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.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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Speaker 3: Coverage that is possible.
Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means
Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: let's get to the show.
Speaker 1: It has been ten years since the city of Flint, Michigan,
Speaker 1: was poisoned with lead, and there is one journalist I
Speaker 1: know who never gave up on the story, never left
Speaker 1: the story, and has continued to break explosive news about
Speaker 1: what was an unbelievable criminal cover up and conspiracy that
Speaker 1: did poison an entire American town. That would be Jordan
Speaker 1: Cheriton of Status Kup. And he has a new documentary
Speaker 1: coming out that tells the entire story in a way
Speaker 1: that I think has never been told before.
Speaker 4: What matters right now is this that that Flint River
Speaker 4: right there is still right there, okay, And those people
Speaker 4: that are victims of what was played on them are
Speaker 4: still victims. The seven thousand babies are still brain dammage.
Speaker 4: You fucked up the fact that the matter is. Now,
Speaker 4: what do you do about it? Now? You left a
Speaker 4: lot of people dead and laying in the street, and
Speaker 4: you still got people dead and laying in the streets.
Speaker 4: Excuse my friendship.
Speaker 5: They told us we were disposable.
Speaker 6: That's what they told us, is that we are disposable people.
Speaker 7: Do you think this will ever be fixed?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 8: And you know I don't.
Speaker 7: I'm never gonna see my baby again, and they're never
Speaker 7: gonna see their loved ones again.
Speaker 6: I don't know how to.
Speaker 7: Deal with that. These aren't all elderly people. We're talking
Speaker 7: people in there, oh, forties, fifty.
Speaker 9: About eight years old? Oh wow, I'm talking about I
Speaker 9: know a young girl have breast casting, eight years.
Speaker 3: Old, my grandson.
Speaker 5: He was no longer an AB student, but a d
Speaker 5: e F student.
Speaker 10: Year ten of the water crisis and my eighth year
Speaker 10: of covering this. I first went to Flint in twenty sixteen, And.
Speaker 11: I guess we should start from the beginning.
Speaker 12: What is happening here in Genesee County? And is this
Speaker 12: cancer crisis connected to the water switch?
Speaker 7: Newly released data.
Speaker 12: From the Health Department reveals cancer rates here significantly higher
Speaker 12: than anywhere else in the state of Michigan.
Speaker 11: Is the ten year anniversary of the Flint water crisis,
Speaker 11: and it's not something from the past.
Speaker 1: Jordan's always great to see you, Hey, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. Yeah, of course, So just talk to us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what's new in this documentary and
Speaker 1: why you felt it was so important to stay on
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 11: I think in today's news cycle, where it's hard to
Speaker 11: remember what happened yesterday, it is incredibly hard, since the
Speaker 11: media stopped covering Flint long ago, to remember what Flint
Speaker 11: is about and also realize that it's actively still a crisis,
Speaker 11: not something from the past.
Speaker 7: So I've reported there.
Speaker 11: Twenty times since twenty six and each time I go back,
Speaker 11: it's truly shocking and really horrifying that it's still actively
Speaker 11: a crisis. You know, we've become numb to that word,
Speaker 11: but it's still a crisis. And in this documentary you'll
Speaker 11: see cancers through the roof in Flint, and it's not
Speaker 11: from the weather, it's from the water. Teens are sadly
Speaker 11: now committing suicide. They were children when they were poisoned.
Speaker 11: There is serious, serious mental health problems, education problems, in Flint.
Speaker 11: You'll learn that a lot of the money that Congress
Speaker 11: and elsewhere earmarked for Flint mysteriously did not go to
Speaker 11: Flint and water relief. So it's kind of a mix
Speaker 11: of showing the active crisis, yes, the water is still toxic,
Speaker 11: and the domino effect with the cancers, the teen suicides,
Speaker 11: and really a city that is actively in crisis.
Speaker 1: Tell us of what residents that you spoke with want
Speaker 1: people to know about what has been done to them.
Speaker 11: For the most part, residents desperately want people to know
Speaker 11: that they are still actively in crisis.
Speaker 7: Residents I speak with.
Speaker 11: Still ten years later get rashes from the water. Residents
Speaker 11: I speak to still their eyes burn when they shower,
Speaker 11: still in many cases getting smelly or discolored water. On
Speaker 11: the other side, residents are nearly going bankrupt paying for
Speaker 11: medical bills because they did not get universal health care
Speaker 11: like some other cities with similar issues had Libby, Montana,
Speaker 11: for example, with an asbestos disaster.
Speaker 7: They're predominantly white.
Speaker 11: They got Medicare for All for their crisis rightfully, so
Speaker 11: Flint did not. Residents desperately want the media to pay attention.
Speaker 11: You know, I know we're in a twenty four to seven,
Speaker 11: never ending Trump and Russia and now you know understandably
Speaker 11: Israel Gaza. But they even get their local media to
Speaker 11: continue covering their issues with the water, much less national media.
Speaker 11: So I think between the water, the medical problems, the children,
Speaker 11: the Lost generation, children who are having serious learning problems,
Speaker 11: reading problems, learning disabilities, autism on.
Speaker 7: The rise, and also crime is on the rise.
Speaker 11: We know that heavy metal poisoning, lead poisoning, there's research
Speaker 11: to shows that could lead to higher crime. And there
Speaker 11: is no kind of understanding or sympathy being shown to
Speaker 11: flint teenagers or young adults that are committing crimes, not
Speaker 11: to defend those crimes, but you know a lot of
Speaker 11: that is because their brain was damaged and they have
Speaker 11: volatile mood swings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there is no cure, There is no recovery,
Speaker 1: There is no moving on from lead poisoning. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about the process of accountability of any of the
Speaker 1: politicians who were involved. Have they been held accountable to
Speaker 1: any extent?
Speaker 11: You know, it's funny all we hear about cover a
Speaker 11: lot is all this hubbabaloo about saving democracy.
Speaker 7: Well, how's this for democracy? A US city.
Speaker 11: Of one hundred thousand people was poisoned a decade ago,
Speaker 11: and not one government official, private and individual has been
Speaker 11: held accountable. Not one has even seen a jury, and unfortunately,
Speaker 11: it does not seem anyone will be held accountable.
Speaker 7: Not to get two in the weeds.
Speaker 11: But Attorney General Dana Essel of Michigan, she is a
Speaker 11: beloved you know MSNBC resistance hero for some of the
Speaker 11: cases she brought against Republicans the election scheme, but she
Speaker 11: basically tanked the criminal investigation the Michigan State Supreme Court
Speaker 11: throughout her offices criminal prosecution, stating that they essentially violated
Speaker 11: the state constitution in the way they brought it. As
Speaker 11: a result, former Governor Rick Snyder's charges were thrown out.
Speaker 11: Eight other state officials charges were thrown out. In many cases,
Speaker 11: the statute of limitations has passed those crimes, and as
Speaker 11: we speak, the criminal investigation has ended, so it seems
Speaker 11: no one will be held criminally accountable.
Speaker 1: Jordan, Lastly, what do you think that this story tells
Speaker 1: us about America?
Speaker 11: I think the story of Flint tells us about America
Speaker 11: that the capitalist system, if you're in the wrong city
Speaker 11: at the wrong time, if you have leaders that want
Speaker 11: to you know, run government like a business, throw emergency managers,
Speaker 11: which are unelected czars to take over power, try to
Speaker 11: you know, privatize things, which is what led to this.
Speaker 7: The government is not going to help you, really help you.
Speaker 11: If you are poisoned, whether it's water, whether it's fracking, mining,
Speaker 11: whether a train blows up in your town in Ohio,
Speaker 11: you know you'll get some kind of artificial surface help
Speaker 11: and that the headlines will say you're getting money, but
Speaker 11: at the end of the day, they will leave you
Speaker 11: to slowly die. And that's what's happening in Flint, between
Speaker 11: the cancer and other illnesses from lead and other things
Speaker 11: that we're in that water. It's basically a city that's
Speaker 11: been abandoned by the government and the media.
Speaker 1: And there are so many places like that around the
Speaker 1: country which you have done maybe a better job than
Speaker 1: anyone on covering and staying with the story even after
Speaker 1: a lot of the cameras go away. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us, Thank you for doing this incredible work on
Speaker 1: the documentary, and thank you also for letting us post
Speaker 1: this on our channel. We're really proud to be able
Speaker 1: to premiere this and show off the work that you've
Speaker 1: done and bring this story to you to the country,
Speaker 1: So everybody make sure you check out Jordan's documentary and
Speaker 1: any last thoughts Jordan or any additional advice on how
Speaker 1: to follow your work.
Speaker 7: And thank you to breaking points.
Speaker 11: There are no mainstream media outlets that are willing to
Speaker 11: stay on Flint, so you're not a mainstream outlet and
Speaker 11: that's why you're airing it. Yes, you can check out
Speaker 11: and subscribe to Status Coup on YouTube Status coup where
Speaker 11: we cover Flint, East Palestine and many similar stories, and
Speaker 11: you could support our work at status cu dot com, slash.
Speaker 1: Join statisticcou dot com. Guys, go check it out. They
Speaker 1: do really important work that is totally overlooked by the
Speaker 1: mainstream press.
Speaker 13: Jordan always great to see and talk to you. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 1: One thing we have been covering here for quite a
Speaker 1: while is the massive role in the US and really
Speaker 1: global economy of the behemoth Amazon. So we're lucky to
Speaker 1: be joined this morning by an author of a new
Speaker 1: book about that corporate giant. The title is The Everything War,
Speaker 1: Amazon's ruthless quest to own the world and remake corporate power.
Speaker 1: The author is Dana Mattioli. She's a Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: Amazon reporter, and she joins us. Now, Dana, great to
Speaker 1: meet you and welcome.
Speaker 5: Good to see you, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, So tell us what is sort of
Speaker 1: the core thesis of the book.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the book tracks Amazon's rise from this garage startup
Speaker 8: to really the most dominant force in corporate America, but
Speaker 8: the world of writ large, its effects on the economy,
Speaker 8: job creation, competition, and how it's found itself in the
Speaker 8: center of this monopoly lawsuit because of the habit it's
Speaker 8: reaped across different industries. So it's an investigation to the
Speaker 8: company's business practices and the results of it having accumulated
Speaker 8: so much power.
Speaker 2: One of the things that you go into data is
Speaker 2: about monopoly itself and the definition. I'm wondering if you
Speaker 2: could lay that out from our audience, because I know
Speaker 2: it's a bit complicated, But what's the effect of that
Speaker 2: and how regulators are looking at the power of Amazon.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So these anti trust laws were first derived in the
Speaker 8: Gilded Age to stop the trust like standard oil, and
Speaker 8: for years, in the years decades it was enforced to
Speaker 8: allow competition, to protect smaller rivals to compete.
Speaker 5: There was a change in the way that it was
Speaker 5: enforced in the nineteen seventies and eighties.
Speaker 8: Where the lens shifted to looking at these laws and
Speaker 8: competition through its effect on prices and efficiency. Companies were
Speaker 8: offering low prices and they could be more efficient. There
Speaker 8: was a standard of letting that happen, and we stopped defending,
Speaker 8: you know, David versus Goliath so vehemently, and that's sort
Speaker 8: of given rise to companies like Amazon. In the early days,
Speaker 8: in particular, it was known as this low cost retailer.
Speaker 8: So as long as it was offering low prices for consumers,
Speaker 8: it was allowed to get away with lots of other
Speaker 8: types of behavior that would have been enforced in years past.
Speaker 5: And you see that throughout big tech with Google and
Speaker 5: Apple and Facebook as well.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that you point to an
Speaker 1: anecdote that you have in the story just so people
Speaker 1: can get like a finer point on the type of
Speaker 1: behavior you're talking about, is how when Amazon decided they
Speaker 1: wanted to go into the food business and have a
Speaker 1: private label, their approach was just to higher up some
Speaker 1: former Trader Joe's execs and be like, give us everything
Speaker 1: you have about what their top items are and we're
Speaker 1: just going to copy them, and that's what we're going
Speaker 1: to do to just tell us about that anecdote and
Speaker 1: how that connects to their typical business practices.
Speaker 8: So in twenty fifteen, Amazon was launching this food brand
Speaker 8: called Wickedly Prime, and they wrote this paper internally to
Speaker 8: Pitchet to management and it said, we want to replicate
Speaker 8: the top two hundred items at Trader Joe's. Problem was
Speaker 8: they didn't know what those items were. So they set
Speaker 8: out and hired this executive from Trader Joe's, didn't really
Speaker 8: tell her what she'd be working on, and her first
Speaker 8: week in Seattle, she stumbles across this very secretive conference room.
Speaker 8: It has brown paper covering the windows in the door
Speaker 8: so no one could see inside, and she walks in
Speaker 8: and it's filled with boxes or Trader joe Snacks, the
Speaker 8: exact area that she worked in at Trader Joe's. She
Speaker 8: starts getting alarmed, and from there her manager starts pressuring
Speaker 8: her to give any sorts of documents she had retained
Speaker 8: from her employment at Trader Joe's, even though she has
Speaker 8: an NDA and whatnot.
Speaker 5: She caves to the pressure.
Speaker 8: She gives them an Excel spreadsheet with the top items
Speaker 8: from Trader Joe's, the sales volume over the course of
Speaker 8: a week. But then he just keeps hounding Graces. I
Speaker 8: want the margins data, he screams at her. She cries
Speaker 8: in the middle of Amazon's headquarters. And someone reported this
Speaker 8: to legal so the people that were involved did get
Speaker 8: let go. But everyone I've spoken to has said this
Speaker 8: was so indicative of the pressure people at Amazon are
Speaker 8: under to perform. They need to improve their numbers, they
Speaker 8: need to hit their targets because at the end of
Speaker 8: the year, the bottom six percent gets cut, and that
Speaker 8: has effects on the type of behavior that play out
Speaker 8: across the company. And this is like not an isolated
Speaker 8: incident by any means.
Speaker 1: Right well, And in this instance, they didn't have access
Speaker 1: to the Trader joe information, and it's not something that
Speaker 1: you can get publicly, So their approach was, all right,
Speaker 1: we're going to hire this person and we're just going
Speaker 1: to steal the information and then we're going to copy it.
Speaker 1: But in lots of cases, you know, they have this
Speaker 1: giant marketplace with lots of independent sellers.
Speaker 13: They can see exactly which.
Speaker 1: Products are selling really well and performing really well among
Speaker 1: their customers. They can replicate those products, and then they
Speaker 1: can use their own algorithm to make sure that when
Speaker 1: a shopper is looking for something like that product, it's
Speaker 1: not that original independent sellers product who gets pushed. It's
Speaker 1: their business line that gets pushed, so that they get
Speaker 1: to reap the benefits of every aspect of this marketplace.
Speaker 5: And they've been doing that for years.
Speaker 8: The book gets into details about how, first of all,
Speaker 8: Amazon has unprecedented access to data not just from its sellers,
Speaker 8: but its rivals. It's partners that you see time and
Speaker 8: time again in really shocking ways, Amazon uses that information
Speaker 8: to undercut them and to reverse engineer their hits and
Speaker 8: claim it as their own. On the private label side,
Speaker 8: they were spying on their sellers, taking their data on
Speaker 8: about what's selling well, and then reverse engineering it in
Speaker 8: shins in and just putting some of these sellers out
Speaker 8: of business. But we also saw that the on the
Speaker 8: VC arm, you know Amazon, because they're so big there,
Speaker 8: there's many tentacle octopus with such big market share everywhere.
Speaker 8: Founders come and pitch them on an acquisition or funding,
Speaker 8: and so many of the people I spoke to came
Speaker 8: out of those meetings saying was that a deal making
Speaker 8: talk or was that corporate espionage?
Speaker 4: M Wow?
Speaker 2: Fascinating, David, So in the future, what do you expect
Speaker 2: now that Amazon is already what is it, the second
Speaker 2: largest employer in the United States, Their power is only increasing.
Speaker 2: They are eventually going to brush up against actual legislative
Speaker 2: action or even the FTC. Where do you see the
Speaker 2: future going for Amazon right now?
Speaker 8: So, the FTC filed a lawsuit against Amazon saying that
Speaker 8: you're a monopoly. It will go to court in twenty
Speaker 8: twenty six, so that's still some times away from here.
Speaker 8: But what's kind of interesting to me is that they
Speaker 8: don't seem at all rattled. They Andy Jasse, the CEO
Speaker 8: right now, has told his deputies that we could be
Speaker 8: a ten trillion dollar company. Their general counsel a few
Speaker 8: weeks after this lawsuit was filed against Amazon, got on
Speaker 8: stage in All Hands and was asked about his outlook
Speaker 8: for the monopoly lawsuit, and he said, haters are.
Speaker 5: Going to hate, going to shake it off. So we
Speaker 5: just quoted, you know, Taylor Swift. So they really don't seem.
Speaker 1: Phased or to have any shame about ringe comments like that. Dane,
Speaker 1: My last question for you is just to give the
Speaker 1: other side, like, you know, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who love Amazon, who are like Amazon's amazing and they're
Speaker 1: super convenient, and guess what, Like they did amazing and
Speaker 1: they grew to such size because people really like what
Speaker 1: they had to offer and it's super cool that I
Speaker 1: can get you know, my toilet paper delivered next day
Speaker 1: or whatever. And you know something I saw you got
Speaker 1: a question about before. You got a lot of independent
Speaker 1: sellers who may be in some small town in Kansas
Speaker 1: or wherever, and now they're able to each reach this
Speaker 1: global marketplace. Isn't that glorious for them? So what's your
Speaker 1: response there?
Speaker 8: I would say for consumers, we should be thinking about
Speaker 8: at what costs? So what was very telling to me
Speaker 8: is I went back to some of Amazon's earliest employees
Speaker 8: from the nineteen nineties, the people.
Speaker 5: That helped build this machine.
Speaker 8: They've become fabulously wealthy from their stock options at the time, right,
Speaker 8: I mean, they're living really well, and I've gone back
Speaker 8: to them to say, like, how do you.
Speaker 5: Fel about the company now?
Speaker 8: So many of them have canceled their prime accounts, a
Speaker 8: lot of them avoid Amazon wherever they can, and some
Speaker 8: of them have even said I feel like I helped
Speaker 8: build a monster.
Speaker 5: Like they have regrets about this.
Speaker 8: They worry about its impact on innovation, main street, the economy.
Speaker 8: I mean, if you look at just the jobs in
Speaker 8: retail in twenty eighteen, there's a net loss of seven
Speaker 8: hundred thousand retail jobs according to one study, and then
Speaker 8: between twenty one and twenty seventeen, half a million department
Speaker 8: store jobs were evaporated. That's eighteen times as many as
Speaker 8: they were lost in coal mining, to give you an example, right,
Speaker 8: And that's just one of their tentacles. And you know,
Speaker 8: when I speak to those CEOs, the mall retailer CEOs,
Speaker 8: the CEOs of the department stores, of the other retailers,
Speaker 8: they point directly at Amazon.
Speaker 2: Really a lot to think about. I recommend everybody go
Speaker 2: and buy the book. We'll have a link in the description.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great to have you, Dana, Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Breakpoints Beyond the Headlines.
Speaker 7: My name is James Lee.
Speaker 6: Joining us today is Jen Peerlman. She is running against
Speaker 6: Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the Democratic primary to represent Florida's
Speaker 6: twenty fifth congressional district.
Speaker 3: Jen Welcome to the show.
Speaker 13: Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 6: Of course, of course, first question has to be I think,
Speaker 6: why are you running? Because we all know that the
Speaker 6: Democratic Party probably doesn't want you to run. So tell
Speaker 6: us what makes your candidacy different than that of your opponent,
Speaker 6: Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Speaker 14: Okay, So the main reason that I ran in twenty
Speaker 14: and the same reason that I'm running now is this
Speaker 14: idea of transforming politics into service, this idea that this
Speaker 14: is supposed to be a term of service and not
Speaker 14: a career, and it is certainly not meant to be.
Speaker 13: A lucrative career.
Speaker 14: So the idea of having somebody in there in representing
Speaker 14: this district that is not behold into the military industrial complex,
Speaker 14: big pharma, APAC, you name, it is very appealing to
Speaker 14: a lot of people in the district. And some people, yes,
Speaker 14: there's policy and stuff that they're concerned with, but I
Speaker 14: got to tell you, for the most part, what people
Speaker 14: want is to get rid of the corruption and as
Speaker 14: somebody who isn't looking for a second career and doesn't
Speaker 14: need this job and generally gets like a five year, itch.
Speaker 14: This is not this is not a career choice for me.
Speaker 14: It has to be like, I'm not gonna sit there.
Speaker 14: And the only reason I feel like it's hard right
Speaker 14: now is unseating a corporate incumbent that's backed by APAC.
Speaker 13: Right, this is about.
Speaker 14: Unseating a corporate monolith and returning this seat and potentially
Speaker 14: even the state of Florida to people that may have
Speaker 14: its best interest at heart over people that do not.
Speaker 6: I wanted to ask you. You brought up APAX several times,
Speaker 6: so I wanted to ask you. Recently, they've been openly
Speaker 6: bragging about their influence in Congress, whether with the big
Speaker 6: build now to Israel, and also how their support basically
Speaker 6: get and tease election to Congress and your opponent takes
Speaker 6: millions from a pack. And there's been a lot written about.
Speaker 3: This as well.
Speaker 6: How much control do you think pro Israel lobbies have
Speaker 6: on members of Congress?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 14: I think they seem to own them. They seem to
Speaker 14: own actually all three branches of government and the fourth estate.
Speaker 14: I find it terrifying. Everybody should be asking themselves why
Speaker 14: isn't APAC registered as a foreign agent? Why is APAC
Speaker 14: the only lobbying group on behalf of a foreign entity
Speaker 14: that does not have to have his lobbyist registered as
Speaker 14: foreign agents. Why is that so they can give unlimited dollars.
Speaker 13: It's that's why.
Speaker 14: And so you know, obviously we have we're being ruled
Speaker 14: by the zion Estate. You can always tell who's in
Speaker 14: charge by what you're not allowed to speak out against.
Speaker 14: So if I can sit here and I can talk
Speaker 14: about Joe Biden, no problem. I could talk about you know,
Speaker 14: I could talk about my congressman, no problem.
Speaker 13: But you talk about Israel, then that's it.
Speaker 14: So that's clearly who's in charge.
Speaker 13: I basically have told Apak to bring it. Bring it.
Speaker 14: You can call me a self loathing Jew. You can
Speaker 14: do what ever you want to do. It's of no
Speaker 14: matter to me. But I will say to people who
Speaker 14: would like to defeat the concept that electing someone like
Speaker 14: me as an anti Zionist Jew over someone like Debbie
Speaker 14: would be the strongest signal message that the collectively we
Speaker 14: could send to APAC. Seriously, that would be like the
Speaker 14: biggest fu to APAC. Because right now there aren't any
Speaker 14: anti Zionist Jews running for Congress, and I haven't seen any.
Speaker 14: But maybe a couple even sort of maybe kind to
Speaker 14: say something that are in there, so you know, I'm
Speaker 14: the last thing that they want.
Speaker 6: Yeah, speaking of conflation of maybe anti Zionism anti Semitism
Speaker 6: a lot. It's been going on in college campuses, most
Speaker 6: recently at Columbia with the Gaza and campus sitting sitting.
Speaker 6: And I also saw this morning footage from ny You
Speaker 6: now reports of MIT tough other universities doing the exact
Speaker 6: same thing, and some in the mainstream are really calling
Speaker 6: these students terrorists. I've heard that thrown out there, some
Speaker 6: members of Congress saying similar you know, not going as far,
Speaker 6: but they're saying similar things, basically portraying them as not
Speaker 6: anti Zionist protests but also anti Semitic, targeting Jews. I've
Speaker 6: seen some videos, you know, both good and bad videos.
Speaker 6: So I'm wondering, based on your values that you just
Speaker 6: talked about, what's your reaction to what the students are doing.
Speaker 14: I could not be prouder like I could almost cry
Speaker 14: like I I those kids are the future of everything.
Speaker 14: Those kids are smart and capable and organized, like serious say,
Speaker 14: could cry, I am so proud of those kids. They're
Speaker 14: not even my kids. But I mean, okay, I'm old
Speaker 14: enough to be their mother, but I feel like, you know,
Speaker 14: they are doing they are kicking ass. I could not
Speaker 14: stand a more solidready. And as far as the people
Speaker 14: that are calling them names and calling them out, that
Speaker 14: is called the death throws of empire and the death
Speaker 14: rows of capital.
Speaker 13: And while it looks ugly, it's it's really a sign.
Speaker 13: It's a sign. I know that people.
Speaker 14: You know, it's scary, you know, like what's going on
Speaker 14: is scary, but I you know, this is this is
Speaker 14: how it needs to be before it can be different.
Speaker 14: And so I understand that it's very uncomfortable for people.
Speaker 14: But like those students, that is all my goal in
Speaker 14: life is to consolidate those people with the union, the
Speaker 14: labor movement, with the environmentalist movement, with the block cop
Speaker 14: city movement and everybody, and like that's the coalition that
Speaker 14: we need to build. So those those kids are you know,
Speaker 14: they're fighting for everyone. I'm very pleased with them, and
Speaker 14: they need to I am, and I'm also will stand
Speaker 14: in solid area with the professors that are putting their
Speaker 14: careers on the line for standing up for these students.
Speaker 14: And so you know, that is something that I yeah,
Speaker 14: major respect.
Speaker 6: If you're I'm curious, if you were one of the
Speaker 6: university presidents, how would you handle this, because it's obviously
Speaker 6: a very controversial, it's it's uncomfortable and that they're in
Speaker 6: a tough spot, So I'm curious, how would you handle this.
Speaker 14: I can actually tell you exactly how I would handle it,
Speaker 14: because I can go back to the first time I
Speaker 14: saw it was the mi T president and the pen
Speaker 14: I think back like it was like a few months
Speaker 14: ago when they were sitting in front and being questioned
Speaker 14: by that vile woman up in New.
Speaker 13: York, and.
Speaker 14: She was asking them basically trying to get them to say, okay,
Speaker 14: that they condone the basically that they condone the suggestion
Speaker 14: of genocide, okay by saying that words like intifada and
Speaker 14: phrases like from the river to the sea are chants
Speaker 14: for genocide. And right there, when neither of those people
Speaker 14: spoke up in that moment and looked her in the
Speaker 14: face and said, nobody's calling for a genocide. That's not
Speaker 14: what that means. And given that woman the.
Speaker 13: History lesson that she needed it at the time.
Speaker 14: I am so tired of people calling things what they
Speaker 14: are not those chants have nothing to do with anti Semitism.
Speaker 14: In fact, they are ethnic cleansing terms that were created
Speaker 14: by the Lequd party in Israel. So if anybody, and
Speaker 14: I will say this, like I say every time, every
Speaker 14: single thing that Zionists accuse others of our only admissions
Speaker 14: of stuff that they do.
Speaker 13: And you know they're lying when their lips are moving.
Speaker 13: And I know this because I.
Speaker 14: Was trained and brainwashed and grown up all Zionist and proud,
Speaker 14: and it's taken me about fourteen years to deprogram.
Speaker 3: How did you deprogram yourself? What was your journey there?
Speaker 14: It's you know what, It's taken a long time, and
Speaker 14: it was it was definitely like a process. But it
Speaker 14: started around the time of the Second Antifada, which was
Speaker 14: also around the time that I started hearing about BDS.
Speaker 14: And then I started hearing about anti BDS legislation.
Speaker 13: This was like.
Speaker 14: Early two thousands, and I started looking into that and
Speaker 14: then it just sort of unfolded like a house of
Speaker 14: cards online. Because I am someone who very much believes
Speaker 14: in the First Amendment, and so the idea that I
Speaker 14: am not allowed to boycott a foreign entity and also
Speaker 14: get a contract with a city for you know, for work.
Speaker 14: That seems like a violation of my first Amendment to me.
Speaker 14: And so then I started looking into why are we
Speaker 14: so scared of BDS? Where does that come from?
Speaker 13: You know? And it just it was a rabbit hole.
Speaker 14: And up until even twenty nineteen, I still thought that
Speaker 14: a two state solution was possible.
Speaker 13: I was still what you.
Speaker 14: Would call they call them liberal Zionists, like you believe
Speaker 14: that the state of Israel has a right to exist,
Speaker 14: but you believe Palestinians should have their own state. Those people,
Speaker 14: and then once you do the research and you realize
Speaker 14: that there was never an intent by Zionists to have
Speaker 14: a Palestinian state. That was always made up talking point again,
Speaker 14: like the whole thing unraveled. And so yeah, that's my background,
Speaker 14: but it's very upsetting to me. I grew up in
Speaker 14: a working class family that would send money to Israel
Speaker 14: to plant trees in Israel. Everything was through J and F.
Speaker 14: I did a high school program through the Jewish National
Speaker 14: Fund called Alexander Muss High School in Israel where they
Speaker 14: have us planting trees and occupied territory under armed guard,
Speaker 14: and we all thought.
Speaker 13: Oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 14: This guy has an assault rifle and he's traveling with us.
Speaker 14: And as a mother, I'm thinking, if you are taking
Speaker 14: my child somewhere where you think that they need somebody
Speaker 14: standing over them with an assault rifle to protect them,
Speaker 14: you are somewhere you ought not be, and therefore you
Speaker 14: are using my child as.
Speaker 13: A human shield.
Speaker 14: That's what I think, and also as a tool of
Speaker 14: ethnic cleansing. So my thoughts on a pack and that
Speaker 14: they can come for me all they want. I know
Speaker 14: all their secrets, I know all their stories, I know
Speaker 14: all their talking.
Speaker 13: Points and all they have. They have money, they have money.
Speaker 14: You know, they'll put out tons of constant reminding people
Speaker 14: over and over again that I support terrorists, I'm a
Speaker 14: Hamas lover.
Speaker 13: You know they'll put that on repeat.
Speaker 14: But the problem is, at the end of the day,
Speaker 14: it's still only going to appeal to a very small,
Speaker 14: finite echo chamber of voters and the people that will
Speaker 14: watched that APAC loop over and over. It's not going
Speaker 14: to expand that group of people isn't going to just
Speaker 14: get bigger. You're not going to all of a sudden
Speaker 14: have somebody that cares about that issue.
Speaker 6: I don't think you're wrong there in terms of the
Speaker 6: number of people supporting Israel in the same way they
Speaker 6: have done in the past, or be smaller and smaller.
Speaker 6: But we just saw this past weekend that doesn't really matter.
Speaker 6: In Congress, they just you know, shove through this ninety
Speaker 6: five billion dollars a package Ukraine Israel.
Speaker 3: A little bit of.
Speaker 14: It wouldn't have had my name on it. I could
Speaker 14: tell you that right now. It would not have had
Speaker 14: my name on it. And they could bundle it with
Speaker 14: all sorts of other stuff. You could bundle it with everything,
Speaker 14: you could put whipp cream and a cherry on top,
Speaker 14: and I still would not sign that.
Speaker 13: So yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 14: And of course you know Debbie, she she would She
Speaker 14: always gives them more money than they asked for.
Speaker 6: So then, you know, we saw some of the footage
Speaker 6: coming out this week from the from the weekend, just
Speaker 6: members of Congress waving foreign flags, and it looked, you know,
Speaker 6: it was a really striking visual to see, especially since
Speaker 6: we have been more or less gridlocked on a lot
Speaker 6: of these domestic legislative pieces. But then they got somehow
Speaker 6: the ability to do that, also sneaking into the TikTok band,
Speaker 6: which I think is a pretty unpopular legislation for for
Speaker 6: the American people. So then what what do you say
Speaker 6: the folks that you know that have kind of just
Speaker 6: given up on the electoral process and say, well, it
Speaker 6: doesn't matter who we vote in there, there's just still going.
Speaker 3: To do the things that they do.
Speaker 14: You know what, there is no solid answer for that.
Speaker 14: I think you got to just be chipping away at it.
Speaker 14: I mean, look, there were there were people that didn't
Speaker 14: sign that. There were people there were even some Jewish
Speaker 14: congress people that didn't sign that, So you know, it
Speaker 14: can be done. You just need to start chipping away
Speaker 14: at the corporate tentacles that are basically holding people. And
Speaker 14: you can only do that by electing people that don't
Speaker 14: take corporate money. And then it becomes even people that
Speaker 14: don't take corporate money, but they're still scared of being
Speaker 14: primaried from that corporate money. So even though they're not
Speaker 14: taking it, they're still sort of acting in accordance with it.
Speaker 14: So there's a lot of that too. And it's look,
Speaker 14: I don't I can't speak for anyone else, right like,
Speaker 14: I only know how it is for me, and I
Speaker 14: would just always be as transparent and really bring this
Speaker 14: home here, what people want, what they want to see,
Speaker 14: and not just fall in line with a party or
Speaker 14: fall in line with anybody if it's not in the
Speaker 14: best interest or what the majority of people really want.
Speaker 6: Yeah, speak seeing a political strategy. So I've noticed that
Speaker 6: if you compare them more you can say, more extreme
Speaker 6: members of each party, the Freedom Caucus, those guys versus
Speaker 6: say the squad one side seems much more willing to
Speaker 6: play hardball to kind of get what we want.
Speaker 3: Now, where would you stand? How how would you approach politics?
Speaker 14: When I am sitting here and I'm on the same
Speaker 14: page as people like Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 14: And this wasn't the first time, by the way. Now,
Speaker 14: granted I will say this, her reasons for why she
Speaker 14: would vote no to certain things are completely different than
Speaker 14: my reasons. Okay, like that that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 14: She doesn't want to give them money because she's worried
Speaker 14: about China and space lasers or whatever her shit is.
Speaker 14: But like their strategy of really sticking it to their
Speaker 14: party is that's exactly what we need to be doing.
Speaker 13: That's exactly that's.
Speaker 14: The whole point of having a progressive caucus, except there's
Speaker 14: like over one hundred people in the Progressive Caucus, but
Speaker 14: yet only how many people signed didn't sign this resolution,
Speaker 14: and that's barely being progressive. So no, I think that
Speaker 14: they they are definitely feckless. I think they don't wield power.
Speaker 14: I think they're more concerned with getting primaried. I think
Speaker 14: that the rain Makers and the queen Bees and whoever
Speaker 14: in that party just scare them and bully them. And
Speaker 14: I don't Again, I don't know because I'm not there,
Speaker 14: but I do know that there are a lot more
Speaker 14: people listed in the Progressive Caucus then there are actually
Speaker 14: seemingly progressive people. So maybe if that caucus actually stood
Speaker 14: for something and really was a progressive caucus of actual
Speaker 14: progressive people, not people that take like, let's say, big
Speaker 14: farm and insurance money, then maybe they'd have power. But
Speaker 14: they don't have any power because they're infiltrated by so
Speaker 14: many different people that aren't really with them. Like there's
Speaker 14: no what is that the squad isn't a real thing.
Speaker 14: That's a made up term by media. That's not a
Speaker 14: real thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when I'm looking at this whole election cycle and
Speaker 6: in totality all the way from the top to the bottom.
Speaker 3: I kind of see.
Speaker 6: So there's a lot of people, I think gravitating towards
Speaker 6: the more Trump like figures. The guys who are out
Speaker 6: there saying, hey, we're going to have the best country,
Speaker 6: the best economy, we have the jobs coming back, strong border,
Speaker 6: a little bit of that, you could say, just trust me,
Speaker 6: give me the keys, and I'm going to take good
Speaker 6: care of you vibes. And then I think the other side,
Speaker 6: the Democrats have characterized that kind of posturing is dictatorial
Speaker 6: and that's why we need to vote Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: We got to save democracy.
Speaker 6: They don't really talk too much about their domestic agenda
Speaker 6: beyond anti Trump. So what I'm curious about is, let's
Speaker 6: say the Democrats are right. Let's say we go with
Speaker 6: their definition. One side is dictatorship. The other side is
Speaker 6: what maybe what you just kind of characterize as a
Speaker 6: pseudo democratic administration that's in effect owned by many of
Speaker 6: the same groups lobby I.
Speaker 14: Was talking about Congress. If you want to talk about
Speaker 14: Joe now, we're not just talking now, we're talking genocidal. So, yeah,
Speaker 14: you might have a dictator on one side, but you
Speaker 14: got somebody genocidal on the other, but please continue.
Speaker 6: So then what is one side truly that different than
Speaker 6: the other? I guess what are your thoughts on this argument?
Speaker 13: I think it's absurd.
Speaker 14: I think the fact that we're sitting here and talking
Speaker 14: about between those two individuals in particular, that that's the
Speaker 14: two main choices, that's a sign that we no longer
Speaker 14: have a democracy.
Speaker 13: We're already there.
Speaker 14: People, We have so crossed over into the realm of
Speaker 14: fascist corporate takeover of this country that I just don't
Speaker 14: know what to tell you anymore. But the fact that
Speaker 14: that's the choice, what are you scared?
Speaker 13: Seriously?
Speaker 14: And the thing is the people that truly do I
Speaker 14: have found this And I have been dialing for dollars
Speaker 14: a lot lately, so I talk to a lot of
Speaker 14: people on the phone, and I always say, you know,
Speaker 14: who do you like in the election? And so I'm
Speaker 14: talking to a lot of.
Speaker 13: People, and without without fail, the.
Speaker 14: People whose primary concern is about Trump are more privileged people.
Speaker 13: Without fail, the.
Speaker 14: People who are struggling, working, whatever they it's they don't
Speaker 14: even mention Trump. They mention they mentioned healthcare, they mentioned
Speaker 14: in clean water, they mention wars, they mention those things.
Speaker 14: So the people that are really so scared of Trump
Speaker 14: at this point are really a small group of people,
Speaker 14: and it is an establishment, democratic, very elitist group of people,
Speaker 14: and they are completely out of touch with regular people
Speaker 14: because when you talk to like vulnerable people or in
Speaker 14: any moment, so for example, Palestinians at the moment, I'm
Speaker 14: pretty sure that there's nothing worse than somebody who's participating
Speaker 14: in genociding their family. I'm pretty sure that there's no
Speaker 14: worse than that, like that, that's as bad as You're
Speaker 14: not going to scare them with anything at this point.
Speaker 14: So you look at the most vulnerable and oppressed people
Speaker 14: at any time, and look at from their perspective, what's
Speaker 14: their perspective on who would be worse? Not who would
Speaker 14: be worse for rich you know, you know, elitist America.
Speaker 13: That doesn't concern me. You look at it for what
Speaker 13: would be worse for the least of these. And I
Speaker 13: am telling you from someone who.
Speaker 14: Has been in the streets with the least of these
Speaker 14: for the better part of the past five years. It
Speaker 14: is six to one half a dozen of the other
Speaker 14: between those two people, I assure you.
Speaker 6: Before I let you go, I want to talk about
Speaker 6: your campaign specifically. So you ran twenty twenty also against W.
Speaker 6: Wasserman Schultz.
Speaker 3: You lost.
Speaker 6: I think the vote count was about fifty five k
Speaker 6: for her, twenty one for you, seventy thirty split. So
Speaker 6: this time in twenty twenty four, what are you trying
Speaker 6: to do differently? What do you see as your path
Speaker 6: to victory? You know, between now in August twentieth, what
Speaker 6: are the kinds of things that you and your campaign
Speaker 6: are doing to strategically try to close that gap?
Speaker 14: Okay, So let me be very clear, even though I
Speaker 14: didn't run in twenty two, I have been working canvassing
Speaker 14: in this district for the past four years, whether it
Speaker 14: was for women's reproductive freedom, whether it was for other
Speaker 14: candidates whatever. Okay, So just the amount of community ties,
Speaker 14: name recognition, build up all of that connections in city
Speaker 14: commission seats that weren't there four years ago, people that
Speaker 14: are in positions were other people used to put their
Speaker 14: hands on the wait for Debbie, hands on the scale
Speaker 14: for Debbie. Just a lot of things in played there,
Speaker 14: also just having my podcast having more name recognition. But
Speaker 14: our district lines have also changed, and the entire Dade
Speaker 14: County portion that used to be in our district, which
Speaker 14: is coastal, affluent, very Jewish. That entire portion is no
Speaker 14: longer in our district, and instead we gained an area,
Speaker 14: a town called Mirramar, which is very working class, canvasible,
Speaker 14: regular people, heavy Latino, a lot of Haitian islander you know,
Speaker 14: working people, but most importantly canvasible because the rich, hoity
Speaker 14: toity high rises that got cut out of our district
Speaker 14: were areas that we couldn't even canvas as a grassroots campaign.
Speaker 14: So the only way in those is TV and mailers,
Speaker 14: which we could do a couple but she's able to
Speaker 14: like flood it.
Speaker 13: So to get rid of.
Speaker 14: Portions of the district that aren't canvassible is a huge
Speaker 14: gain for us. But then you also look at the
Speaker 14: demographic that she lost. She lost, she lost a lot.
Speaker 13: Of wealthy Jewish people.
Speaker 14: It's actually where I'm from is the part of the
Speaker 14: district that's no longer in district where I grew up
Speaker 14: is that, and so what we gained is not that.
Speaker 14: So the demographic has changed, uh as well. That is
Speaker 14: also in favor of people fighting for working class issues.
Speaker 13: So there's been a lot of different variables.
Speaker 14: And honestly, what's going on in Gaza is that that
Speaker 14: makes it almost a perfect storm in terms of the
Speaker 14: people that have been reaching out to me and wanting
Speaker 14: to support me, and people especially in the Muslim community
Speaker 14: that aren't overly politically involved normally, but are very organized
Speaker 14: and involved right now. And I just feel like the
Speaker 14: tide is turning. It just feels it just feels it
Speaker 14: just different this time. And again it's still it's still
Speaker 14: an uphill battle to unseat and incumbent, you know what
Speaker 14: I mean, it's by no means, it's by no means,
Speaker 14: just like a gimme no matter what. But I definitely
Speaker 14: know that we have made huge advancements in terms of
Speaker 14: my presence in the community as well as national for
Speaker 14: fundraising and name recognition. I actually have a team this time,
Speaker 14: which is amazing because last time it was my business
Speaker 14: partner and I and it was just the two of
Speaker 14: us basically, and we had some people helping us do stuff,
Speaker 14: but were we It's.
Speaker 13: This is so much better to have.
Speaker 14: It's so nice to have a campaign manager, it's so
Speaker 14: nice to have a finance person. It's just it's like,
Speaker 14: it's it feels almost luxurious to me. So I feel
Speaker 14: like the way that I did it the first time,
Speaker 14: being so insane, made it that.
Speaker 13: Maybe this is why it's easy or feels easier to me.
Speaker 14: Maybe that's why, like people, maybe if you start this way,
Speaker 14: you're just used to having a campaign manager and a
Speaker 14: comms person and all that.
Speaker 13: I don't. We're not used to that.
Speaker 14: So I definitely feel like there's a team of people
Speaker 14: working really really hard, and I'm it's yeah, it's inspiring.
Speaker 6: Where can people find more information about your campaign if
Speaker 6: they're interested in learning more perhaps even getting involved.
Speaker 14: Oh for sure at gen j e N twenty twenty
Speaker 14: four dot org and go there, sign up. All of
Speaker 14: the links are social media are on there. I do
Speaker 14: not want to begin to tell you what all the
Speaker 14: social media handles are.
Speaker 13: I just I can't. So go to GEN twenty twenty
Speaker 13: four dot org.
Speaker 14: And if you're local by any chance and you would
Speaker 14: like to help locally, we'd love to have you sign
Speaker 14: up and show up in an event or something like
Speaker 14: that too. But anybody can volunteer from anywhere. And if
Speaker 14: you want to even host a fundraiser, we can do
Speaker 14: those on Zoom. If you have like a group of
Speaker 14: people that you think would be interested in having a chat,
Speaker 14: you know, like I could be you know, I do GEN,
Speaker 14: I could do GEN talks for hire. There we just
Speaker 14: there're zoom fundraisers and we have a few different things
Speaker 14: coming up that are that are going to be fun.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 14: We're going to be having a Jess Eventura fundraise her
Speaker 14: that he's going to do for us. And that's the
Speaker 14: one coming up that is a public it will be
Speaker 14: a public thing soon.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 6: Well, Jen Perlman, everybody, we appreciate you for joining us
Speaker 6: today on breaking points.
Speaker 3: Best of luck on the campaign, GRIP.
Speaker 7: Thank you.