Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 4: All right, good morning here, welcome the Counterpoints. I'm all
Speaker 4: alone in this spacious studio here in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: Emily is joining us from our London bureau. Emily, tell
Speaker 4: us what you're doing in London?
Speaker 3: How you doing?
Speaker 5: That's right, Well, it's my second weekend unheard, so I'm
Speaker 5: hanging out here with the team in London getting to
Speaker 5: know everyone. But it was a good week to be
Speaker 5: in Europe because of the fallout from the EU election.
Speaker 5: Cyber and Crystal have done a great job covering it.
Speaker 5: But it has been fascinating to sort of see a
Speaker 5: lot of it play out here in London. But we
Speaker 5: have domestically so much on the docket for today's show,
Speaker 5: and actually also and the guest that you have us
Speaker 5: booked with today. I just it will be an incredible conversation,
Speaker 5: no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'll be interesting.
Speaker 4: We're going to talk to Shabaz Gil who used to
Speaker 4: serve as chief of staff to Imran Khan. He was
Speaker 4: famously over there in Pakistani, was famously arrested there, tortured,
Speaker 4: was able to get out of the tension, escape the country.
Speaker 3: He's here in the United States.
Speaker 4: He's going to update us on some of the transnational
Speaker 4: repression that's going on between the United States and Pakistan here. Obviously,
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about the Hunter Biden conviction yesterday.
Speaker 4: We also on Monday, we had Lauren Windsor on the
Speaker 4: show's Democratic Activists and journalists who did the undercover audio
Speaker 4: of Alito and Roberts. She also has audio of Alito's wife,
Speaker 4: which is.
Speaker 3: Kind of funny.
Speaker 4: At minimum, I think everybody across the spectrum can agree
Speaker 4: it's that it's funny.
Speaker 3: So we'll talk about that.
Speaker 4: Israel and Hamas are both kind of dueling over who
Speaker 4: has accepted the ceasefire deal.
Speaker 3: They're both each is saying that they've basically.
Speaker 4: That their opponents have rejected it, but their opponents are
Speaker 4: saying they've accepted. It's completely confusing, but we're going to
Speaker 4: untaggle all the latest of that.
Speaker 3: On that question.
Speaker 4: Sean Fain is now facing threats basically from this independent
Speaker 4: monitor connected to the Department of Justice.
Speaker 3: We can unpack some of that. Emily.
Speaker 4: Fox News kind of stepped in it with this Jeffrey
Speaker 4: Epstein Donald Trump question, didn't they Yeah.
Speaker 6: They really did.
Speaker 5: They edited part of an answer out and then uploaded
Speaker 5: the full answer. So either that's a defensive Fox or
Speaker 5: an argument against the sort of journalism behind this question.
Speaker 6: So we'll get to that.
Speaker 5: Because Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein's relationship too, well,
Speaker 5: everyone in the corridors of power remains extremely relevant. And
Speaker 5: on that note, our Friday show, we are going to
Speaker 5: be having a back and forth with orn Cass of
Speaker 5: America Compass. He's recently been profiled as like the man
Speaker 5: turning the Republican Party populist, trying to turn the Republican
Speaker 5: Party populist. So Ryan and I think have some good
Speaker 5: points of contrast to bring out with orin so we're
Speaker 5: looking forward to a good conversation. Make sure to subscribe
Speaker 5: to Breaking Points premium for an early version of that
Speaker 5: show on Thursday evening.
Speaker 3: Yes indeed, so let's talk about Hunter Biden.
Speaker 4: So Hunter Biden yesterday in rapid fashion, so fast that
Speaker 4: reporters and Hunter's family were not even able to get
Speaker 4: into the courtroom in time to kind of see the verdict.
Speaker 4: That's how quickly the jury was able to come to
Speaker 4: the conclusion that he was guilty of three felony charges
Speaker 4: connected to basically illegal possession of a weapon lying on
Speaker 4: lying on his background check information as something grime.
Speaker 3: What did Matt Gates call it? Kind of stupid?
Speaker 4: Basically basically on the form and I want to hear
Speaker 4: your reaction to this. On the form it says are
Speaker 4: you Are you using drugs? Grammatically just a mess of
Speaker 4: a question. And I pointed this out at the time,
Speaker 4: and Hunter Biden actually did use the defense that I
Speaker 4: sort of jokingly provided, which was that he wasn't using
Speaker 4: drugs at the time like this, because the forum says
Speaker 4: are you using drugs? And what so Hunter said, not
Speaker 4: only am I not using drugs at this very moment.
Speaker 4: What Hunter had said is that he was going in
Speaker 4: and out of bouts of sobriety. And then relapse during
Speaker 4: this period. And so if you are an addict, if
Speaker 4: you're somebody that has serious problems, a lot of times
Speaker 4: you might say, look, a week's sober, and I'm never
Speaker 4: gonna drink again. I'm never gonna do drugs again the
Speaker 4: rest of my life. And if so somebody asked you
Speaker 4: at that moment, are you using, you would say no, honestly,
Speaker 4: that night you might use. So were you lying? Then
Speaker 4: it's like a very philosophical question. The jury didn't take
Speaker 4: long to debate the question, though, and found him just
Speaker 4: straight up guilty.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, I mean, I think what
Speaker 5: they read into this is a lack of sincerity. I mean,
Speaker 5: there's diary, or there's entries in the laptop, there's parts
Speaker 5: of his own book that are so in such close
Speaker 5: proximity to the day that he signed in the form
Speaker 5: that said, I mean he had Abay Lowell, he had
Speaker 5: sort of brought out the And again, this is the
Speaker 5: state of Delaware, a very friendly state for the Biden,
Speaker 5: so it's a friendly jury, and they.
Speaker 6: Had this addiction defense.
Speaker 5: So I was actually fairly surprised by how quickly they
Speaker 5: returned this results. One of the more interesting elements was
Speaker 5: flagged in playbook this morning. They noted a source actually
Speaker 5: told them on the dem side it would have been
Speaker 5: worse if he had been found not guilty for the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four campaign, simply because that would have fed
Speaker 5: into the broader narrative being pushed.
Speaker 6: And I think it's a correct narrative, and I think
Speaker 6: it still.
Speaker 5: Stands that Hunter Biden is being unduly protected by the
Speaker 5: Department of Justice. And the reason that is still my
Speaker 5: big takeaway from this case is the gun charge is
Speaker 5: by far and away the safest charge that Hunter Biden
Speaker 5: could have been hit with.
Speaker 6: We've seen this defense. You mentioned Matt Gates.
Speaker 5: We've seen Thomas Massey talk about this that you know,
Speaker 5: of all the things in the world to charge Hunter
Speaker 5: Biden with, he's still by this Department of Justice has
Speaker 5: not been charged with a PHARAH violation despite the fact
Speaker 5: that he did not register for his work with Barisma
Speaker 5: and other clients that.
Speaker 6: Is a felony.
Speaker 5: He has the DOJ slow walked to the point where
Speaker 5: the statute of limitations expired on felony tax violations.
Speaker 6: He actually didn't.
Speaker 5: Pay taxes on income the year that he was taking
Speaker 5: money from Barisma, and other foreign clients, a much more
Speaker 5: serious charge. And again they slow walked. The whistleblowers have
Speaker 5: talked about this, but the DOJ and under the Biden administration,
Speaker 5: slow walked the investigation to the point where the statute
Speaker 5: of limitations on more serious charges expired. And he still
Speaker 5: hasn't been hit with a Phara violation. He could still
Speaker 5: be hit with a fair of violation. But there's i mean,
Speaker 5: from his own book, from the laptop, there's just blatantly
Speaker 5: obvious evidence. It is plain as day that they should
Speaker 5: charge him with a fair of violation. They charged Palamanno
Speaker 5: fort and if they don't hit him with a FARO violation,
Speaker 5: that pretty much tells you what you need to know.
Speaker 5: But we already know that they slow walked to the
Speaker 5: statute of limitations and the other tax charges expired. It's
Speaker 5: happening under his father's DOJ. So it does look bad,
Speaker 5: and I think, frankly it is bad.
Speaker 4: And the defense from his camp about why he shouldn't
Speaker 4: be charged as a foreign agent is kind of amusing,
Speaker 4: and it basically goes, he didn't actually do any work,
Speaker 4: you know, he took money from these foreign entities, like
Speaker 4: he doesn't deny that, but then he just put that
Speaker 4: money right up his nose and didn't actually, yeah, he
Speaker 4: used his name to get the money, but he did
Speaker 4: not use his name to then exert any influence in Washington.
Speaker 4: He just went to skid roll and he went to
Speaker 4: Vegas and traveled the country and did what. You can
Speaker 4: find out what he did if you want to search
Speaker 4: or Rita's memoir even and very little of that involved
Speaker 4: like actual influence. Pedly now, it probably wouldn't be too
Speaker 4: hard for him to find some small thing that he did.
Speaker 4: And obviously during this period of his life, he's not
Speaker 4: a big one for paperwork. The fact that he didn't
Speaker 4: file any taxes for many years in a row means that, like,
Speaker 4: if you're not filing your taxes, you're probably not filing
Speaker 4: any of your lobbying paperwork either whether he's lot, whether
Speaker 4: he's lobbying or not. It does seem like there's credible
Speaker 4: potential for some jail time, some prison time here. What's
Speaker 4: your guess, what's your sense of whether or not he'll
Speaker 4: actually go to some minimum security federal prison as a
Speaker 4: result of this.
Speaker 6: It's a really good question.
Speaker 5: And when also, I mean, does it play out during
Speaker 5: the election. I think is a very interesting question as well.
Speaker 5: I'm guessing I think you're right. I think you're right
Speaker 5: that he'll probably get some minimal amount of time in
Speaker 5: a minimal security prison. He might not, though, I think
Speaker 5: this is what isn't this his first time fell in
Speaker 5: the actual conviction. He hasn't been convicted of anything before,
Speaker 5: so that's helpful obviously.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I saw some statistics in Glenn Thrush's article
Speaker 4: in New York Times. It's something like eight percent of
Speaker 4: people charged with this the same crime don't get any
Speaker 4: prison time, but ninety two percent due This is also
Speaker 4: an unusual case to charge in the sense that.
Speaker 3: Two things.
Speaker 4: One the gun was not used in the commission of
Speaker 4: a crime, and two the person is now sober. So
Speaker 4: in most cases, like federal prosecutors who would come across
Speaker 4: this kind of thing would say, given these other circumstances,
Speaker 4: we're not going to go with this. However, this is
Speaker 4: and in fact, they basically got to a deal where
Speaker 4: he wasn't going to serve any prison time, you know,
Speaker 4: if you remember months ago. But then it blew up
Speaker 4: in front of in front of the judge. The judge
Speaker 4: was questioning different versi of it. Hunter's team wanted, you know,
Speaker 4: future administrations not to be able to have any you know,
Speaker 4: say over kind of the implementation of his sentence, and
Speaker 4: you know, the whole thing blew up in the courtroom,
Speaker 4: and so she threw out the plea deal, and that's
Speaker 4: why it ended up going to trial rather than getting
Speaker 4: pled out, like I think most of these, uh, most
Speaker 4: of these would otherwise.
Speaker 3: It does. Your answer.
Speaker 4: Brought to mind Trump as well, when when you were saying, like,
Speaker 4: this is the the cheapest, silliest, like lamest thing that
Speaker 4: you could convict the person for, when there are all
Speaker 4: these other more substantial things that are either coming down
Speaker 4: the pike or could be thrown at him, and it right,
Speaker 4: It reminded me of Trump and and the prosecution in
Speaker 4: New York, where it's like, okay, yeah, clearly guilty of that.
Speaker 4: And and like Hunter, Hunter is clearly guilty. He did
Speaker 4: the thing, he filled out the form, he had the gun.
Speaker 4: He was, you know, using drugs. We know that because
Speaker 4: he's he talks about it, and he's he brags about
Speaker 4: it on his you know, on that on that laptop.
Speaker 4: But I think you're right. Compared to the more systemic things.
Speaker 4: It is small, and I wonder if there's just there's
Speaker 4: just something about our system that just has such a
Speaker 4: hard time going after itself. Like it it's fine nibbling
Speaker 4: around the edges, but like going right.
Speaker 3: For the part of it, it's.
Speaker 4: Just much much more difficult. Do you think, well, we've
Speaker 4: seen the last of this. The prosecutors are saying they
Speaker 4: still have some tax charges that they could launch, even
Speaker 4: if they're not, even if some of them have expired.
Speaker 3: Do you expect we're going to see more of this?
Speaker 5: Well, he is facing charges in California. He's likely to
Speaker 5: appeal this decision, so it's tax charges in California, and
Speaker 5: he's probably going to appeal the decision that was just made.
Speaker 5: So I think it's going to continue to play out.
Speaker 5: And one of the key differences, to your point, it
Speaker 5: is an interesting point. One of the key differences I
Speaker 5: think with Trump is that we've seen everything thrown at
Speaker 5: the wall with Trump, which we've talked about. I mean,
Speaker 5: when you have the Document's case, when you have the
Speaker 5: January sixth charges and you're talking about the hush money
Speaker 5: to the porn star, it's like, you know, they really
Speaker 5: were throwing they were doing to throw everything at the
Speaker 5: wall and see what sticks strategy, whereas with Hunter Biden,
Speaker 5: this is so far the thing that Weiss has charged
Speaker 5: him with. And you know, he even tried to do
Speaker 5: a plea deal that the judge was like, well, hold
Speaker 5: on last summer, the judge was like, are you the prosecutor?
Speaker 6: What kind of prosecutor would do? It was such a sweetheart.
Speaker 5: Deal that the judge in this very unusual moment had
Speaker 5: to be like, wait a second, what's going on here?
Speaker 5: Because what Wyss's attempted to prosecute just didn't make sense
Speaker 5: from the perspective of like the government prosecuting a case.
Speaker 5: So I would say that that to me seems to
Speaker 5: be a significant difference between between Trump and Hunter.
Speaker 6: That said, we.
Speaker 5: Talked in our debate segment last week with Will Chamberlain that,
Speaker 5: as he said, Republicans are planning to do the throw
Speaker 5: everything at the wall and see what sticks strategy if
Speaker 5: Donald Trump is elected.
Speaker 6: I think he had something where.
Speaker 5: He was like, watch out, because it's it's coming right
Speaker 5: back in that direction.
Speaker 6: If Donald Trump wins, we.
Speaker 3: Can put up a two here.
Speaker 4: President Joe Biden has said that he has no plans
Speaker 4: to pardon Hunter Biden. He said, you know, I'm the president,
Speaker 4: but I'm also a father. He's proud of his son.
Speaker 4: He wants to be there for him. I wonder how
Speaker 4: true that is if if Biden does lose reelection in November,
Speaker 4: I think most of the country would expect him on
Speaker 4: the way out to pardon his son. I think the
Speaker 4: entire country would forgive him at that point for.
Speaker 3: Doing so, just on a human level.
Speaker 4: Like I think most people would almost think it was
Speaker 4: kind of cruel and callous if a parent had the
Speaker 4: opportunity on their way out to pardon their son and
Speaker 4: didn't take it be almost weird.
Speaker 5: Like Bill Clinton and his brother. Am I remembering that
Speaker 5: it was a Bill Clinton's brook?
Speaker 3: Did he? Yeah?
Speaker 4: That was Roger Clinton, which is a fascinating story. Like
Speaker 4: Bill Clinton was informed when he was governor of Arkansas
Speaker 4: that his brother was under investigation for selling small amounts
Speaker 4: of crack uh in.
Speaker 3: Order to feed his habit.
Speaker 4: And basically the head of the police in Arkansas said,
Speaker 4: what do you want me to do about this?
Speaker 7: Boss?
Speaker 4: And according to Clinton, and this hasn't been challenged by anybody,
Speaker 4: he said, just you know, treated how you would you
Speaker 4: know anybody else? And he ended up going to prison. Uh,
Speaker 4: Roger Clinton did I assume he. I don't know the
Speaker 4: exact story of what, you know, what he what he
Speaker 4: ended up doing towards the end, but he did he
Speaker 4: did serve some time. So yeah, we'll see and I well,
Speaker 4: you know, so Hunter's Hunter's best bet at this point
Speaker 4: for avoiding jail time would be his dad losing perhaps
Speaker 4: in November.
Speaker 5: Well, and yeah, that was the interesting thing I read
Speaker 5: into the playbook quote from that source today is that, actually,
Speaker 5: I think the Biden campaign has realized that if they
Speaker 5: can make Trump look over zealous in going after an
Speaker 5: addict who's been treated fairly by the justice system, you know,
Speaker 5: actually that if there's this appearance of fairness that he
Speaker 5: was prosecuted, did the time, and Trump continues to you know,
Speaker 5: attack this addict, then the Biden campaign SE's you know,
Speaker 5: sort of an upside in it.
Speaker 6: And it does. I just looked this up while we
Speaker 6: were talking.
Speaker 5: Rotric Clinton was pardoned for that nineteen eighty five cocaine
Speaker 5: possession and it was drug trafficking before Clinton left office.
Speaker 6: You know. It's also worth noting that the country basically
Speaker 6: gave for gave Ford for.
Speaker 5: Pardoning Nixon, even though it was really controversial at the time,
Speaker 5: like very controversial at the time.
Speaker 6: I think Biden would be safe with a pardon for Hunter.
Speaker 4: Speaking of messy family members, let's move on to Martha Analito.
Speaker 4: So on on Monday the over here bringing points, Lauren
Speaker 4: Windsor released this, uh, this undercover audio that she had
Speaker 4: taken of John Roberts and Samuel Samuel Alito at the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court Historical Society.
Speaker 3: Gala about a week ago.
Speaker 4: She also had she also had a conversation that evening
Speaker 4: with Martha and Alito, his wife obviously less newsworthy in
Speaker 4: the sense that she is not a lifetime appointed to
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court. But there's some there's some tea leaves
Speaker 4: that you can you can read in these comments from her.
Speaker 4: They might have implications for whether or not Alito is
Speaker 4: thinking about retiring. But there's also there's a lot, a
Speaker 4: lot more to unpack here. Let's let's roll a little
Speaker 4: bit of Alito, missus Alito and MS Windsor.
Speaker 3: Why do you think they're coming after you?
Speaker 8: I mean, like the whole like appeal to have head
Speaker 8: and Flagg was like bullshit, right right, But that's you
Speaker 8: know the other thing is that them not used to
Speaker 8: believe that he should control me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we'll go to Hell who never controls me.
Speaker 6: You know what I want? I want a.
Speaker 8: Sacred Heart of Jesus' flag because I have to look
Speaker 8: across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next
Speaker 8: month exactly. And he's like, oh, please, don't put up
Speaker 8: a flag.
Speaker 7: I said, I won't do.
Speaker 8: It because I'm deferring to you. But when you were
Speaker 8: free of this nonsense, I'm putting it up. And I'm
Speaker 8: going to send them a message every day, maybe every week.
Speaker 8: I'll be changing the flags. They'll be all kind of
Speaker 8: I made a flag in my head. This is how
Speaker 8: I satisfy myself. I made a flag. It's white and
Speaker 8: it's yellow and orange flames around it, and in the
Speaker 8: middle is the word vigonia. Virgonia in Italian means shame,
Speaker 8: virgonia v e r g o g n a vergonia, shame, shame,
Speaker 8: shame of you, you.
Speaker 4: Know, Okay, the shame the shame flag to counteract the
Speaker 4: Pride flag.
Speaker 3: Clever. Very interesting.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 4: The part that jumped out of me is potentially newsworthy.
Speaker 3: Where she said, when you're done with all this nonsense.
Speaker 4: And she made a couple of references in the conversation
Speaker 4: about a post Supreme Court life for the Alitos, which
Speaker 4: would suggest to me that if Trump is re elected,
Speaker 4: he's he's in his he's well well into his seventies.
Speaker 3: Now I can google this.
Speaker 4: I think he's like seventy four or something, that that
Speaker 4: he would be looking at retirement under a potential Trump administration.
Speaker 7: Is that?
Speaker 3: What is that what you read from that?
Speaker 4: And is that the kind of kind of conventional wisdom
Speaker 4: in conservative circles that that if Trump is elected, Thomas
Speaker 4: an Alito in particular, who are you know getting up
Speaker 4: there might might see their way to greener pastures real.
Speaker 6: Time fact check, you nailed his age.
Speaker 5: It's exactly seventy four years of age. You hear it
Speaker 5: in consertive circles. You definitely hear more about Clarence Thomas,
Speaker 5: because you know, I think, let me look up his
Speaker 5: age really quickly. I think he's actually older than Alito is,
Speaker 5: and here we go, he's seventy five yees, so they're
Speaker 5: both a similar age.
Speaker 6: But what's concerning to conservatives.
Speaker 5: Right now especially is that they can't they feel as
Speaker 5: though they can't trust Amy Coney, Barrett and Neil Gorsich
Speaker 5: and Brett Kavanaugh because there's a real big difference. You know,
Speaker 5: there's obviously a big difference between the members of the
Speaker 5: GOP appointed members of the Court and the dumb appointed
Speaker 5: members of the Court. But there's a huge rift within
Speaker 5: the GOP members of the GOP appointed members of the Court,
Speaker 5: between Thomas and Alino, Kavanaugh, Gorsich and Barrett. In and
Speaker 5: of itself, that's something that really worries a lot of
Speaker 5: people on the right. And I actually hadn't seen people
Speaker 5: pick up. People on the right pick up on what
Speaker 5: you did, Ryan, which is that she said, when we're
Speaker 5: through with this all of this nonsense. It also shows
Speaker 5: that he was really not pleased with the flag business.
Speaker 5: In all likelihood, it doesn't prove that definitively, but it
Speaker 5: seemed to have been an issue between the two of
Speaker 5: them when Martha and said, you know, he didn't think
Speaker 5: it was a good idea to put the plant flag up,
Speaker 5: and be like, please don't put the flag up. I
Speaker 5: will add Lauren Windsor is exceptionally good at this, better
Speaker 5: than anyone in Project Veritas Is Roderer had an interesting
Speaker 5: columns You a Christian writer this morning saying he changed
Speaker 5: his mind on Project Veritas stuff over the years and
Speaker 5: doesn't like what Lauren Windsor did because he feels like
Speaker 5: it really blurs the distinction between public and private such
Speaker 5: that people don't feel as though they can speak honestly
Speaker 5: with friends, etc. That's a different question, I think, but
Speaker 5: I found it interesting. I do think also one of
Speaker 5: the risks of doing this type of journalism with Alito
Speaker 5: in particular, the Alito recordings in particular, is that sometimes
Speaker 5: people are just trying to get out of conversations. Doesn't
Speaker 5: mean that it's not newsworthy, but sometimes it's like, did
Speaker 5: he really He was even kind of going back and
Speaker 5: forth on what he said about whether you can quote
Speaker 5: split the difference in his own audio. My personal take
Speaker 5: on all of this is that they're Catholics, and we
Speaker 5: probably disagree on this Ryan, but you know, they're talking
Speaker 5: like fairly orthodox Catholics do, and we know that they're
Speaker 5: fairly orthodox Catholics, so there's.
Speaker 6: Nothing too shocking.
Speaker 5: I always think what they say, you know, if you
Speaker 5: have audio of what they're saying, it's newsworthy as insight
Speaker 5: into the most important judicial.
Speaker 6: Body in the country. So I don't just beat that.
Speaker 5: But I also think it sounds like pretty standard Catholic fair.
Speaker 4: I always take with a grain of salt when people
Speaker 4: are just agreeing with other people in conversation, because people
Speaker 4: are strangers, people especially strangers, and in general people are
Speaker 4: conflict averse. Like it's in public, like you're in line
Speaker 4: at the post office or you're in line for a
Speaker 4: drink at the Supreme Court, historical society reception, you're not
Speaker 4: going to necessarily pick an argument with somebody.
Speaker 3: Now in Alito's.
Speaker 6: Camp, they got into it.
Speaker 3: Though Martha An got into it.
Speaker 4: Alito got into it a little bit and is like,
Speaker 4: you know, rather than just giving platitudes, he did. He
Speaker 4: did say, you know, like one side or the other
Speaker 4: is going to win these are you know, some of
Speaker 4: these things you can't compromise on. On the other hand,
Speaker 4: like some things you can't compromise on like that is
Speaker 4: that's also that also is a platitude. It depends on
Speaker 4: your defin It's also something at that point, are we
Speaker 4: talking about the control of the entire Yeah, well, it's also.
Speaker 5: Something Ruth Bader Ginsberg would have said about women's protection
Speaker 5: for women, for example, or.
Speaker 6: Something like Title nine.
Speaker 5: I don't want to put words in her mouth, obviously,
Speaker 5: but it's a pretty clear argument when you're talking about,
Speaker 5: you know, upholding the Civil Rights Act.
Speaker 6: Of nineteen sixty four, for example, you know people.
Speaker 3: Or anti gym the difference, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And so it's not you know, I think the
Speaker 5: concept of not being able to split the difference isn't absurd,
Speaker 5: and I think it's one that a lot of us
Speaker 5: feel right now that, for example, you can't split the
Speaker 5: difference between people who believe, on the one hand, like
Speaker 5: you and I, like life begins at conception versus that's
Speaker 5: like crazy nonsense.
Speaker 6: Legally, it's very, very difficult to.
Speaker 5: Split the difference if you have to polar opposite positions
Speaker 5: like that. So I think that's the sort of where
Speaker 5: he's coming from. I actually think it's something that you
Speaker 5: can hear from a lot of people. If you believe,
Speaker 5: for example, that you know, there are hard biological differences
Speaker 5: between men and women, that gets really hard to legally
Speaker 5: split the difference on things like Title nine.
Speaker 6: That's what I read into it. I feel like it's
Speaker 6: a pretty common sentiment among Americans these days.
Speaker 4: It's it's been interesting to see the videos blow up
Speaker 4: since Monday, you know, New York Times kind of led
Speaker 4: lad with it. MSNBC was going crazy with it, and
Speaker 4: then there was a lot, you know, a lot of
Speaker 4: pushback about like the nature of it. And I think
Speaker 4: my pushback against Roder Eyer would be when he's saying
Speaker 4: it makes it difficult to have private conversations like this
Speaker 4: is with a stranger at a reception, Like yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: like you don't know who you're talking Like you're a
Speaker 4: Supreme Court justice, you don't know who you're talking to,
Speaker 4: Like this is just a random person coming up to
Speaker 4: you at a reception. You don't necessarily expect that they're
Speaker 4: going to be recording you. Although today when everybody has
Speaker 4: like four different devices that they can just press record on,
Speaker 4: it's a completely different world than when the FBI would
Speaker 4: have to, you know, Mike somebody up in a white
Speaker 4: van and send them into like a mob hideout.
Speaker 5: Literally tached at these hotel line Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, yes, now you just hit a button on your
Speaker 4: watch or your phone and boom, you're you're hot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 7: I do see it.
Speaker 5: But it's like, yeah, I mean crocodile tears for public
Speaker 5: figures who you know are fairly well off and.
Speaker 6: Have lots of power being recorded.
Speaker 5: I think you know it is if you work in media,
Speaker 5: you know that you lose something when you can't have
Speaker 5: super candid conversations. You just you know, everyone is recording everything.
Speaker 5: You feel like you live in a pentopticon anywhere in DC.
Speaker 5: It's like any given restaurant is probably bugged. But at
Speaker 5: the same time, yeah, like crocodile tears for people who
Speaker 5: are in that pent opticon because they are disproportionately powerful.
Speaker 5: I do think something gets lost in all of that,
Speaker 5: but it's hardly a major issue.
Speaker 6: With Martha and Alito.
Speaker 5: I also think it just this all came in the middle.
Speaker 5: Lauren Windsor, I think this is on June third, is
Speaker 5: talking to her in the middle of the flag drama.
Speaker 5: She sounded to me like she was desperate for a friend,
Speaker 5: And I know that's not like a Newsy takeaway, but man,
Speaker 5: it's sort of pulled up the heart strings a little
Speaker 5: bit because you shouldn't be. You should never be. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's just improper to be sort of pouring out your
Speaker 5: heart to someone that you don't really know when you're
Speaker 5: in such a powerful position and you have such powerful
Speaker 5: insight and we can put a B two on the screen.
Speaker 5: Democrats are latching onto this, people like Sheldon Whitehouse again
Speaker 5: to tie it to spending bills and say we won't
Speaker 5: fund the Supreme Court unless the justices all agreed to
Speaker 5: these ethics standards. And by the way, I am fully
Speaker 5: in favor of the ethnic standards. I think, you know,
Speaker 5: that's fantastic. I think, you know, a lot of what
Speaker 5: Clarence Thomas did should.
Speaker 6: Have been disclosed.
Speaker 5: Even though I'm personally a fan of Clarence Thomas, I
Speaker 5: think that stuff needed to be disclosed. I think we
Speaker 5: should have much stricter ethics to the Supreme Court. But
Speaker 5: that's why, you know, to marthy Analino, maybe it's it
Speaker 5: doesn't behoove you to talk to a stranger. And I think,
Speaker 5: you know, in clearer headed times, she probably would have
Speaker 5: known that, but she sounded sort of desperate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. And one thing I wonder, though, why
Speaker 3: do they live in Chevy Chase.
Speaker 6: Lives too.
Speaker 4: I think he lives there too. You know, they've they've
Speaker 4: I mean, they live wherever they want. They're surrounding themselves
Speaker 4: with liberals for the most part, I thought they.
Speaker 5: Lived in Virginia. I thought they lived out by like Fairfax.
Speaker 3: I thought this was chevy Chase.
Speaker 6: You might be right, Gallam might have been in chevy Chase.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, but Katada does live there, he does, yes, Yeah,
Speaker 4: he's somewhere, Yeah, somewhere in that neighborhood. Anyway, let's move
Speaker 4: let's move on to unless you add any final thoughts
Speaker 4: on Martha Ann that you wanted to.
Speaker 6: Share with us here, No, not at all.
Speaker 3: I think think we covered that.
Speaker 4: We can leave it right there, all right, So over
Speaker 4: in the Middle East, so Hamas, we can put up
Speaker 4: this Reuter's element here. Hamas has responded to the Biden
Speaker 4: slash Israel proposal of the Worgan and we'll talk about
Speaker 4: this in a moment.
Speaker 3: Saying that it opens a broad.
Speaker 4: Pathway was one of the quotes that they had, and
Speaker 4: they said they had a couple of amendments to the
Speaker 4: Israeli proposal, but in general said that they were now
Speaker 4: simply negotiating details around the final terms of a cease
Speaker 4: fire for this war. Now Israeli authorities have put a
Speaker 4: different spin on it. You put up a rock cre
Speaker 4: bed here at Oxios. Israeli officials telling Axios Israel received
Speaker 4: Haimasa's response, Hamas rejected the proposal for a hostage deal,
Speaker 4: which was laid out by President Biden in his speech.
Speaker 4: Hamas is saying that is not the case, that they're
Speaker 4: not rejecting it, that they have a few quibbles around
Speaker 4: the edges.
Speaker 3: So let's let's move. Let's move through these here. Uh,
Speaker 3: you can put up.
Speaker 4: Blink and who landed in Qatar landing and culture today
Speaker 4: pressing forward with this, with these negotiations. Here is Blincoln
Speaker 4: yesterday laying out his position every on everybody else's position.
Speaker 7: First, let me be very clear. Israel has accepted the proposal.
Speaker 2: In fact, they were critical and putting it forward.
Speaker 4: So the only party, no, that's that is what.
Speaker 7: That is what the official.
Speaker 5: Position of Israeli government in the Prime Minister.
Speaker 4: So the only party that has not accepted, the only
Speaker 4: party that's not said yes, it's Amas. Meanwhile, Nana, who
Speaker 4: has called the proposal, the Israeli proposal a non starter
Speaker 4: if it does not allow Israel to indefinitely continue the
Speaker 4: war until Hamas is dismantled. But that's not what the
Speaker 4: agreement itself says, and Israel has acknowledged that it did
Speaker 4: send this agreement to hamas the agreement that Biden then
Speaker 4: elevated to try to trap nann Yahoo into accepting it.
Speaker 4: On CNN, there was an interesting exchange which shows that
Speaker 4: what's going on here is Israel is willing to accept
Speaker 4: the deal that they put forward, but that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 4: mean they quote unquote support it. Some interesting linguistic gymnastics here.
Speaker 4: Let's roll CNN from last night.
Speaker 9: This deal is Israel's proposal. Why can't Netanyahu say out
Speaker 9: right that he supports it?
Speaker 10: Well, I don't know what he said to Secretary blink
Speaker 10: In today when they met defected. The defect that I
Speaker 10: wasn't instructed to speak out against the deal means that
Speaker 10: we accept the deal?
Speaker 6: Does it?
Speaker 9: Wouldn't it mean that you support it if you could
Speaker 9: come out and say you supported it.
Speaker 10: But I'm saying here that we accept the deal. Again,
Speaker 10: It's pretty much depends on the way it will be
Speaker 10: interpreted by the negotiators, because.
Speaker 9: You're saying we support it, but you're not just saying
Speaker 9: unequivocally that Israel does support it.
Speaker 10: Because the words are very important, because when you say that,
Speaker 10: if the negotiations continues after six weeks, we need to
Speaker 10: continue with the ceasefire so Haramas can exploit this clause
Speaker 10: and continue with endless and meaningless negotiations. That means nothing. Obviously,
Speaker 10: that wasn't the meaning of President Biden.
Speaker 4: So that's the key difference there. That the proposal says
Speaker 4: that after the first phase, which would include hostage exchanges,
Speaker 4: elderly women others who are infirm and at risk would
Speaker 4: be released in exchange for a significant number of Palestinian
Speaker 4: hostages that are held in attention by Israel. After that,
Speaker 4: there would be six weeks of negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire.
Speaker 3: Although the Israeli proposal says.
Speaker 4: Lasting cease fire, Hamas in its response, wants to change
Speaker 4: that from lasting ceasefire to permanent ceasefire. But the key
Speaker 4: point that the ambassador is making there is that they
Speaker 4: if the negotiations are still ongoing in six weeks, the
Speaker 4: agreement says that the ceasefire should continue as long as
Speaker 4: the negotiations are making progress. Israel is saying that it
Speaker 4: wants the right at that moment to relaunch its war.
Speaker 4: And what some of Netnyahu's allies have said to him
Speaker 4: in getting him to agree to this is like, is look,
Speaker 4: you can restart the war after six weeks if you
Speaker 4: want to, Like, no matter what this agree him, it says,
Speaker 4: and they've argued that Hamas will do something that will
Speaker 4: that will give you a green light to go ahead
Speaker 4: and do that, and if not, you can also you
Speaker 4: can always manufacture something so that he was zeroing in
Speaker 4: on this kind of pause. This, this six week gap
Speaker 4: between phase one and phase two seems to be the
Speaker 4: central distinction here. Emily, We've seen this just kind of
Speaker 4: head spinning game back and forth where you continue to
Speaker 4: have Blincoln saying, no, the Israeli government supports this, and
Speaker 4: you'll have Nenya right next to him practically he'say, no,
Speaker 4: don't support this, don't support this.
Speaker 3: He's like, no, definitely supports this.
Speaker 4: Blincoln was at Blincoln met with nen Yahu yesterday and
Speaker 4: he was asked, did net Yah who explicitly say that
Speaker 4: he supported this? And Blincoln said yes, he did. Alynna
Speaker 4: Thomas Greenfield, the UN ambassador I was asked, was asked
Speaker 4: to explain this to say, you keep saying Israel supports this,
Speaker 4: Israel keeps saying that they do not, Like, how do
Speaker 4: you fill in that gap? And she said, look, I
Speaker 4: can't you know, they have some whatever domestic political concerns
Speaker 4: that they have that are leading them to say this. Basically,
Speaker 4: you'll have to ask them about it. But in private,
Speaker 4: in discussions with us, they have been very clear that
Speaker 4: they accept this if let's let's use let's use his term.
Speaker 4: And he makes a good point that the the the official,
Speaker 4: the is early official there, that the fact that that
Speaker 4: Yahoo did not instruct him to oppose it at the
Speaker 4: u N despite the fact that previously Israeli ambassador in
Speaker 4: the unit said that they would oppose it at the UN.
Speaker 3: They don't get a.
Speaker 4: Vote, but they said that they would oppose it because
Speaker 4: it's a security council and they're not on the Security Council.
Speaker 4: That alone tells you that they're willing to quote unquote
Speaker 4: accept it.
Speaker 3: So, uh, do you.
Speaker 4: Think we've think we're getting to a place where we
Speaker 4: actually sort of now understand what's going on here?
Speaker 5: Yes, I agree with that, and I do think we
Speaker 5: are because I think Reule is increasingly aware, as I
Speaker 5: am sure Hamasa is that the difference between lasting and
Speaker 5: permanent will ultimately be who can use that illusion as
Speaker 5: a cudgel sooner or more effectively, because we all know
Speaker 5: that this is not going to be a lasting or
Speaker 5: permanent piece. And is the reporting that you just mentioned
Speaker 5: about Israel in the negotiation sort of internally over there
Speaker 5: says what we all know, this is not lasting, this
Speaker 5: is not a permanent cease fire.
Speaker 6: That's an illusion or maybe a delusion, But.
Speaker 5: I don't even think there's anybody delusional enough to think
Speaker 5: that that's the case. Meanwhile, though, lives hanging the balance
Speaker 5: amidst our ability to at least agree to the illusion,
Speaker 5: to at least agree in theory, to at least agree
Speaker 5: on paper, and that's a very strange place to be.
Speaker 5: It's sort of obvious that we know that a sticking
Speaker 5: point between lasting and permanent is really who can then
Speaker 5: turn around and say a permanent or lasting ceasefire was
Speaker 5: broken most effectively, because that's.
Speaker 6: Inevitably what's going to happen.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think that's what's being discussed right now,
Speaker 5: that's what's being considered by both sides right now. And
Speaker 5: I don't think that's necessarily categorically.
Speaker 6: A bad thing, because it could.
Speaker 5: Save lives, It could be a stop gap as a
Speaker 5: better solution is worked out. Now I'm not optimistic less deadly,
Speaker 5: less violent solutions not worked is worked.
Speaker 6: Out, and I'm not optimistic that could happen.
Speaker 5: But a pause and hostilities right now, there are lives
Speaker 5: hanging in the balance. There's famine hanging in the balance.
Speaker 5: So categorically, while it may be sort of frustrating for
Speaker 5: people watching this play out, you know people really could
Speaker 5: be saved and protected by this.
Speaker 4: You also have a scenario where you could have them
Speaker 4: agree to this six week pause, do a hostage exchange,
Speaker 4: and then see the war kick back up again at
Speaker 4: the end of July, right between the Republican and the
Speaker 4: Democratic conventions. And a lot of Democrats are worried because
Speaker 4: they know that Yahoo or they believe that net Nyah,
Speaker 4: who prefers a Trump presidency. And so you basically, you know,
Speaker 4: have your your political adversary, who is your geopolitical ally
Speaker 4: has the ability to harm you, you know, in your
Speaker 4: own domestic politics.
Speaker 3: Now what his own what his own.
Speaker 4: Domestic political situation would be like at that point is
Speaker 4: not is not even clear. And on the Hamasade, you
Speaker 4: certainly have elements that are opposed to a cease fire,
Speaker 4: that believe in Wark was quoted in the washing Wall
Speaker 4: Street Journal with some intercepted cable saying, we have Israel
Speaker 4: exactly where we want them. You know that the that
Speaker 4: they that that Israel continues committing atrocities, war crhymes, that
Speaker 4: they continue to get international condemnation for that, and the
Speaker 4: and the isolation of Israel globally continues, which is which
Speaker 4: is the Hamas goal. Now, Israel doesn't have to play
Speaker 4: into Hamas's hands by continuing to commit atrocities and war
Speaker 4: rhymes and and and and they have I think, well,
Speaker 4: move this is put that aside. They don't have to,
Speaker 4: but you know, sin War believes that they will continue
Speaker 4: to do that. You know, as long as the war
Speaker 4: is going on there, there will every couple of days
Speaker 4: be something that shocks and horrifies the world, which then,
Speaker 4: you know, further degrades Israel's position internationally, which puts then
Speaker 4: what's puts Hamas in a position where they have some
Speaker 4: advantage and not obtaining a cease fire, which that's and
Speaker 4: that's according to sin War himself.
Speaker 5: And you know, the Palestinian people are out of you
Speaker 5: know that they feel like they're out of options, and
Speaker 5: so you know, there was a poignant quote I forget
Speaker 5: which publication ran with it this week after the hostage
Speaker 5: rescue from a Palestinian who said, what what were they
Speaker 5: doing in.
Speaker 6: Relation to Hamas?
Speaker 5: They knew that this hostage rescue was going to result in,
Speaker 5: you know, the deads of dozens of not hundreds, which
Speaker 5: it's looking like a very very high number of casualties,
Speaker 5: and you know, without another sort of governing body, without
Speaker 5: you know, someone else prosecuting the war on their side,
Speaker 5: Hamas has a monopoly basically on their political expressions.
Speaker 6: And so Hamas can.
Speaker 5: Afford to lose the support of the Palestinian people to
Speaker 5: a degree in a way that Israel cannot really afford
Speaker 5: to lose the support completely of the United States certainly
Speaker 5: and people around the world.
Speaker 6: And that leads us to this next clip. The politics of.
Speaker 5: This for Joe Biden are increasingly difficult in the middle
Speaker 5: of an election systems, in the middle of an election cycle.
Speaker 5: Let's take a look at this next clip of Biden
Speaker 5: being hit with some protesters, verbally being hit with some
Speaker 5: protesters just recently.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, no no no no no
Speaker 1: no no no no.
Speaker 11: No, folks, folks, it's okay. Look, take care innocent children.
Speaker 7: Have been lost.
Speaker 11: They make a point.
Speaker 5: Come on now, So from yesterday at a Mom's Demanded
Speaker 5: action gun event, by the way, just hours.
Speaker 6: After the Hunter Biden gun conviction. Sort of an odd juxtaposition.
Speaker 5: There, but right, this is going to follow him everywhere
Speaker 5: and could get even more heated. I mean, we've seen
Speaker 5: the encampments actually return to campuses UCLA. I think when
Speaker 5: popped up again at Columbia. It's not going anywhere for Biden.
Speaker 5: There's there's no question about it. And a peace deals
Speaker 5: obviously in his interest. Donald Trump campaigned hard on the
Speaker 5: abracamp Donald Trump is campaigning hard on the Abraham Accords,
Speaker 5: so well, you know, Biden obviously wants to have something
Speaker 5: like that in his quiver.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And his response there, I thought was noteworthy in
Speaker 4: the sense that is much different than it had been
Speaker 4: in the past. Like in the past when he has
Speaker 4: gotten protested, he would just kind of thunder through and
Speaker 4: he would he would urge on the chance of four
Speaker 4: more years, and then he would say, you know, I
Speaker 4: am steadfast support of Israel.
Speaker 3: Israel has a right to defend herself.
Speaker 4: And instead this time he said he was trying to
Speaker 4: stop the chance of four more years and to say no,
Speaker 4: listen the protesters, they make a point.
Speaker 3: A lot of children.
Speaker 4: He said he had to do the passive voice, but
Speaker 4: I think and I think he tried to say they
Speaker 4: make a fair point. It came out as they make
Speaker 4: a point. But I think he was trying to sympathize
Speaker 4: with the protesters there, and I think that that reflects
Speaker 4: his shift in how he's viewing this and how like
Speaker 4: he is really now trying to force a cease fire
Speaker 4: deal onto the two parties. It's funny that he has
Speaker 4: kind of just willed the Yahoo government into accepting its
Speaker 4: own proposal that they kind of reluctantly put forward, will
Speaker 4: you know, willing it into up being by putting it
Speaker 4: forward and then insisting against all of the Israeli opposition
Speaker 4: that they support it.
Speaker 3: It'd be interesting if he just.
Speaker 4: Took the same approach to Maas Tamas, like, now, we
Speaker 4: don't support this as it's written, we have some amendments,
Speaker 4: and just you just send blinkoln out there to say no,
Speaker 4: Hamas told us they support it. That'd be an interesting
Speaker 4: new way of doing diplomacy, if you just ignored what
Speaker 4: people said and just assert what the what the reality
Speaker 4: is and just kind of.
Speaker 3: That sort of I kind of feel.
Speaker 6: Like we've seen that and it's this again.
Speaker 5: We've talked about this so many times, the uneven nature
Speaker 5: of having one major component or one major party to
Speaker 5: this war before two state solution, and the other major
Speaker 5: party to this war, the most major party to this
Speaker 5: war Israel, being in favor of but one state solution. Uh,
Speaker 5: you know, sort of bridging that gap between the two
Speaker 5: most consequential governments is leading to some predictably bizarre results.
Speaker 5: I'm glad you said that, though Ryan Beings I agree.
Speaker 6: I had a similar reaction.
Speaker 5: I thought that was politically, I'm just speaking about Joe
Speaker 5: Biden's performance as a politician, which has you know, nose
Speaker 5: dived in recent years. That was vintage Biden. That was
Speaker 5: the version of Joe Biden that you know people thought
Speaker 5: maybe had a shot in two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 5: actually back years before that too.
Speaker 6: You know, he does have this.
Speaker 5: Reflex to offer compassion in a way that is sort
Speaker 5: of casual, relatable, believable, and I think it was wise
Speaker 5: of him to do that in the moment that he
Speaker 5: had those protests. Now, politically, of course, it was wise
Speaker 5: of him because this isn't going anywhere, will follow him,
Speaker 5: literally follow him throughout the rest of the campaign, and
Speaker 5: you can't just ignore it.
Speaker 4: And I think that's a good point because the American
Speaker 4: public knowing and the global public knowing that one of
Speaker 4: the only things if you only know one thing about
Speaker 4: Joe Biden, you know that he has this incredible ability
Speaker 4: to empathize and to feel your pain, and to know
Speaker 4: that about him, and then to see him show so
Speaker 4: little compassion for the plight of people in Gaza over
Speaker 4: the past eight months up until that clip, basically I
Speaker 4: think made it hit that much harder for so many
Speaker 4: people because people were like, we know that, we know
Speaker 4: that you do know how to show compassion, we know
Speaker 4: that you do understand what this loss is like. And
Speaker 4: for you to not be willing to go anywhere near
Speaker 4: showing that compassion, I think just hit much deeper. Speaking
Speaker 4: of people not being able to go anywhere. Jake Sullivan,
Speaker 4: who was getting protested at his own row house here
Speaker 4: in DC this morning, also got hit by protesters at
Speaker 4: an event yesterday.
Speaker 3: We can roll this.
Speaker 6: We know, Jake Sullivan, you are a war criminal.
Speaker 5: Fifteen thousand people, fifteen thousand him dead.
Speaker 3: It's not self event.
Speaker 6: Jake Sullivan, you are a war criminal.
Speaker 7: Jake Sullivan, You're a war criminal.
Speaker 6: Scho fifty.
Speaker 3: Now the children dead and not self defense.
Speaker 6: Fifteen thousand campers dead, it's not self defense. Fifteen dollar
Speaker 6: children dead, it's not defense.
Speaker 4: And the context for these ceasefire talks down in the
Speaker 4: south is really what's going on in the north, if
Speaker 4: we can put up C seven here. So yesterday, in
Speaker 4: an air strike, Israel killed a top Hesbela commander, Abu Talb.
Speaker 4: Hesbela responded with one of its most furious assaults on
Speaker 4: Israel since the kind of low level war between the
Speaker 4: two of them began after October seventh.
Speaker 3: And Hesbela has had.
Speaker 4: A worrying amount of effect in being able to combat
Speaker 4: Israel's air superiority. From the Israeli perspective, They've knocked out
Speaker 4: millions of dollars worth of israel drones or American drones,
Speaker 4: I should say, from from the sky. UH even managed
Speaker 4: to manage to hit an iron dome launch system, which
Speaker 4: is UH, which is which is kind of shocking to
Speaker 4: kind of this Uh.
Speaker 3: Israeli political system.
Speaker 4: UH and you know, has much a much more serious
Speaker 4: arsenal and ability to kind of re arm than Hamas
Speaker 4: like that. There's just no question inside Israel, all of
Speaker 4: the attention is pivoting towards the north. There are about
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand plus Israelis who have evacuated from areas
Speaker 4: in the in the north, which is created which is
Speaker 4: creating a huge kind of housing crisis inside Israel, coupled
Speaker 4: with the evacuations of so many people from the South
Speaker 4: as well. Uh and uh, there's this real push to
Speaker 4: move this low level war to a much higher level
Speaker 4: war with with Lebanon. But it's not clear that you know,
Speaker 4: Israel has the capacities to do what it thinks it
Speaker 4: needs to do in that area.
Speaker 6: And you know, this is really zooming out.
Speaker 5: But just as you were talking, I'm thinking about what's
Speaker 5: happening right now people. There was a tweet was like,
Speaker 5: but you didn't have Cuban missile crisis two point zero
Speaker 5: on your Bengo card for twenty twenty four and got
Speaker 5: to be careful and not to you know, give the
Speaker 5: warmongers too much fodder. But it's true with that Russian ships,
Speaker 5: I mean, their own by their own admission, Russian navy
Speaker 5: flotilla has been making this way around the world.
Speaker 6: They said to raise the flag. Basically, that's what Russian
Speaker 6: media has said.
Speaker 5: And what we know now is that US warships have
Speaker 5: followed those Russian ships. We know obviously that Russia, Cuba,
Speaker 5: ron Venezuela. We could talk about why, but we know
Speaker 5: that there are alliances.
Speaker 6: You throw China into the mix.
Speaker 5: We know that there's another front or there's another hot
Speaker 5: war in Ukraine right now. Basically, what I think makes
Speaker 5: sense about zooming out here is to underline how fragile
Speaker 5: the ecosystem is right now, because it does feel like
Speaker 5: we've talked about what it looked like in the run
Speaker 5: up to World War One, and you know, does anyone
Speaker 5: know that a world war starts when it starts? You know,
Speaker 5: usually not, but they're really this is really scary times
Speaker 5: because I think the Sergio political ecosystem is at its
Speaker 5: most fragile point in a long time.
Speaker 4: Right And to underline your point, this is after the
Speaker 4: US greenlit Ukraine using US weapons to strike into some
Speaker 4: targets inside Russia.
Speaker 3: Now you've got these this Russia flotilla.
Speaker 4: Down by southeast southeastern United States, and you know the
Speaker 4: US responding. If you add a let's say, a carpet
Speaker 4: bombing or a major bombing of Beirut to that, and
Speaker 4: how does how does it run respond to that? Yeah, uh,
Speaker 4: it's it's it's dark. Let's move back to the United
Speaker 4: States here. So Sean Fain, who has kind of rocketed
Speaker 4: to really the kind of labor stardom after the stand
Speaker 4: up strike that the UAW led against the Big three
Speaker 4: automakers led to record contracts, that has led to significant
Speaker 4: amounts of organizing non union plants, including electric vehicles around
Speaker 4: the country. Really given a jolt to the labor movement
Speaker 4: in the United States that it hadn't had in a
Speaker 4: long time? Is Tesla, Yeah, exactly is now facing problems
Speaker 4: from Neil Barofsky, who is the monitor appointed by the
Speaker 4: Department of Justice to kind of root out corruption in
Speaker 4: the old ua W.
Speaker 3: Let's put up this and we can back this up here.
Speaker 4: But so put up this element here, So u a
Speaker 4: W President Sean Fain under investigation by federal watchdog. Court
Speaker 4: filing reveals So the court the filing was entered and
Speaker 4: entered by Neil Rovsky, who is the monitor. So for
Speaker 4: people who don't know the backstory here, the only reason
Speaker 4: that Sean Fain is president of the UAW is because
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty, the Department of Justice reached a consent
Speaker 4: decree with a very corrupt United Auto Workers. Two of
Speaker 4: its presidents had been thrown in prison. Some Auto executives
Speaker 4: had also been prosecuted. There was just an enormous amount
Speaker 4: of bribery and corruption involved in the old UAW and
Speaker 4: part of the consent decree which is supposed to last
Speaker 4: for six years up till twenty twenty six, although it
Speaker 4: can be ended earlier if the kind of monitor says, like,
Speaker 4: all right, things are going in the right direction here.
Speaker 4: One of the things that they put in the consent
Speaker 4: decree was that the UAW would have direct elections. And
Speaker 4: that was a that was a reform that union members
Speaker 4: had been fighting for for a very long time. It
Speaker 4: was a it was a true moment of the Department
Speaker 4: of Justice actually using its actually using its power for good.
Speaker 4: Like they actually did reform this union in a positive way.
Speaker 3: The result was Sean Fain winning this election.
Speaker 4: Now, after Sean Fain came into power, there were some
Speaker 4: kind of turf wars inside and out of those turf wars,
Speaker 4: you now are seeing the elements of this investigation. Barofsky
Speaker 4: is claiming that Fain kind of improperly retaliated against a
Speaker 4: vice president who he fired because Faine has said publicly
Speaker 4: he didn't think that this vice president was doing a
Speaker 4: good enough job pushing the Stilantis organizing. That stillance was
Speaker 4: kind of walking all over the union workers there, and
Speaker 4: so he wanted somebody in there who was tougher. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: he was also tangling with the secretary treasurer, who he
Speaker 4: said was illegitimately holding back funds for organizing efforts that
Speaker 4: were important to his strategy. And so you know, from
Speaker 4: the perspective of the union, you know, one one person,
Speaker 4: one vote, they elected Seawan fainn Shaan. Fain wanted to
Speaker 4: implement a strategy. The secretary treasurer was getting in the
Speaker 4: way of that strategy, and so you know, he used
Speaker 4: his authority as president to insist that they push ahead
Speaker 4: with that strategy. This is not there's no accusation here
Speaker 4: of any personal enrichment or any type of corruption. This
Speaker 4: is this is the Neil Borrowski, the monitor kind of
Speaker 4: just getting in in the middle of the of basically
Speaker 4: what is an internal struggle inside an organization. The kind
Speaker 4: of thing that happens at any organization, particularly one that's
Speaker 4: trying to be kind of revolutionized from within by somebody
Speaker 4: like like Sean Fain. Interestingly, also epily, the UAW has
Speaker 4: to pay for this monitor. So if you look at
Speaker 4: the uaw's public silings, yeah, I think they paid five
Speaker 4: million dollar or more than five million dollars to like
Speaker 4: big shoe law what do you call white shoe, white whatever,
Speaker 4: Big big law like big firms are making millions of
Speaker 4: dollars doing private work for this DOJ monitor. And so
Speaker 4: now the monitor is saying that they want something like
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand emails from Seawan Fain and he's only
Speaker 4: given two thousand, is what was in the filing. If
Speaker 4: they give over those hundred thousand, like, they're going to
Speaker 4: end up spending millions and millions of their members dues
Speaker 4: so that these lawyers can kind of go through these
Speaker 4: emails to try to find something that they can then
Speaker 4: go at them with. So that's that's what's going on
Speaker 4: here at the UAW.
Speaker 5: The stupid grin on my face is because this is similar.
Speaker 6: In a way.
Speaker 5: It's such a different case, but it reminds me a
Speaker 5: little bit of what's on the docket with the Chevron
Speaker 5: case that's about to be decided by the Supreme Court,
Speaker 5: which was EPA making a decision on its own that
Speaker 5: lobster fishermen off the coast of I think it's main
Speaker 5: have to pay these monitors to comply with the EPA's regulations,
Speaker 5: and the ap SERS made that decision without going through
Speaker 5: Congress or putting it in any legislation it was. I
Speaker 5: find it amusing because I do agree completely that when
Speaker 5: the DOJ is able to sort of get away with
Speaker 5: investigations that demand huge compliance resources and efforts disproportionate to
Speaker 5: the importance of the of the investigation, it's it's genuinely problematic.
Speaker 6: And in this case, I wonder, Ryan, I'm curious.
Speaker 5: If there's a hair trigger because the uaw's corruption before
Speaker 5: Fane the sort of.
Speaker 6: Revolution to use the word that you used, that revolution.
Speaker 5: That he is sort of wrought inside of the UAW.
Speaker 5: The reason there has to be because it was coming
Speaker 5: from a place that needed a revolution for the better.
Speaker 5: It was in the shadow of corruption, and that was
Speaker 5: obviously very.
Speaker 6: Damaging to the union movement.
Speaker 5: And I'm just curious because I'm trying to wrap my
Speaker 5: head around why the Biden DOJ would bite on this,
Speaker 5: is it that they're on a hair trigger. They're almost
Speaker 5: trying to they think that maybe they're protecting the.
Speaker 6: UAW from itself.
Speaker 5: Is an internal politics, you know people people are maybe
Speaker 5: faint as controversial in ways privately with different people involved,
Speaker 5: different players, Like is there any internal drama? Basically, explain
Speaker 5: this to me, like what the motivation from the Biden
Speaker 5: DOJ might be in this way?
Speaker 7: I think?
Speaker 4: So the key point here is Borowsky is a fully
Speaker 4: independent monitor. And so this is this is a situation
Speaker 4: where you get a monitor in place, like when you
Speaker 4: get so you had ken Starr, for instance, as the
Speaker 4: independent Council under Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton couldn't do any
Speaker 4: anything about ken Starr, like once once that ken Starr
Speaker 4: Independent Council situation was set up, like that's what it
Speaker 4: was now politically, he could have tried to just get
Speaker 4: rid of the special Council perhaps, but then then he'd
Speaker 4: get impeached for that that those are political issues. But
Speaker 4: there's no there's no directive that the DOJ or the
Speaker 4: White House can give to that type of a special council.
Speaker 4: The monitor is a similar situation in which you know
Speaker 4: he's been set up as this independent watchdog. Barofsky was
Speaker 4: famously one of the kind of Wall Street watchdogs and
Speaker 4: angered a lot of people on Wall Street back then
Speaker 4: that you know, so he was just going after the
Speaker 4: bad guys then, always he was.
Speaker 6: He was the IG right after two thousand.
Speaker 3: And eight, Right, that's right.
Speaker 6: David Saroda's podcast.
Speaker 5: I think it's called Meltdown and Bosky factors very heavily
Speaker 5: and it's fantastic lism.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I remember Barofsky from the reporting around the the Meltdown
Speaker 4: at the time, and so he at the time he
Speaker 4: was independent. He's independent now, so the d o J.
Speaker 4: So it's not clear what exactly the DJ could do,
Speaker 4: you know, if it wanted to, Like what's going on?
Speaker 4: In other words, is there something going on between Barofsky
Speaker 4: and Seawan Faine Borowski and the U A W. And
Speaker 4: it's new this is a this is a new flare
Speaker 4: up and it's post or organizing behind the Big three
Speaker 4: record contract. And he's not making any allegations of corruption.
Speaker 4: So we need to do some more reporting to figure
Speaker 4: out what happened, Like what's going on here, because clearly
Speaker 4: something happened, you know, Sean Fain is known as somebody
Speaker 4: with sharp elbows, that's for sure. It's not somebody that's
Speaker 4: going to be pushed around. Borowsky, too, is not something
Speaker 4: somebody's going to be pushed around. So whatever whatever happened
Speaker 4: between them and between him and the UAW, you could
Speaker 4: imagine it escalating fairly quickly, just given the kind of
Speaker 4: personalities involved. But I think some some more reporting is
Speaker 4: in order and hopefully we'll be able to come back
Speaker 4: and figure out what it was that sparked this, because
Speaker 4: it's according to Barrowski, it's not corruption. You know, he's
Speaker 4: demanding one hundred thousand plus emails. Sean Faine is saying
Speaker 4: that's crazy, like that's too many, Like what no, like
Speaker 4: your draint, You're you're bleeding this union for millions of
Speaker 4: dollars for these lawyers. And so unless they can figure
Speaker 4: something out now, the threat is the threat that Browsky
Speaker 4: has is that the dj could take over the UAW,
Speaker 4: Like that's within their authority under the consent decree, but
Speaker 4: politically could can you imagine them trying to get away
Speaker 4: with that? Like the first major union to actually deliver
Speaker 4: huge gains for its workers is then going to be
Speaker 4: taken over by the Biden administration. That insane's even contemplate,
Speaker 4: but that is.
Speaker 5: Biden administration that's allied itself with Sean.
Speaker 3: Fain, right exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's a strange situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, Biden went to the picket line. First president
Speaker 4: in history to join a picket line. When you speak
Speaker 4: with Sean.
Speaker 5: Fain, I know you're used to labor stories not getting
Speaker 5: a lot of coverage in corporate media, but even so,
Speaker 5: I think this story has really been flying under the radar.
Speaker 6: There's been so little coverage.
Speaker 5: It sort of broke yesterday, but really no focus on it,
Speaker 5: and that seems wildly disproportionate to its importance, obviously, given
Speaker 5: Fayne's central role in this wave of the labor movement
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and going forward, you know, he has set the
Speaker 4: next contract expiration for twenty twenty eight, and he's encouraging
Speaker 4: other unions around the country to also set their contracts
Speaker 4: to expire on the same date in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 4: working toward not a total general strike, but working toward
Speaker 4: a mass kind of strike coinciding at the same on
Speaker 4: the same day in a in the next presidential cycle.
Speaker 4: So he is clearly calling his shot, and he's he's
Speaker 4: coming for the bosses in a major way.
Speaker 3: And and does this is this is Borowski?
Speaker 4: What is Barowski doing here? It's it's a it's a
Speaker 4: it's an open question that we're going to try to
Speaker 4: figure out.
Speaker 6: A lot more to come on that.
Speaker 5: Let's move on to Fox News editing part of Donald
Speaker 5: Trump's answer about whether he would release files related to
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Epstein out of an interview that aired on Fox
Speaker 5: and Friends earlier this week. Fox News then aired the
Speaker 5: entire interview with Trump without ostensibly without much editing on
Speaker 5: I think it was Will Kaine's podcast that was uploaded
Speaker 5: to YouTube, and people noticed that Trump's answer on Epstein
Speaker 5: was cut in a fairly interesting way. Now, before we
Speaker 5: rule the clip, I will say it's obviously common practice
Speaker 5: to splice up long interviews. So you might see a
Speaker 5: ten minute package on sixty minutes, for example, and then
Speaker 5: actually it was twenty minutes.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, it was two hours of talking.
Speaker 5: You know, that gets condensed into a ten minute package,
Speaker 5: or into a two minute package for that matter.
Speaker 6: So there's a lot of splicing.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of chopping that's done in the editing process.
Speaker 5: Whenever you have a big sit down interview on a
Speaker 5: major news network.
Speaker 6: That's common practice.
Speaker 5: But take a listen to the way in which Donald
Speaker 5: Trump answered this Epstein question. The way that it was
Speaker 5: originally cut off was just him saying, yeah, I'll, you know,
Speaker 5: release the files. Listen to what he says after that.
Speaker 5: Let's run this clip. This is E two from Fox News.
Speaker 4: Some people think that one way to build trust is
Speaker 4: to declassify things that everyone's talking about it.
Speaker 7: I mean, you've talked earlier.
Speaker 6: I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 7: So if you were president, would.
Speaker 12: You declassify you can answer yes or notice.
Speaker 6: Would you declassify the.
Speaker 7: Nine to eleven files?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 12: Would you declassify JFK files, Yeah.
Speaker 7: Which I did. I did a lot of it.
Speaker 6: Would you declassify the Epstein files?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would, all right, I guess I would. I
Speaker 1: think that less so because you know, you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to affect people's lives of it's phony
Speaker 1: stuff in there, because there's a lot of phony stuff
Speaker 1: with that whole world. But I think I would, or
Speaker 1: at least.
Speaker 7: Do you think that would restore trust?
Speaker 6: Help restore trust?
Speaker 1: I don't know about Epstein so much as I do
Speaker 1: the other there's certainly about the way he died. It
Speaker 1: would be interesting to find out what happened there, because
Speaker 1: that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen
Speaker 1: to be working, et cetera, et cetera. But you'd go
Speaker 1: a long way toward that one the other stuff.
Speaker 7: I would.
Speaker 5: So that originally aired on Fox and Friends, but was
Speaker 5: cut off right when Donald Trump said yeah, I would,
Speaker 5: and then everything else he said was a major backtrack.
Speaker 5: By the way, it's incredibly significant news anytime Donald Trump
Speaker 5: talks about jeff rep scene, anytime anyone in a position
Speaker 5: of power talks about Jeffrey Epstein. For what it's worth
Speaker 5: for a news outlet, I think actually to get Donald
Speaker 5: Trump talking like that about Jeffrey Epstein is a pretty
Speaker 5: big story. So again, they cut that off. We can
Speaker 5: put e one up on the screen. Sorry for going
Speaker 5: out of order here, but they did cut that off,
Speaker 5: and some people in media noticed it. I want to
Speaker 5: highlight another part of what he said. I guess I would.
Speaker 6: I think that less so because you don't know.
Speaker 5: You don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony
Speaker 5: stuff in there, because it's a lot of phony stuff
Speaker 5: with that whole world.
Speaker 6: But I think I would.
Speaker 5: I don't know about Epstein so much as I do
Speaker 5: the others, certainly about the way he died, it'd be
Speaker 5: interesting to find out, but yeah, I'd go a long way.
Speaker 6: Toward that one.
Speaker 5: So sort of a typical Trump answer. You don't totally
Speaker 5: know what it means. It's almost effectively hard to make out.
Speaker 5: But the editing, I think where you're just going rapid
Speaker 5: fire through JFK. Yeah, I already did a lot of it,
Speaker 5: and you get to Epstein would and immediately, well, you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of phony stuff, you.
Speaker 6: Know, less so with Epstein than others.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 5: Obviously Epstein was sort of in that Palm Beach world.
Speaker 5: Obviously there's that famous footage of him with Donald Trump
Speaker 5: kind of partying at mar Alago. Some people have claimed
Speaker 5: that there was recruitment happening at Mar a Lago of
Speaker 5: girls who were sex trafficked essentially, so I think it's
Speaker 5: a fairly significant I think it was a great question
Speaker 5: from Rachel Campbell.
Speaker 6: Steffie what happened here? Is this? Is this you know
Speaker 6: in a way?
Speaker 5: Is this a defense of Fox, saying we ended up
Speaker 5: putting up the whole thing.
Speaker 6: There was nothing to hide.
Speaker 5: Or is it them sort of being caught editing it
Speaker 5: by later uploading the whole thing, maybe not realizing that
Speaker 5: people would notice the discrepancy.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think they got caught. I think, but
Speaker 4: I think, you know, different people made different decisions. I
Speaker 4: don't think it was you know, from the top. What
Speaker 4: we're going to do is we're going to edit this
Speaker 4: to make it palatable for our seniors who watch on Fox,
Speaker 4: and then we're going to let the whole part go
Speaker 4: out on Will Kaine's podcasts. I don't think they exactly
Speaker 4: did it that way, but a system is what it does.
Speaker 4: And you know, the the the interests of the producers
Speaker 4: that that cut that clip or clear like they wanted,
Speaker 4: Like Trump says, yes, but you know, I think you
Speaker 4: could even just if it's you can't say it's a
Speaker 4: time question because you just say but less so on
Speaker 4: that one. Like at least if you put the but
Speaker 4: less so on that one, you've at least let the
Speaker 4: viewers know, and you've and you've let them see the
Speaker 4: beginning of the backtracking and you can see where it's
Speaker 4: going from there because whenever if you know, you know
Speaker 4: what Trump's going to.
Speaker 3: Do, that in other words, he's not gonna do anything. Uh.
Speaker 3: And that was clear.
Speaker 4: You didn't need the other minute of rambling excuses about
Speaker 4: why he's not going to do anything.
Speaker 7: He's not.
Speaker 4: H But yeah, so I think they wanted to I
Speaker 4: wouldn't think they wanted to keep that from the audience.
Speaker 4: There's no other way of, uh.
Speaker 3: Of understanding that.
Speaker 4: But I think there must be different kind of editorial
Speaker 4: processes that that play out on at different levels, Like
Speaker 4: you can't completely keep an interview out from say a
Speaker 4: podcast or whatever. And then to your point, there's that
Speaker 4: there's that great quote from great isn't the word? There's
Speaker 4: a quote from Trump and the Vanity Fair article that
Speaker 4: people can find where he's asked about Jeffrey Epstein. He says, Jeffrey,
Speaker 4: Jeffrey likes him young, likes him pretty, and likes him
Speaker 4: young or something like that, and you know he really
Speaker 4: likes to have a good time. You can even hear
Speaker 4: Trump kind of dictating the quote to his secretary like
Speaker 4: it's that it's it's it's a very Trump and dict
Speaker 4: dictated type of quote.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: And you're like oh, okay, this Trump knew. Trump knew
Speaker 4: what was going on here, and so it gives credence
Speaker 4: to all the other stuff that you hear about mar
Speaker 4: A Lago and the recruitment.
Speaker 6: And there's that quote.
Speaker 5: And there's also another thing that turned a lot of
Speaker 5: people's heads. You'll remember this Ryan when he said he
Speaker 5: was asked about Gaillen Maxwell and said something to the
Speaker 5: extent of I just wish her well.
Speaker 6: I think that was the quote, I just wish her well.
Speaker 5: Which again, it sort of gives you pause when you
Speaker 5: look at someone like Jeffrey Epstein, who reporting not suggests,
Speaker 5: but reporting really has documented, had links to Masad and
Speaker 5: Gillien Maxwell as well, through her father or through other channels,
Speaker 5: was collecting videotapes, was putting other powerful people in extremely
Speaker 5: compromising positions potentially to extract policy favors out of it.
Speaker 5: On behalf of other people, you know, Donald Trump hedging
Speaker 5: on that one compared to others is obviously, I think,
Speaker 5: a very significant bit.
Speaker 6: And for a news outlet, this is a big deal.
Speaker 5: I mean, everyone watches the cut of an interview with
Speaker 5: the President. I know he's been on Fox many times,
Speaker 5: but anytime you get to sit down interview with the president.
Speaker 5: Executives are watching that cut before it goes to air.
Speaker 5: It's very sensitive on the corporate level. So yeah, I
Speaker 5: agree with you. I think people made different editorial decisions.
Speaker 5: The Will Kine radio show aired the whole thing, and
Speaker 5: good for them for airing the whole thing without cutting
Speaker 5: it up. But obviously more eyeballs were on the Fox
Speaker 5: and Friends sit down, right, you know, when it originally aired.
Speaker 6: So it does seem like there was something intentional.
Speaker 3: Yep, I think so.
Speaker 4: And so I think, in other words, neither president, neither
Speaker 4: candidate running for president now is going to give us
Speaker 4: anything more when it comes to Epstein, and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe maybe something on how he died or
Speaker 4: whatever he said there. He died while Trump was president.
Speaker 3: That's right, let's not forget that, although.
Speaker 5: It's also the Trump You know why I thought that
Speaker 5: was interesting just quickly while you said that, because that's
Speaker 5: something I thought about too, is he felt like the
Speaker 5: intelligence agencies were out of his control, certain spun out
Speaker 5: of his control, And so it was fascinating to me
Speaker 5: that that was the one thing Trump said he would
Speaker 5: want to know more about and would release publicly, is
Speaker 5: how he died because you know, obviously, if you're you're
Speaker 5: someone that could potentially be compromised by Epstein, and.
Speaker 6: Who knows if he would. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: That Trump is compromised by Epstein because of the fact
Speaker 5: that he publicly said, you know, Jeffrey les Young, but
Speaker 5: there's some reason to have questions about it. So anyway,
Speaker 5: all that is to say good and.
Speaker 4: Not just that, Yeah, his his labor secretary, Alexander Costa. Yes,
Speaker 4: it was the US attorney who cut the incredibly sweet
Speaker 4: deal with Epstein and who was who has who basically
Speaker 4: was said like, yeah, I was told he had intel
Speaker 4: ties and told to like, you know, make it basically
Speaker 4: make this go away, and then he's rewarded as Trump's
Speaker 4: it's the labor secretary, so he could he could start
Speaker 4: there if he wanted to, you know, probe that a
Speaker 4: little bit. Just go ask his own labor secretary what happened.
Speaker 6: Good suggestion to go talk to Wacosta.
Speaker 3: You said you heard this. Who'd you hear it from?
Speaker 6: Yeah? No, I agree.
Speaker 5: Well, Ryan, our next guest, just a very big interview,
Speaker 5: and I'm so grateful to you for setting it up
Speaker 5: and your coverage of Pakistan has just been fantastic, so
Speaker 5: I'm looking forward to having Shabbas Gill join the show next.
Speaker 3: All right, stick around for that.
Speaker 4: The US backed Pakistani government is now abducting and arresting
Speaker 4: family members of political activists who's only involvement in politics
Speaker 4: is that they are related to people who are here
Speaker 4: in the West, the United States, Canada or elsewhere and
Speaker 4: are lobbying United States government in order to pressure Pakistan
Speaker 4: to respect human rights over in Pakistan. We put up
Speaker 4: this first element here. This is Mashwan Azar says that
Speaker 4: is the first time in the history of Pakist stand
Speaker 4: that brothers, mothers, sisters, wives of political activists are being harassed,
Speaker 4: threatened and abducted. Uh The statement from PCI Canada ads,
Speaker 4: this vile and cowardly regime has sunk to the lowest
Speaker 4: depths of depravity. Instead of addressing legitimate political dissent, these
Speaker 4: spineless tyrants target innocent families, crossing every conceivable line of
Speaker 4: decency and humanity. To talk more about this, we're going
Speaker 4: to be joined now by doctor Shabbaz Gil, who was
Speaker 4: the chief of staff to former Prime Minister Imran Khan
Speaker 4: in Pakistan and is now his media advisor here in
Speaker 4: the United States. Uh, doctor Gil, thank you so much
Speaker 4: for joining us.
Speaker 7: Thank you Rian for having me.
Speaker 4: And before before we get into the broader political context here,
Speaker 4: you update us on your own personal situation. You were,
Speaker 4: you know, how is your brother? Have you heard from
Speaker 4: him since he was abducted just days ago?
Speaker 7: Right, no Vaya votes.
Speaker 12: Actually between the night of eighth and ninth of you
Speaker 12: he was abrected from Lahore.
Speaker 7: We do not know about his whereabouts.
Speaker 12: His cell phones are completely off, his vehicle disappeared, and
Speaker 12: of course he disappeared.
Speaker 7: Nobody knows who took him.
Speaker 12: Away where they actually abducted him, Like he was leaving
Speaker 12: from his home to Islamabad, another city and during this
Speaker 12: journey they abducted him. So this is a regular practice
Speaker 12: right now actually to silence people. That has been done
Speaker 12: and we have never seen as you are already read
Speaker 12: the statement of Azarmashwani that this is the first time
Speaker 12: we are witnessing in Pakistan that any regime is going
Speaker 12: this far, that they are.
Speaker 7: Actually attacking your families.
Speaker 12: I've before this disappeared, I've been threatened in US.
Speaker 7: I've been conveyed through.
Speaker 12: Middlemen, through intermediaries that I have to be silenced. I
Speaker 12: have to stop my activities which I'm doing for democracy,
Speaker 12: freedom of speech, rule of law in Pakistan, especially the
Speaker 12: release of Imran Khan and other women in the jail.
Speaker 12: I was meeting US lawmakers, you know that I had
Speaker 12: several meetings with the other watchdogs and other people. And
Speaker 12: that was actually and I was protesting, of course in
Speaker 12: different places, organizing protests with the help of my party
Speaker 12: people here in the US. And the last couple of
Speaker 12: weeks I was in Europe, in Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, and
Speaker 12: I was planning to go again into several countries of Europe.
Speaker 12: And I think those are the things which triggered at once.
Speaker 12: Are these are the activities they want to they are
Speaker 12: unhappy with me.
Speaker 7: And then of course my daily.
Speaker 12: Vlog where I update people about the current situation in Pakistan,
Speaker 12: political situation, what is happening. So it is it is
Speaker 12: in a way, it's against the law here in the
Speaker 12: US that they are harming my family and then blackmailing
Speaker 12: me while I'm here in the US that what I
Speaker 12: should do and what should I not do? So, uh,
Speaker 12: that is the situation right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you yourself are obviously a very prominent critic
Speaker 4: of the government. Your your show that you mentioned is
Speaker 4: you know, watched by millions of people, so there's no
Speaker 4: secret about what your position is. But what is your
Speaker 4: brother's involvement in politics at all?
Speaker 3: If at all, I.
Speaker 12: Don't think so, even if he has any social media account,
Speaker 12: like she never commented on politics. He has nothing to
Speaker 12: do on politics. He's a regular person who's spending his
Speaker 12: life is his wife and two sons. One of his
Speaker 12: sons is very young and very attached to his father,
Speaker 12: like five or six years old. So he's very very
Speaker 12: regular Pakistani person who's spending his life with his family
Speaker 12: and working day to day for his life. That's it,
Speaker 12: Like nothing to do with the politics. He never even
Speaker 12: came to meet me while I was in politics in
Speaker 12: Pakistan to my political office, like never came across Like
Speaker 12: you know, families sometimes come to you official dinners and
Speaker 12: other places receptions where you invite your family life. He never,
Speaker 12: he never came across to politics ever, to my politics
Speaker 12: or any political activity per se. So he's not a
Speaker 12: political person or he's not a media commentator in any
Speaker 12: way like social media commentator in any way. So I
Speaker 12: think it is purely as you see that it is
Speaker 12: just to anybody.
Speaker 7: They see that could speak truth.
Speaker 12: Are make people aware because in Pakistan there's a complete
Speaker 12: gag orders enforced on Pakistani media. Nobody can speak other
Speaker 12: than what they really want them to speak. And if
Speaker 12: you remember the case where I got abducted, previously, there
Speaker 12: was a prominent journalist Asha Shariv who had to leave
Speaker 12: the country and later on he got assassinated in Kenya.
Speaker 12: So after that situation was not the same in Pakistan.
Speaker 12: Most of the media people, for example, just to give
Speaker 12: you an idea, all the prominent media figures are definitely
Speaker 12: close friends and I worked with them for almost four
Speaker 12: years in the government as a chief spokesperson of Prime
Speaker 12: Minister in Arkhan laterist chief of Staff. Before that, I
Speaker 12: was in a government of Punjab working with the Chief Minister.
Speaker 12: So I worked with all these prominent media personalities and
Speaker 12: TV anchors and sent them a personal message about the
Speaker 12: abduction of my brother. And I treated too normally practice
Speaker 12: in Pakistani media that people immediately condemn our give their
Speaker 12: opinion about such abduction or any wrongdoing. The majority of
Speaker 12: them did text me back, did text me back over
Speaker 12: the cell phone.
Speaker 7: I mean over the wordstaff.
Speaker 12: But they never treated like They've never given their opinion publically,
Speaker 12: which is a norm in Pakistan usually they do. We
Speaker 12: all reciprocate to each other. If anything wrong happened to anyone,
Speaker 12: we raise voice for that person. And even the situation
Speaker 12: is so worse that majority of our party people now
Speaker 12: even they can't speak like my own party, the political party,
Speaker 12: majority of people couldn't even tweet. There's a so so
Speaker 12: strong pressure over them that it's other Mashwali's brothers are
Speaker 12: it's my brother.
Speaker 7: They cannot even come on the Twitter.
Speaker 12: And read that one of our fellow party members, family
Speaker 12: member got aprected and we condemned this. It's has so
Speaker 12: much harassment, so much pressure on those people, that people
Speaker 12: are afraid of speaking truths.
Speaker 5: Now Heroing and Shabaza wanted to ask, maybe if you
Speaker 5: could sort of zoom out and give us the broader
Speaker 5: context of why it's so important for them to crack
Speaker 5: down on descent, Why they don't want people speaking freely
Speaker 5: and critically of the government.
Speaker 6: Why is that so important.
Speaker 12: Emily, We need to understand fus Pakistan. Pakistan never had
Speaker 12: an ideal democracy or even democracy true democracy. It is
Speaker 12: always military controlled. Our military hatched democracy, our military I
Speaker 12: would say enforced democracy, whatever you.
Speaker 7: Want to say.
Speaker 12: Pakistan never had, unfortunately, ideal of democracy and everybody knows
Speaker 12: that since the inception of Pakistan, it's the Pakistani military
Speaker 12: establishment which controls everything when it comes to governing the
Speaker 12: country majority of the time.
Speaker 7: But the real problem.
Speaker 12: We need to understand about Pakistan that Pakistan is very
Speaker 12: different than any other Muslim country. Pakistan, we have to
Speaker 12: go back. During the British regime of eighteen fifty seven,
Speaker 12: people fought for freedom war and then later on it
Speaker 12: continued until nineteen forty seven. So all the people from
Speaker 12: India and Pakistan and Bangladesh today there are three different countries.
Speaker 12: Of course at that time it was larger in India.
Speaker 12: They fought for their freedom, they exercised their democratic rights,
Speaker 12: so the training is there. Pakistani people tasted the like
Speaker 12: they have to fight for their freedom. So although that
Speaker 12: I would say war is continuing, it didn't end in
Speaker 12: nineteen forty seven month British left people thought it's complete
Speaker 12: freedom now, but unfortunately Pakistani's never got complete democracy and
Speaker 12: they are their fight continues, which they were doing and
Speaker 12: which they were fighting in British during the British you
Speaker 12: know regime. So I don't think people will be silent.
Speaker 12: Pakistani people are different. It's not at spring like you
Speaker 12: won't see it like that. I'm not pensive to any nation.
Speaker 12: I respect everybody, but Pakistani people are different. Yes, they've
Speaker 12: never had democracy, but it's not like it will not
Speaker 12: be a pulse behavior that they will speak for six
Speaker 12: months and then General CC will come and will curb
Speaker 12: everything and you will see complete silence.
Speaker 7: No, you will see movements like maybe for a few.
Speaker 12: Months they can curb and then you will see people
Speaker 12: again on the street. So Pakistani society, pakistan societies.
Speaker 7: Overall makeup is very different.
Speaker 12: So they have a very strong desire and urge for democracy.
Speaker 12: Pakistanis really desired strongly for the freedom of speech and
Speaker 12: Pakistanis are very vocal when it comes to their basic
Speaker 12: human rights and their freedom of speech. So especially Himran Khan,
Speaker 12: who has given a completely different I would say flavor
Speaker 12: in politics. See, he came up with his party twenty
Speaker 12: eight twenty seven years ago with the name that Justice
Speaker 12: Party and he told people that the biggest trouble is
Speaker 12: rule of law and dispensation of justice. If people get
Speaker 12: justice like today, if courts can give me justice Azamashwani
Speaker 12: and other people whose families got abrected, family members got abbrected.
Speaker 7: If we get justice, and.
Speaker 12: Those people who are doing these criminal activities, they are,
Speaker 12: they could be, they could be placed behind the bars,
Speaker 12: are they could be you know, slammed with some kind
Speaker 12: of cases. So I don't think any anyone in future
Speaker 12: would try to do these kind of objections. But our
Speaker 12: problem is that we never Pakistan was never able to
Speaker 12: prosecute such people. Rather political workers got prosecuted, but such
Speaker 12: people never got prosecuted by the state or by any government.
Speaker 12: And they know that it's a free live whatever they do.
Speaker 12: So once, if if ever, once Pakistani codes really go
Speaker 12: to the level where they punish such wrongdoings, I think
Speaker 12: that will be a point where we will see a
Speaker 12: different Pakistan.
Speaker 4: It does seem like the court system is trying in
Speaker 4: a halting and kind of feeble way, but at least
Speaker 4: in at least in a way to push back against
Speaker 4: the establishment. At this point, they've thrown out or suspended
Speaker 4: a number of Imran Khan's you know, kind of trumped
Speaker 4: up prosecutions. The only one that he's still being held
Speaker 4: in prison for at this point, is this really bizarre
Speaker 4: and embarrassing kind of un Islamic, embarrassing for Pakistan's government,
Speaker 4: un Islamic marriage charge. And in order to kind of
Speaker 4: show that he's being treated well in prison, the authorities
Speaker 4: put up this if we can put up this second
Speaker 4: element here, they put up this photo of the of
Speaker 4: the very cramped solitary windowless cell that he's being held
Speaker 4: in as evidence that they're treating him well. But doctor
Speaker 4: Gil I understand is that you actually were in this
Speaker 4: precise same cell for about a week after after you
Speaker 4: were picked up. Can you describe for us what what
Speaker 4: the what the conditions are like there?
Speaker 12: Ran I was in such cell for more than a
Speaker 12: beek actually for a couple of weeks. So it's uh
Speaker 12: six feet five five and a half to six feet
Speaker 12: wide and nine feet along cell windowless, a very small
Speaker 12: hole which is also covered with an exhaust fan, a
Speaker 12: very small.
Speaker 7: That is for the light and air, and uh.
Speaker 12: An open Indian toilet within this cell within these nine
Speaker 12: and six measurements. You can imagine, so after if you
Speaker 12: take that toilet out, you end up having only six
Speaker 12: feet maybe a few inches more For just to adjust
Speaker 12: yourself and sleep on that concrete slab. And they gave
Speaker 12: they gave him a very thin mattress you can see,
Speaker 12: which is placed on that slab. And that is also
Speaker 12: after a lot of public pressure, a lot of lawyers
Speaker 12: pressure in the court because when I was there initially,
Speaker 12: and Imran Khan also when he was there, he never
Speaker 12: got that even thin mattress, and I never got that
Speaker 12: thin mattress.
Speaker 7: File I was in such cells. They used to make
Speaker 7: me sleep on the floor.
Speaker 12: So this is inhuman and from every aspect, this is inhuman.
Speaker 12: The way they are treating him, This cell is an
Speaker 12: embarrassment for rule of law. This cell is an embarrassment
Speaker 12: for human rights. This cell is an embarrassment for democracy.
Speaker 12: Like he's the most popular democratic leader, he's an ex
Speaker 12: prime minister, ninety percent overwhelming support with him and people
Speaker 12: want him back as a prime minister.
Speaker 7: And he's been placed in jail in such a shameful.
Speaker 12: Case that he got married his wife before fulfilling that
Speaker 12: required in their own mind, required time in the two divorces,
Speaker 12: because she got divorced from her previous husband and got
Speaker 12: married with the Prime Minister Khan. And their case is
Speaker 12: that they got married. Their case, which is not a truth.
Speaker 12: But if we even take their case is that they
Speaker 12: got married after forty eight days of her divorce from
Speaker 12: the previous husband. Supreme Court of Pakistan already given judgment
Speaker 12: in nineteen ninety two in another case where a woman
Speaker 12: got married within thirty nine days of her divorce and
Speaker 12: they said this is a sufficient time period to marry
Speaker 12: again after the divorce.
Speaker 7: So this case is already settled in the courts and.
Speaker 12: Even the religious scholars, all of the religious scholars already
Speaker 12: condemned this behavior of current regime.
Speaker 7: So this is a mockery of religion.
Speaker 12: This is a mockery of unfortunately, rule of law and
Speaker 12: Pakistani constitution just to keep him in the jail well
Speaker 12: Ran The most important point is that Prime Minister Khant
Speaker 12: has played his.
Speaker 7: Vital role and he will be.
Speaker 12: In Challah playing his vital role once again in Pakistan.
Speaker 12: But the way he changed the social fabric and political
Speaker 12: fabric in Pakistan, that is unprecedented. He has given, he
Speaker 12: has given a hope and he has given people a
Speaker 12: new orientation. I would say in the political landscape where
Speaker 12: people want to speak given with more strength.
Speaker 7: People are not ready to buy Pakistani military.
Speaker 12: Establishment will always was always successful, hiding behind courtes and
Speaker 12: hiding behind all this persecution and making it look like
Speaker 12: prosecution and making it look like that politicians are incompetent.
Speaker 7: They are corrupt, they are compromised, they are not.
Speaker 12: Honest and patriot with with with Pakistan.
Speaker 7: So these were the charges. And sometime if we.
Speaker 12: Need is they go after a character assassination and their
Speaker 12: family members and all those things. But they were never,
Speaker 12: you know, open in the in the field, in front
Speaker 12: of the people that they are the one there too.
Speaker 7: Everybody knew that, but there was no admission.
Speaker 12: There was nobody accusing them directly, and they were not
Speaker 12: answerable directly to the people of Pakistan. What Prime Minister
Speaker 12: hand died and it's very brave of him that he
Speaker 12: called them out in the public and in the open
Speaker 12: that it.
Speaker 7: Is you who is behind all this.
Speaker 12: So this is the first time military establishment is feeling
Speaker 12: real pressure and real criticism and public accountability, of course
Speaker 12: not in any court, but public accountability in the court
Speaker 12: of public everywhere. People opinion is now crystal clear that
Speaker 12: this is the military establishment who design uh, you know,
Speaker 12: the make and break of the political governments in the
Speaker 12: Pakistan and when they don't do not like somebody, they
Speaker 12: either you know, removed them through court proceedings or they
Speaker 12: removed them through you know, infamous vote of no confidence
Speaker 12: in such tricks.
Speaker 6: And Schabaz, how did you escape that? How did you
Speaker 6: get out of Pakistan?
Speaker 7: Emily.
Speaker 12: That's prior to night May ninth, which was another orchestrated
Speaker 12: operation against by Sandy cames off. After that, everything changed,
Speaker 12: like quotes impact and I would say quotes orientation also changed.
Speaker 12: Our courts are very very limited to their ability to
Speaker 12: provide justice. But before ninth May, we were having at
Speaker 12: least and until then Prime mister Hahn was not got
Speaker 12: arrested and he was also getting some kind of relief
Speaker 12: from the courts in terms of bails and other stuff.
Speaker 7: So April last year, like.
Speaker 12: Twenty twenty three March and April, I went to quote
Speaker 12: a prominent TV anchor Imrandre and myself our cases were
Speaker 12: in the court and Lahore High Court permitted me to
Speaker 12: leave the country. So Imran Riaz was able to leave
Speaker 12: the country. Myself was able to leave the country. Unfortunately,
Speaker 12: Imran Rias went back after completing his Omerah and.
Speaker 7: I also wanted to go back.
Speaker 12: On sixteenth of May twenty twenty three, my flight was booked.
Speaker 12: But then that ninth May happen and the way they
Speaker 12: arrested Prime mister Khan and they physically roughed up with him,
Speaker 12: and you have seen all that over the video evidence.
Speaker 12: What has happened when they arrested Prime mister Khan. So
Speaker 12: after a couple of days, when Prime mister Hahn got released,
Speaker 12: he told me not to come back right now because
Speaker 12: he could foresee what is happening and what will happen
Speaker 12: in coming days.
Speaker 7: So that was the time.
Speaker 12: Then it was decided that I'll stay here in the
Speaker 12: US and I'll continue my activities from there. But it
Speaker 12: was with the court orders of the three member bench,
Speaker 12: a larger bench, which which made me travel, which allowed
Speaker 12: me to travel out of Pakistan.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned h im Ron Riaz.
Speaker 4: Here we actually if you can put up the element
Speaker 4: F four uh, we we have footage of him. This
Speaker 4: is from yesterday headed to the airport and getting abducted.
Speaker 4: And you can see the way that these abductions happened.
Speaker 4: This is not you don't see a lot of You
Speaker 4: see a few kind of authority type figures somewhere in
Speaker 4: the background, but mostly these are all just plane closed
Speaker 4: people surrounding his car. Uh and they and they eventually
Speaker 4: took him.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: This is a journalist, very prominent journalist, who, according to
Speaker 4: all the reporting underwent you know, horrific torture, emerged from custody.
Speaker 4: It seemingly a changed person, yet with intense courage, like
Speaker 4: you said, continued to speak out. Uh and continued speaking
Speaker 4: out from inside Pakistan.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: It's horrific to think of him now back under their
Speaker 4: control and considering what they could potentially do to him.
Speaker 4: And I don't want you to necessarily relive your your
Speaker 4: own detention, but it's been widely reported that you know,
Speaker 4: you suffered incredible amounts of torture as well. And I'm
Speaker 4: curious if, from your perspective, was the torture aimed at
Speaker 4: actually extracting information from you or was it just was
Speaker 4: it to humiliate you? Was it to send a message
Speaker 4: to the rest of your your party, like what what
Speaker 4: was your what was your understanding as as you were
Speaker 4: going through it? And if you don't want to talk
Speaker 4: about it, I also understand that.
Speaker 7: And all right, I would talk about it.
Speaker 12: Actually, there's a history to it again when Zulkar Ali
Speaker 12: Bhuttu got persecuted by Pakistani at that time is Pakistani
Speaker 12: military establishment. They picked up one of his deputy Macmooth
Speaker 12: Maso Masoth Macmooth, I'm sorry, his name was Masud Mamouth
Speaker 12: and he got picked up and they of course tortured
Speaker 12: him and then they were able, they were successful to
Speaker 12: take a statement against Zulfkarli Bhutto was a concorded statement.
Speaker 12: But he appeared in the court against Zulfkarli Bhutto as
Speaker 12: one of their prime witness to accuse him that he
Speaker 12: was involved in a murder. And later on they hanged
Speaker 12: him in that in that completely fabricated and completely i would.
Speaker 7: Say, illegitimate legal case.
Speaker 12: And later on, after thirty five years, Supreme Court of
Speaker 12: Pakistan now agreed and issued a verdict that that was
Speaker 12: a judicial killing, that was not a.
Speaker 7: Fair trial, that was not a fair case.
Speaker 12: So they were repeating exactly the same episode with me
Speaker 12: when they abducted me as a chief of staff. They
Speaker 12: wanted me to give a statement against Prime mister Khan
Speaker 12: that he's involved with Beijing war against Pakistani military and
Speaker 12: he's involved in mutiny, he's involved in sedition and he
Speaker 12: is the one actually who wants to create chaos and
Speaker 12: he wants a civil war in Pakistan against the Pakistani
Speaker 12: military and a Pakistani constitution.
Speaker 7: So this is what they wanted me to say in
Speaker 7: the court. This is what they wanted me to.
Speaker 12: Appear in the court of law and give this statement
Speaker 12: against him. And then of course had I given that statement,
Speaker 12: they would make sure that his faith is similar to
Speaker 12: zulfkaributto what has been done to him, what had been
Speaker 12: done to him.
Speaker 7: They would repeat the same. So that was the actual purpose.
Speaker 12: So of course information gathering are extracting information about.
Speaker 7: The party, party work and about Imran Khan.
Speaker 12: That was there too, But the main aim was to
Speaker 12: get a statement from me against prime insta rant. So
Speaker 12: that was the main objective. To abduct me and then
Speaker 12: torture me. And you know, even I was facing trial
Speaker 12: and charges of sedation and mutiny where I could face
Speaker 12: and I still have that trial under the process in Pakistan,
Speaker 12: where I could even be given a death sentence in
Speaker 12: that case.
Speaker 3: How did you resist making those statements?
Speaker 4: I must be made of much softer stuff, I feel like,
Speaker 4: you know, by the end of the day, by the
Speaker 4: end of the first day, I'd be like, just give
Speaker 4: just give me whatever you want. Like, how did you
Speaker 4: mentally and physically maintain your your your integrity?
Speaker 6: Ryan?
Speaker 7: It is of course physical pain.
Speaker 12: When when when so much physical pain is given to
Speaker 12: any person?
Speaker 7: We are all human beings.
Speaker 12: I'm not a I'm not a terrorist or trained a criminal.
Speaker 7: I am a regular. I'm an academission.
Speaker 12: All my life I taught in universities, worked into classrooms,
Speaker 12: our research labs, and I was never trained for such
Speaker 12: kind of horrific torture. But then we, uh, we have
Speaker 12: a faith in our Allah that once you go through
Speaker 12: such things, there's a there's a reason you have put
Speaker 12: into such tests.
Speaker 7: And maybe that was a time for me.
Speaker 12: To go through such a horrific experience, But actually it
Speaker 12: was a test for me to either I stand by
Speaker 12: my principles are not. It was difficult, I must admit
Speaker 12: it was difficult. Many At times I used to think, Okay,
Speaker 12: let's let's let's give it up. It's it's enough, and uh,
Speaker 12: then I used to think, no, this, this my statement
Speaker 12: would produce a lie, false narrative, and then nobody knows
Speaker 12: how many more will go through the same pain and
Speaker 12: the same numiliation and same stress and same physical torture
Speaker 12: by my wrong statement, by my I would say a
Speaker 12: statement which would not carry truth. So that was the
Speaker 12: feeling that who gives me, who gave me right to
Speaker 12: put other people go through the same just to ease
Speaker 12: my pain?
Speaker 7: That was I think one of the things which made
Speaker 7: me decide this.
Speaker 12: And then I emerged from a very small local village.
Speaker 7: Of Psalabad. So I.
Speaker 12: Had a feel that if I would not stand up,
Speaker 12: if I would not show courage, people from my area
Speaker 12: will be embarrassed. Like this person was the deputy and
Speaker 12: the hand picked person of Prime Minister Imraan Khan as
Speaker 12: his chief of staff. And even if I'm giving any
Speaker 12: statement which is a truth against my leader, any I'm
Speaker 12: talking about any political difference or anything, even that would
Speaker 12: cause a lot of embarrassment to people, those who are
Speaker 12: close to me, people those admire me for my stance
Speaker 12: or support me for my chance. But speaking a lie,
Speaker 12: accusing him for something which he has never done, would
Speaker 12: be a completely shame for me and people relate to me.
Speaker 12: So those were the things actually, those made me think
Speaker 12: that I think I should I must.
Speaker 7: Wear it, I must let it happen.
Speaker 12: What is happening, and I must talk to my Allah
Speaker 12: that give me some strength so that I can go
Speaker 12: through all this pain and torture.
Speaker 7: But the end of the day, I should not fall through,
Speaker 7: should not go down.
Speaker 12: To the pressure that will leave me in embarrassment and
Speaker 12: paying for the rest of my life.
Speaker 6: That's incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I hope I never have to find out, but
Speaker 4: if I do, I would would I can't. I can't
Speaker 4: imagine the fortitude that it took. But that's uh, it's
Speaker 4: it's really interesting to hear the way that you kind
Speaker 4: of talked, your talked your way through it and your
Speaker 4: faith and you're also your your love for your hometown
Speaker 4: and the people around them that that pushed you through it.
Speaker 4: Shabbas Gail will be will be asking the State Department
Speaker 4: about the case of your brother, no doubt about it,
Speaker 4: and and the others who have who have been abducted,
Speaker 4: including in Rnriaz Khan.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for for joining us and sharing
Speaker 3: this with.
Speaker 12: Us, and I I just want to thank you and
Speaker 12: your team on the behalf of entire Pakistan.
Speaker 7: You are a celebrity, no uh, and everybody knows you.
Speaker 12: I think you are maybe one of them if I
Speaker 12: would say three four names in the entire world from
Speaker 12: the Western media are international media outside the Pakistan, maybe
Speaker 12: you are one one.
Speaker 7: Of those two or three people in the.
Speaker 12: Entire world who Pakistani watches. They read your work, they
Speaker 12: interact with your Twitter. You know that they give you compliments,
Speaker 12: they give you and of course there would be some
Speaker 12: military regime back people must be threatening you as well.
Speaker 12: But I'm really really thankful on behalf of Pakistani nation,
Speaker 12: on behalf of Imran Khan, on behalf of all those women, especially,
Speaker 12: I must not forget to salute and.
Speaker 7: I actually appreciate our women. Actually they are the one
Speaker 7: those are making difference.
Speaker 12: It's the first time in Pakistani history that any military
Speaker 12: regime put women behind the bar for such an extended period.
Speaker 7: And again this is the first in Pakistan.
Speaker 12: The way they are responding, the way they are standing
Speaker 12: tall with all the courage and facing all such pressures
Speaker 12: and facing all brutality of the state institutions. But still
Speaker 12: they are not giving up their hopes, they are not
Speaker 12: giving up their truth, They're not giving up their right
Speaker 12: to speak, their right to have rule.
Speaker 7: Of law and democracy in Pakistan. So I.
Speaker 12: Would say, if one segment of the society is most admirable,
Speaker 12: more admirable than I would say sacrifice contribution anyone else
Speaker 12: sacrifice the contribution. It's our women and our journalists like
Speaker 12: Shidashushly got assassinated in Chinia and he.
Speaker 4: Was You make an interesting point because, yeah, the United
Speaker 4: States has takes so much pride in the way that
Speaker 4: it stands up for the rights of women around the world.
Speaker 4: But women have played an extraordinary role in Pakistan in
Speaker 4: the democratic awakening there and have had the American boot
Speaker 4: put put on their necks as a result. Thanks and
Speaker 4: thank you for the kind words. And you know, here
Speaker 4: here's to a better day ahead for Pakistan and for
Speaker 4: everyone around the world.
Speaker 3: Thank you again for joining us.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thanks for that was Shabba's Gail, former chief of staff
Speaker 4: to Prime Minister then Prime Minister im Ron Khan, now
Speaker 4: his media advisor here in the United States. I mean
Speaker 4: that was intense, uh And actually one thing I was
Speaker 4: thinking while he was talking is that I Ran Khan
Speaker 4: might be the figure in the world that represents your
Speaker 4: politics maybe better than anybody else. A true like religious
Speaker 4: social conservative, but also very pro worker. It's it's kind
Speaker 4: of like the compact politics that's like this, this kind
Speaker 4: of new new right politics. He kind of pioneered it
Speaker 4: in a way.
Speaker 5: It's interesting also because he gets very little attention from
Speaker 5: the crowd on the right that will give a lot
Speaker 5: of attention to Victor Orbon or Melae or others. And
Speaker 5: I think probably faith is the key roadblock on that question.
Speaker 5: But still, I was so glad that Shabaz mentioned how
Speaker 5: impactful and influential your reporting has been, because domestically, to
Speaker 5: your point, domestically, I think people are paying so little
Speaker 5: attention to this despite the fact that the American boot.
Speaker 6: As you put it, is.
Speaker 5: Weighing really heavily in Pakistan right now. I mean, the
Speaker 5: media coverage and attention here so disproportionate to America's role
Speaker 5: in the situation in Pakistan. Your reporting has just been huge,
Speaker 5: And you know, I thought that was a really well
Speaker 5: placed gratitude because.
Speaker 6: It's meant a lot. I don't know a lot of
Speaker 6: people over there.
Speaker 4: Randomly becoming a celebrity in Pakistan was not something I
Speaker 4: had in my life's bingo card. But it's been gratifying
Speaker 4: and if nobody else is gonna cover it in the West,
Speaker 4: we're gonna We're gonna do it, so I'm glad that
Speaker 4: glad to see there's an audience for it.
Speaker 5: There absolutely and this is this Friday Show is going
Speaker 5: to be with Orange Cass.
Speaker 6: I know we mentioned that again.
Speaker 5: We will be back here next Wednesday, obviously with counterpoints.
Speaker 5: Make sure to subscribe at breakingpoints dot com to get
Speaker 5: all of counterpoints, so you don't just get a.
Speaker 6: Few clips, you get the whole show. You get it early.
Speaker 5: If you're a subscriber and you get the Friday Show
Speaker 5: early
Speaker 3: As well, all right, we'll see you then,