Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points, where it is
Speaker 2: a very exciting, very special day because we have special
Speaker 2: celebrity co hosts Dave Smith joining us.
Speaker 3: Dave, welcome, Good morning, Crystal, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: So you guys, of course know Dave as host, a
Speaker 2: part of the problem and comedian. He also is going
Speaker 2: to explain to me why he's being smeared as the
Speaker 2: woke right and also potentially katarifunded today, so I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to this.
Speaker 4: Wach.
Speaker 2: He also deserves special gratitude because he is you know,
Speaker 2: subbing in here for Sager while Sager is on parental leave,
Speaker 2: and Dave firmly rejects such outrageous coddling of new parents,
Speaker 2: So we especially appreciate you violating your own principles for this.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, I am a great admirer of breaking points.
Speaker 3: It's an honor to be here. I am very opposed
Speaker 3: to paternity leave.
Speaker 4: Women deserve all the time off in the word listen,
Speaker 4: just men.
Speaker 2: So you're just anti this is part of your war
Speaker 2: on men, that's what you're telling.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, Crystal, you have kids, I have kids. We
Speaker 3: both know for certainty that wherever Sager is, he is
Speaker 3: not helping right now, and he might be trying to,
Speaker 3: he might want to, but he's not somewhere. I can
Speaker 3: hear Seger's wife going, all right, I'll do it. Just
Speaker 3: I got it. It's no problem. You know he should
Speaker 3: be here, He should he should be working more, if anything.
Speaker 2: To get him out of her hair. Yes, well, I
Speaker 2: know he had aspirations of being as helpful as possible.
Speaker 2: So we'll we'll get an update from him when he
Speaker 2: gets back. And let me just run through a few
Speaker 2: the things that we're going to go through today. There
Speaker 2: are a bunch of topics that I'm really interested to
Speaker 2: hear your thoughts on, Dave. We've got updates on Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Trump talked to Botsolenski and Putin yesterday. You're going to
Speaker 2: explain to me this woke right situation, which was very
Speaker 2: confusing to me, is still very confusing to me. Tim
Speaker 2: Dillon gave an interesting interview to CNN about whether he's
Speaker 2: part of a new establishment and his interview with Jadie Vance.
Speaker 2: Definitely want to get your thoughts on that. Cash Batalon
Speaker 2: Dan Mongino say actually nothing to see there in terms
Speaker 2: of Trump's assassination attempt, and also Epstein definitely did kill himself,
Speaker 2: so everyone can just move on. And then I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how long Dave will be able to stay for,
Speaker 2: as I want to respect his time. But we've also
Speaker 2: got a lot of updates Israel going full mask off
Speaker 2: on their completely genocidal plans, updates with regard to deportations,
Speaker 2: a member of Commerce is actually being charged by the
Speaker 2: Trump administration for alleged assault of an ICE agent. And
Speaker 2: I'm going to interview and author with a new book
Speaker 2: out on mk Ultra, which should be really interesting. So
Speaker 2: lots of good stuff to get to before we jump in.
Speaker 2: If you can support us breakingpoints dot com. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much to everybody who's become a premium subscriber that
Speaker 2: has enabled us to expand to five days a week.
Speaker 2: With that, let's go ahead and jump in. So, as
Speaker 2: I just mentioned, President Trump spoke yesterday both to Zelenski
Speaker 2: and to Putin separately, in hopes of, you know, coming
Speaker 2: to some sort of a resolution to this horrific war.
Speaker 2: He was asked some questions about it by the press
Speaker 2: corps after the fact. Let's go ahead and take a
Speaker 2: listen to a little bit of that. Did you ask
Speaker 2: President Putin to meet with you about what about Ukraine?
Speaker 5: Of course I did. I talked to him about it.
Speaker 5: I said, what are we going to end this? Flatter me?
Speaker 5: I've known him for a long time now, I said,
Speaker 5: when are we going to add this bloodshed?
Speaker 4: This blood bath?
Speaker 5: It's a blood bath, and uh, I do believe he
Speaker 5: wants to end it. You know, when I made the call,
Speaker 5: I told the people last night, I spoke to the
Speaker 5: heads of the different countries Germany and Finland. We had
Speaker 5: Italy as you know, and uk the line today and
Speaker 5: a couple of others, and then they were in turn
Speaker 5: calling the everyone. Ursula was there from the European Unions.
Speaker 5: She was terrific and we you know, we spoke for
Speaker 5: a long time about it, and uh, they got a problem.
Speaker 5: It's a big, big problem. But I said to him,
Speaker 5: we got to get going. And I did say also,
Speaker 5: if I thought that you couldn't do it, I'd step away,
Speaker 5: because what are you going to do. We don't have
Speaker 5: boots on the ground. We wouldn't have boots on the ground,
Speaker 5: but we do have a big stake. And the financial
Speaker 5: amount that was put up is just crazy.
Speaker 2: And let's just go ahead and put up a six
Speaker 2: which is the Financial Times right up of what transpired yesterday.
Speaker 2: Their headline is Trump says Russia and Ukraine to immediately
Speaker 2: begin talks on ending the war. Donald Trump has claim
Speaker 2: Russian and Ukraine will immediately begin those negotiations, but signaled
Speaker 2: he was leaving Moscow and Kiev to find a deal
Speaker 2: without the US as a broker. After phone calls with
Speaker 2: Putin and Zelensky, Trump posted that quote, Russia and Ukraine
Speaker 2: will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire and more importantly,
Speaker 2: an end to the war. Putin's readout of the call
Speaker 2: was more tentative. He offered no substantive change in the
Speaker 2: Kremlin stance. Well Zelenski implored the US leader to not
Speaker 2: distance himself from efforts to secure piece. The only one
Speaker 2: who benefits from that is Putin, Zelenski said in a statement.
Speaker 2: In remarks that indicated Washington maybe stepping back from a
Speaker 2: role as a mediator, Trump said the conditions for a
Speaker 2: deal could only be agreed by the warring parties because
Speaker 2: they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would
Speaker 2: be aware of. And Dave, to be honest with you,
Speaker 2: I am having trouble following the pieces of where we
Speaker 2: are with this at this point, because you know, we
Speaker 2: had the big Oval Office blow up with Zelenski, then
Speaker 2: the minerals deal was off. Then the minerals deal is
Speaker 2: back on. Then there were going to be negotiations in Istanbul.
Speaker 2: Then Putin doesn't go, Trump doesn't go. Then we have
Speaker 2: these phone calls. The Europeans are pushing for sanctions on Russia.
Speaker 2: Lots of Republicans also pushing in that direction of leving
Speaker 2: additional sanction. I mean it's already extraordinarily sanctioned on Russia
Speaker 2: to put pressure on them. Now you've got these phone calls.
Speaker 2: So are you making sense of where we are with
Speaker 2: regard to this war?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, just like you said, that's all it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: what doesn't make sense about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's particularly right, and it's very hard to
Speaker 3: get a real gauge of it, of course, because number one,
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is, as we all know, he's such a showman,
Speaker 3: and he's always kind of saying what's politically expedient for
Speaker 3: him to say. So of course he's saying, we're close
Speaker 3: to ending this. Everybody's talking, we have to end this thing. Look, obviously,
Speaker 3: he ran on ending the war on his first day,
Speaker 3: and it has proved to be more difficult than he
Speaker 3: made it sound on the campaign trail. I do think
Speaker 3: that at least, you know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 3: that Donald Trump is getting wrong as president, but at
Speaker 3: least he does seem to want the end goal to
Speaker 3: be an end to this war. And I will say
Speaker 3: I just find Zelenski's comments appalling that the only one
Speaker 3: who would benefit from a peace deal would be Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 3: I mean, how about the young men that you're conscripting,
Speaker 3: or maybe not such young men that you're conscripting, who
Speaker 3: are dying by the hundreds of thousands. I mean, how
Speaker 3: about the American taxpayer, how about the European taxpayer, how
Speaker 3: about the you know, even as even though it's unfashionable
Speaker 3: to say, how about Vladimir Putin's conscripted army. You know,
Speaker 3: so often in these wars we just end up thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, in these collectivist mindsets. But like the young
Speaker 3: Russian boys are also being forced into this conflict.
Speaker 4: And you know, I just I find it wild.
Speaker 3: Particularly, you know, this is one of the things that
Speaker 3: infuriates me about Israel too. It's like these countries that
Speaker 3: are completely dependent on America, and yet they talk this
Speaker 3: big game as if you know, Netanyahu gives these speeches
Speaker 3: we can touch anywhere in the Middle East. Well, no,
Speaker 3: you can't, we can, and you just take it for
Speaker 3: granted that will do whatever you want. And so I
Speaker 3: do think, you know, Zelinski has done himself no favors.
Speaker 3: I'm you know with you. I thought after the Oval
Speaker 3: Office blow up that that would be the end of
Speaker 3: the mineral deal. Unfortunately, it looks like I was wrong
Speaker 3: about that, and I think that's a disaster for America
Speaker 3: to get drawn in more. But from what I've heard
Speaker 3: from people kind of on the inside, and this does
Speaker 3: match a lot of the reporting. The real obstacle here
Speaker 3: is not even that Putin doesn't want to make a
Speaker 3: deal with Donald Trump. I think he would be happy
Speaker 3: to is that Putin doesn't trust that the permanent government
Speaker 3: is going to keep to its word. And while he
Speaker 3: is the bad guy in this war, and he launched
Speaker 3: an aggressive war that's killed hundreds of thousands of people,
Speaker 3: he does have a point there that you know, as
Speaker 3: we've seen over the last many years. I know Bernie
Speaker 3: Sanders thinks we just became an oligarchy yesterday, but actually
Speaker 3: we've been one for quite a while.
Speaker 2: Arnie's been talking about it for a long time.
Speaker 3: Dave in fairness, well, yes that is true, but he
Speaker 3: does still speak about it as if this is something
Speaker 3: new with Donald Trump, which is like he's not necessarily
Speaker 3: even wrong about what he's saying with Trump, but it's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I think when City Group is picking
Speaker 3: Obama's cabinet, you could probably describe that as an oligarchy.
Speaker 3: But regardless, the point is that there's going to be
Speaker 3: a new president in a few years, and there are already,
Speaker 3: you know, the forces that really control the government, who
Speaker 3: are very at odds with Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 4: I think he knows that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the minerals deal is a real It
Speaker 2: really does confuse the situation because both a Trump administration
Speaker 2: and Zelenski portray this as a sort of a security guarantee.
Speaker 2: And I mean in the sense it is because the
Speaker 2: bet is Okay, if you have a bunch of capitalists
Speaker 2: who are very invested in the minds and the rare
Speaker 2: earths in Ukraine and whatever else they're getting a piece
Speaker 2: of here, then we're only going to allow so much
Speaker 2: Russian threat to those capitalists interests. I don't think that
Speaker 2: they're wrong about that. And so let me actually play
Speaker 2: for you. Jd Vance made some interesting comments yesterday as
Speaker 2: well with regard to this, and see what you think
Speaker 2: about this piece. Guys, this is a five. Let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and play that.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself
Speaker 6: for how to unwind the war, of course, that's been
Speaker 6: going on for a few years now. And I think
Speaker 6: there's also just a little bit of Look, there's fundamental
Speaker 6: mistrust between Russia and the West. It's one of the
Speaker 6: things the President thinks is frankly stupid, that we should
Speaker 6: be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been
Speaker 6: made in the past. But that takes two to tango.
Speaker 6: I know the President's willing to do that, but if
Speaker 6: Russia is not willing to do that, then we're eventually
Speaker 6: just gonna have to say, this is not our war.
Speaker 6: It's Joe Biden's war, it's Vladimir Putin's war, it's not
Speaker 6: our war. We're going to try to end it, but
Speaker 6: if we can't end it, we're eventually going to say,
Speaker 6: you know what, that was worth the tribe, but we're
Speaker 6: not doing anymore.
Speaker 2: So that's the position that like you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of America firsters, Steve Bannon in particular, would want this
Speaker 2: administration to take basically like, look, we tried, we're backing away.
Speaker 2: You guys figure it out eure of good luck. But
Speaker 2: like I said, the minerals dealer really kind of complicates
Speaker 2: that because we have our hands in the country no
Speaker 2: matter what at this point. So what would that look
Speaker 2: like if this administration did just sort of withdraw from negotiations.
Speaker 2: Obviously Russia has you know, significant advantage in terms of
Speaker 2: the longer that this war goes. There's signs that the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian frontline is kind of collapsing right now, you know,
Speaker 2: I do I think Zelensky's demands for what he would
Speaker 2: want to see in terms of an end to the war,
Speaker 2: which is a total Russian withdrawal from all areas, are
Speaker 2: just completely unreasonable unlikely. So where does that leave us all?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, it's uh, you know, you're you're absolutely right. And
Speaker 3: of course Trump himself speaks out of both sides of
Speaker 3: his mouth when it comes to the mineral deal, so he'll,
Speaker 3: you know, he'll say, no, we're not giving you a
Speaker 3: security guarantee. This is what Zelensky's big sticking point has been,
Speaker 3: although weirdly, he's in no position to demand anything, and
Speaker 3: yet he demands a security guarantee. But then Donald Trump
Speaker 3: will kind of sell this mineral deal as if that's
Speaker 3: what it is, and of course the major problem with
Speaker 3: that is, well, it's kind of twofold.
Speaker 4: Number one. This is the cause of the whole conflict
Speaker 4: to begin.
Speaker 3: With, was the US involvement and the threat of the
Speaker 3: US giving Ukraine a security guarantee essentially and moving NATO
Speaker 3: hardware into Ukraine, which has always been Vladimir Putin's concern,
Speaker 3: but just for for us as Americans. Just think about that.
Speaker 3: I mean, what do you mean by a security guarantee?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: What are we going to get? Listen, We've already I
Speaker 3: think I'm right about this. We've already met the threshold
Speaker 3: of what Article five would require us to do if
Speaker 3: Ukraine was a NATO country.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 3: Article five doesn't explicitly say that you have to go
Speaker 3: to war. Also, it says kind of like that you
Speaker 3: have to aid in the defensive effort. What more are
Speaker 3: Americans prepared to do that we've I mean, what are
Speaker 3: we talking about? Are we going to send in the
Speaker 3: eighty second airborne to go fight the country with the
Speaker 3: biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons on their border to make
Speaker 3: sure that lu Hansk is ruled by Kiev and not Moscow? Like?
Speaker 3: Come on, so, like, what could we even possibly be
Speaker 3: promising here? And look, I'll take I'm much more non
Speaker 3: interventionist than even Steve Bannon is, and I I would
Speaker 3: say that, Look, I know, people, I did a debate.
Speaker 4: On this on Counterpoints about six months ago or so.
Speaker 3: And look, there is this golden piece of leverage that
Speaker 3: the US has that nobody in Washington, including Trump, is
Speaker 3: even willing to consider. But US withdrawal from NATO, we
Speaker 3: could probably get whatever we wanted. We could probably this
Speaker 3: would be the one thing that we could probably get
Speaker 3: Vladimir Putin to stop the war. Today, we could probably
Speaker 3: even get him to give back much of the territory,
Speaker 3: not Crimea, but probably get a lot of the territory
Speaker 3: in the Donbass region back on Ukrainian hands. Because this
Speaker 3: would be the ultimate victory for Russia, but it would
Speaker 3: also be a victory for the United States of America.
Speaker 3: There is absolutely no need for US to be you know,
Speaker 3: you could argue that it made sense after World War Two,
Speaker 3: with Western Europe destroyed in the Soviet Union in the East,
Speaker 3: that America had to guarantee put Europe under its nuclear
Speaker 3: umbrella and subsidize its defense and guarantee its protection. But
Speaker 3: we'th thirty six trillion dollars in debt and you're up
Speaker 3: is rich. It makes absolutely no sense of Russia's GDP,
Speaker 3: I think is what a third of what our government
Speaker 3: spends every year. There are no threat to take over
Speaker 3: all of Europe, and so there's no reason why Europe
Speaker 3: can't go at this alone. And I think if we
Speaker 3: did that, we'd be in a much better situation.
Speaker 4: But there's simply no political will to do it.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's very interesting. I mean, and also
Speaker 2: just the whole justification for you know, like the Cold
Speaker 2: Wars theoretically over, you know, so there was never any
Speaker 2: reckoning with that, and you know, any interest in reorganizing
Speaker 2: NATO to deal with a new reality. So I think
Speaker 2: all of that is really fair. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: if we truly did sort of withdraw from the talks, Okay,
Speaker 2: you guys, leave it up to yourselves. Zelenski has dug in,
Speaker 2: I think for his own, you know, political reasons. He's
Speaker 2: promised we're not going to give up any territory, and
Speaker 2: I don't think he's gonna move off of that. I
Speaker 2: think it would take a lot for him to move
Speaker 2: off of that, even though you know, it's devastating to
Speaker 2: his own to his own people, to his own country,
Speaker 2: et cetera. I mean, probably what you would end up
Speaker 2: with is Russia continuing to you know, to march to
Speaker 2: take additional territory, and ultimately something approaching a kind of divided,
Speaker 2: failed state is what you would likely be looking at
Speaker 2: at the at the end of this. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's would a, coulda, should have. But obviously the you know,
Speaker 2: the original sin was when there were peace talks with
Speaker 2: the chance of success in the very beginning, when the
Speaker 2: Ukrainians had a stronger hand and there was you know,
Speaker 2: more leverage that could have been applied to Russia. And
Speaker 2: you know the fact that the US and you know,
Speaker 2: with Boris Johnson, that they really scuttled you know, I
Speaker 2: mean this is just absolutely confirmed at this point that
Speaker 2: they scuttled those potential talks. Note not that there's ever
Speaker 2: any guarantees. You know, that's the really what puts us
Speaker 2: in this horrific situation where at this point I don't
Speaker 2: think there is a great and a great solution that
Speaker 2: can that can really be achieved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, look, I agree with you, and I think
Speaker 3: your right to highlight that as one of the you know,
Speaker 3: just key blunders. But you know, I highly recommend for
Speaker 3: anybody who has not read Scott Horton's phenomenal book Provoked,
Speaker 3: which really details the history all the way from the
Speaker 3: collapse of the Soviet Union to through this war, and
Speaker 3: I mean, the thing is just you know, Scott Horton,
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy is just like a machine. There's
Speaker 3: like thousands of footnotes in this book. It's all right
Speaker 3: there for you. And look, I mean it's Look, that
Speaker 3: is a great like point that you made of Boris
Speaker 3: Johnson going over and killing the peace talks. But the
Speaker 3: whole thing from from NATO expansion to color coded revolutions
Speaker 3: that the CIA and the NED and the USAID were
Speaker 3: backing all through Eastern Europe to even just if you
Speaker 3: just think, you know, in the last eight years, we
Speaker 3: framed him like we always think about how Trump was
Speaker 3: framed for being a Russian spy, but that was also
Speaker 3: framing Vladimir Putin. You had every leader of the CIA
Speaker 3: and the military. You know, I'm not just talking about
Speaker 3: like Rachel Maddow saying it. Think about this from the
Speaker 3: Russian perspective. When you've got John Brennan on television every
Speaker 3: day saying, this guy just launched an attack worse than
Speaker 3: Pearl Harbor against US, Well, how.
Speaker 4: Are you gonna view that from?
Speaker 3: You know, if you're outside of the American Empire and
Speaker 3: you see the United States of America, the most war
Speaker 3: hungry country in the world, who's destroyed seven nations in
Speaker 3: the last twenty five years, is now saying the aim
Speaker 3: is on you making up these ridiculous lies that they
Speaker 3: knew were lives. You know, he put bounties on our
Speaker 3: soldier's head in Afghanistan, these things that like the entire
Speaker 3: corporate media just walks away from now because they don't
Speaker 3: have a leg.
Speaker 2: To stand on. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, But so when JD.
Speaker 3: Vans is sitting there saying, you know, there is this
Speaker 3: mistrust for yeah, no kidding, I mean, how would how
Speaker 3: would there not be? All you have to do is
Speaker 3: try to put the shoe on the other foot for
Speaker 3: a second and go imagine the Soviet Union still existed
Speaker 3: and they were toppling the government in Canada and Mexico
Speaker 3: and Al Salvador and propping up their own, you know,
Speaker 3: side puppets there.
Speaker 4: How would we feel about that? And so it's very
Speaker 4: tough to unwind.
Speaker 2: It's a good point, you know, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I always assumed he just sort of enjoyed the illusion
Speaker 2: that he was this like grand puppet master who had
Speaker 2: such power and control over you know, all these governments
Speaker 2: around the world. But your perspective makes a lot of
Speaker 2: sense to let's go ahead and get to this this
Speaker 2: woke right situation. I want to set this up with
Speaker 2: some news with regard to Project esther It's called which
Speaker 2: is this plan that was hatched by the Heritage Foundation,
Speaker 2: which has really been implemented almost completely by the Trump
Speaker 2: administration to silence any sort of dissent from the Israel consensus.
Speaker 2: And we can put this article up from the New
Speaker 2: York Times. I mean, this is again, you know, the
Speaker 2: mainstream press reporting on something that both drop site News
Speaker 2: and Zeteo reported on. I think I don't know quite
Speaker 2: a while ago, maybe a year ago, but they have
Speaker 2: some interesting details here. The headline is the group behind
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five has a plan to crush the
Speaker 2: pro Palestinian movement. Project Ester outlined and ambition w plan
Speaker 2: to fight anti Semitism by branding a broad range of
Speaker 2: critics of Israel like you and me, Dave as effectively
Speaker 2: a terrorist support network, so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized,
Speaker 2: and otherwise excluded from what it considered open society. Project
Speaker 2: Ester's architects envisioned outcomes that at the time might have
Speaker 2: seen far fetched. Curriculum believed to be sympathetic to a
Speaker 2: Hamas support narrative would be taken out of schools and universities.
Speaker 2: Supporting faculty would be removed. Social media would be purged
Speaker 2: of content deemed to be anti Semitic. Institutions would lose
Speaker 2: public funding. Foreign students who pushed for Palestinian rights would
Speaker 2: have their visas revoked or deported. And they said, once
Speaker 2: a sympathetic presdential administration was in place, according to the plan,
Speaker 2: we will organize rapidly, take immediate action to stop the
Speaker 2: bleeding and achieve all objectives within two years. Now, four
Speaker 2: months after mister Trump took office, Heritage Foundation leaders are
Speaker 2: taking an early victory lap. So when I look at
Speaker 2: these extraordinary efforts which have a you know, clear identitarian
Speaker 2: lens and are using authoritarian tactics to enforce that identitarian worldview,
Speaker 2: to me, that is the complete definition of woke. Now
Speaker 2: woke at this point maybe one of these terms that
Speaker 2: just needs to be retired because it's just sort of
Speaker 2: an all encompassing smear and people mean different things with it,
Speaker 2: and it's become sort of like content free. But to me,
Speaker 2: using authoritarian tactics to enforce an identitarian worldview is the
Speaker 2: definition of woke. And so to me, when I look
Speaker 2: at this, this is the woke right, and not that
Speaker 2: it's all the right, but this is a Trump administration.
Speaker 2: Many right wingers are on board with this, and so
Speaker 2: when I started seeing this term woke right thrown around,
Speaker 2: I just assumed that was what people meant, because that's
Speaker 2: really logical to me. You know, even some of the
Speaker 2: same language about like safe spaces and you know, we
Speaker 2: have a clip we could play, but I will just
Speaker 2: reference it of a rabbi and a hearing who was like,
Speaker 2: it's not enough to be ti Semitic, you have to
Speaker 2: be anti anti Semitic. And I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it is you know, the very same thing that we
Speaker 2: saw on the left previously. So when I was informed
Speaker 2: that no, this term woke right is being used somehow
Speaker 2: against people like you who are dissenters from the Israel consensus,
Speaker 2: I just I've had a very hard time wrap in
Speaker 2: my head around it. So I wanted you to help
Speaker 2: me understand the contours of this fight that is going
Speaker 2: on here on the right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So I I initially started using the term
Speaker 3: in exactly the same way that you mean it. And
Speaker 3: one of the things that's amazing, and it really is
Speaker 3: just the hypocrisy is all over the place. And so
Speaker 3: I mean, here you have the Heritage Foundation demonizing the
Speaker 3: people like me who might go, hey, you know, we
Speaker 3: spent eight trillion.
Speaker 4: Dollars on the war on terrorism.
Speaker 3: Hey, Heritage Foundation, do you see an issue with that
Speaker 3: when we're thirty six trillion dollars in debt? Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: here's the biggest part of it, you know. I mean,
Speaker 3: like you could allay that entitlements drive it the most.
Speaker 3: But however you feel about entitlement programs, they are something
Speaker 3: that people have paid into and are now receiving. Starting
Speaker 3: catastrophic wars that you don't need to fight at all
Speaker 3: is just a pure waste of money. And it does
Speaker 3: come with this other little nasty side effect of murdering children,
Speaker 3: which you know we should probably not do.
Speaker 2: It's controversial to say, apparently, but you know I am
Speaker 2: opposed to that personally.
Speaker 3: Well, isn't there something to this, crystal, Because I always thought,
Speaker 3: you know, for many years, the left leaning people would
Speaker 3: as a retort to like the pro life position, they
Speaker 3: would say, well, don't you oppose the death penalty? And
Speaker 3: I always thought that was not a good argument, and
Speaker 3: conservatives would rightly come back and say, yeah, but that
Speaker 3: person's like been convicted of a crime, Like we all
Speaker 3: accept that you lose some rights when you've committed a
Speaker 3: heinous violent crime. But by the way, I oppose the
Speaker 3: death penalty for other reasons. But you know, like, but
Speaker 3: this is such a good response, like how do you
Speaker 3: claim to be the pro life party and you you
Speaker 3: are unaffected by the fact that there are children dying, Like,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. And then the same people who are pro
Speaker 3: life advocates will say, well, what's your plan for eliminating hamas?
Speaker 3: And it's like, wait, so now I have to have
Speaker 3: a plan. I can't just be opposed to the intentional
Speaker 3: killing of babies anyway. But look, I mean, as I
Speaker 3: was saying the other day with Tucker, you have Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 3: who made his career opposing identity politics as a proud Zionist.
Speaker 3: You have people like Ron DeSantis who made his name
Speaker 3: as being the anti woke guy. But then as soon
Speaker 3: as the question of Israel comes up, it's like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, these college kids and they're hurt feelings, and
Speaker 3: so all of it is just. And look, the most
Speaker 3: the most basic one to me is the shutting down
Speaker 3: of legitimate criticism with accusations of bigotry, which really was
Speaker 3: the calling card of the woke. That's what most people
Speaker 3: mean when they say the word. And what you have
Speaker 3: examples like Thomas Massey made the argument, Now, feel however
Speaker 3: you feel about this, I agree with it, but it
Speaker 3: is certainly a legitimate argument. When he voted no for
Speaker 3: the Israel funding, he was like, look, we're thirty six
Speaker 3: trillion dollars in debt and we can't afford to fund
Speaker 3: other countries' wars. That that's it. And he's consistent on this.
Speaker 3: He votes against all these spending bills. And and then
Speaker 3: John pod Horritz from a commentary magazine, in response to this,
Speaker 3: called him anti Semitic filth.
Speaker 2: He said something similar about me, by the way, But yeah,
Speaker 2: well I'm.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, and he's said some things about me as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy is just, you know, by the way,
Speaker 3: his father at least wrote some interesting books. He's just
Speaker 3: totally unimpressive. But anyway, but so, yes, so you have
Speaker 3: in this moment when the supporters of Israel's destruction of
Speaker 3: Gaza are.
Speaker 4: Look, they are.
Speaker 3: Supporting the war on identitarian grounds, claim eternal victim status
Speaker 3: for one identitarian group. They are shutting down dissent with
Speaker 3: accusations of bigotry and supporting speech laws as you know,
Speaker 3: ranging from as the stuff that you guys have covered
Speaker 3: on the show so much. And then they're also calling
Speaker 3: the other side woke for you know, opposing these wars,
Speaker 3: and they, you know, the ones who have come up
Speaker 3: with it, come up with the flimsiest of justifications.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Essentially they are forced to just view our arguments through
Speaker 3: like a critical theory lens and say, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 3: you're saying that you woke up to the reality that
Speaker 3: Israel has too much influence on our government, as if
Speaker 3: now waking up to anything makes you woke. Like it's
Speaker 3: just the most ridiculous, you know, like like the it's
Speaker 3: such a loose definition that it could be applied to anyone. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it's just kind of meaningless. But I do think
Speaker 3: that really and and you know, I'm curious to get
Speaker 3: your thoughts on this, but I've I've been saying this
Speaker 3: for years that I think many of the popular, the
Speaker 3: most popular kind of anti woke, anti social justice warrior thinkers.
Speaker 3: They all kind of got wokeism wrong, yes, all along,
Speaker 3: and this includes Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, all all of
Speaker 3: the guys who kind of were famous for battling it
Speaker 3: out with these college students. They and this also includes
Speaker 3: people like James Lindsay and Brett Weinstein, I think, even
Speaker 3: who I like very much, but I do think kind
Speaker 3: of a lot of them they always viewed wokism as
Speaker 3: a as the left taking over the liberals. And I
Speaker 3: do understand like there is a surface level plausibility to
Speaker 3: that to view things like that, because certainly, like the
Speaker 3: influences of critical race theory, and you know, even stuff
Speaker 3: from the Frankfurt School, kind of the cultural Marxism type stuff,
Speaker 3: the Long March through the institutions, these were left wing ideas,
Speaker 3: and so when you see every giant corporation and the
Speaker 3: political establishment regurgitating kind of left wing talking points, it's
Speaker 3: easy on the surface to say, oh, well, look the
Speaker 3: left took over the liberals and now they're all a
Speaker 3: bunch of leftists. But it's really missing the point, and
Speaker 3: so many of them get lost in focusing. Unlike the
Speaker 3: intellectual history of wokeism and how you can trace it
Speaker 3: through the universities and what thinker said what, and you know,
Speaker 3: but really that's not the interesting component to wocism. The
Speaker 3: interesting component is what happened right around twenty twelve when
Speaker 3: every single giant corporate media apparatus decided they were all
Speaker 3: going to go all in on this stuff.
Speaker 4: And it was it was from the highest levels of power.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: You can look at those like Nexus charts where you
Speaker 3: track the words like racism and and you know, toxic
Speaker 3: masculinity and transgenderism, and they.
Speaker 4: All shoot up.
Speaker 3: And so the theory that like these kids got out
Speaker 3: of colleges and then got jobs in the corporations, well
Speaker 3: then you would expect like a slow increase, not like
Speaker 3: they didn't take over the New York Times in one year.
Speaker 4: So what's going on here?
Speaker 3: And then the more you look back at it, you realize, like, okay,
Speaker 3: like why are the CIA and the Federal Reserve pushing
Speaker 3: these commercials of like I'm a Latino with the anxiety
Speaker 3: disorder who's a single mom and I worked for the CIA.
Speaker 3: Like I don't think a college kid got in and
Speaker 3: took over the CIA, So what did happen. And what
Speaker 3: happened was after Barack Obama won his historic campaign in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight on the promise of ending the
Speaker 3: wars and closing Guantanamo Bay and repealing the George W.
Speaker 3: Bush error catastrophe, he went the other direction and expanded it.
Speaker 3: And so for his re election campaign, he couldn't say, Hey,
Speaker 3: remember how I said I was going to close Montanamo Bay.
Speaker 3: It's closed. Remember how I was going to end the wars. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: I expanded them. But but I'm for gay marriage, but
Speaker 3: I'm the f And so essentially what they did was
Speaker 3: in the in the wake of the occupy movement, they
Speaker 3: were like, hey, here's here's a Thaustian bargain for the left.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 4: Well, listen, we're not going to give you back. Listen.
Speaker 3: The banker bailouts are going to continue, the banker profits
Speaker 3: are going to continue, but we will send all of
Speaker 3: our white executives to diversity training.
Speaker 2: Right that. No, that's one hundred percent. And you know
Speaker 2: another and my colleague Ryan Graham has really like literally
Speaker 2: written the book on this. But another seminal moment is
Speaker 2: when you have Bernie Sanders, who represents especially in the
Speaker 2: you know, in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, this much more
Speaker 2: class focused and much less identity focused, true like leftist ideology,
Speaker 2: and he's rising in the polls, and he represents this
Speaker 2: threat to the you know, entrenched interest in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: And so what Hillary Clinton does, recognizing that this progressive
Speaker 2: movement is a senate in the party, she tries to
Speaker 2: out left him by saying, you know, if you break
Speaker 2: up the big banks, that's not going to end racism,
Speaker 2: that's not going to end sexism. And so she substitutes
Speaker 2: in these cultural identitarian concerns for the universal class based
Speaker 2: concerns that were represented by the Bernie Sanders movement. And
Speaker 2: by the way, it's kind of effective. You know, That's
Speaker 2: how you end up with Bernie Brose being to how
Speaker 2: they're sexist and they're racist and he doesn't care about
Speaker 2: civil rights and all of this stuff, and it works.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, because it's effective, he and much
Speaker 2: of the left, I think almost all of the left, frankly,
Speaker 2: the elected left at least, feel the need to also
Speaker 2: lean into this language and this worldview, etc. But it
Speaker 2: comes from the neoliberals and the corporate establishment that want
Speaker 2: to virtue signal and want to you know, want to
Speaker 2: block any sort of more extensive or more revolutionary type
Speaker 2: of reform. And that's where it really originates. So that
Speaker 2: has been something that has really frustrated me as well.
Speaker 2: And you know, and that's a good point and one last,
Speaker 2: one last thing on this and then it gets your reaction.
Speaker 2: But you know, you can see it now with how
Speaker 2: the corporations on a dime, they flip from their virtue
Speaker 2: signaling to like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg, I'm going to do
Speaker 2: content moderation in Austin. I'm gonna wear a big chang,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get into fighting, I'm gonna go on with
Speaker 2: with Joe Rowan. You know, you can see the way
Speaker 2: that they wore this as a convenience to meet the
Speaker 2: mom and then the minute the vibe shift is a oh,
Speaker 2: well we're done with that. We're going to be over here,
Speaker 2: you know, hanging out with Trump and his inauguration.
Speaker 4: Now, well, right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, of course, right, like so these giants, you know,
Speaker 3: because we live in such a globalized world and these
Speaker 3: are multinational corporations, so like you know, a lot of
Speaker 3: these corporations are in almost every country. Do you think
Speaker 3: they're they're flying the Pride flag in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you now, like, do they really believe in this stuff? No,
Speaker 4: they don't.
Speaker 3: This is pure and and of course, you know it's
Speaker 3: such a great example. You said that Bernie Sanders. Of course,
Speaker 3: those two Black Lives Matter girls who went up and
Speaker 3: took the microphone from him. And then every single time,
Speaker 3: you know, the accusation from Elizabeth Warren was, oh, he
Speaker 3: was sexist. Many years ago, they would always say the
Speaker 3: Bernie bros. Are sexist. This was always so like essentially,
Speaker 3: what it really was was a neoliberal takeover of the
Speaker 3: left using some leftist rhetoric. And so the focus because
Speaker 3: if you just think about it, right, the focus in
Speaker 3: the first let's say, ten years of the twenty first
Speaker 3: century from the left, like what were they protesting? Though
Speaker 3: they were protesting the war in Iraq, they were protesting
Speaker 3: the Patriot Act, and they were protesting the Banker baillouts.
Speaker 4: I mean, they had their eye on the prize.
Speaker 3: And like, I'm not a leftist, I probably wouldn't agree
Speaker 3: with a lot of their solutions. For well, I would
Speaker 3: with the war in Iraq, but I probably wouldn't agree
Speaker 3: with necessarily their solutions for the economic stuff. But at
Speaker 3: least they were focused on power. They were focused on
Speaker 3: the people who were actually screwing over the American people.
Speaker 3: And so of course, what do you want to do
Speaker 3: get them distracted? They love the powerful, love a distraction,
Speaker 3: especially a distraction that hits the people against each other.
Speaker 4: It's divide and conquer.
Speaker 3: It's really like the oldest propaganda that you can find.
Speaker 4: And you know, and.
Speaker 3: I'll just say this because I think it's particularly to
Speaker 3: say to you that the intellectual kind of background of
Speaker 3: the woke stuff, which i've just you know, I've read
Speaker 3: some of it. It's just it's a waste of time.
Speaker 3: Like it's like, look, that isn't leftism. That was one
Speaker 3: sliver of leftism. It was one school of thought on
Speaker 3: the left, and it is by far the worst. And
Speaker 3: if you really want to see somebody like tear apart
Speaker 3: the postmodernists, listen to Noam Chomsky do it. Nobody on
Speaker 3: the right has ever torn them apart better than that
Speaker 3: guy did. He just absolutely destroyed their entire worldview.
Speaker 4: And you know, there are great schools of thought on
Speaker 4: the left.
Speaker 3: I mean, like like Noom Chomsky is required to read
Speaker 3: it if you want to be like an educated person,
Speaker 3: you have to read his stuff. And I'm not an
Speaker 3: anarcho syndicalist. I don't agree with him on everything, but
Speaker 3: he's a brilliant mind and he's got like a real,
Speaker 3: you know, solid worldview and a way of looking at
Speaker 3: things that you can benefit from even if you don't
Speaker 3: agree with him. This other stuff, the postmodernists, they're just
Speaker 3: it's just garbage.
Speaker 4: It's nonsense. And so it's not as if like.
Speaker 3: That it was the worst school of leftism that they took.
Speaker 3: And again, I think that there is something about and
Speaker 3: I know this, like I'm you know, obviously I'm I'm
Speaker 3: known for being a libertarian, but I'm like, I'm a
Speaker 3: Jewish kid who grew up with a single mom in Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: New York. Like I understand the kind of liberal left worldview.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm from. Those people are my people. And
Speaker 3: there is something where it.
Speaker 4: Was like it it's.
Speaker 3: They find a way to play on your weaknesses in
Speaker 3: the same way they did to right wingers after nine
Speaker 3: to eleven, where.
Speaker 4: It's like what are you?
Speaker 3: Are you a wimp or you a big tough guy
Speaker 3: who wants to go f war to protect your country.
Speaker 3: That was just like kryptonite to right wingers. You couldn't
Speaker 3: fight that, you were like an evil person if you didn't.
Speaker 3: And the same thing with leftists with racism, you know,
Speaker 3: and for leftists it's like their Achilles heel. And I
Speaker 3: think they're kind of growing out of this now after
Speaker 3: the last few years. It was so abused, but understandably
Speaker 3: given our nation's history and the history of humanity. If
Speaker 3: you care about egalitarianism and you care about abuse of power,
Speaker 3: well what's always the worst version of that has always
Speaker 3: been how racial minorities are treated, and not just in
Speaker 3: our society, but particularly in our society, and so to
Speaker 3: be accused of being racist was always the thing that
Speaker 3: would make liberals and leftists go like, wooh no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: not me, I'm the opposite of that. That's what they
Speaker 3: It's their whole identity. And so once you weaponized that,
Speaker 3: and you could see it even with Bernie Sanders, how
Speaker 3: weak he was. Those two girls were so obnoxious and
Speaker 3: came up and stole his microphone in the middle of
Speaker 3: his rally where ten thousand people were there to see him,
Speaker 3: and he went, okay, okay, go ahead, and here's.
Speaker 2: And here's a guy who you know was genuinely like
Speaker 2: involved getting arrested in the civil rights movement and has
Speaker 2: a spotless record that you could put up against anyone
Speaker 2: when it comes to you know, racism, sexism, whatever. You
Speaker 2: want to say one last thing before we move on,
Speaker 2: because I want to get your reaction to these Tim
Speaker 2: Dillon clips. But on the woke right piece, it seems
Speaker 2: like a lot of what they're doing too is guilt
Speaker 2: by association, because you do genuinely have like overt anti
Speaker 2: Semites who are using the issue of Israel Palestine to
Speaker 2: you know, to ascend and they end up you know,
Speaker 2: backing some of the things that we back, but it
Speaker 2: does genuinely come out of anti semitone thinking of like
Speaker 2: the nick quentteses of the world, where it's like, you know, undeniable.
Speaker 2: And so it seems like part of what's going on
Speaker 2: here too is to say, well, since you support some
Speaker 2: of the same things that they support, aren't you also
Speaker 2: in anti Semite right.
Speaker 3: Which is like, you know, the worst argument ever is
Speaker 3: the most ridiculous non argument, Like you know, I think
Speaker 3: I told what I was arguing with Wilt Chamberlain online,
Speaker 3: which who I do like but is very bad on
Speaker 3: this issue. But he said something like, you have the
Speaker 3: same position as like the College you know, blue hair Gids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said you're like AOC and Code Pink or something. God,
Speaker 2: I mean, we should all aspire to be like Code Pink.
Speaker 2: By the way, they're very admirable and brave and courageous people.
Speaker 2: But anyway, go on.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, I mean, while I disagree with some of
Speaker 3: their tactics at times, from a strategic point of view,
Speaker 3: they're right about the wars objectively, and they've been right
Speaker 3: about them since the beginning.
Speaker 4: And unlike you know, so many of the fair.
Speaker 3: Weather liberals, what I respect about them is they didn't
Speaker 3: shut up during Obama. They're one of the few like
Speaker 3: leftist groups out there that was just as good under
Speaker 3: him as they were under George W.
Speaker 4: Bush. But what is it?
Speaker 3: First of all, AOC is not nearly as good as
Speaker 3: them or me on the issue.
Speaker 4: But correctly, what does it? What does this mean? I said?
Speaker 3: My response to him was, I was like, I know,
Speaker 3: and you're just like Stalin when it comes to the topic.
Speaker 4: Of Hitler, Like, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: So if you if I oppose the war in the
Speaker 3: invasion of Iraq in two thousand and three. I guess
Speaker 3: I'm on the same side as Saddam Hussein, but that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean anything, like what point does that prove? And
Speaker 3: the question is is the policy correct or incorrect? Not
Speaker 3: who you might agree with, I know. So it's all
Speaker 3: it's all just these and look, you know the thing
Speaker 3: that's kind of.
Speaker 2: About it, you know, David, I have to say, I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people operate that way where they
Speaker 2: look at like, oh, AOC thinks this. I have to
Speaker 2: think that, Oh Trump thinks this. I have to think that.
Speaker 2: I mean, unfortunately that I mean, that's what negative polarisation is. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2: I think that is how a lot of people operate politically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no question, I mean I think I think
Speaker 3: there's the in my opinion, the greatest living American hero
Speaker 3: and the greatest person ever run for president, Congressman doctor
Speaker 3: Ron Paul. I think he is single handedly a huge,
Speaker 3: huge factor on why the right wing went so non
Speaker 3: interventionist over the last few years, and a lot of
Speaker 3: it was because he was a Republican from Texas who's
Speaker 3: a very personally conservative guy, and he got on stage
Speaker 3: and said I oppose all of these wars, and right
Speaker 3: wingers would listen to him in a way that they
Speaker 3: just weren't going to listen to Michael Moore, like you
Speaker 3: should throw out a fat communist and tell me that's
Speaker 3: who I got a bit, I got to give up
Speaker 3: my entire identity in order to oppose these wars. And
Speaker 3: then here you have a country doctor telling you, like, no,
Speaker 3: you can keep your identity, you just can oppose the wars.
Speaker 3: And so there is powerful social psychology to that, and
Speaker 3: that's why people use these tactics. But intellectually it's completely bankrupt.
Speaker 3: It makes no sense whatsoever that we agree left wingers
Speaker 3: and right wingers agree on lots of things, that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean they're the same. And of course this tactic was
Speaker 3: this By the way, the same tactic is what was
Speaker 3: used on Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein when they were
Speaker 3: challenging the woke orthodoxy. They'd always be referred to as
Speaker 3: alt right adjacent, like as if they had anything to
Speaker 3: do with the fact that there were white nationalists, you know,
Speaker 3: in Charlottesville or something like that, because they're like one
Speaker 3: degree of separation where some of the people who like
Speaker 3: them might also listen.
Speaker 4: To their podcasts.
Speaker 3: But again, the game with the people who are calling
Speaker 3: people like me woke right is to do the exact
Speaker 3: same thing, to invoke the worst you know of the
Speaker 3: racialist jew haters online and then say that also represents
Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson or Daryl Cooper or me or whoever, and
Speaker 3: it's just not true. I mean, there is you know,
Speaker 3: there certainly are people who are Jew haters who oppose
Speaker 3: this war. We Israel and the neocons are giving them
Speaker 3: a lot to work with. They're handing them talking points
Speaker 3: every single day to basically help their recruitment efforts. But
Speaker 3: there is a huge and I believe much bigger percentage
Speaker 3: of the American people who just oppose this war because
Speaker 3: it's awful and it's not in our national interest to
Speaker 3: fund and arm the thing, and don't have any animosity
Speaker 3: toward Jews. So they know, Look, it's like it's always
Speaker 3: the same, It was the same when I debated Douglas Murray.
Speaker 3: They know they can't win the argument because it's indefensible
Speaker 3: on every level. Then so they always have to go
Speaker 3: to these these tactics. But the world Right one is
Speaker 3: particularly ridiculous.
Speaker 2: They go to sophistry, you know they go to like,
Speaker 2: you know, appeal to X. Oh you're not an authority,
Speaker 2: you couldn't know. I mean this is this has been
Speaker 2: a very effective tactic I think for years on Israel
Speaker 2: Palestine of like it's complicated, you just don't understand. And
Speaker 2: because the images have been so horrific and so constant
Speaker 2: and so undeniable, I think it has if you look
Speaker 2: at the polling of the American people, I take it
Speaker 2: has finally broken through, Like no, I am allowed to
Speaker 2: oppose the bombing of babies with my tax dollars and
Speaker 2: I don't need to know one hundred years of history
Speaker 2: to know that that's something that's wrong and that I
Speaker 2: oppose and do not want to be any part of.
Speaker 2: Let me go ahead and move to this Tim Dillon
Speaker 2: CNN interview because there are a couple of parts here
Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to that I think
Speaker 2: are interesting. So this is a long interview. I watched
Speaker 2: the whole thing yesterdays, about an hour long. They posted
Speaker 2: the whole thing uncut. The interviewer is a woman named
Speaker 2: el Reeves who became kind of famous for the documentary
Speaker 2: she did on Charlottesville when she was with Vice News.
Speaker 2: And so she asked him, Dylan, this question of whether
Speaker 2: he is part of a new establishment. Let's take a
Speaker 2: listen to that.
Speaker 7: Do you feel like you're part of a new establishment
Speaker 7: that's being created.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm part of a new establishment.
Speaker 7: I think it would be pretty difficult to look at
Speaker 7: these podcasts. I know it's a popular thing right now,
Speaker 7: especially in certain media circles, to say that after running
Speaker 7: an incredibly unpopular candidate who is introduced very late in
Speaker 7: the race, because an elderly man who could not be
Speaker 7: the president, who everyone told whose function is the president
Speaker 7: for four years? I don't think I'm a new establishment.
Speaker 7: If you weigh again a few comedians with podcasts verse
Speaker 7: all of the people that supported Kamala Harris, you know,
Speaker 7: Democrat Toner. There's billionaires, big people. If the idea is
Speaker 7: that me and a few comedians have more power than
Speaker 7: multi billionaires, huge media institutions, of whole political party apparatus,
Speaker 7: I just don't think most people are going to buy that.
Speaker 7: I think it seems like a great way to excuse
Speaker 7: running an unpopular candidate on a platform that American people
Speaker 7: weren't sold on.
Speaker 2: What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: Well, full disclosure. I loved him and he's a friend
Speaker 3: of mine. But there's I think Tim is right. I
Speaker 3: think there's a bit more to it than what he
Speaker 3: was saying. And I think that you know, it's almost like,
Speaker 3: you know, when you use this term the establishment, it's like, well,
Speaker 3: what are you really saying?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of like woke. It becomes like, you know,
Speaker 2: it can mean anything to anyone.
Speaker 3: So right, so in terms of the in terms of
Speaker 3: political power, like you know, okay, there are big shows
Speaker 3: that have big audiences, and so yeah, maybe you know,
Speaker 3: we just saw the sitting president of the United States
Speaker 3: kind of leverage that. It's kind of insane that every
Speaker 3: politician is not attempting to leverage that. But right, what
Speaker 3: Tim is saying about how you have Look, you have
Speaker 3: the three letter agencies, you have the Congress and the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court and the presidency, and you have huge gigantic
Speaker 3: news corporations, and you have Hollywood and academia.
Speaker 4: There are all these things.
Speaker 3: So yes, it is ridiculous to call theovonn the establishment.
Speaker 3: But the dynamic that what has happened is that the
Speaker 3: American people have lost all trust in every institution and
Speaker 3: so now they are flooding over to the podcast scene,
Speaker 3: and they have much more trust in those people because
Speaker 3: they're just real people. Like however you feel about Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan and theovone, they're just real people and they're just
Speaker 3: telling you how they feel about something, and they're sometimes
Speaker 3: they're spot on about that stuff. The point is that
Speaker 3: it's not that any of us are the new establishment.
Speaker 3: It's that the establishment lied through their freaking teeth over
Speaker 3: and over and over again to the American people, to
Speaker 3: the point that the American people just went, we don't
Speaker 3: believe a word you say anymore, and because it was
Speaker 3: they were intentionally lying to cover up their unbelievable levels
Speaker 3: of corruption. And again, like you could just rattle these
Speaker 3: things off, but like in the twenty first century, what
Speaker 3: has the establishment handed the American people? Okay, like they
Speaker 3: we got nine to eleven, which they did not protect
Speaker 3: us from. Then they lied us into war after war
Speaker 3: after war, each one being a catastrophe, lying us through
Speaker 3: the entire thing. I mean nineteen years in Afghanistan, they
Speaker 3: were saying, the army we're building up is doing a
Speaker 3: great job, and they're going to totally keep the Taliban
Speaker 3: down as soon as we leave, over and over, you know,
Speaker 3: like we were just going through the stuff with putin
Speaker 3: lie after lie after lie, the stuff. The way they
Speaker 3: screwed Bernie Sanders out of the nomination, just blatantly cheated
Speaker 3: against him. Then they just blatantly interfered in the election
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, you know, silencing people.
Speaker 4: The hunter Biden laptops.
Speaker 3: Killing that story after a year, you know, of locking
Speaker 3: the country down, which was kind of proven to be
Speaker 3: all based on pseudoscience from a virus that they freaking
Speaker 3: made themselves and then lied through their teeth about that
Speaker 3: so they could cover it up. Then they tried to,
Speaker 3: you know, tell us that this clearly senile man was like,
Speaker 3: how much do.
Speaker 4: You think you can lie? Oh?
Speaker 3: And by the way, there was a giant pedophile ring
Speaker 3: that is still redacted for national security purposes.
Speaker 4: Like what you know? But I like, what the hell? Like,
Speaker 4: it doesn't take that much.
Speaker 3: You don't have to be a super genius to look
Speaker 3: at this and go, I know what's going on here.
Speaker 3: You're all a bunch of corrupt liars. And I trust
Speaker 3: Theovonne and Joe Rogan more than I trust you know,
Speaker 3: Anderson Cooper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, I think there's I think that's a big
Speaker 2: piece of it. I think because that term establishment is
Speaker 2: so you know, up for grabs at this point point
Speaker 2: that it's easy for Tim Dillon in that moment to
Speaker 2: make her question look just like silly, like what you
Speaker 2: think I'm more powerful than the CIA? Get out here.
Speaker 2: But I also think he doesn't grapple with the way
Speaker 2: the world has changed in the way you're talking about,
Speaker 2: and also the fact, like, look, Republicans have the White House,
Speaker 2: the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court. There's been a
Speaker 2: huge cultural shift. You know, the podcast sphere that Tim
Speaker 2: Dillan is part of was you know, broadly supportive of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. The richest people in the world are behind
Speaker 2: the you know, the the MAGA movement at this point,
Speaker 2: they're all lined up behind him at the inauguration. Elon
Speaker 2: Musk is literally the richest person in the world and
Speaker 2: probably the second most powerful person, if not the most
Speaker 2: powerful person in the country. And so you know, if
Speaker 2: if that, if that grouping, if that ecosystem of power,
Speaker 2: doesn't represent some kind of establishment, then to me, the
Speaker 2: word is just completely meaningless. At this point, one saying
Speaker 2: like Tim Dillon or you or like you know, Theo
Speaker 2: vonn or Rogan or whatever, like the pinnacle of these
Speaker 2: noun but part of the ecosystem. Like if you are,
Speaker 2: you know, broadly in sort of that ecosystem, then I
Speaker 2: think it is fair to say, and I do think
Speaker 2: you're right that in part it's because the previous quote
Speaker 2: unquote establishment had so clearly failed that there's been you know,
Speaker 2: a kind of regrouping and an interest in alternative voices,
Speaker 2: certainly in terms of the media ecosystem.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I think that there's no question that there's
Speaker 4: kind of.
Speaker 3: Like like an upstart want to be new elite that
Speaker 3: have through their support behind Donald Trump, like they would
Speaker 3: like to be the ruling elite now, you know, and
Speaker 3: they're kind of like, hey, the Rockefellers and the Morgans,
Speaker 3: that their turn, and we'd like to be the new
Speaker 3: ruling elite. I don't know that they they certainly have
Speaker 3: a lot of wealth. I don't know that they've acquired
Speaker 3: that level of power, but I guess.
Speaker 2: Some of them are the same people, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean basis that you know, and now even Elon Musk,
Speaker 2: you know, was previously bestie's with Obama and now he's
Speaker 2: all in with Trump. And yes, Miriam Addales, like the
Speaker 2: you know, the Israel lobby is certainly bipartisan, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that is part of I was
Speaker 2: watching your coverage of I think you were talking about
Speaker 2: the crackdown on to set et cetera, and you were saying,
Speaker 2: you know, the new boss feels a lot like the
Speaker 2: old boss. And you know, I would say that the
Speaker 2: tactics deployed by the Trump administration are extraordinary and beyond
Speaker 2: what we've seen in the past. Just the overwhelming leveraging
Speaker 2: of the state, students being kidnapped off the street for
Speaker 2: writing out eds, et cetera. But I mean that also
Speaker 2: speaks to the fact that even though there was a
Speaker 2: revolutionary energy and a rhetorical challenge of the status quo
Speaker 2: that was represented by the Trump movement, like some of
Speaker 2: the pieces are too just you know, continued upholding of
Speaker 2: the status quo. And I would say, you know, as
Speaker 2: evidence of that, you know, another tax cut for the
Speaker 2: wealthy coming up in the you know, as a follow
Speaker 2: on to his tax cuts for the wealthy in the
Speaker 2: first administry. Again we have differences on e but you know,
Speaker 2: the Ukraine War is still going on. We still have
Speaker 2: saber rattling with Iran, we still have crushing of dissent
Speaker 2: in you know, an accelerated way, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and there's and obviously we're only you know,
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty days into
Speaker 3: this administration. And the big question that you just touched
Speaker 3: on is what's going to happen in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: And you know, it seems like they are moving forward
Speaker 3: with these plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza for the Israelis,
Speaker 3: which is just that is something that is not like
Speaker 3: the old boss.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a whole new step.
Speaker 3: I would say that, as with the term the woke right,
Speaker 3: it is every single person who they're smearing with that
Speaker 3: term are all the anti war people, all the people
Speaker 3: who are are non interventionist. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that leaving aside kind of the billionaire class who got
Speaker 3: behind Donald Trump or not. Obviously there were a lot
Speaker 3: of billionaires behind Kamala Harris as well, but those billionaires
Speaker 3: that did get behind Donald Trump, what I will say
Speaker 3: about the Kamete podcast sphere, which I do find to
Speaker 3: be pretty interesting, is that all of them, every last
Speaker 3: one of them, is anti war. And I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that that means that Donald Trump is anti war, or
Speaker 3: that they were right to support Donald Trump, or that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's administration will end up working out that way.
Speaker 3: But one of the things that is really interesting is, like, dude,
Speaker 3: I mean, you saw, I know you were talking about
Speaker 3: the other day theo Vane's recent moment where he's talking
Speaker 3: about the genocide in Gaza was really I thought it
Speaker 3: was really beautiful moment. And I mean, certainly, like Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan has been great on this issue, Tim Dillon is
Speaker 3: probably the best out there at just mocking the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I mean his bid about has Sam Harris has a
Speaker 3: meditation app and then supports bout it was like one
Speaker 3: of the funniest things I've ever seen. And so I
Speaker 3: think that one of the things that I think is
Speaker 3: really positive about this is that going forward, this is
Speaker 3: kind of the new standard, is that politicians are going
Speaker 3: to have to sit down for these unedited, unscripted long
Speaker 3: form conversations. I actually thought my good friend Andrew Schultz
Speaker 3: did a great job with Bernie Sanders the other day
Speaker 3: and got some really interesting moments out of him that,
Speaker 3: like I never Bernie Sanders in so many interviews in
Speaker 3: the last ten years, and I never saw anyone get
Speaker 3: some of the stuff that Andrew got out of him.
Speaker 3: I think the the Democrats and the left more broadly
Speaker 3: speaking are going to have to figure out how to
Speaker 3: play this game too. And I think and I think
Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders was good for him for going on and like.
Speaker 4: Attempting to do this.
Speaker 3: The thing is that it's gonna be It's it's the
Speaker 3: death of candidates like Kamala Harris. It's the death of
Speaker 3: candidates who require this extraordinary amount of protection so that
Speaker 3: you can never really see who they are. I think
Speaker 3: those days are gone, and I think that ultimately that's
Speaker 3: a huge net benefit.
Speaker 2: That's that's I think that's a fair point. I will
Speaker 2: say I'm more skeptical of the shift even as I am,
Speaker 2: you know, myself and this ecosys, because there doesn't see
Speaker 2: first of all, I mean, I think in terms rather
Speaker 2: than of individual people, of like the incentive structures, you know,
Speaker 2: corporate media and center structures like you know, whatever, the
Speaker 2: corporate boss's bottom line is upholding that, you know, making
Speaker 2: sure that you're maintaining your access, playing to your audience. Whatever.
Speaker 2: That audience is and in new media, the incentive structure
Speaker 2: is not really different. I mean, it's if anything, it
Speaker 2: exacerbates some of the worst elements because you see people
Speaker 2: become even more aggressively audience captured because there's more of
Speaker 2: a connection there. There's no wall between you and the
Speaker 2: advertisers whatsoever. So there's you know, that direct concern and
Speaker 2: there's still and you see this. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 2: you have in mind people as well who just want
Speaker 2: to suck up to the powers that be and do
Speaker 2: the propaganda for their audience, and all the incentives are
Speaker 2: aligned for them to do that. So I'm a little
Speaker 2: less I'm a little more wary of the shift. While
Speaker 2: being very cognizant of the failures of you know, legacy media,
Speaker 2: I'm also wary of the shift. And I also feel like,
Speaker 2: you know, I do think if you're going to have
Speaker 2: the president on the vice president on et cetera, even
Speaker 2: if you are a comedian, you do have some sort
Speaker 2: of responsibility to press them on. Okay, you say you're
Speaker 2: anti war, but here's what the track record was in
Speaker 2: the first administration, or well, then why are you taking
Speaker 2: all this money from Maria and medalson Like I think,
Speaker 2: I think there is a responsibility to do some of
Speaker 2: those that pushback in those interviews, even if you are
Speaker 2: not yourself a journalist, if you're giving someone who has
Speaker 2: huge power or aspires to huge power this tremendous platform.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't disagree, like I mean, as I'm sure
Speaker 3: you know, like, yeah, if I interviewed Donald Trump, it
Speaker 3: would be a different interview than like the interviews that
Speaker 3: some of my friends have done with them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That being said, you know, it's everything is compared to
Speaker 3: what it's not, you know, perfection versus what we have.
Speaker 3: It's would you rather have this happening honestly and end?
Speaker 3: Or would you rather be Theovonne and Joe Rogan? And
Speaker 3: I will say that while neither THEO or Joe gave
Speaker 3: Donald Trump like up pressing, you know, like interview, like
Speaker 3: they weren't grilling him, right, But I did think with
Speaker 3: THEO Vaughan, you saw a different side of Donald Trump
Speaker 3: than you've ever seen before. And I thought it was
Speaker 3: kind of fascinating in a way. Like the stuff him
Speaker 3: getting into, like his brother killing himself with alcohol and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, I actually thought was very interesting.
Speaker 4: And like you know, Donald Trump is such a weird guy, like.
Speaker 3: He's just however you feel about Donald Trump, he is
Speaker 3: the strangest freaking human being. And that like he doesn't
Speaker 3: speak like other people, he doesn't look like other people.
Speaker 3: He looked he's like a cartoon character. Like it's like
Speaker 3: you're watching the news and then a cartoon like Roger
Speaker 3: Rabbit or something. His skin color is different than everybody
Speaker 3: else's and so it was just kind of interesting to
Speaker 3: me to see that. And I will say that on
Speaker 3: the Joe Rogan interview, I actually thought that Joe Joe
Speaker 3: exposed something in Donald Trump when he asked him about
Speaker 3: the election that I think nobody else has been able to.
Speaker 3: And part of that is because it was a friendly
Speaker 3: environment and they were just having a conversation.
Speaker 4: And then when he gets to asking him.
Speaker 3: About the election, you saw that Donald Trump just really
Speaker 3: had nothing. He had no argument for why twenty twenty
Speaker 3: was stolen, and then he almost like kind of resorted
Speaker 3: to just laughing about it because he didn't have a
Speaker 3: real answer.
Speaker 4: So look, I'll I'll grant you that. And I remember
Speaker 4: I talked to.
Speaker 3: Mehdi Hassan about this once and he was basically saying
Speaker 3: the same thing. He was like, no, this is even
Speaker 3: worse than the corporate media because they're not just giving
Speaker 3: like puff interviews to Donald Trump. And I was like,
Speaker 3: how many CNN interviews has Donald Trump done? It's not
Speaker 3: doing anything like just ask it when CNN asked about
Speaker 3: the election. He's just gonna dunk on the CNN anchor
Speaker 3: and then that's gonna be his base. Is gonna love
Speaker 3: that at least now, you know, Yes, is audience capture
Speaker 3: a thing? Yeah, of course, but that's that's a lot
Speaker 3: better than corporate capture. I mean, at least you're be
Speaker 3: responsible to your audience and not some weapons.
Speaker 2: But I think it's corporate capture too. I mean again,
Speaker 2: like the advertisers all right there as well. I mean
Speaker 2: with the Rogan interview, you know, I just I think
Speaker 2: what people took away, what most people took away from
Speaker 2: that wasn't like, oh, he looked like a fool on
Speaker 2: the election denial stuff. It was at a time when
Speaker 2: he was being framed as extreme, and I think he
Speaker 2: is extreme. I think his actions in office this time
Speaker 2: have really proven he's even more extreme than I expected.
Speaker 2: He got to go on and like people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: he just seems like a normal guy. Like I think
Speaker 2: that's what most people took away from that. And Joe himself,
Speaker 2: when he previously didn't want to interview Trump because he
Speaker 2: didn't he said, I don't want to help him. You know,
Speaker 2: he recognized that there was power in giving someone three
Speaker 2: hours to just look like a normal, everyday guy. And
Speaker 2: so listen, I'm not I'm like, I'm not mad at
Speaker 2: any of these people for doing the interviews. I think
Speaker 2: it's a very difficult balance to strike all of that,
Speaker 2: But I do think that it would be better served
Speaker 2: having more pushback and that you know, at least in
Speaker 2: you know, in the corporate media structure, there is some
Speaker 2: sense of Okay, we've got to ask the tough question,
Speaker 2: we've got to be prepared for the follow up, etc.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, that's my concern about the direction
Speaker 2: we're going in. And you know, at least, let me
Speaker 2: give Trump the let me be charitable to him. He
Speaker 2: does all of those mainstream interviews too, right, So it's
Speaker 2: not like he's only but I think for a lot
Speaker 2: of politicians, and I see this because we have a
Speaker 2: lot of politicians who won't come on this show because
Speaker 2: they know we will ask them difficult questions. And I'm
Speaker 2: talking actually more about Democrats than Republicans. When you have
Speaker 2: an ecosystem set up where you know, you can just
Speaker 2: go and do an hour or two hours or three
Speaker 2: hours or whatever and not get asked really a single
Speaker 2: challenging question. Of course, most politicians, that's what they're going
Speaker 2: to gravitate towards, because that feels a lot more comfortable.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you know, when Joe changed his mind
Speaker 3: to have Donald Trump at the decision he made was
Speaker 3: that he was gonna have both of them on. And
Speaker 3: so one politician did not want to go into that environment.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I just look, I get your point,
Speaker 3: and you know, there's something to the whole thing, like
Speaker 3: it is, you know, it's it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that
Speaker 3: all of us are in the position that we're in.
Speaker 3: I don't mean you, I mean me and the comedians.
Speaker 3: It's it's ridiculous. But again it's like here we are
Speaker 3: like I don't know, you know, I mean, this is
Speaker 3: look if well.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right that the Democrats have to like this
Speaker 2: is the world that we live in now. And so
Speaker 2: we see Pete and you see Gavin. You see the
Speaker 2: ones who you know, were able to string together a
Speaker 2: few sentences going out there and trying to play in
Speaker 2: the pond.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, and the ones who aren't so incredibly insecure
Speaker 3: about their own corruption that they're terrified of being exposed.
Speaker 3: And you know, and and Gavin Newsom, is that, I
Speaker 3: think because he's a sociopath. But you know, Bernie Sanders,
Speaker 3: is that because he really believes in the stuff he's saying,
Speaker 3: or at least to some degree, more than most politicians.
Speaker 3: And but I think that, you know, really the the
Speaker 3: kind of lesson here for anybody who's like, you know,
Speaker 3: who doesn't like the way, say Joe Rogan interviewed Donald
Speaker 3: Trump or something.
Speaker 4: Like that, is that you know, they.
Speaker 3: Joe was pushed by the establishment toward Donald Trump in
Speaker 3: the most aggressive manner. I mean, they literally tried to
Speaker 3: ruin the guy, and they went after him on stuff
Speaker 3: that he was right about. I mean, like it's like
Speaker 3: he would if his doctor recommended he take iver mexic.
Speaker 4: He was right to take it.
Speaker 3: Like I don't know, the whole thing with iver mectin
Speaker 3: the reason why doctors recommend it is because it can't hurt.
Speaker 4: It's like it's a drug that really doesn't have any
Speaker 4: negative side effects.
Speaker 2: What you know, well kind of whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were a couple studies that seemed to indicate
Speaker 3: that if you take it early on, it might help
Speaker 3: with COVID, And then there were a bunch of other
Speaker 3: studies that kind of were like, now, it doesn't really
Speaker 3: seem to be doing anything, but a lot of doctors
Speaker 3: were like, well it can't hurt, so throw this in
Speaker 3: the cocktail as well. And then they they colored his
Speaker 3: face on CNN. They went this like vicious cancelation attempt
Speaker 3: against him. It's like, maybe don't do that to the
Speaker 3: guy with the biggest show. What were you think of?
Speaker 3: What was the game plan here, Brian Stelter, You thought
Speaker 3: you were gonna take Joe Rogan down? Like how removed
Speaker 3: from reality these people are? And so look, I hope
Speaker 3: I hope that shows like Breaking Points continue to grow.
Speaker 3: I hope it gets to a point where, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: like if if a presidential candidate had to go through
Speaker 3: Crystal and Sega in order to get to.
Speaker 4: The White House, I think that would be a great world.
Speaker 2: That's the world we all want to live in.
Speaker 3: Yes, And so we got to keep we gotta keep
Speaker 3: pushing forward with this, but that the corporate legacy media
Speaker 3: apparatus had to be destroyed in order for us to
Speaker 3: have any any chance of, yeah, replacing it with something better.
Speaker 2: I just hope what is built in its wake is better.
Speaker 2: And I'm concerned about that. Cashpitel and Dan Bongin now
Speaker 2: got quietquestion by Maria Bartiromo about Hey, like, what's going
Speaker 2: on with this Epstein situation? And it was pretty pretty
Speaker 2: interesting their responses. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 8: You said, Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don't believe it. Well,
Speaker 8: I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion.
Speaker 8: But as someone who has worked as a public defender,
Speaker 8: as a prosecutor, who's been in that prison system, who's
Speaker 8: been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing,
Speaker 8: you know a suicide when you see one, and that's
Speaker 8: what that was.
Speaker 2: He killed himself again, you want me to get I've
Speaker 2: seen the whole file. He killed himself.
Speaker 8: I know it's hard work.
Speaker 2: There you go, Dave case closed over. Nothing to see here.
Speaker 4: Well, I have no more questions, that's right, I mean,
Speaker 4: there you go.
Speaker 2: They answered every question you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 3: It doesn't It really doesn't help that. My co host
Speaker 3: Rob Bernstein is a very very funny comedian, a very
Speaker 3: bright guy. But he made this point the other day,
Speaker 3: but he's like, it's just their body language looks like
Speaker 3: it's like like a hostage tape or something like that.
Speaker 4: That doesn't really help.
Speaker 2: Look in Cashertel always looks like, I don't know, wild eyed.
Speaker 2: It's just there's always a look there where you're like,
Speaker 2: whoa buddy, relax, you.
Speaker 3: Know, agree, Yeah, his stiff and wide eyed for sure.
Speaker 3: But it's just the thing that was so pathetic about this,
Speaker 3: and they do it on a several different topics, is
Speaker 3: that this is just like, what is this? Trust me,
Speaker 3: I've been there, I'm a prosecutor seeing the file.
Speaker 4: It's not a thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, I'm gonna need a little bit more
Speaker 3: than that, particularly on you know, look, with Jeffrey Ebstein,
Speaker 3: like you never he was clearly like an intelligence asset
Speaker 3: or operative. And with these intelligence you know, operations, we're
Speaker 3: probably never going to get one hundred percent of the
Speaker 3: story and then we'll know everything. But we really do
Speaker 3: know enough with Jeffrey Ebstein to know that this was
Speaker 3: clearly some high level conspiracy. I mean, the guy is
Speaker 3: like he's he's teaching at Dalton with no background that
Speaker 3: would like lead to that. Then he's at bear Sterns,
Speaker 3: He's made partner within like a couple years, he's like,
Speaker 3: I think, a billionaire, and no one can trace where
Speaker 3: he made any of his money. That doesn't exist, like
Speaker 3: that never exists. And then he's he's caught, and we
Speaker 3: have the prosecutor on record saying I gave him a
Speaker 3: sweetheart deal because I was told by intelligence that he's
Speaker 3: connected to them. So then when he dies, he's in
Speaker 3: a secured prison and there's multiple camera failures. Like all
Speaker 3: I'm saying is like I don't even know if he
Speaker 3: did kill himself or didn't kill himself. I think perhaps
Speaker 3: he did under duress. Who knows. But the idea that
Speaker 3: you're just gonna be like now, looked at it. Nothing
Speaker 3: to see here when you, like your administration ran on
Speaker 3: the promise that you were gonna release this stuff and
Speaker 3: then made a whole spectacle about giving it to some influencers,
Speaker 3: and really you release nothing.
Speaker 4: It's just too ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I would just say, like to to the
Speaker 3: broader point, because this is like my number one you know,
Speaker 3: like theme right now with the Trump administration is that
Speaker 3: you know, as I was talking about before, like there
Speaker 3: have been there have been these very serious crimes committed
Speaker 3: by the government against the American people over the last
Speaker 3: few years, and whether this is with the health stuff
Speaker 3: or in terms of wars, in terms of like lockdowns,
Speaker 3: in all of these things, and the people who Donald
Speaker 3: Trump has put in, many of them, Bobby Kennedy, Toulcy Gabbard,
Speaker 3: Cash Pateel, Dan Bongino, Pete Hagsath, They've basically made a
Speaker 3: living and Donald Trump himself in calling out these crimes,
Speaker 3: and yet there is no move not to expose them,
Speaker 3: let alone hold people accountable. And I do think that
Speaker 3: there is gonna be like ultimately, and I think this
Speaker 3: kind of ties into the podcast or conversation. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm actually fairly optimistic, like see where this goes over
Speaker 3: the next few years. I don't think any of these
Speaker 3: people are just Trump sick ephants who are gonna love
Speaker 3: Donald Trump no matter what. And I do think that
Speaker 3: there's a realization universe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 3: I think I think a lot of people are obviously
Speaker 3: Trump has a cult like following, and there are those
Speaker 3: that will defend him no matter what, but there are
Speaker 3: a lot of people who are going to be like,
Speaker 3: oh no, this is this is BS.
Speaker 4: Like I'm sorry, you can't just come up here and
Speaker 4: tell me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know we stoked these flames about this obvious
Speaker 3: conspiracy for all of these years. But eh, got in there,
Speaker 3: looked at it. Nothing to see here, trust me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pathetic.
Speaker 2: Well, and I love when he's like, oh, I've seen
Speaker 2: the file, Okay, we'll show us the file, Like what
Speaker 2: was in that file? Tell us more, you know, like you.
Speaker 3: Just take you There's basic, basic, basic, basic questions about
Speaker 3: the Jeffrey Ebstein thing.
Speaker 4: Okay, just like the very basic ones.
Speaker 3: Okay, the prosecutor who's on record saying intelligence told me
Speaker 3: he was connected to us? Who told you that? Who
Speaker 3: was he connected to? Number two? Where did the tapes go?
Speaker 3: Forget release the files or the plane logs? Where are
Speaker 3: the tapes?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 3: And it's a little bit of a weird area because
Speaker 3: you know, you're talking about like child pornography, so like
Speaker 3: I'm not saying release the tapes, but like, is there
Speaker 3: one expert who goes through them or something?
Speaker 4: And like I don't know, but like.
Speaker 2: I want to know.
Speaker 3: I want to know who the adults are in that
Speaker 3: in that equation. And then you know, even if you're
Speaker 3: going to say this stuff about his death. Okay, so
Speaker 3: why did the cameras all go out right like explain
Speaker 3: those basic things to me and then we're talking. But
Speaker 3: don't tell me I've seen the files. You don't get
Speaker 3: to see him. There's nothing there.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know this is I never
Speaker 2: had any expectations about the Epstein files getting released under
Speaker 2: this administration because for one thing, look, Trump was a
Speaker 2: friend of him for years. I mean, Epstein claimed take
Speaker 2: it for what it's worth that they were bus runds
Speaker 2: for a decade. And Trump has always on the on JFK,
Speaker 2: was always like, yes, we're going to release the files.
Speaker 2: You know, on other UFOs, yes we're going to release
Speaker 2: the files. By the way that you know, the UFO
Speaker 2: one hasn't happened either, but the JFK one, we did
Speaker 2: get something. When it came to Epstein, he was always
Speaker 2: a little cag He was always like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, and we got to worry about people's privacy.
Speaker 2: And when Ghlaine when he was asked about Glaine Maxwell
Speaker 2: being in prison, he was like, I wish her well.
Speaker 2: So there was always a weird It was very strange
Speaker 2: there with Trump with regard to Epstein, which is why
Speaker 2: is not a surprise to me at all that we've
Speaker 2: gotten less than nothing. You know, the binders that they
Speaker 2: gave to the influencers had documents that were more redacted
Speaker 2: than what Gawker had released in like twenty fifteen. That's
Speaker 2: what we're talking about here. So that wasn't a surprise
Speaker 2: to be that we got nothing out of this administration
Speaker 2: with regard to him, because I mean, we know, like
Speaker 2: I'm not, you know, accusing Donald Trump if anything for Taylor,
Speaker 2: but we know they were associates. We know he was
Speaker 2: on the plane, we know that they were friendly in
Speaker 2: swimming in some of the same circles.
Speaker 3: And there's that one very very bizarre tape of Donald
Speaker 3: Trump where he's actually talking about how young Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 3: likes the girls. It's like the creepiest thing you've ever seen. So, yeah, look,
Speaker 3: I agree with you that. And then the obvious other
Speaker 3: elephant in the room is that you know it was
Speaker 3: Dan Bongino. I think he was on Tim Poole's show,
Speaker 3: but at one point he said that he was connected
Speaker 3: to Middle East intelligence.
Speaker 9: Oh I didn't know that Crystal, middle East Crystal. You
Speaker 9: know that she was sure he was probably Middle East. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: somewhere you know, the UAE or something like that. Right, right, right, exactly, yes,
Speaker 9: all of us. Where is that Katari money?
Speaker 3: By the way, But so you know, when you have
Speaker 3: this element too, and you have the most zionist you know,
Speaker 3: uh administration in American history. Yeah, I'm not holding my
Speaker 3: breath for them to release any real information about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, all right, Dave, Well, I will let you
Speaker 2: go at that. Thank you so much. It's been fun.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it, and you know, always appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Obviously we have like political ideological differences, but what I
Speaker 2: really appreciate is that you try to be honest and
Speaker 2: don't just didn't just turn into like a Trump sick
Speaker 2: of fant because you were, you know, more favorable towards
Speaker 2: him than Kamala Harris and it's a fairly red trait.
Speaker 2: So I really appreciate and respect.
Speaker 4: You for that.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much. And as I've said many times,
Speaker 3: I love breaking points. I watched the show every day
Speaker 3: and so thank you guys for everything you do.
Speaker 4: This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: All right, Good to see you. Take care, Dave. Israel
Speaker 2: is now going full mask off, genocidal ethnic cleansing, just
Speaker 2: announcing the most horrific plans you can imagine in public.
Speaker 2: Let's start with Israeli Finance Minister Bezial Oil Smotrich, who
Speaker 2: made some just outrageous, horrifying comments. Let's put this up
Speaker 2: on the screen that really exposes what their plans are here.
Speaker 2: You know we covered yesterday they've decided to let in
Speaker 2: this pitdling amount of aid, and he explains why. He
Speaker 2: gave a speech Monday defending Israel's strategy of mass devastation
Speaker 2: and Gaza, saying humanitarian aid is only being allowed in
Speaker 2: quote so the world does not stop us and accuse
Speaker 2: us of war crimes. The goal, he insisted, is to
Speaker 2: conquer Gasa clear and stay until that area is dismantled
Speaker 2: beyond recognition. We could put the next one up on
Speaker 2: the screen as well. Boasting of the scale of destruction,
Speaker 2: Smotritz said, we are dismantling Gaza, leaving it in ruins
Speaker 2: with unprecedented destruction and the world still hasn't stopped us.
Speaker 2: He also indicated that Trump and him and the Net
Speaker 2: Yahoo government are all sympatico with regards to what they
Speaker 2: want to happen in terms of a total ethnic cleansing
Speaker 2: of the Gaza Strip. He said, quote the population will
Speaker 2: reach the south of the Strip and from there God
Speaker 2: willing to third countries as part of President Trump's plan.
Speaker 2: So this is crucial context for understanding what is happening,
Speaker 2: for understanding how bb Netnyahu and Trump and the whole
Speaker 2: BB's terrorist extremist coalition, how they all are apparently completely
Speaker 2: aligned in their final solution, end goal. And it's also
Speaker 2: important for contextualizing this pitdling amount of aid that is
Speaker 2: being let into the Strip. And I'll have more on
Speaker 2: that in just a moment. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 2: bib Netnahu's comments up on the screen here as well,
Speaker 2: which echo what's Mootrich was saying. He says, the Gaza
Speaker 2: aid scheme offers Israel symbolic cover to finish the genocide.
Speaker 2: This is reporting from dropside quote drop site. We're going
Speaker 2: to take control of all the Gaza Strip, bb valwed
Speaker 2: Monday in a video released by his Office announcing that
Speaker 2: Israel would begin delivering minimal humanitarian aid, food and medicine only.
Speaker 2: Net Yahoo claimed to an international pressure, including from pro Israel,
Speaker 2: Republican senators and the White House, required the appearance of
Speaker 2: humanitarian intervention. Put the next piece up on the screen
Speaker 2: here as well, so we can see this joint statement
Speaker 2: from the leaders of the UK, France and Canada, which
Speaker 2: is pretty extraordinary in terms of the pressure that net
Speaker 2: nyahoo is now responding to. We strongly oppose the expansion
Speaker 2: of Israel's military operations in Gaza. The level of human
Speaker 2: suffering in Gaza is intolerable. Yesterday's announcement that Israel will
Speaker 2: allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inaccurate.
Speaker 2: They say, we condemned the abhorrent language used recently by
Speaker 2: members of the Israeli government. That's like Smotrich what I
Speaker 2: just showed you, threatening that, in their despair at the
Speaker 2: destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent force
Speaker 2: displacement is a breach of international law. And so for
Speaker 2: these nations to be we'll see if they follow through,
Speaker 2: we'll see what happens. But for these nations to be
Speaker 2: threatening some real potential sanctions on Israel for their continued
Speaker 2: genocidal atrocities in the Gaza Strip. Is a significant development,
Speaker 2: and in fact drop site also reported on the fact
Speaker 2: that the EU is going to review Israel's trade packed
Speaker 2: over human rights violations in Gaza. That trade pack grants
Speaker 2: Israel terror free access to most of the EU market,
Speaker 2: It enables joint work in research, innovation, and security. It
Speaker 2: requires respect for human rights and democratic principles as a
Speaker 2: core element. So this is some of the pressure that
Speaker 2: Natanyahu is responding to by allowing in this absolutely pathetically
Speaker 2: inadequate amount of aid, thinking that will give them cover
Speaker 2: to continue their genocidal assault and effectuate their and Trump's
Speaker 2: shared goal of completely ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip, pushing
Speaker 2: Palestinians out to third countries. We've seen there been reports
Speaker 2: on discussions with some of those third countries to know,
Speaker 2: to push them to take in Palestinians. This has long
Speaker 2: been the parent goal. Now it's just being overtly stated
Speaker 2: to create so much misery and suffering and death and
Speaker 2: starvation in the Gaza Strip that Palestinians would be pressured
Speaker 2: to flee the area and allow Israel to totally annex
Speaker 2: it and take it over. So let's talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about the quote unquote humanitarian aid being allowed in.
Speaker 2: Put the next piece up on the screen. As of yesterday,
Speaker 2: five trucks, five trucks of aid had entered the Gaza
Speaker 2: Strip at a time when more than two million people
Speaker 2: were not sure how many Palestinians still remain in the
Speaker 2: Gaza Strip after all of this horror and death. Are
Speaker 2: living under siege, the majority suffering from famine and malnutrition.
Speaker 2: The entry of the trucks was purely formal and media driven,
Speaker 2: aimed at polishing the image rather than providing relief to
Speaker 2: the starving and afflicted. Put the Al Jazeera tear sheet
Speaker 2: up on the screen. Necks. That provides a little bit
Speaker 2: more information. First trickle of eight and three months after
Speaker 2: Israel allows limited food into Gaza. By the way, there
Speaker 2: were also some indications that okay, five trucks or so
Speaker 2: have entered, and some of those trucks did not even
Speaker 2: contain food. Is the indication you read you a little
Speaker 2: bit from this article from Al Jazeera. Un Aide chief
Speaker 2: Tom Fletcher on Monday said Israeli authories had cleared nine
Speaker 2: they say aid trucks to enter Gaza through the Karam
Speaker 2: abou Sealm crossing known as Karam Shalom in Israel, calling
Speaker 2: it a drop in the ocean when so many more
Speaker 2: supplies are needed to address a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
Speaker 2: Figure is far short of the more than five hundred
Speaker 2: trucks that entered Gaza daily before the start of the
Speaker 2: war in October twenty twenty three. Food security experts last
Speaker 2: week warned of famine amid accusations that Israel is using
Speaker 2: starvation as a weapon of war. Quote. Significantly more aid
Speaker 2: must be allowed into Gaza starting tomorrow morning. The numbers
Speaker 2: I've seen are that what really needs to enter is
Speaker 2: roughly one thousand trucks per day to sufficiently feed the population. Obviously,
Speaker 2: five trucks, nine trucks is utterly pathetic and meaningless, and
Speaker 2: you know, truly backs up this idea that the Israeli
Speaker 2: government is just trying to provide some sort of a
Speaker 2: show so that they can continue their war crimes unimpeded.
Speaker 2: We also know over the past several days it has
Speaker 2: been one of the most horrifically bloody times. Hundreds of
Speaker 2: Palestinians killed just in the past several days. As Israel
Speaker 2: has renewed their onslaught in Gaza. People are being forcibly
Speaker 2: relocated once again again. And uh, you know, the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: after making some noises about oh maybe we'll maybe we'll
Speaker 2: garner a ceasefire and securing the release of the American
Speaker 2: Israeli idea of soldiery down Alexander who had been taken
Speaker 2: by Hamas. After securing that release, it seems like they're,
Speaker 2: you know, allowing bb All systems go to do whatever
Speaker 2: he wants to do. So that's where things stand today.
Speaker 2: Truly dire and horrific circumstance, and at least as of today,
Speaker 2: appears that Trump, Smotrich and bbnat Noaho all on the
Speaker 2: same plan with what they want to accomplish in the
Speaker 2: Gaza strip. All right, there's another story I wanted to
Speaker 2: get to here, some updates with regard to the Trump
Speaker 2: Administration's deportation policies. The Trump administration has announced that they
Speaker 2: are charging a sitting Member of Congress Lamonica Mackiver after
Speaker 2: an incident involving ICE agents outside of a facility in Newark,
Speaker 2: New Jersey. That they are using for immigrant detention. So
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and put this announce up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is from US Attorney Alena Haba. She says she
Speaker 2: is going to dismiss misdemeanor tres passing charges against Mayor
Speaker 2: Ross Baraka invites him to toward the ICE facility. However,
Speaker 2: she says she is going to pursue assault charges against
Speaker 2: Lamanica machiv Leave this up on a screen for a second.
Speaker 2: I'll just read a little bit of that. She says,
Speaker 2: Representative Lamanica MacIvor assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement
Speaker 2: in violation of Title eighteen US Code, Section eleven a one.
Speaker 2: This conduct cannot be overlooked by the chief federal law
Speaker 2: enforcement official in the statement New Jersey, and it is
Speaker 2: my constitutional obligation to ensure our federal law enforcement is
Speaker 2: protected when executing their duties. We also have a statement
Speaker 2: from Representative Mackivor on these charges, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: as of last night, had not yet been officially filed,
Speaker 2: but are expected to be filed. She said. Earlier this month,
Speaker 2: I joined my colleagues to inspect the treatment of ICE
Speaker 2: detainees at Delaney Hall in my district. We were our
Speaker 2: lawful oversight responsibilities, as members of Congress have done many
Speaker 2: times before, and our visit should have been peaceful. In short, instead,
Speaker 2: ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they
Speaker 2: chose to arrest Mayor Baraka. The charges against me are
Speaker 2: purely political. They mischaracterized and distort my actions, and are
Speaker 2: meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight. This administration will
Speaker 2: never stop me from working for the people in our
Speaker 2: district and standing up for what is right. I'm thankful
Speaker 2: for the outpouring of support I've received, and I look
Speaker 2: forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court.
Speaker 2: This type of a charge, if they do in fact
Speaker 2: move forward with it, could result in prison time for
Speaker 2: this sitting member of Congress. So this all goes back
Speaker 2: to an incident that we covered. I actually got to
Speaker 2: interview the mayor of Newark about what unfolded. The Mayor
Speaker 2: of Newark, alongside three Congressional representatives representing New Jersey, arrived
Speaker 2: at this facility that ICE is being used over the
Speaker 2: objections of the city. By the way, the city is
Speaker 2: suing ICE over the use of this facility, claiming they
Speaker 2: don't have the proper permitting. So in any case, these
Speaker 2: three members of Congress and the mayor decided to go
Speaker 2: and attempt to perform an inspection of the facility. Now,
Speaker 2: there's legislation that was passed during the first Trump administration
Speaker 2: that allows members of Congress to conduct surprise inspections without
Speaker 2: requiring any sort of prior authorization of any DHS used facility.
Speaker 2: So they were well within their legal rights to conduct
Speaker 2: that oversight. The mayor, however's not included in that legal provision.
Speaker 2: So when he shows up, he's allowed to be on
Speaker 2: the property for some period of time, he said, roughly
Speaker 2: an hour. Then the agents there said, okay, you have
Speaker 2: to go. He exits the facility onto public property, and
Speaker 2: then he's there for a while, and then he starts
Speaker 2: to get word that they are going to come and
Speaker 2: arrest him for alleged trespassing. That is when a very
Speaker 2: chaotic scene unfolded as these massed agents of the state
Speaker 2: attempted and eventually did arrest the mayor of Newark for
Speaker 2: this alleged trespassing. And now by the way, that charge
Speaker 2: has been dropped. There was a rush of the crowd
Speaker 2: and the agents were struggling to get a hold of
Speaker 2: the mayor. And that is when the state is claiming,
Speaker 2: when this government is claiming that Representative McIvor quote unquote
Speaker 2: assaulted an ICE agents. So let's go ahead and take
Speaker 2: a look at the video. This is from DHS. This
Speaker 2: is some of the body camera footage. The woman in
Speaker 2: the red blazer here is representative of mcivory. You can
Speaker 2: see she's being pushed by the crowd at one point.
Speaker 2: This is I think what they're really pinning it on
Speaker 2: her elbow there makes some contact with one of these
Speaker 2: masked agents of the state, and they are claiming this
Speaker 2: represents assault. I mean, it won't surprise you that very much.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, I think that she is right that
Speaker 2: this is blatantly political and his attempt to frighten other
Speaker 2: members of Congress from conducting oversight and from opposing this
Speaker 2: administration's deportation policies. Overall, we know also that this administration
Speaker 2: has threatened those not just memory of Congress, but anyone
Speaker 2: who opposes their deportation policies as potentially providing material aid
Speaker 2: to terrorist organizations. Seb Gorka, who is this administration's counter
Speaker 2: terrors are, has floated that so This is a dramatic
Speaker 2: escalation and as I said, could theoretically, if she was
Speaker 2: found guilty, result in Representative MacIvor being held in you know,
Speaker 2: having to serve a prison sentence for some period of time.
Speaker 2: So huge escalation here from the Trump administration, something they
Speaker 2: have been threatening. You know. Tom Homan has been out
Speaker 2: there also threatening AOC and others over their seminars that
Speaker 2: they've given allowing immigrants to know their rights if they
Speaker 2: are faced with, you know, if a nice agent shows up,
Speaker 2: if they are faced with potential deportation. He has also
Speaker 2: threatened representatives before with pursuing legal action against them, and
Speaker 2: the Trump administration has also lifted a previous guideline that
Speaker 2: required an escalation sort of up the chain of the
Speaker 2: DOJ in order to charge elected officials, so they have
Speaker 2: taken those protections off. So this is something they've been
Speaker 2: telegraphing for a while, and in this incident they've found
Speaker 2: their opportunity and the perfect excuse to go after Democratic
Speaker 2: members of Congress. At the same time, there's a lot
Speaker 2: unfolding in the courts that I want to update you
Speaker 2: on going in both directions. So let's put this first
Speaker 2: piece up on the screen. The Supreme Court yesterday lifted
Speaker 2: a block on deportations of Venezuelans who'd been given protected
Speaker 2: status under the Biden administration. Let me just read you
Speaker 2: a little bit from this article. So, the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: on Monday let the Trump administration for now remove protections
Speaker 2: from nearly three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelan immigrants who
Speaker 2: had been allowed to remain in the US without risk
Speaker 2: of deportation under a programming program known as Temporary Protected Status.
Speaker 2: The Court's brief order was unsigned, gave no reasons, which
Speaker 2: is typical when the Justices rule on emergency applications. No
Speaker 2: vote count was listed, although Justice Katanji Bran Jackson noted
Speaker 2: she would have denied the administration's request. The Justices announced
Speaker 2: they would allow the Trump administration to end the protections
Speaker 2: pending appeal of the case, potentially allowing the administration to
Speaker 2: move ahead with deportations. The Justice also appear to suggest
Speaker 2: that some of the Venezuelans who had been able to
Speaker 2: receive documentation of their legal status before the Trump administration
Speaker 2: terminated the program could sue to challenge their deportations. In
Speaker 2: a separate case, the Justices on Friday criticized the Trump
Speaker 2: administration for seeking to provide only a day's warning to
Speaker 2: a different group of Venezuelan immigrants in Texas that had
Speaker 2: been trying to deport under the Expansive Powers of the
Speaker 2: Alien Enemies Act. So with regards to this particular court ruling,
Speaker 2: they effectively sent it back to the lower courts, but
Speaker 2: they lifted the nationwide injunction that would have protected these
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelan immigrants who had been
Speaker 2: granted temporary protected status under the Biden administration. They've lifted
Speaker 2: that nationwide injunction, so they are now subject to deportation.
Speaker 2: Now they can go to the court and seek recourse there,
Speaker 2: and there are already cases that are making their way
Speaker 2: through the courts. So this isn't fully resolved at this point,
Speaker 2: but a significant win for the Trump administration when you're
Speaker 2: talking about hundreds of thousands of people who now have
Speaker 2: been stripped of their legal status that had been granted
Speaker 2: by the prior administration and could be subject to deportation,
Speaker 2: So significant win there for them. That article can put
Speaker 2: the next piece up on the screen referenced another decision
Speaker 2: that came on Friday, in which the Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 2: seven to two to further enjoin the government from summarily
Speaker 2: deporting alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. The
Speaker 2: government did not give enough notice, and the Fifth Circuit
Speaker 2: aired in refusing to provide relief. According to the justices,
Speaker 2: so this is a seven to two decision. This has
Speaker 2: to do, as noted, with the invocation of the Alien
Speaker 2: Enemies Act and what sort of process is due to
Speaker 2: migrants who are the administration is attempting to deport under
Speaker 2: that act. So you'll re call that the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: ruled unanimously that they had to provide due process, and
Speaker 2: I believe the language of that original ruling was that
Speaker 2: they had to give them quote unquote reasonable notice. Well,
Speaker 2: the Trump administration interpreted that as twenty four hours. Twenty
Speaker 2: four hours is reasonable notice in their opinion, in order
Speaker 2: to allow you to find a lawyer and gather your
Speaker 2: your arguments and file your habeast petition. The Supreme Court here,
Speaker 2: in assemned to two ruling, is saying no, No, that
Speaker 2: is not reasonable notice. That is not sufficient and is
Speaker 2: not consistent with the ruling that we had issued previously.
Speaker 2: Now I would say they should have anticipated that this administration,
Speaker 2: given how bad faith they've been and how defiant they've
Speaker 2: been on any number of court orders, would seek to
Speaker 2: interpret their ruling in the most narrow and most bad
Speaker 2: faith way imaginable, which is exactly what they did and
Speaker 2: have laid out from the start what exactly that due
Speaker 2: process should look like and what sort of time frame
Speaker 2: we're talking about. They didn't do that. But now we
Speaker 2: have additional ruling from the Supreme Court saying okay, twenty
Speaker 2: four hours, that ain't it. It's got to be longer
Speaker 2: than twenty four hours. Has a significant setback from the
Speaker 2: courts on that one. And I will tell you there
Speaker 2: were so many Republicans who were really going wild after
Speaker 2: that decision and saying, effectively, it doesn't matter, we don't care,
Speaker 2: just ignore the courts, full on calling for outright defiance
Speaker 2: of what the Supreme Court had to say on this
Speaker 2: one because they didn't like the decision and the direction
Speaker 2: that it went in. A couple more just quick updates here.
Speaker 2: One is, let's put this up on the screen. Those
Speaker 2: thousand dollars self deportation deals that the Trump administration has
Speaker 2: been offering the first flight of those has left. So
Speaker 2: immigrants who decided to avail themselves of this deal, they
Speaker 2: have now been on a charter flight and dozens of
Speaker 2: them took off from Houston early Monday. Those are some
Speaker 2: of the incentives that have been offered for people to
Speaker 2: quote unquote self deport I think this is actually an
Speaker 2: important part of the Trump administration policy because they have
Speaker 2: been unable to effectuate their actual mass deportation on the
Speaker 2: level and scale that they would want to see and
Speaker 2: that their boss hardcore supporters would want to see. Instead,
Speaker 2: they've been doing these, you know, outrageous spectacle spectacles of cruelty,
Speaker 2: like the deportation of people to this foreign gulag and
Speaker 2: El Salvador with no due process as one example, or
Speaker 2: get Mo or using the military flights potentially exploring a
Speaker 2: similar situation with Libya. So this is an important part
Speaker 2: of their program to try to actually achieve the mass
Speaker 2: deportations of their dreams and the other part of it,
Speaker 2: but this last piece up on the screen. The Republican
Speaker 2: budget would make ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement
Speaker 2: component in the history of the US, bigger than the FBI,
Speaker 2: with a larger budget for detention than the entire Federal
Speaker 2: Bureau of Prisons. So currently they may not have the
Speaker 2: resources to do their full mass deportation, but they are
Speaker 2: working on changing that rapidly. Very excited to be joined
Speaker 2: this morning by John Lyle. He is a history professor
Speaker 2: at the University of Texas, but more importantly for our
Speaker 2: purposes this morning, he is the author of a brand
Speaker 2: new book on the history of mk ultra. Was going
Speaker 2: to put that up on the screen book jacket Project
Speaker 2: mind Control, Sydney got leave the CIA and the Tragedy
Speaker 2: of mk Ultra and John joins us.
Speaker 10: Now, great to have you, welcome, Thank you, thanks for
Speaker 10: having me. I'm excited to talk about this. It's a
Speaker 10: wild story to say the least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, so give us like, let's start from
Speaker 2: the beginning. What is the context, the geopolitical context in
Speaker 2: which mk ultra is launching, and just give people a
Speaker 2: little reminder of what this was all about.
Speaker 10: Yes, So mk Ultra was this CIA's project to determine
Speaker 10: whether mind control is possible. Is it possible to give
Speaker 10: someone a drug that might be used as a truth
Speaker 10: serum and an interrogation to get them to tell the truth.
Speaker 10: Is it possible to control someone's behaviors and beliefs. That
Speaker 10: was the kind of the goal of mk Ultra. And
Speaker 10: the reason this started in nineteen fifty three is because
Speaker 10: right at the end of World War II, especially after
Speaker 10: the development of the atomic bomb, proximity fuses, radar science
Speaker 10: was starting to be seen as integral, integral to national security.
Speaker 10: And during the Korean War there were several American POWs
Speaker 10: who were captured and they confess to things that they
Speaker 10: didn't do. They confessed to conducting biological warfare against Korea,
Speaker 10: dropping anthrax and typhus and cholera and bubonic plague. And
Speaker 10: the question within the CIA was why are they confessing
Speaker 10: to these false charges against them? And one concern was
Speaker 10: that perhaps the Communists have developed some method of mind control,
Speaker 10: whether it be hypnosis or drugs, and so if that
Speaker 10: were possible, the CIA wanted to determine how can we
Speaker 10: defend against that, or how can we offensively use something
Speaker 10: like that. The mind control might be the next arms race,
Speaker 10: and we want to stay ahead of the Communists. Therefore,
Speaker 10: we're going to start this program mk Ultra to see
Speaker 10: what we can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it seems like they really took this as
Speaker 2: like an existential threat. You know, it kind of reminds
Speaker 2: me actually a little bit of the way that our
Speaker 2: government talks about AI now, where there's this sort of
Speaker 2: like AI development race in the sense that whichever country
Speaker 2: between US and China wins the AI race is going
Speaker 2: to own the future and own the future of warfare
Speaker 2: as well. So talk a little bit about how that
Speaker 2: sort of existential mindset informed the extreme and wildly unethical
Speaker 2: nature of the experiments, the human experiments that they conducted.
Speaker 10: Here pretty quickly within mk ULTRA, one of the main
Speaker 10: drugs that they started using was LSD. It had been
Speaker 10: discovered in nineteen thirty eight, but then really realized what
Speaker 10: it was in nineteen forty three. So it was a
Speaker 10: pretty new drug and extremely potent. And the existential part
Speaker 10: especially came with LSD because it's such a powerful hallucinogen
Speaker 10: and so such a finite dose can have such a
Speaker 10: profound effect. They'll worry was that if some foreign power
Speaker 10: wanted to dose a city's water supply, let's say, with LSD,
Speaker 10: maybe they wouldn't need that much of it. And so
Speaker 10: that was the concern about the existential threat and why
Speaker 10: mk Ultra went to the links it did in many
Speaker 10: cases to determine whether that would work. Some of the
Speaker 10: things that mk Eltra was involved in was dosing unwitting
Speaker 10: people with LSD to see how they would react. Again,
Speaker 10: because if the Soviets, let's say, were to dose a
Speaker 10: city with LSD, we want to know how to defend
Speaker 10: against that and how to deal with people who have
Speaker 10: been surreptitiously dosed with this drug. So Mkultra personnel like
Speaker 10: Sidney Gottlieb, the head of the program, he would dose
Speaker 10: unwitting people with LSD to monitor their behaviors to determine
Speaker 10: what kind of effects this would have on them. This,
Speaker 10: in several cases led to tragic consequences. The most famous
Speaker 10: person whom this happened to was Frank Olsen, who was
Speaker 10: dosed with LSD at a retreat with Sydney Gottlieb, and
Speaker 10: he ended up kind of having a psychotic break. His
Speaker 10: wife didn't understand what his mind state was after that,
Speaker 10: and a few days later he jumps out of a
Speaker 10: hotel window and dies.
Speaker 2: So are you of the opinion that he did jump
Speaker 2: out of that window, because there is some dispute, including
Speaker 2: from the family who had his body exhumed and further
Speaker 2: analysis indicated he may have had blunt force trauma before
Speaker 2: he ended up out of the window. And you know,
Speaker 2: at the time, he wasn't just some random, unwitting subject.
Speaker 2: He was one of them and knew a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, the secrets of what they were doing, all
Speaker 2: these you know, sensitive national security information. So I know
Speaker 2: there's long been skepticism about the you know, the events
Speaker 2: surrounding his death.
Speaker 4: Yes, there has been.
Speaker 10: In fact, Frank Olsen's own son, Eric Olsen, is one
Speaker 10: of the main proponents of the idea that his father
Speaker 10: was murdered by the CIA potentially because Frank Olsen was
Speaker 10: involved in what was called the airborne distribution of pathogens.
Speaker 10: How is it possible to create weapons that we can use,
Speaker 10: you know, anthrax or germ bombs, and how is that
Speaker 10: going to spread in the air. That's what Frank Olsen
Speaker 10: was working on. And so Eric Olson and some others
Speaker 10: who were up the opinion that he was murdered think
Speaker 10: that maybe Frank Olsen started to have moral compunctions about
Speaker 10: what he was doing and maybe he was going to
Speaker 10: expose it, and so the CIA had to get him
Speaker 10: out of the way, and so they threw him out
Speaker 10: of this hotel window. I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 10: In fact, you mentioned that they had his body exhumed
Speaker 10: and analyzed to determine whether there was this blunt force trauma.
Speaker 10: David Stars led that process, and he did determine that
Speaker 10: he thought there might have been some blunt force trauma
Speaker 10: before Frank Olson went out the window. However, there were
Speaker 10: several people on Stars's team who negated that conclusion and
Speaker 10: said that Stars was someone who kind of sought the
Speaker 10: spotlight and made things a little bit more sensational than
Speaker 10: we would have, and so we don't think that's the case.
Speaker 10: In fact, they said they thought it was consistent with
Speaker 10: his head hitting the window on the way out. So
Speaker 10: I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that Frank Olson was murdered.
Speaker 10: There are several other people who were victims of MK
Speaker 10: ultra who had very similar symptoms to him. They've been
Speaker 10: dosed unwittingly with LSD and they ended up in psychiatric
Speaker 10: institutions for the rest of their life. So I think
Speaker 10: it's more likely that he had that same kind of
Speaker 10: psychotic break that several other people who are victims of
Speaker 10: this did as well.
Speaker 2: So what was your motivation to write the book. Now,
Speaker 2: I know there were newly discovered documents depositions that really
Speaker 2: got to the heart of some of the inner thinkings
Speaker 2: of people like Sidney GOTTLIEB. So talk about a little
Speaker 2: bit of what's new on what you were able to
Speaker 2: uncover here.
Speaker 10: Yeah, thank you, because that's the really exciting part of
Speaker 10: this book is the fact that the basis for it
Speaker 10: is these depositions I found as part of a lawsuit
Speaker 10: in the nineteen eighties, there were several victims of mk
Speaker 10: ultra who sued the CIA. That lawsuit was eventually settled
Speaker 10: out of court, but as part of the lawsuit, the
Speaker 10: lawyers representing the plaintiffs, Joseph Row James Turner, famous civil
Speaker 10: rights attorneys, they took the depositions of dozens of people
Speaker 10: who were involved in this case, dozens of the perpetrators
Speaker 10: like Sidney gottlie Of, Robert Lashbrook, Richard Helms, the head
Speaker 10: of the CIA, eventually and they took several depositions of
Speaker 10: the victims of mk ultra. Since this lawsuit was settled
Speaker 10: out of court, the depositions just kind of stayed in
Speaker 10: the papers of Joseph Row until he passed away, and
Speaker 10: those were donated to the Library of Congress, and I
Speaker 10: was rooting around in there and I happened to find
Speaker 10: these depositions, thousands of pages of verbatim transcript of him
Speaker 10: asking the perpetrators and victims of MK Ultra what they did,
Speaker 10: what they went through. So it's so exciting for a
Speaker 10: historian because I can actually use dialogue now because I
Speaker 10: have dialogue between these attorneys and these depponents. And usually
Speaker 10: in fiction you get to invent dialogue. In history, you
Speaker 10: don't invent dialogue, and so you can't really have that
Speaker 10: exciting part of getting into the heads of the characters
Speaker 10: as well. But now with these depositions, that's exactly what
Speaker 10: I have. So that was one of the main catalysts
Speaker 10: for wanting to write this book. I had so many
Speaker 10: great verbatim transcripts, thousands of pages. In fact, Sidney Gottlieb's
Speaker 10: transcripts of his depositions run to over eight hundred pages alone,
Speaker 10: So I have eight hundred pages of him talking about
Speaker 10: exactly what he did.
Speaker 2: What do you think is the cultural legacy of MK Ultra?
Speaker 2: And I mean, I just was thinking about I know
Speaker 2: this is something you've thought about as well. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of wild conspiracy theories out there at this particulars.
Speaker 2: I think this happens anytime there's sort of a breakdown
Speaker 2: and institutional trust. So when you look back at our
Speaker 2: own history and you look at the government doing things
Speaker 2: like this, it's like, oh, well, I mean, you can't
Speaker 2: put anything past them. They'll do wild, you know, mind
Speaker 2: control experiments to try to create assassin animals, and you know,
Speaker 2: and try to mind control random unwitting subjects. You know,
Speaker 2: prostitutes dosing their clients and even some of their own,
Speaker 2: you know, specialists getting unwittingly dosed, et cetera. So it's
Speaker 2: hard to put anything past them when you have such
Speaker 2: an incredibly wild and proven conspiracy that is lurking in
Speaker 2: the background.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's such a good point
Speaker 10: because mk Ultra really opens the door for a lot
Speaker 10: of conspiracy theorists to latch onto it for a few
Speaker 10: reasons and to say, oh, well, if the CIA was
Speaker 10: doing something so crazy in the past and so patently unethical.
Speaker 10: In fact, the CIA's own Inspector General in nineteen sixty
Speaker 10: three said that this was illegal and unethical. So that's
Speaker 10: coming from the CIA itself. So the fact that the
Speaker 10: CIA did something like that, it leads the conspiracy theorists
Speaker 10: to say, if they did that, what else must they
Speaker 10: be doing today? And there are a few reasons why
Speaker 10: m k Ultra in particular is suited towards this kind
Speaker 10: of conspiratorial thinking. One reason, like you just mentioned, is
Speaker 10: because it is just so absurd that it opens the
Speaker 10: door for any possibilities. The other is because in nineteen
Speaker 10: seventy three, Sidney Gottlieb, the head of this program, he
Speaker 10: retired from the CIA, as well as Richard Helms, the
Speaker 10: Director of Central Intelligence, and they decided when they retired
Speaker 10: to destroy the mk ultra files, at least most of them.
Speaker 10: They didn't get all of them. There were thousands of
Speaker 10: pages that still survived. But the act of that destruction,
Speaker 10: the fact that they incinerated these files, really opened a
Speaker 10: Pandora's box because now anyone can say, well, we can't
Speaker 10: know exactly what mk ultra was in total, because we
Speaker 10: don't have those files. Therefore, maybe they were doing this,
Speaker 10: or maybe they were doing that. The fact that we
Speaker 10: don't have those files really opens the Pandora box for
Speaker 10: anyone filling in the record with their wildest imagination, and
Speaker 10: that has led a lot of conspiracy theorists to argue that, well,
Speaker 10: maybe mk Ultra was involved in traffic king children, or
Speaker 10: maybe it was controlling celebrities like Britney Spears. Now that
Speaker 10: the Pandora's box is open, because those files are destroyed,
Speaker 10: anyone can say anything about the program. However, I don't
Speaker 10: think that's a great mode of argument because it's kind
Speaker 10: of ironic. But we almost know more about mk Ultra
Speaker 10: than almost any other secret project. It seems counterintuitive because
Speaker 10: a lot of these files were destroyed, but we have
Speaker 10: so many files and sources on mk ULTRA. We have
Speaker 10: thousands that actually survived. We have the memoirs and interviews
Speaker 10: of people who were involved in this. We have thousands
Speaker 10: of pages of depositions that I found. We have institutional
Speaker 10: records that have been released since, we have government reports.
Speaker 10: We have the Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, Pike Committees, these
Speaker 10: congressional and executive committees that were set up in nineteen
Speaker 10: seventy four and five to investigate these past abuses. So
Speaker 10: we have so much material about mk ULTRA. I actually
Speaker 10: think that we can know a good deal of what
Speaker 10: it was, and even better, we can know so much
Speaker 10: about it that we can know what it wasn't, and
Speaker 10: it wasn't something that trafficked and child sex slaves or
Speaker 10: whatever the conspiracy theorists are saying.
Speaker 2: And tell people where they can find the book.
Speaker 10: I think you can find it in bookstores wherever you know,
Speaker 10: hopefully at any good bookstore it'll be there. You can
Speaker 10: find it online, and I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 2: Thanks, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for taking
Speaker 2: the time to join us. All right, guys that we'll
Speaker 2: do it for me here today. Thanks again to day
Speaker 2: Smith for hanging out with me today. Enjoyed that and
Speaker 2: hearing his thoughts on all the things. Emily and Ryan
Speaker 2: will be in for the non counterpoints. Counterpoints tomorrow and
Speaker 2: I'll be back with Ryan on Thursday. Until then, have
Speaker 2: a great day.