2: strike strategy, but also just the place that we are
Speaker 2: in the labor market. So it was just reading about
Speaker 2: how this is just really in line with how all
Speaker 2: American workers are finding themselves in a position of bargaining power.
Speaker 2: So right now, Americans currently have more time off than
Speaker 2: at any time in modern history in terms of more
Speaker 2: paid time off, with US private sector average weekly hours
Speaker 2: that are peaking because employers quote are offering that time
Speaker 2: in a stronger labor market, and employees are finding themselves
Speaker 2: using it. They're finding themselves not ashamed to be taking
Speaker 2: advantage in these cases of their paid benefits. So I
Speaker 2: think that it fits very much in line with where
Speaker 2: the rest of the country is and kind of a
Speaker 2: new bargaining power that the worker has found themselves, And
Speaker 2: so I expect it not only to have political support,
Speaker 2: and I think most people when they found the details
Speaker 2: of this, find it entirely reasonable, and that's pretty much
Speaker 2: where we're going to end up.
Speaker 3: That's part of the reason why they.
Speaker 2: Had to cave too, because even let's say they went
Speaker 2: non union, for example, under the current deal, for what
Speaker 2: I was reading the UAW, the big three are going
Speaker 2: to have to pay like something like sixty something dollars
Speaker 2: per hour according to their own internal figure. Well, Tesla's
Speaker 2: paying fifty five and they're not even union, so you know,
Speaker 2: to put it over like five dollars or whatever. Above
Speaker 2: just shows like with bargaining power and all that they're
Speaker 2: putting themselves and locking them in place for years to
Speaker 2: come to make sure that they don't get wiped out
Speaker 2: as they did in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot of tests the
Speaker 1: workers who are looking at these deals.
Speaker 3: Definitely what they're able to secure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a lot of workers down in the
Speaker 1: South in those right to work states at foreign automakers
Speaker 1: who were checking out this deal and what they were
Speaker 1: able to achieve. I'm sure there's a lot of workers
Speaker 1: in other industries who are also looking at like wow,
Speaker 1: when they have a union, and they're able to do
Speaker 1: this collective bargaining process. They're actually able to release secure
Speaker 1: significant gains over the protests and the freak out, the
Speaker 1: panic attacks of the executives and certainly of CNBC and
Speaker 1: Jim Kramer in particular. That was the one last note
Speaker 1: I wanted to make is remember the beginning of this,
Speaker 1: all this like, oh my god, it's going to tank
Speaker 1: the economy and this is a disaster and it's gonna
Speaker 1: destroy Biden's reelection bid. Biden's doing enough to destroy his
Speaker 1: own re election bid. But you know, none of that like,
Speaker 1: oh it's going to crash the economy. Stuff, and car
Speaker 1: prices are going to go through the roof, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Did any of that happen? Did any of it happen? No,
Speaker 1: not at all. So just remember that the next time
Speaker 1: that we have a good postage.
Speaker 2: And also, let's wait, I want to see what happens
Speaker 2: to the price of those cars. That's that's the real one,
Speaker 2: because that's what they kept saying was going to happen.
Speaker 2: I will call on them to release a better car,
Speaker 2: but that's a different that's a different thing. We've got
Speaker 2: Lefong standing by let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Been talking a lot today about how a lot of
Speaker 1: political leaders are playing into the sectarian nature of the
Speaker 1: conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, played in some of
Speaker 1: the comments from Netanyahu earlier today. So we're excited to
Speaker 1: be joined by Lefong, who's long been covering the way
Speaker 1: the religious right views this particular conflict and how it
Speaker 1: impacts their political approach on the issue. Lee, great to
Speaker 1: see you see man. Yeah, and guys, check out. Lee
Speaker 1: has a fantastic substack. It's just Lefung dot com where
Speaker 1: he does great work as an independent journalist there, So
Speaker 1: make sure you check that out. And the piece we
Speaker 1: wanted to have you on to talk about. Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. You've been tracking
Speaker 1: the way that televangelists have been talking about what is
Speaker 1: going on in Israel and their war on Gaza. Your
Speaker 1: headline here is televangelists invoke Holy war to push for
Speaker 1: weapons for Israel strikes on Iran. Just talk to us
Speaker 1: a little bit about the significance of this lie and
Speaker 1: what you've been tracking.
Speaker 12: Look, this is a very different conflict than other geopolitical
Speaker 12: issues China and Taiwan or Russia and Ukraine, and that
Speaker 12: religion is playing.
Speaker 4: A huge role here.
Speaker 12: You know, all three Abrahamic beliefs have a eschatology feature
Speaker 12: that you know, there are elements of each religion that
Speaker 12: are pushing for the end times that see this kind
Speaker 12: of messianic vision of war of control over Jerusalem as
Speaker 12: critical for bringing about Judgment day. Here in the US,
Speaker 12: we have something like ninety to one hundred million evangelicals.
Speaker 4: A fraction of those.
Speaker 12: Believers are people who subscribe to some of these end
Speaker 12: times beliefs. And you know, going back into the early
Speaker 12: nineteen eighties when Prime Minister Manocolm Began brought Jerry Folwell
Speaker 12: and his Moral Majority to Israel, Israel has worked proactively
Speaker 12: to cultivate these voters. You know, they're looking for a
Speaker 12: voting block that can pressure Congress and you know, various
Speaker 12: administrations to support pro Israel policies. It's a very concerted
Speaker 12: effort and we're seeing that being redded up again with
Speaker 12: this war. Israeli government officials are reaching out to evangelical voters,
Speaker 12: encouraging them to help lobby lawmakers, to put pressure on
Speaker 12: the media to support this war effort. And you know
Speaker 12: there's a little bit of cynicism involved here, because if
Speaker 12: you look carefully at some of these Christian Zionists End
Speaker 12: Times theology, you know, it's kind of bleak even for
Speaker 12: Jews and for Israel. And you know, if you look
Speaker 12: at this End Times theology, there is a final war
Speaker 12: over Jerusalem, that when Jesus comes back in the Second Coming,
Speaker 12: there will be a final event where non believers, including Jews,
Speaker 12: are all killed except for one hundred and forty four
Speaker 12: thousand Jews who are converted to Christianity that become evangelists
Speaker 12: for Christ, and that kind of ushers in the thousand
Speaker 12: year reign of Christ.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 12: So this is not a you know, positive event for
Speaker 12: Jews or for many people in the world. But you know,
Speaker 12: in this kind of crisis, for Israel, they need as
Speaker 12: much political support as possible.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of outrage going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have one of the videos actually you posted
Speaker 2: of these really ambassador actually joining Pastor John Hagy at
Speaker 2: a meeting in Texas directly invoking some of this and
Speaker 2: asking for political support.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen, we'll get your reaction.
Speaker 13: In the words of Isaiah, for Zion's sake, I will
Speaker 13: not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet.
Speaker 13: We must stand together Jews and Christians in our holy
Speaker 13: mission for the truth.
Speaker 2: And so Lee, how potent and is this politically because
Speaker 2: you did some interviews with some congressmen that I'd like
Speaker 2: you to touch on where they cite directly some of
Speaker 2: this biblical ties as to their direct governmental support for Israel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 12: You know, I've worked on this issue for a very
Speaker 12: long time. I helped out last year with a Norwegian
Speaker 12: documentary Praying for Armageddon, that explores the Christians eye in
Speaker 12: this issue. And you know, I talked to a number
Speaker 12: of lawmakers on Capitol Hill just simply asking to explain
Speaker 12: the US Israel relationship and rather talking out this in
Speaker 12: US interests or even Palestinian or Israeli interest Many of
Speaker 12: these lawmakers quickly pivoted and said, look, their.
Speaker 4: Support for Israel comes from.
Speaker 12: The divine that they believe that we should give weapons, money,
Speaker 12: more US support to Israel because of what's what's written
Speaker 12: in the Bible. And you know, you look at the
Speaker 12: Christian Zionist theology, it's a hodgepodge of versus. There's some
Speaker 12: stuff from Isaiah and the Old Testament a lot from revelations,
Speaker 12: but this has become a very consistent ideology. You know,
Speaker 12: they're very powerful televangelists and Christian groups, Christians United for
Speaker 12: Israel's one. There are several groups in Israel. They cultivate
Speaker 12: this belief system and that takes this theology and harnesses it,
Speaker 12: harnesses it for a political block on Capital Hill. So
Speaker 12: these same groups lobby very directly, They reach out to lawmakers,
Speaker 12: they mobile them. It's a true fusion of religion and politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I mean this is I even
Speaker 1: said earlier, the religious right. But the truth is there
Speaker 1: are plenty of evangelicals who hold these beliefs who are
Speaker 1: also Democrats. We actually had one in the focus group
Speaker 1: that we did of democratic based voters when we ask
Speaker 1: questions about Israel and Palestine. I mean, she said forthright
Speaker 1: that her views on the issue came directly from her
Speaker 1: religion and what she believed about it. And listen, people
Speaker 1: can believe whatever they want to believe. It's a free country.
Speaker 1: But the reason why it seems important that you highlight
Speaker 1: this issue is because if you have a view of
Speaker 1: this conflict that is based on you know, your view
Speaker 1: of whose side God is on, and this end times
Speaker 1: philosophy and this holy war that you think was prophesied,
Speaker 1: it's not going to make you very likely to be
Speaker 1: able to compromise on the issue. And also, by the way,
Speaker 1: when you believe one side has God on their side,
Speaker 1: it's also going to lead you to justify a lot
Speaker 1: of actions that may otherwise be wholly unjustifiable.
Speaker 12: I mean, there's not many other conflicts where you have
Speaker 12: a large voting block, you know, a large number of
Speaker 12: elected officials praying for salvation through war. You know, you
Speaker 12: can't apply that to many other conflicts going on today.
Speaker 12: But that's the case here. And you know, I don't
Speaker 12: I don't want to single out only Christians here, and
Speaker 12: that's a dominant force and a lot of these Republican
Speaker 12: Party primaries in some Republican party politics here in the US.
Speaker 12: There are certainly some Democrats as well. But you know,
Speaker 12: this is this is also a major feature of politics
Speaker 12: within the Islamic world. There's you know, Islamic eschatology that
Speaker 12: references you know, the end times and just and there
Speaker 12: are political groups that harness and exploit that for encouraging
Speaker 12: conflict with Israel. You know, ISIS and al Qaeda. You know,
Speaker 12: they reference, they clearly reference the discussion around you know,
Speaker 12: the hidden Mahdi, the final Islamic leader, coming with black flags,
Speaker 12: appearing with black flags, and.
Speaker 4: That's why they use black flags.
Speaker 12: And some of their propagames to Hamas, and their charter
Speaker 12: discusses Judgment Day and war at Israel again, kind of
Speaker 12: referencing and times. And some of these new and newly
Speaker 12: resurgent religious right groups that are part of Netanyahu's governing coalition.
Speaker 12: These are groups that openly discuss UH blowing up the
Speaker 12: Temple mount of the Dome of the Rock to build
Speaker 12: the Third Temple. That's the kind of Messianic Jewish vision
Speaker 12: of bringing out, bringing about the kind of final epoch
Speaker 12: of Jewish you know, theology. So you know, they're extremists
Speaker 12: on all sides. I want to be clear about that. Yes,
Speaker 12: the Christian Zionist influence, however, it's just a more dominant
Speaker 12: force here in the US. You know, it's it's a
Speaker 12: very well oiled lobbying machine. We're seeing calls for action
Speaker 12: every day. People are pressuring their lawmakers to support Israel
Speaker 12: and support UH Israel for more conflict, hoping to bring
Speaker 12: about apocalyptic war because of their religious beliefs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something if you could dig into a
Speaker 2: little bit here with these congressmen, is it? And now
Speaker 2: we actually have a speaker honestly who I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: he falls directly into this, but he is certainly even
Speaker 2: evangelic Christian with some past ties to the groups which
Speaker 2: very much seem aligned with this in terms of their
Speaker 2: political power. As you said, is it bottom up in
Speaker 2: terms of their constituents, But then how much of it
Speaker 2: is it also their own personal beliefs in the case
Speaker 2: of some of these representatives.
Speaker 12: Look, I mean, it's hard to say what people truly believe.
Speaker 12: You have to kind of go on what they say.
Speaker 12: But I do kind of assume that there's a little
Speaker 12: bit of pandering going on. I think some lawmakers might
Speaker 12: kind of signal to these beliefs, perhaps just for votes
Speaker 12: or for campaign donations, but some are more pragmatic.
Speaker 4: It's hard to say.
Speaker 12: If you look at some of these large televangelist leaders.
Speaker 12: There are many, but you know the biggest is John Hagey.
Speaker 12: Does he truly believe this? You know, he claimed back
Speaker 12: in the day that Y two K would bring about
Speaker 12: the end Times, the lunar eclips.
Speaker 4: You know Harry Potter.
Speaker 12: You know he finds pretty much any kind of conflict.
Speaker 4: Of the news and says the end Times is happening.
Speaker 12: Does he truly believe that every single one is a
Speaker 12: sign of the end Times? I don't know, But what
Speaker 12: I do know is that he mobilizes tens of thousands
Speaker 12: of his supporters to get on buses and go to
Speaker 12: Capitol Hill and lobby multiple times a year to call
Speaker 12: their members of Congress and demand more military support and
Speaker 12: political support for Israel. We know that they are very
Speaker 12: active in this current conflict, so they're making an impact.
Speaker 12: So what John Hagy actually believes in his heart when
Speaker 12: he's asking for donations and selling these books that are
Speaker 12: constantly prophesizing around the end Times, I don't know, But
Speaker 12: we do know that he's having an impact, that he
Speaker 12: has dozens of members of Congress at his beck and
Speaker 12: call that wrote that go to his congregation and participate
Speaker 12: in this in this political operation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And just to give people a sense of a
Speaker 1: little bit of the rhetoric here, you have Hagy's son
Speaker 1: who says the sectuary state is not going to get
Speaker 1: us out of this one God has a hook in
Speaker 1: the jaws of these nations and he's drawing them.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: God to Ezekiel exactly how he's going to defend Israel.
Speaker 1: He speaks about raining down fire and hail in brimstone.
Speaker 1: That's a heavenly air assault. So talking about the air strikes,
Speaker 1: describing them as heavenly, and you know, this is exactly
Speaker 1: what God told Ezekiel was coming. So just so people
Speaker 1: get a sense of some of the rhetoric that's being
Speaker 1: used here. Lastly, Lee, I was wondering if you could
Speaker 1: weigh in a bit on some of the rhetoric that
Speaker 1: we've been highlighting here directly from the Prime Minister of
Speaker 1: Israel Netnyahu, really framing this in terms of like religious
Speaker 1: holy war terms, you know, feeding the flames of the
Speaker 1: sectarian nature of this conflict, even though at bottom it
Speaker 1: really is a political conflict in a land dispute we
Speaker 1: played today. You know, him invoking Amelek, he talked previously
Speaker 1: about they're going to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. You know,
Speaker 1: what do you make of that sort of framing of
Speaker 1: this conflict.
Speaker 12: Well, I think it's very dangerous because, as you say,
Speaker 12: this is at heart a geopolitical conflict. They are valid
Speaker 12: security concerns on both sides. There are many issues that
Speaker 12: can be discussed, but when you invoke religion in this way,
Speaker 12: and it appears to be an organized talking point, because
Speaker 12: it's not just Netahu, many of his ambassadors and consulate
Speaker 12: officials here in the US are now repeatedly invoking the
Speaker 12: same Old Testament versus from Isaiah that are very popular
Speaker 12: among these kind of end times Christian Zionists. So this
Speaker 12: is a concerted effort. But the issue here is that
Speaker 12: they're using religion to obscure the bigger picture, to dehumanize
Speaker 12: the enemy, to say that, hey, these are non believers,
Speaker 12: these are people that need to be wiped out based
Speaker 12: on religion. And it's the same kind of political trick
Speaker 12: that we see really across the board throughout history. You know,
Speaker 12: many on the left, you know, in my opinion, use
Speaker 12: identity politics in a similar way. When you kind of
Speaker 12: divide people based on skin color, ethnicity, it's very easy
Speaker 12: to not see the common humanity. On the other side,
Speaker 12: the same thing is happening, i think on the right
Speaker 12: here with the religion to say, hey, these are the
Speaker 12: believers versus non believers. It's hard to see that. Again,
Speaker 12: we're all humans. A Palestinian life is just as precious
Speaker 12: as an Israeli life, and the invocation of religion is
Speaker 12: an attempt to divide and mobilize political support for this war.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you highlighted it too, that this is
Speaker 2: a feature of a lot of these Abrahamic fates. I mean,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons that the Palestinian cause is weaponized
Speaker 2: by a lot of people in the Arab world is
Speaker 2: they talk about the Alaksa Mosque exactly as you said,
Speaker 2: the temple mound, that's like the main source of continuing
Speaker 2: some of this, and then the people themselves often is
Speaker 2: used as pond same as you said, in terms of
Speaker 2: a lot of the extremism that we've seen from some
Speaker 2: of the Israeli far right as well.
Speaker 3: So I just I've always appreciated your work. Lee.
Speaker 2: You've got a great substack. We encourage everybody to go
Speaker 2: and subscribe to it. We'll have a link down in
Speaker 2: the description, and we appreciate you joining us.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thanks, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Anytime, my friend, anytime, and thank you all so much
Speaker 2: for watching. We appreciate your support. It's a hell of
Speaker 2: a lot of work doing these shows and I guess
Speaker 2: standing through it right, Crystal, But we do it because
Speaker 2: we love all of you, and it's more, it's the
Speaker 2: most stifying at crisis times like this. We appreciate all
Speaker 2: of your support and we will see you all tomorrow.