Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 3: Let's get to the show.
Speaker 5: All right, Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. We've got
Speaker 5: a great show today, don't we.
Speaker 6: We sure do.
Speaker 7: We have the new head of the Freedom Caucus here
Speaker 7: at the end of the show, Representative Bob Good of
Speaker 7: Virginian and we have lots of questions for him going
Speaker 7: into the new year about all the leverage they've got
Speaker 7: in Congress in the new year. Also, Donald Trump, we're
Speaker 7: going to start right away with the ruling out of
Speaker 7: Colorado last night.
Speaker 6: He's off the ballot for now. Supreme Court's reviewing it.
Speaker 7: I guess technically he's not until the Supreme Court review.
Speaker 6: This is a huge case.
Speaker 4: And we've got a packed show.
Speaker 5: So there are a couple of things we didn't get
Speaker 5: a chance to put into the show that we wanted
Speaker 5: to make sure you guys knew about, first of all,
Speaker 5: huge news on the COVID origin front, which we've been
Speaker 5: tracking for years now.
Speaker 4: Basically us right to know.
Speaker 5: Emily Copp organization that we've had on the show multiple
Speaker 5: times got through the freedom of information. Actually a number
Speaker 5: of documents from the defuse grant. You just go look
Speaker 5: up their story, but basically what they found is that
Speaker 5: the folks who were trying EcoHealth Alliance was trying to
Speaker 5: get money to do risky work in Wuhan. Wrote into
Speaker 5: its word doc you know, let's not actually tell the
Speaker 5: Defense Department that we're going to be doing this risky
Speaker 5: work at a BSL two lab in Wuhan because they
Speaker 5: will quote freak out. Now, they ended up not getting
Speaker 5: that money, but people believe, you know, they have not
Speaker 5: gotten money before and still been able to do the research.
Speaker 5: Is not as if not getting money means nobody can
Speaker 5: do any lab work. And so the level of deception
Speaker 5: has raised people's suspicion from you who were already fairly
Speaker 5: confident that Muhan was the source up to close to
Speaker 5: nine nine point nine nine percent certainty at this point.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, and that's how pack of the show is.
Speaker 7: It's just a huge story. We wanted to make sure
Speaker 7: we mentioned that.
Speaker 4: And one quick win for workers.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you guys were following, there was
Speaker 5: there's been an almost two week long strike of UPS
Speaker 5: workers out at the kind of sorry DHL workers at
Speaker 5: the airport in Cincinnati, Kentucky, which is their main hub,
Speaker 5: and I interviewed some of these workers like a year
Speaker 5: ago from my podcast. They organized their union from scratch,
Speaker 5: you know, with the Teamsters, fought over a contract and
Speaker 5: then went on strike and won, like just an incredible victory.
Speaker 5: This is the kind of thing that unions in the
Speaker 5: past would spend millions of dollars trying to organize and fail.
Speaker 5: Not only did the Organs union, they now have a
Speaker 5: tentative deal. Just an incredible win. We're looking at maybe
Speaker 5: twelve hundred fifteen hundred workers, but really sets the tone
Speaker 5: for the Teamsters after their big UPS.
Speaker 7: Win sets the tone, confirms the tone of the labor
Speaker 7: movement for sure.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 7: We also have news out of Israel that we're going
Speaker 7: to get to right after we talk about the decision
Speaker 7: in the Trump Court case in Colorado. Ryan's coverage of
Speaker 7: Imran Khan and Pakistan is going to continue.
Speaker 6: There's an update in the story.
Speaker 7: The State Department is just very pleased to have Ryan
Speaker 7: at the briefing, so he got a question with Matt
Speaker 7: Miller about that and has updates to the story. Lots
Speaker 7: of names set to come out by January first.
Speaker 6: From Jeffrey epis.
Speaker 4: A lot of people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, a lot of people.
Speaker 7: I'm sweating right now, So we'll see if that actually happens.
Speaker 7: But that is news that we're going to get to.
Speaker 7: About two hundred names are set to be released from
Speaker 7: Epstein's files basically by January first. Tucker went in on
Speaker 7: Ron DeSantis. He was on Timpoole's show.
Speaker 4: I understand this. Cannot catch a break?
Speaker 6: Can't catch a Break's poor guy?
Speaker 7: No, that's what well, let's start with Donald Trump Ryan,
Speaker 7: And this is a good point also to remind everyone
Speaker 7: subscribe to Breaking Points.
Speaker 6: Make sure you have.
Speaker 7: At your discount right, there's a holiday discount. But make
Speaker 7: sure also that you just subscribe in general so you
Speaker 7: can get the show early, get it to your inbox,
Speaker 7: and you can for counterpoints see the full show uninterrupted.
Speaker 7: So make sure to subscribe because we're going to have
Speaker 7: a lot to cover in the next.
Speaker 4: Year, and we might do a Friday show.
Speaker 6: We might, we might. We went to tease that like
Speaker 6: months ago, and.
Speaker 4: We're thinking about it.
Speaker 6: Here's our teaser. But let's get yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 7: Let's get to the Trump news though, Ryan, because the
Speaker 7: Colorado Supreme Court, this is from the Associated Press, they
Speaker 7: declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House
Speaker 7: under the US Constitution's insurrection clause, so that's part of
Speaker 7: the fourteenth Amendment, and removed him from the presidential primary ballot.
Speaker 7: The AP continues to say that sets up a likely
Speaker 7: sh down in the nation's highest court to decide whether
Speaker 7: the front runner for the GOP nomination can remain in
Speaker 7: the race. It is from section three of the fourteenth
Speaker 7: Amendment that it's a post Civil War insurrection clause.
Speaker 6: That's what it sounds like, basically.
Speaker 7: And they write, a majority of the court holds that
Speaker 7: Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under
Speaker 7: section three of the fourteenth Amendment, and that was a
Speaker 7: four to three decision. It's about his role obviously on
Speaker 7: January sixth. Now, Trump, interestingly enough right has not been
Speaker 7: charged with insurrection. Jack Smith could have charged Donald Trump
Speaker 7: with insurrection. He hasn't actually been charged with insurrection, but
Speaker 7: in the fourteenth Amendment, you can also be disqualified for
Speaker 7: aiding or giving comfort to anybody who's partaking in an insurrection. Again,
Speaker 7: though it's a strange circumstance for sure, and for to
Speaker 7: three in.
Speaker 5: Colorado, because in the Civil War it was very clear
Speaker 5: if you participated in a rebellion or an insurrection, no mystery.
Speaker 4: You were a uniform. You know, you fought that, you
Speaker 4: fought the Union.
Speaker 5: And the fourteen Amendment had a provision that said that
Speaker 5: if two thirds of Congress, you know, did undid your disqualification,
Speaker 5: then you could come back into office. And that's how many,
Speaker 5: that's how so many Confederates were allowed back into Washington.
Speaker 5: Is that like, all right, fine, come on back, We'll
Speaker 5: let you back in. So yeah, my take on this
Speaker 5: is that, for one, liberals just keep looking for a manager,
Speaker 5: like they want somebody that they can call that's going
Speaker 5: to fix this situation.
Speaker 8: That's so good.
Speaker 5: Like in twenty sixteen, after he got elected, at first
Speaker 5: it was the faithless electors. They were going to they
Speaker 5: were going to find these members of the electoral College
Speaker 5: who they could persuade to just change their votes and
Speaker 5: because of Russia or because of whatever else, and they
Speaker 5: would elect Hillary Clinton that way. You know, afterwards there
Speaker 5: was you know, Bob Muller was the manager that they
Speaker 5: were going to call in on this one. Now, now
Speaker 5: to me, if you want to use raw political hour,
Speaker 5: you use it like January sixth, that night, you know,
Speaker 5: after Pence certifies you impeach Trump, you get him out
Speaker 5: within in a week, and then President Pence at that
Speaker 5: point launches a DOJ investigation of him, locks him up,
Speaker 5: and then a President Biden pursues the prosecution.
Speaker 4: Like you want to use political power, like.
Speaker 5: Use it, don't half as it, don't half hass it,
Speaker 5: don't don't do this well. First they go after him
Speaker 5: over a paperwork thing with a payoff to Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 5: Then there's the classified documents thing, and then eventually this
Speaker 5: like Elliott nas Wannabee comes in with his with his
Speaker 5: you know, big case that doesn't even bring insurrection, right,
Speaker 5: like bring insurrection. Lock the guy up, and then disqualify him,
Speaker 5: like that's your option, or you beat him at the
Speaker 5: ballot box. Like I think this middle ground where they're
Speaker 5: kind of letting him hang out for four years roam
Speaker 5: in the streets of Coral Gables or Palm Beach or
Speaker 5: wherever he is, and then with him ten points up
Speaker 5: in the polls, saying they're going to disqualify him, I
Speaker 5: think is kind of ugly, like just just beat him
Speaker 5: one way or the other, but not like this.
Speaker 7: See that's interesting, Yeah, because Trump supporters are already drying
Speaker 7: parallels with Banana Republic's third world countries. They're using the
Speaker 7: term election interference, and I think, you know, actually, to
Speaker 7: your point, Ryan, there's there's something about this that gives
Speaker 7: them some real ammunition when they're having those making those arguments,
Speaker 7: because again, this is all happening in the shadow of
Speaker 7: Donald Trump running against Hillary Clinton James Comy deciding not
Speaker 7: to go after Hillary Clinton. And I'm with you that,
Speaker 7: you know, and Krystal and I have talked about this
Speaker 7: before too, like lock them all up. But if you're
Speaker 7: not locking them all up, then definitely don't lock one
Speaker 7: up because that is going to fement another January six.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's that's exactly what led to January six.
Speaker 7: And that's not to say Donald Trump was blameless in
Speaker 7: any of that. Of course, we don't think that this
Speaker 7: is a quote in the AP article from a Notre
Speaker 7: Dame law professor. He says, I think it may embolden
Speaker 7: other state courts or secretaries to act now that the
Speaker 7: bandage has been ripped off. This is a major threat
Speaker 7: to Trump's candidacy. And it is and you can tell
Speaker 7: that by some of the reactions from Trump World, because
Speaker 7: there are dozens of these cases in different courts that
Speaker 7: have been brought by mostly left of center legal groups
Speaker 7: that are kind of testing this Fourteenth Amendment case out
Speaker 7: to see what they can do. An interesting way these
Speaker 7: cases have actually been pushed off in certain areas, certain
Speaker 7: places where they're being tried is that it doesn't mention presidents.
Speaker 7: It mentions elective officials can be taken off the ballot
Speaker 7: for engaging an insurrection.
Speaker 5: Right, But it does say like if your civil officers election,
Speaker 5: like it's included within.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, you could make an argument.
Speaker 7: And they have successfully in different case. I mean that's
Speaker 7: part of the problem with it.
Speaker 4: I think it didn't contemplate.
Speaker 5: The statute didn't contemplate that the president would lead the insurrection,
Speaker 5: because the president is the of the government that's being
Speaker 5: insurrected against. So it's the only time that somebody could
Speaker 5: do that would be during the lame duck session.
Speaker 7: So it's a question of whether you're included as a
Speaker 7: quote officer of the United States, and that's the language
Speaker 7: it is, right, Well, you'd think, right, but then you're
Speaker 7: getting into the legalese over how it's been interpreted in
Speaker 7: the past and if that's what is hinging on whether
Speaker 7: or not Donald Trump is in the ballot and how
Speaker 7: many states. To your point, it's like a whole asset,
Speaker 7: the half assling where we're having legalese over whether or
Speaker 7: not this man who's leading the presidential race is allowed
Speaker 7: to be in the ballot. Now he lost Colorado by
Speaker 7: double digits, by the way, so it's not Colorado that's
Speaker 7: the important question here.
Speaker 4: It used to be a swing state. It's funny how.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no Republicans won since two thousand and four.
Speaker 7: But so all that is to say, this is going
Speaker 7: to likely inform how other people approach these cases going forward,
Speaker 7: and the Supreme Court is set to rule on this.
Speaker 7: So this ruling is immediately being reviewed by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 7: I believe it's actually not even technically valid, that it's
Speaker 7: not enacted until.
Speaker 5: The right they're leaving them on the ballot until the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court weighs in.
Speaker 7: Basically right on the last possible day. Right, it's like
Speaker 7: January fifth. They have to print their ballots on January fifth,
Speaker 7: so the Supreme Court has to weigh in by January fourth.
Speaker 4: Right, Although if they do weigh in and they say
Speaker 4: they're going to give.
Speaker 5: An answer, the Colorado Supreme Court says that they'll stay
Speaker 5: it until the Supreme Court makes an answer.
Speaker 4: Let's get Donald Trump's response to this. It's no wonder
Speaker 4: crook at.
Speaker 9: Joe Biden and the far left lunatics are desperate to
Speaker 9: stop us by any means necessary. They're willing to violate
Speaker 9: the US constitutions at levels never seen before in order
Speaker 9: to win this election. Joe Biden is a threat to democracy.
Speaker 8: It's a threat.
Speaker 9: They're weaponizing law enforcement for high level election interference because
Speaker 9: we're beating them so badly in the polls.
Speaker 5: I mean, the point on undermining them a threat to
Speaker 5: democracy is a reasonable one. We're going to talk later
Speaker 5: about the situation in Pakistan. I'm in the press room
Speaker 5: of the State Department, and you know, I want to
Speaker 5: hammer Matt Miller, the State Department spokesperson, about the fact
Speaker 5: that the US is claiming that they want free and
Speaker 5: fair elections in Pakistan, yet the leading opposition leader, former
Speaker 5: prime minister, the most popular politician in the country is
Speaker 5: in jail and being prosecuted by the military backed government.
Speaker 5: It's much harder to make that land for liberals when
Speaker 5: they're like, yeah, so the US backed military back, right,
Speaker 5: So yeah, so so we're doing that with Trump, right,
Speaker 5: and we're democracy, so therefore that's fine. And so around
Speaker 5: the world, you're just going to have people being like,
Speaker 5: all right, well we were already you know, we already
Speaker 5: felt like we had a green light.
Speaker 4: Now we've got a raging green light.
Speaker 5: Yes, like, lock up whoever we want to be Like no,
Speaker 5: it's like, hey, nobody's above the law.
Speaker 7: And if this is truly a domino that falls, then
Speaker 7: it does feel really like an is a third world
Speaker 7: country thing. And I mean, there's are Supreme Court right now.
Speaker 7: There's questions as to whether Clarence Thomas is going to
Speaker 7: have to recuse himself because obviously Ginny Thomas was involved
Speaker 7: in the protests and helping organize the protests, not the riot. Obviously,
Speaker 7: the protest turned into a riot on January sixth. But
Speaker 7: that's a huge question going forward. The Supreme Court is
Speaker 7: I mean, you think we all know where the Supreme
Speaker 7: Court is going to land basically the Supreme Court, Yes,
Speaker 7: I would imagine that. Said, let's hear also this clip
Speaker 7: from Lord Ingram Show last night, which is actually really
Speaker 7: interesting as it pertains to this case and how it'll
Speaker 7: affect the future going forward.
Speaker 2: Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight, law it makes me think,
Speaker 2: except we believe in democracy in Texas, maybe we should
Speaker 2: take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing
Speaker 2: eight million people to cross the border since he's been president,
Speaker 2: disrupting our state.
Speaker 7: So that's the tenant governor of Texas and Patrick and
Speaker 7: Ryan the question of whether this is a domino that
Speaker 7: starts falling that is going to be We've seen this
Speaker 7: like we've seen this how Republicans retaliated in the House
Speaker 7: of Representatives after Nancy Pelosi didn't let them pick who
Speaker 7: would sit on the January sixth committee. We've seen how
Speaker 7: Republicans have acted and said we need to now fight
Speaker 7: fire with fire. That's the sort of tactical approach going forward.
Speaker 7: And if you don't do that, then you know, you're
Speaker 7: you're not on our team anymore. Basically, that's fighting fire
Speaker 7: with fire.
Speaker 5: And speaking of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was not
Speaker 5: on a single ballot in the South. So when you
Speaker 5: are so far apart that you're not even willing to
Speaker 5: put your opponents on the ballot, you've gotten to a
Speaker 5: place that's going to get violent. And that's what I
Speaker 5: mean by sorting things out democratically rather than using raw force,
Speaker 5: because there are two ways that you can solve political disagreements,
Speaker 5: right through politics or through war. And so if you can't,
Speaker 5: if you can't do it through politics, you're going to
Speaker 5: you're going to end up getting war. But like I said,
Speaker 5: there is an exception. You pull a coup and you fail.
Speaker 5: Everybody understands that is a threat to democracy. You get
Speaker 5: locked up, But you have to do it right away.
Speaker 6: You have to lock up.
Speaker 5: You just you just cannot just let him sit there
Speaker 5: for four years and then Merrick Garland, you know, not
Speaker 5: wanting to do it, and then eventually like appointing a
Speaker 5: special counsel who then who then moves on it, like.
Speaker 7: Who then moves on it while delaying a Hunter Biden case.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's just such a disaster.
Speaker 5: If it's that serious, that's a threat, you got to
Speaker 5: move on it. So it was what a four to
Speaker 5: three ruling in the Colorado Supreme Court. Somebody flagged a
Speaker 5: really interesting point that all of the Ivy League appointees,
Speaker 5: they're all Democrats, but all of the Ivy League appointees
Speaker 5: voted to disqualify Trump and all the Denver Law School
Speaker 5: appointees voted to allow him on.
Speaker 4: So that make of that what you will.
Speaker 7: Let's move on to news out of the Middle East. Ryan,
Speaker 7: some big updates just yesterday. You actually drove some of
Speaker 7: the news yesterday. I think we have a clip of
Speaker 7: you in the State Department briefing right now that we
Speaker 7: can start with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is actually I guess the question sets it
Speaker 5: up itself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we can roll the clip in the State Department.
Speaker 5: Pope Francis said recently. He said, quote, unarmed civilians are
Speaker 5: subjected to bombings and shootings, and this even happened inside
Speaker 5: the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are
Speaker 5: no terrorists but families, children, sick and disabled people, nuns.
Speaker 5: Someone says it's terrorism, it's war. Yes, it's war, it's terrorism. Unquote,
Speaker 5: So first, is the Pope wrong about this? And is
Speaker 5: the US concerned about its standing among the international community
Speaker 5: if the Pope is willing to describe what Israel is
Speaker 5: doing has terrorism.
Speaker 10: So one of the things that we have made clear
Speaker 10: to Israel from the outset is that we do not
Speaker 10: want to see churches, mosques, schools, hospitals attacked. In the
Speaker 10: Secretary's last trip, he had a very candid conversation with
Speaker 10: the Israeli government about the importance of protecting those civilian
Speaker 10: sites and ensuring that they are on deconfliction deconfliction lists
Speaker 10: so they are not targeted. I will say with respect
Speaker 10: to this particular incident that you raised, we raised this
Speaker 10: with directly with the Israeli government and ask tough questions
Speaker 10: about it, and we will continue to do so.
Speaker 5: We're the answers, yeah, tough questions. It raises the question
Speaker 5: of how weak is the United States here?
Speaker 4: If they're serious that they.
Speaker 5: Genuinely don't want Israel bombing churches, mosque, schools, and hospitals,
Speaker 5: and Israel continues to target churches, schools, hospitals, and mosques,
Speaker 5: what does that say? Either So one of two things, right,
Speaker 5: like either of the US has no leverage over Israel
Speaker 5: and is like the weakest superpower that's ever existed.
Speaker 4: Base of the Earth.
Speaker 5: Public matter, they can't find the strings or it's actively
Speaker 5: supportive of it and just saying so otherwise in public.
Speaker 7: This particular incident is a I mean, we have no
Speaker 7: answer to your point about them.
Speaker 6: Your point to Matt Miller.
Speaker 7: He's saying, you know, we've raised this issue and asked
Speaker 7: quote tough questions, and we'll continue to you know, keep
Speaker 7: you updated on it. I want to know what Israel
Speaker 7: told them, because this is a really continues to be
Speaker 7: a really strange situation that's starting to remind me of
Speaker 7: the Shrin Abu Aakla incident. Obviously tragedy a couple of
Speaker 7: years ago. It was like a year and a half
Speaker 7: ago at this point where the Israeli government said we
Speaker 7: absolutely did not do this, or the IDEF said we
Speaker 7: absolutely did not do this.
Speaker 6: They came out and.
Speaker 7: Said, you know, this is not how we operate, and
Speaker 7: it eventually turned out.
Speaker 4: That's what happened.
Speaker 7: The evidence so far is suggesting that it is what happened.
Speaker 7: But typically when you get a flat denial from I'm
Speaker 7: not just talking about Israel, but any government. Just absolutely
Speaker 7: know that means go to the mac, go down the
Speaker 7: right right when you're going on the record, maybe you
Speaker 7: take seriously that denial as opposed to just like, oh,
Speaker 7: we'll review it whatever it is. Usually you take that
Speaker 7: more seriously than you know. Someone brushing the question off
Speaker 7: the evidence here continues to suggest that a mother and
Speaker 7: a daughter were sniped basically when they left a church.
Speaker 5: And according to the church officials there, one of the
Speaker 5: women was shot and killed the other women the other
Speaker 5: woman was trying to you know, bring her into safety
Speaker 5: inside the church and with then herself shot, and that
Speaker 5: seven other people were wounded who were then trying to
Speaker 5: help those two women who were shot. They also say
Speaker 5: that AID is really Israeli tank shelled the church compound,
Speaker 5: blew up their generator so now that they're without power,
Speaker 5: and also destroyed a kind of side complex where fifty
Speaker 5: four disabled people were finding refuge and by destroyed by
Speaker 5: destroying the generator and their breathing machines and making them
Speaker 5: adding them to the two million displaced persons have put
Speaker 5: their their lives at very serious risk because they're the
Speaker 5: kinds of people that cannot live without electricity and so
Speaker 5: Israel would it would try to claim, like they did
Speaker 5: with Shrina al Bookley, well this was Palestinians.
Speaker 4: That shot at them, and we don't target journalists, and
Speaker 4: we don't target journalists or whatever.
Speaker 5: In this case, the claim that like Hamas may have
Speaker 5: done this for some weird reason is undermined by the
Speaker 5: fact there's also like ideaf tanks there shelling the church
Speaker 5: because like Hamas doesn't have tanks.
Speaker 7: Well didn't there wasn't the idea of initial response or
Speaker 7: somebody in the Israeli government's initial response was to say
Speaker 7: we were operating there against Amas. So they said, right
Speaker 7: they conceded right away that they were operating in the
Speaker 7: area against Moss Right, and.
Speaker 5: So their public responses have been deplorable. So let's let's
Speaker 5: play a couple of those. Let's let's roll this one
Speaker 5: right here.
Speaker 11: You heard our member of Parliament, Leila Miranda, her relatives,
Speaker 11: six of them targeted by Israeli miss snipers in a
Speaker 11: church compound in Gaza. What on earth is going on?
Speaker 4: Well, that's the question too later, not to me.
Speaker 12: I think that I can only say that we, as
Speaker 12: the Jewish people, I used to blood libels. So to
Speaker 12: hear that Israeli snipers are targeting women on purpose and
Speaker 12: not letting them leave the church is something that reminds them,
Speaker 12: usually the atmosphere in the Middle Ages before another holiday.
Speaker 11: Do you say it's a lie, you say it didn't happen.
Speaker 8: This is a flat lie, absolutely all right.
Speaker 5: So that's one approach to say that, well, it's actually
Speaker 5: blood libel and anti Semitism.
Speaker 6: Literally, to ask questions, to ask questions.
Speaker 4: To ask the question about it. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And here's the other approach, believe it or not, perhaps
Speaker 5: even worse than that one.
Speaker 4: Why is it necessary it is reported to start shooting,
Speaker 4: having snipers outside of church.
Speaker 6: I don't I saw the reports this morning the church.
Speaker 10: There are no churches in Gaza, so I'm not quite
Speaker 10: sure where the report is.
Speaker 4: There's a Catholic church in there isn't there that is.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately there are no Christians because they were dry driven
Speaker 4: driven out.
Speaker 7: By respectfully, there are Christians because I spoke to an
Speaker 7: MP yesterday who has family members in the church who
Speaker 7: are Christians.
Speaker 8: Well, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 6: I don't know who was attacked.
Speaker 8: I didn't see the report.
Speaker 5: Oh, didn't see the report. If people missed that started out, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I saw that report. There's no Christians. Oh no, sorry,
Speaker 5: I didn't see the report. She's the mayor, the deputy
Speaker 5: mayor of Jerusalem who goes on TV a decent amount.
Speaker 5: If we're going to be lied to, can we get
Speaker 5: some better liars, like don't contradict yourself within a span
Speaker 5: of thirty two seconds.
Speaker 4: But there's another interesting dynamic unfolding here.
Speaker 5: In both of those clips, the presenter spoke with probably
Speaker 5: the same MP in Britain who has Christian family, who
Speaker 5: was there, yes, and so heard directly from the family members.
Speaker 4: The family members told the MP.
Speaker 5: The MP told the presenter this is a chain of trust,
Speaker 5: so that when they are then confronting Israeli officials, like
Speaker 5: you're lying to me because I have heard from people
Speaker 5: that I trust that that X happened.
Speaker 4: And you know, there are.
Speaker 5: Something like one thousand, five hundred slightly fewer kind of
Speaker 5: quote unuote registered Christians gods, which is it's bizarre, and
Speaker 5: it raises questions about what Israel's doing with gods and
Speaker 5: when there are registered Christians, like why are they? Why
Speaker 5: is there a list and why is there a registry
Speaker 5: that Israel has access to? But setting that aside the
Speaker 5: rest for the most part of Muslims and don't have
Speaker 5: the same connections you know, with American presenters or British presenters,
Speaker 5: and so then aren't able to kind of get their
Speaker 5: story out in the same way video evidence has been substituting,
Speaker 5: you know, for that direct kind of trust.
Speaker 4: That people have.
Speaker 5: But you can see that it's basically impossible for Israel
Speaker 5: to confront people when they have the trust of the
Speaker 5: people that are witnessing these crimes. What did you make
Speaker 5: of of this really unimpressive kind of response there.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, firstly, I think it is to your
Speaker 7: point you use the word deplorable. Listen, I get the
Speaker 7: sensitivities on behalf of israelis right now, but to immediately
Speaker 7: pivot to blood libel when people are asking questions about
Speaker 7: a mother and a daughter being sniped outside of a church,
Speaker 7: and not unreasonable questions, by the way, people with reasonable
Speaker 7: questions that are on the ground, that are hearing things
Speaker 7: from for example, an MP, a member of Parliament who
Speaker 7: said church officials right literally the Vatican's news website, and like, listen,
Speaker 7: I'm not Catholic. I don't put a whole lot of
Speaker 7: credence and what this pope says. You might be shocked
Speaker 7: to learn.
Speaker 5: Catholic Church does not have the best record throughout history.
Speaker 5: But yes, right on the question of whether or not
Speaker 5: Catholics were massacred inside their church, I'm lean in their direction.
Speaker 7: So they have this mother and daughter this, and again
Speaker 7: you have an MP saying that this based on family
Speaker 7: that's in the area, that this what happened. You have
Speaker 7: a Vatican saying that this is what happened. You have
Speaker 7: the Israelis saying a couple of different things about what
Speaker 7: might have actually happened. You cannot immediately pivot to. That's
Speaker 7: bigotry for asking questions.
Speaker 6: You can't.
Speaker 7: And the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem is absolutely correct that
Speaker 7: there are very few Christians. She said no, she said
Speaker 7: there's no churches and guys though there's no Christians and gods.
Speaker 6: She's trying to make a point.
Speaker 7: And it's true that the Christian population has been decimated,
Speaker 7: the historic Christian population there has been decimated. There are
Speaker 7: some beautiful, very old Christian churches in that area that
Speaker 7: were actually hit. One of the very first places to
Speaker 7: be hit actually in the war was.
Speaker 4: Justin Imasha's relatives were killed.
Speaker 7: Right, absolutely, And so it's true, like two thirds of
Speaker 7: the Christian population of gods that has basically been like
Speaker 7: fled or killed in recent years. So there are about
Speaker 7: a thousand left. A thousand does not know. That's a lot,
Speaker 7: a lot of people. And that's you know, like tight
Speaker 7: knit church can unities so prepared for Christmas, prepared for Christmas,
Speaker 7: and they have mishandled like this is this is a
Speaker 7: really really bad strategy pr strategy on their behalf. And
Speaker 7: that's not even to get into whatever military strategy may
Speaker 7: have led to this, because again, like we don't have
Speaker 7: all the answers. I eagerly await Matt Miller, you know,
Speaker 7: being pressed and giving us the answers. He says he's
Speaker 7: asked tough questions and that the State Department has asked
Speaker 7: tough questions.
Speaker 6: I'm eager to hear that.
Speaker 7: Because this sort of tension between Israel saying precision and
Speaker 7: then Israel saying parking lot, the precision in parking lot
Speaker 7: tension is really like obviously a huge question.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the whole we would never do such a
Speaker 5: thing defense doesn't fly today because of what happened with
Speaker 5: the three Israeli hostages just days ago, where the IDF
Speaker 5: we know, use snipers to kill three men Israeli men
Speaker 5: who have their shirts off the show.
Speaker 4: They have no explosives, and we're.
Speaker 5: Waving a white flag because we know that as a
Speaker 5: as a fact, and so this like we would never
Speaker 5: do such a thing using snipers, doesn't land. I think
Speaker 5: that is what is now driving Israel kind of back
Speaker 5: to the negotiating table. If we can put up this, uh,
Speaker 5: this axio scoop. So Israel offers Hamas one week pause,
Speaker 5: it's minimum one week pause could be extended in fighting
Speaker 5: as part of a new hostage deal. So Israel had
Speaker 5: been demanding in warsaw It in talks that have been
Speaker 5: mediated by Cutter, that the only way that they're going
Speaker 5: to agree to a ceasefire is if Hamas lays down
Speaker 5: all of its arms and turns over you know, all
Speaker 5: of its all of its top officials. And Hamas is like,
Speaker 5: well that's not We're not gonna We're not gonna do that.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: And the last.
Speaker 5: Hostage deal broke down, Hamas was claiming that Israel wasn't
Speaker 5: abiding by it. Israel claimed that Hamas stopped, you know,
Speaker 5: releasing hostages said all of the remaining women that they
Speaker 5: had in their captivity were IDF soldiers and so therefore
Speaker 5: they didn't fit under the kind of rubric of the
Speaker 5: deal that they were going to release kind of women
Speaker 5: and children and the elderly. So this this new deal
Speaker 5: that's being worked out now, would see what's some sixty
Speaker 5: or so hostages released, people who are you know, women, children, sick,
Speaker 5: you know, like elderly, otherwise facing serious health complications, and
Speaker 5: you know, some of those could be IDF I suppose,
Speaker 5: because they don't really specify.
Speaker 4: And in exchange, Israel would release some.
Speaker 5: Palestinians who were convicted of like significant offenses who are
Speaker 5: themselves in you know, facing like dire health complications or
Speaker 5: old age. And so that's the that's the current deal
Speaker 5: being discussed right now. Do you think do you think
Speaker 5: we're going to see something over the next couple days
Speaker 5: that starts to see more hostages released.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think we will, especially because to your point,
Speaker 7: there's a lot of pressure right now on Yahoo met
Speaker 7: again with families of hostages yesterday and had to cap
Speaker 7: the number of families that I think fifteen, and there
Speaker 7: was a lot of discontent actually about people being left
Speaker 7: off the list and the hostages themselves. We were just
Speaker 7: talking about the sort of precision versus parking lot. Dynamic
Speaker 7: have spoken to that and have said you were bombing us.
Speaker 7: Hostages that have been returned have said.
Speaker 6: We were being bombed.
Speaker 7: You say, you know what you're doing, but we constantly
Speaker 7: felt like we were under threat of death basically. So
Speaker 7: that's obviously huge pressures. That puts huge pressures on Netnyahuo's
Speaker 7: government to bring hostages home. And obviously that's no surprise
Speaker 7: that there's pressure on him to bring the hostages home,
Speaker 7: but it's more and more, more and more pressure that
Speaker 7: as you can need to wage this campaign, we also
Speaker 7: need the progress in terms of there's still eight Americans
Speaker 7: being held hostage. It's crazy, I think how the hostages
Speaker 7: have gotten lost in the conversations about this war that
Speaker 7: like this is basically the number one bargaining chip that
Speaker 7: Hamas sort of disgustingly used during its invasion its incursion
Speaker 7: on October seventh, was the hostages. And these are people
Speaker 7: who are just languishing in tunnels and horrifying situations that
Speaker 7: could lead to their death at the hands of their
Speaker 7: own military, their own government. As we saw with three
Speaker 7: people last week and eight Americans. I mean, it just
Speaker 7: it feels like it gets lost in those headlines every
Speaker 7: single day that eight Americans among many other hostages are
Speaker 7: still being held in these terrible conditions, and that's the
Speaker 7: top objective. It should absolutely be the top objective every
Speaker 7: single day so that we can come to the table
Speaker 7: and get closer to peace.
Speaker 6: So there's just a ton of pressure i think on
Speaker 6: in Yahoo to make.
Speaker 5: These deals yeah now, and there's pressure from the other
Speaker 5: side to keep the war going.
Speaker 4: So if people remember back in.
Speaker 5: The very early stages of this war, Finance Minister Besilo Smochurch,
Speaker 5: who's one of them like leading like hard right figures
Speaker 5: in the cabinet, in a cabinet meeting said, and this
Speaker 5: quote has become notorious, he said, we have to be
Speaker 5: cruel now and not to think too much about the
Speaker 5: hostages over much. We have to be cruel now and
Speaker 5: not to think too much about the hostages in Gaza.
Speaker 5: It's time for action, and there has been. And Ben
Speaker 5: Givier at the time of the last pause said, you know,
Speaker 5: if you don't start this war up again, I'm going
Speaker 5: to bring the government down.
Speaker 4: So there's this pressure on the other side.
Speaker 5: It is not lost on the far right inside the
Speaker 5: cabinet that a lot of these hostages have been peace
Speaker 5: activists in the past. These are kind of internal political
Speaker 5: adversaries of the of the far right government in Israel,
Speaker 5: and as they've been getting released, they have been potent
Speaker 5: critics of that government, and so so for people like Smotrich,
Speaker 5: they're like their mission is to just completely level Gaza,
Speaker 5: and the hostages who are whose mission is not, whose
Speaker 5: missage is to survive and get out, but also have
Speaker 5: are among the kind of remaining faction in Israel that
Speaker 5: have a real kind of solidarity with with kind of
Speaker 5: peace activists around the world trying to like resolve this
Speaker 5: conflict in a peaceful way rather than violently. They're they're
Speaker 5: not helpful when they get out on the public stage
Speaker 5: and you and you've seen a lot of damaging meetings
Speaker 5: with net Yahoo rallies that the that the released hostages
Speaker 5: have been able to have the families of the hostages
Speaker 5: calling on net Yahoo to stop the bombing and let
Speaker 5: them out.
Speaker 7: And it's impossible to imagine coming to a peace, to
Speaker 7: using peace to come to some type of settlement with
Speaker 7: Hamas but the big question going forward is does anything
Speaker 7: that's happened that does anything that's happening right now in
Speaker 7: Gaza make is really safer in the near term. And
Speaker 7: that's a completely reasonable point to raise. But Yahoo's under
Speaker 7: pressure from to your point, from Smotric and Ben Gevier
Speaker 7: right now in those factions of his government. He's under
Speaker 7: pressure from the United States government in a different direction.
Speaker 7: That's saying, you know, we would our preference is that
Speaker 7: this is this invasion is drawn down by the new year,
Speaker 7: and these are all I think variables that will contribute
Speaker 7: to not just a seven day pause, but potentially something
Speaker 7: longer in the interest of getting hostages back and shifting
Speaker 7: to something that is much clearly more of a precision
Speaker 7: operation in Gaza, right Yeah.
Speaker 5: And then the numbers that are being circulated among humanitarian
Speaker 5: relief activists, So I'm at Cohn, who's done work there,
Speaker 5: humanitarian relief activists you know, sent to me they're twenty
Speaker 5: six thousand, six hundred and sixty seven killed and missing.
Speaker 5: Because they're almost twenty thousand killed who've arrived in hospitals.
Speaker 5: But Gaza is rubble, and underneath that rubble, you know,
Speaker 5: could be six six seven thousand bodies, or more like
Speaker 5: we're and we're talking about you know, eight thousand children,
Speaker 5: fourteen thousand women and children, three, you know, ninety, how
Speaker 5: many journalists at this point, almost one hundred journalists, ninety
Speaker 5: schools and universities completely destroyed, one hundred and twelve mosques
Speaker 5: completely destroyed, two hundred mosques partially destroyed, three churches targeted
Speaker 5: and destroyed. Two million people roughly this this point displaced well.
Speaker 7: And that's why it's difficult for our government, for the
Speaker 7: Israeli government to say it is not our goal to
Speaker 7: target churches, hospitals, or we've made it very clear to
Speaker 7: the Israeli government that we don't want them targeting churches
Speaker 7: and hospitals, but then at the same time to make
Speaker 7: the case, which is true by the way, that these
Speaker 7: are centers of military operation, that you know, these are
Speaker 7: places where people are conducting military operations. Guys, Gaza is small,
Speaker 7: it's compact, it's highly concentrated. So of course there's overlap
Speaker 7: in these cases. And that's where I think it gets
Speaker 7: difficult to continue to say one thing and to have
Speaker 7: the sort of warplay out in the court of public opinion. Ryan,
Speaker 7: you were in the We just mentioned in the previous
Speaker 7: block that you were at the State Department briefing and
Speaker 7: you've got more than one question, and you started to
Speaker 7: ask about Pakistan as well, which you've been covering fantastically
Speaker 7: with your colleague Martaza Hussein Hussein at the Intercept, and
Speaker 7: you have.
Speaker 6: More to this story.
Speaker 5: People updated on this wild story that's unfolding in Pakistan.
Speaker 5: So people may remember back in August, Merchanz and I
Speaker 5: reported on a a what's called a cipher basically a
Speaker 5: diplomatic cable uh but that that arrived in Islamabad, was
Speaker 5: sent from Washington by the Pakistan's ambassador there, which described
Speaker 5: a meeting that took place just after the Ukrainian the
Speaker 5: Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which the United States States
Speaker 5: Department official told Pakistan that Imran Khan, the current Prime
Speaker 5: minister uh you know, basically had to go because of
Speaker 5: his neutrality aggressive neutrality was their phrase in the war
Speaker 5: between Russia and Ukraine, and that if Imran Khan was
Speaker 5: ousted in a vote of no confidence, that quote unquote,
Speaker 5: all would be forgiven between the United States and Pakistan
Speaker 5: and we want its manufacture weapons, we would and later
Speaker 5: it turns out that Pakistan then began producing an enormous
Speaker 5: amount of you know, low grade shells for for the
Speaker 5: conflict in Ukraine. He was ousted as part of as
Speaker 5: part of this no confidence vote that was encouraged by
Speaker 5: the State Department. And so now what we can report
Speaker 5: is that and you can put this element up here.
Speaker 5: Just a couple of days after our story, the Foreign
Speaker 5: Office asked the is SI, which is basically Pakistan's CIA,
Speaker 5: that if the release of a cipher publicly has happened
Speaker 5: in our in our story, would compromise their encryption system,
Speaker 5: you know, whether it would enable what's called a plain
Speaker 5: text attack. Basically a plaintext attack would be like in
Speaker 5: a Rosetta Stone type thing, like you've got the encrypted
Speaker 5: version over here, and then you've got the plain text
Speaker 5: version here. You put them next to each other, and
Speaker 5: you can say, oh, this is we can now crack
Speaker 5: their encryption. And so the NSA or Russia or China
Speaker 5: or whoever can now bust into Pakistan's encryption system.
Speaker 4: So they have since jailed Imran Khan.
Speaker 5: They claimed that he was the source of this leak,
Speaker 5: or they vaguely insinuate that he was a source.
Speaker 4: He absolutely was not the source. We know who the
Speaker 4: source was, was not him.
Speaker 5: But the main thrust of their charge is that it
Speaker 5: was a damaging leak to Pakistan's national security because it
Speaker 5: enabled this encryption undermining. The document that we obtained from
Speaker 5: the ISI is a response to the Foreign Office which
Speaker 5: asked the question is our system undermind and the answer
Speaker 5: was unequivocally no. It's very rare that you get this
Speaker 5: firm of a rejection. And what they say is that
Speaker 5: you would need more plain text that then could be
Speaker 5: even stored in all of the storage that exists around
Speaker 5: the country, and also you would need like the key,
Speaker 5: and there are a lot of other technical reasons.
Speaker 4: They said.
Speaker 5: The system is built with the expectation that sometimes the
Speaker 5: plain text of a document will leak and that the
Speaker 5: adversary will have both the plain text and the encrypted text.
Speaker 5: And so this is the thrust of im Ron Khan's
Speaker 5: the case against im Ron Khan, and the ISI knows
Speaker 5: it to be completely false. Yet the trial is ongoing anyway. Meanwhile,
Speaker 5: the Pakistani media is being completely banned from discussing the
Speaker 5: trial like it's not only is it being held in secret,
Speaker 5: but they're not supposed to even talk about it, and
Speaker 5: so his party did something interesting on Sunday. They held
Speaker 5: a virtual rally and they used AI to take notes
Speaker 5: that he had sent from prison and produced a speech
Speaker 5: using his using AI to create his voice.
Speaker 4: They actually did a good.
Speaker 5: Job, like unlike the kind of well Indian intelligence that
Speaker 5: we played a little while ago, oh during Martiniziz, trying
Speaker 5: to pretend like come on, you can't do's voices.
Speaker 4: It was so bad. So they did a good They
Speaker 4: did a really good job.
Speaker 5: Very few people were able to attend, though, because the
Speaker 5: Pakistani government, in preparation for the rally, the virtual rally
Speaker 5: throttled the entire country's Internet. Social took down, basically took
Speaker 5: down social media and the internet made it impossible for
Speaker 5: people to get on.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: I know some people kind of used VPNs and otherwise kind.
Speaker 4: Of got around it.
Speaker 5: But they shut down the Internet so that they could
Speaker 5: block the opposition party from having a rally, a virtual rally, rally,
Speaker 5: a rally that has to be virtual because he's in
Speaker 5: jail on trumped up charges. That gets us to the
Speaker 5: State Department, which has repeatedly insisted that there need to
Speaker 5: be free and fair elections. So I asked do these
Speaker 5: conditions count under that? So here, let's play this interaction
Speaker 5: between me and Matt Miller.
Speaker 4: Yesterday and on Pakistan.
Speaker 5: I want to read you a Voice of America headline
Speaker 5: that they headlined the story Pakistan restricts Internet access amid
Speaker 5: rare opposition online rally.
Speaker 4: That's a recent article.
Speaker 5: There was a virtual rally held by the opposition party
Speaker 5: because the opposition party leader is in jail. And I'm
Speaker 5: wondering if the throttling of the internet amid an online
Speaker 5: rally makes a mockery of the many assert of the
Speaker 5: many times you've encouraged Pakistan to hold free and fair
Speaker 5: upcoming elections. Are they free and fair if even a
Speaker 5: virtual rally with the opposition leader in prison is being
Speaker 5: throttled nationally online.
Speaker 10: So I cannot speak to the specific report you're referring
Speaker 10: to because I'm not familiar with those underlying details. But
Speaker 10: we have always made clear that we think access to
Speaker 10: the Internet is an important component in a free society
Speaker 10: and will continue to make that clear as a general
Speaker 10: proposition for Pakistan and every other country.
Speaker 8: In the world.
Speaker 4: We Munir was just here. The Army chief was that
Speaker 4: raised with him.
Speaker 5: I didn't see any public comments made by State Department,
Speaker 5: and why was he meeting with civilians rather than only military.
Speaker 10: So I'm not going to get into private diplomatic conversations,
Speaker 10: but I will say we engage number of times with
Speaker 10: military leaders from other countries, just as military leaders from
Speaker 10: the United States engage with civilian officials for other countries.
Speaker 4: It's not in any way unusual.
Speaker 7: I like how he was like, we don't know anything
Speaker 7: about that Voice of America stuff.
Speaker 6: Voice of America.
Speaker 4: Let's put that up here.
Speaker 5: And I used Voice of America for a reason. You know,
Speaker 5: this is the uh you know, basically this is the
Speaker 5: government run propaganda arm and so Voice of America reporting
Speaker 5: that Pakistan restricts internet access mid Rare opposition online rally.
Speaker 4: Uh So this.
Speaker 5: Like like I like, I asked there the army chief,
Speaker 5: Assif Munir.
Speaker 4: It's not just a random.
Speaker 5: Kind of military official. You know, he's he's the guy
Speaker 5: who is understood to have orchestrated, you know, im run
Speaker 5: Kan's removal and is the the power behind the fake
Speaker 5: you know, civilian throne that that is that is remaining.
Speaker 5: And a lot of people in Pakistan were kind of
Speaker 5: stunned to see him meeting with civilian officials over here,
Speaker 5: because that that grants him the kind of gravitas of
Speaker 5: a civilian leader. They if you are trying to stand
Speaker 5: up for democracy, he would say no, like the military
Speaker 5: should be meeting with the military. And by allowing him
Speaker 5: to meet with Blincoln and allowing him to meet with
Speaker 5: top civilian officials only then kind of validates all the
Speaker 5: crackdown that's going on. It says that you're kind of
Speaker 5: recognizing this as legitimate. And the fact that they were
Speaker 5: willing to take down the Internet to stop an opposition
Speaker 5: rally while the Army chief was here in the United
Speaker 5: States shows that they feel pretty confident that they have
Speaker 5: full US backing for this crackdown. And so the US
Speaker 5: is going to basically annihilate democracy in Pakistan to a
Speaker 5: country of two hundred and fifty million people, which is
Speaker 5: going to leave no real mechanism to work out the
Speaker 5: country's internal contradictions. And the US better know what it's doing,
Speaker 5: what breaking this, breaking these eggs.
Speaker 7: I was gonna say, right, yeah, at least we're aiding
Speaker 7: the dissolution of yes. And you know, it reminds me
Speaker 7: we had we had a conversation about New reporting on
Speaker 7: Patrisa La Mumba and the what happened in the Congo
Speaker 7: in the mid of the middle of the twentieth century.
Speaker 7: And you mentioned earlier in the show that it's getting
Speaker 7: hard for the United States to look at countries like
Speaker 7: Pakistan and talk about their elected democratic representatives with a
Speaker 7: straight face. And obviously you know that's there have been
Speaker 7: contradictions in our public and private sort of dealings with
Speaker 7: similar issues for decades. But you mentioned earlier in the
Speaker 7: show that we were talking about the Supreme Court ruling
Speaker 7: in Colorado, the Colorado State Supreme Court ruling for three
Speaker 7: against Donald Trump, which is now going to the Supreme
Speaker 7: Court here in DC.
Speaker 6: I could really see.
Speaker 7: Like this same scenario playing out here. And the big
Speaker 7: pic your takeaway for me is that the CIA and
Speaker 7: the American sort of intelligence apparatus the State Department, are
Speaker 7: getting so much more comfortable doing what they used to
Speaker 7: do in private in public with like less shame to
Speaker 7: all of it. That like it's almost as a point
Speaker 7: to boast about when you do this stuff, like when
Speaker 7: you take down Donald Trump's Twitter account after being pressured
Speaker 7: by you know, people in the public and private sectors,
Speaker 7: like in Ron Khan gets his virtual raty rally throttled
Speaker 7: in Pakistan, Donald Trump gets his whole Twitter account throttled.
Speaker 7: For years, it's sort of just like this control mentality.
Speaker 7: Everyone's getting more comfortable and almost in fact proud and
Speaker 7: pressured to exercise those powers.
Speaker 5: And I think it'll be fair to say, maybe Air
Speaker 5: Towan in competition that in Ron Khan be the most
Speaker 5: popular Muslim elected official in the world, and to have
Speaker 5: him jailed during the Israel Gaza war, I think is
Speaker 5: unfortunate for the public debate, because you know, he'd be
Speaker 5: a real voice that the world would be listening to
Speaker 5: on this question. But let's turn to one hundred and
Speaker 5: seventy sad sacks who may have their names released as
Speaker 5: part of the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein legal situation. This is
Speaker 5: kind of exciting that a judge ruling that she's going
Speaker 5: to unseal the names of one hundred and seventy people
Speaker 5: associated with Epstein. She's giving them, fortunately two weeks to
Speaker 5: appeal this individually, so we might not get them when
Speaker 5: we expect it, because I would imagine if somebody's name
Speaker 5: is on this list, they're going to try to take
Speaker 5: the opportunity to appeal that keep their name hidden.
Speaker 4: So what do we got here?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 7: So, more than one hundred and seventy people than New
Speaker 7: York Post says, with ties to Jeffrey Epstein, including ex
Speaker 7: employee Ease and victims, are in store for an uncomfortable
Speaker 7: starts the new year. Now let's put a pin in
Speaker 7: that question about victims, because we're not just talking about
Speaker 7: potential ex employees. Their names are set to be drudged
Speaker 7: up in a trove of court documents to be unsealed
Speaker 7: in the coming weeks. The Post ads Manhattan Federal Judge
Speaker 7: Loretta Presca on Monday ordered the release of the long
Speaker 7: sealed documents in a sense settled defamation lawsuit that Epstein,
Speaker 7: accuser of Virginia Giffrey, brought against the convicted pedophiles Madam
Speaker 7: Gillen Maxwell back in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 6: So this is one of the Geffray cases.
Speaker 7: Under the ruling, dozens of individuals who have been previously
Speaker 7: referred to as Jane Does or John Does and various
Speaker 7: court filings linked to the suit will likely be identified
Speaker 7: publicly when the materials tied to them are unsealed in full.
Speaker 7: So the judge has given them, as Ryan said, fourteen
Speaker 7: days to appeal the decision according to the order that
Speaker 7: was released early this week, So that would put us
Speaker 7: in early January, sometime around like January first. Actually basically
Speaker 7: have a Mary Christminas everyone. Several people who are likely
Speaker 7: to be idd in the unsealed papers have previously spoken
Speaker 7: out in media interviews about their working relationships with the
Speaker 7: convicted pedal file or how they were abused by him over.
Speaker 6: The year over the years, according to the ruling.
Speaker 7: So but that's saying, is there some of this is
Speaker 7: already going to be public, and remember also that some
Speaker 7: of this could be victims. So as tempting as it
Speaker 7: is to kind of do a victory lap and you know,
Speaker 7: have you know, some optimism that people will be at
Speaker 7: least brought to public attention going forward. They do have
Speaker 7: two weeks to appeal, and some of them again may
Speaker 7: be victims. So that's not a sort of pleasant situation
Speaker 7: for a lot of people going forward. And this is
Speaker 7: a defray defamation suit, and that's where the impetus for
Speaker 7: actually releasing some of these names comes in. When you're
Speaker 7: litigating the question of defamation, you can understand why that
Speaker 7: would be relevant now. Ryan Representative Tim Burchett went on
Speaker 7: newsbacks and actually made an interesting point that I saw
Speaker 7: described in media as a quote conspiracy theory about members
Speaker 7: of Congress.
Speaker 4: Conspious.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm open to any conspiracy theory around what
Speaker 5: is clearly a conspiracy.
Speaker 4: Right, So let's hear the theories.
Speaker 6: Yes, let's play this clip.
Speaker 13: What you see in so many times, my dear friend
Speaker 13: Marshall Blackburn, I thought she was snub That's why I
Speaker 13: got involved with it. She can handle her own. But
Speaker 13: when the Democrat controlled the Senate did that, I went
Speaker 13: to Chairman Comer in the Republican controlled House and I said.
Speaker 4: We need to fix this. This is wrong.
Speaker 13: And too many of my colleagues, I'm afraid or compromise
Speaker 13: in this area for whatever reason, somebody's whispered in their
Speaker 13: ear said, hey, you don't want something to come out
Speaker 13: on something else, you better keep your mouth shut on this.
Speaker 8: And that's exactly what they've done. And it continues to go.
Speaker 13: Whether it's the honeypot with the Russians used to use
Speaker 13: or something worse, I don't know, but it's clearly you
Speaker 13: see that up and down the line, you see good
Speaker 13: conservatives vote for liberal policies, and frankly you see some
Speaker 13: liberals occasionally that will vote for something else. So obviously
Speaker 13: the Congress has been compromised, and this continues on through
Speaker 13: the White House, through the Justice Department. It's a the
Speaker 13: trash can is very deep. It's it's not it not
Speaker 13: a swamp, it's an open sewer.
Speaker 7: That's right, So go ahead, Well, I was just going
Speaker 7: to say, notice there, he's actually also pointing out that
Speaker 7: Democrats will vote for conservative things, meaning conservatives are pressuring
Speaker 7: Democrats over Epstein compromises. Basically that this is blackmail that's
Speaker 7: used not just in one direction, exactly in both directions.
Speaker 5: And so if you're thinking about how crazy that conspiracy
Speaker 5: theory might be, think about the things that we do know, Like,
Speaker 5: it seems pretty well confirmed that Epstein was some type
Speaker 5: of intelligence asset. We know for certain all kinds of
Speaker 5: like wild sex stuff was going on in his like
Speaker 5: on his plane, in his in his mansion in Manhattan,
Speaker 5: on his island. We also know for certain that he
Speaker 5: the whole place was wired up like camera, his audio everywhere.
Speaker 5: Put those three things together, you already can draw some
Speaker 5: reasonable conclusions. We also know that the that the FBI
Speaker 5: after his arrest, walked out of his mansion with CDs
Speaker 5: that were in a safe that had name of famous
Speaker 5: person and eight and then age of girl like on
Speaker 5: the CD like that was reported at the time those
Speaker 5: CDs were never Where are those CDs?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: Presumably that who is yes, exactly where are they? Like?
Speaker 5: That is an enormous number of investigative leads if this
Speaker 5: was on the up and up and somebody was actually
Speaker 5: following this, because that seems like Epstein's blackmail that he
Speaker 5: had on the entire world, which now would be in
Speaker 5: the hands of whoever walked out of that mansion with
Speaker 5: with that blackmail. The fact that we haven't seen those
Speaker 5: a single one of those prosecutions, single investigation into those
Speaker 5: really leaves what Burchette is saying as like the most
Speaker 5: logical explanation at this point.
Speaker 6: It's a conspiracy.
Speaker 4: Better give me a better explanation.
Speaker 7: It would be a conspiracy theory to suggest that members
Speaker 7: of Congress are somehow not compromised in the Epstein investigation.
Speaker 7: And what he's saying, by the way, wasn't just that
Speaker 7: members of Congress might have been on the Lolita Express
Speaker 7: or had relationships with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 6: No, what he's saying is.
Speaker 7: That they have powerful people that maybe are donors, that
Speaker 7: maybe are in their ear, that maybe are other members
Speaker 7: of Congress or in the intelligence community that pressure them
Speaker 7: to take certain decisions. And he was referring to Marshall
Speaker 7: Blackburn who actually tried to subpoena the estate. She was
Speaker 7: using this in a kind of tit for tat with
Speaker 7: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alita Alito, who Dick Durbin and
Speaker 7: other people in judiciary were trying to pressure for more
Speaker 7: information about their different potential conflict of interest and all
Speaker 7: of that.
Speaker 6: Marshall Blackburn said, Okay.
Speaker 7: We're going to subpoena Jeffrey Epstein flaight logs that goes nowhere.
Speaker 7: And that's what Burchett is referencing. And it is interesting
Speaker 7: because again, you could subpoena the estate of Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 7: for the flight logs, for that information in a number
Speaker 7: of different ways. You could Congress if they wanted to
Speaker 7: know more information about Jeffrey Epstein, and they had consensus
Speaker 7: on wanting to know more information about what was going
Speaker 7: on with Jeffrey Epstein, they would they could use these
Speaker 7: mechanisms they're choosing not to. And Burchet's point, it would again,
Speaker 7: it would be a conspiracy to suggest that what he's
Speaker 7: saying is untrue.
Speaker 5: And his point was not, if you listen carefully to
Speaker 5: what he was saying, His point was not that every
Speaker 5: member of Congress is caught up in the Epstein scandal.
Speaker 5: What he was saying is that people have come to
Speaker 5: them and said, you've got your own skeletons in the closet,
Speaker 5: and so if you go here, other people are going
Speaker 5: to go there.
Speaker 4: And so let's just leave it all alone.
Speaker 6: Yeah, don't touch it.
Speaker 5: Let's keep those skeletons there, keep those skeletons, and we'll
Speaker 5: just keep it moving forward.
Speaker 7: Right, Well, I'll be happy if nobody picks up this scab.
Speaker 7: And so with these one hundred and seventy names set
Speaker 7: to come.
Speaker 4: We should ask represent him Good about that later today.
Speaker 6: I think, Birch, it's a Freedom Caucus guy.
Speaker 5: I think, yeah, which is absurd that we don't know
Speaker 5: who's in the Freedom Comcast. We cannot let Good leave
Speaker 5: without a list.
Speaker 6: I asked right about the bar the door right.
Speaker 5: It was on.
Speaker 7: Federalist Radio Hour this week, and I asked them about
Speaker 7: the differences between the squad, like the squad has we
Speaker 7: actually know who's in the squad. That's a completely different
Speaker 7: thing with the Freedom Caucus guards their membership very secretly.
Speaker 4: Masonic Caucus over here, get.
Speaker 6: Out of here.
Speaker 7: Their Masonic lodge used to be a Chrtier coast since
Speaker 7: shuttered Mexican restaurant corners of like first and see, but the.
Speaker 6: Fourteen days between Monday and when.
Speaker 7: These names are set to be released, I think, to
Speaker 7: Burchett's point, Ryan, and to the point you made at
Speaker 7: the very beginning of this segment, we'll see, We'll see
Speaker 7: what happens with these one hundred and seventy names. I
Speaker 7: think obviously important to remember that victims are among the
Speaker 7: potential names that would be exposed revealed in this defamation lawsuit.
Speaker 5: And they should obviously have the opportunity and not have
Speaker 5: like it should be up to them whether or not
Speaker 5: they want their names to come forward.
Speaker 4: The dudes on that list, not so much.
Speaker 7: Let's mention them all. As Bethany Frankel would say.
Speaker 4: There you go, mention it all.
Speaker 6: He loves the.
Speaker 7: Tucker Carlson was on Tim Poole's podcast this week and
Speaker 7: had a very tough, brutal criticism really for Ron DeSantis
Speaker 7: over I mean, in general, it was a criticism of
Speaker 7: DeSantis is kind of online army of defenders, and then
Speaker 7: became a criticism of DeSantis's Ukraine policy.
Speaker 6: Let's roll the clip.
Speaker 14: You really get the sense that Ron DeSantis, who I
Speaker 14: liked as governor, Uh, the people who represent him online
Speaker 14: are the nastiest, the stupidest and the most zero sum
Speaker 14: people I've ever seen in my life. And I don't
Speaker 14: think that reflects him. But it's like, this is kind
Speaker 14: of small ball. And by the way, these purported conservatives,
Speaker 14: Ron DeSantis changed his view and I like him, Okay,
Speaker 14: I think he's been a good governor.
Speaker 4: I just want to be clear about that.
Speaker 14: I know him personally, I like him. But his donor,
Speaker 14: Ken Griffin, told him to change his view in Ukraine
Speaker 14: from it's a regional conflict we shouldn't get involved into,
Speaker 14: it's a super important thing. We should send more money.
Speaker 14: One donor got him to change his view, and all
Speaker 14: these so called conservatives are supporting that like it's the
Speaker 14: most important thing ever. Like who are these people and
Speaker 14: what is their problem?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 4: What is going on with them? First of all, do
Speaker 4: we have a name for them. How about the d Hive.
Speaker 6: That's so bad?
Speaker 5: The dhive? No tell us about these these DeSantis. The
Speaker 5: dhive like who are like Twitter is good enough at
Speaker 5: like bifurcating ecosystems that I don't actually encounter a lot
Speaker 5: of the d Hive, Yes, but I am aware of
Speaker 5: their existence. I can faintly hear their buzzing.
Speaker 6: I'm rejecting d just right away. There's I will not
Speaker 6: play ball with that, but I.
Speaker 7: Will say it has been a really big point of
Speaker 7: contention actually on in conservative circles that DeSantis has this
Speaker 7: hardened kind of Twitter army.
Speaker 4: Ronnie Bros.
Speaker 6: Okay, there we go, Ronnie Bros.
Speaker 7: That is capital v O very online and in ways
Speaker 7: that there's a similar kind of parallel in Trump circles
Speaker 7: and the very online Trump army and the very online
Speaker 7: DeSantis army get just engaged in these silly and often
Speaker 7: trivial and irrelevant and often sort of I would say detached,
Speaker 7: you kind of they're out of the in bubbles, basically
Speaker 7: in a Twitter bubble over these these silly fights. Sometimes
Speaker 7: you see them arguing over just like random personal beefs
Speaker 7: that go back a year in Twitter relationships. And it's
Speaker 7: not surprising at all that Tucker would say that, because
Speaker 7: that's something you can even from people who are favorable
Speaker 7: to DeSantis privately, is that the online presence is grading
Speaker 7: and it sort of is dragged into the mud in
Speaker 7: the same way the Trump online army drags into the mud.
Speaker 7: And that's supposed to be different with the Santas blah
Speaker 7: blah blah. His point though about he's clearly talking about
Speaker 7: Ken Griffin when it comes to Desantas on Ukraine and
Speaker 7: what happened in the spring, is that Desanta's at one
Speaker 7: point had referred to what's happening in Ukraine as a
Speaker 7: quote territorial dispute. Now, this ruffled the feathers of people
Speaker 7: like Ken Griffin, who, according to The New York Times,
Speaker 7: met with Desantas and expressed his displeasure. Now, Ken Griffin
Speaker 7: gave some five million dollars to DeSantis's reelection campaign, just
Speaker 7: like a couple of years ago the editorial one, Yeah,
Speaker 7: the convnatorial re election campaign a couple of years ago.
Speaker 7: He has not given a dime that I'm aware of,
Speaker 7: at least in this cycle.
Speaker 6: And that's before we started taping.
Speaker 10: Ryan.
Speaker 7: You made a great point, like, let's all live like
Speaker 7: a billionaire who doesn't even have to give money to
Speaker 7: the shift someone.
Speaker 5: Much money, people are going to meet with you and
Speaker 5: change their positions just based on the potential that you
Speaker 5: could spend right.
Speaker 7: And he has since seems to cool on DeSantis, as
Speaker 7: many people on Wall Street seem to have cooled on
Speaker 7: DeSantis over And I think this is very interesting cultural issues.
Speaker 7: I know we've actually talked about this before that you know,
Speaker 7: for the billionaires, that's sort of the bottom line, like
Speaker 7: they will go to the mat for low taxes and
Speaker 7: less regulation. But once you start actually pushing like conservative
Speaker 7: cultural priorities, different questions. So that's what we've seen with
Speaker 7: people like Ken Griffin. Now, whether Ken Griffin's meeting with
Speaker 7: Ron DeSantis actually made him take back he said some
Speaker 7: stuff about the territorial dispute things.
Speaker 5: When he got beaten up kind of broadly, so it
Speaker 5: could have been some of that pressure.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I think actually, when I was looking at
Speaker 7: the timeline, I don't necessarily know that that adds up.
Speaker 7: It's possible that there was something that Ken Griffin and
Speaker 7: Tucker could be referring to somebody that's not publicly available
Speaker 7: that Ken Griffin did have a call with Rhndostantis right
Speaker 7: away after he said that in Rhondostantis came out and
Speaker 7: clarified the territorial dispute comics, that is what happened, But
Speaker 7: we don't know that kN Griffin had anything to do
Speaker 7: with that. Presumably there are a lot of donors that
Speaker 7: might be upset by that. Even though it is at
Speaker 7: this point at least very clearly a territorial dispute, it's
Speaker 7: not the sort of civilizational dispute that the an Apple
Speaker 7: bombs of the world would have, you say. And that's
Speaker 7: sort of where Tucker is taking issue with Destantus on Ukraine.
Speaker 7: But I mean, I don't think Disantris is entirely objectionable
Speaker 7: in Ukraine, unless your objection is that you just don't
Speaker 7: know how he would treat the conflict as president, right,
Speaker 7: Is he going to be McCarthy esque and say no
Speaker 7: blank check or is he going to be McConnell esque
Speaker 7: when he gets into office. I actually don't know that
Speaker 7: that's something we can know about any Republican politician at
Speaker 7: this point, because the pressures ones you get into office
Speaker 7: here in DC from the Pentagon and lobbyists the military
Speaker 7: industrial complex are so strong.
Speaker 4: And I did see the kind of sort of real
Speaker 4: into this.
Speaker 5: I saw him getting beaten up last night on conservative
Speaker 5: Twitter for being very slow with a statement about Trump.
Speaker 4: Getting booted off the Colorado ballot.
Speaker 5: You know you Vivec immediately comes out and says, we
Speaker 5: should all withdraw our names from the Colorado ballot if
Speaker 5: they're going to try to do this, you know, and
Speaker 5: you've got this anticipation like what is what is the
Speaker 5: santis going to say?
Speaker 4: How's he going to respond to this?
Speaker 5: And it seemed like he was just kind of waiting
Speaker 5: to see how it would it would play out, which
Speaker 5: seems to be part of the kind of cautiousness and
Speaker 5: politician inginess that people are get that people are starting
Speaker 5: to sense from him in a way that undermines, you know,
Speaker 5: what people want with this kind of trumpy just like
Speaker 5: spit it out and say the lunatic left, Biden Marxists
Speaker 5: are trying to like, you know, put all their people
Speaker 5: and put all their opponents in prison or whatever.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and we can put this next element up on
Speaker 7: the screen, this is the national RCPA average poll. I
Speaker 7: was thinking about this yesterday, so I went and looked
Speaker 7: at the RCP average over time, and it's kind of
Speaker 7: ridiculous even to be talking about Trump versus DeSantis on
Speaker 7: Ukraine in the primary, because Donald Trump is absolutely crushing
Speaker 7: Rondo Santis.
Speaker 6: In Avery state. The only path forward.
Speaker 7: I mean, if you're listening to this and not watching
Speaker 7: it on your screen, there's just a yawning gap that
Speaker 7: starts looks.
Speaker 4: Like a crocodile.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it does look like your crocodile. It starts around March.
Speaker 7: And remember that's about when Rondo Santis is announcing his
Speaker 7: campaign late spring, and it has been going in the
Speaker 7: wrong direction for Rond Deo Santis ever since, and up
Speaker 7: for Donald Trump in the national pulling average ever since.
Speaker 6: Let's put Iowa up on the screen.
Speaker 5: This is the next element, pushing sixty three right nationally
Speaker 5: to like twenty for everybody else.
Speaker 7: Or less, just double double double digits, just not even
Speaker 7: close nationally, and not even close to the point where
Speaker 7: you could do a Buddah Judge Ami Klobish thing and
Speaker 7: consolidate behind another candidate. Now in a state like Iowa
Speaker 7: and New Hampshire in theory, in theory, you could try
Speaker 7: to do that. Donald Trump is just above fifty percent,
Speaker 7: but just above fifty percent is a huge margin. It
Speaker 7: means he's up by thirty two an average in the
Speaker 7: RCP polling average, he's up by thirty two points to DeSantis, who,
Speaker 7: according to these polls, has sort of been steadily climbing,
Speaker 7: but steadily climbing to a point that is still lower
Speaker 7: than where he was early in his campaign around June.
Speaker 7: Nikki Halius or steadily climbing too, but below DeSantis.
Speaker 6: This is New Hampshire. You see Donald Trump just.
Speaker 5: A one point on Iowa before we go that people
Speaker 5: have to remember if it's correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 5: But in the democratic causes, if you don't get fifteen percent,
Speaker 5: you have to then in a precinct, your supporters then
Speaker 5: have to go vote for somebody else or not vote
Speaker 5: at all. So you've got a ton of people that
Speaker 5: are under fifteen percent there, as vivek Ramaswami's people, for instance,
Speaker 5: would then they'd all walk across the gym and go
Speaker 5: join with Trump's people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, half of you.
Speaker 5: Know, a lot of these other people would are probably
Speaker 5: their second choice is Trump, which then pushes him, you know,
Speaker 5: well into the sixties seventies, right.
Speaker 6: The Nikki Haley people aren't crossing over to yeah.
Speaker 5: Right, but so the DeSantis people, you know, half of
Speaker 5: them might cross over totally.
Speaker 6: Yeah, one hundred percent, And.
Speaker 5: Even though as much as they hate each other online
Speaker 5: like the actual supporters.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, it's again, that's it's totally detached from the
Speaker 7: reality of how it's sort of not on Twitter. People
Speaker 7: are experiencing this in most of the countries, not on.
Speaker 4: Twitter at least you were staying in New Hampshire.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so New Hampshire, you' seen Niki Helly kind of
Speaker 7: closing the gap a little bit.
Speaker 6: This is in South Carolina.
Speaker 7: You also see Trump's margin he's at He's up by
Speaker 7: twenty nine point six points. He was up at different
Speaker 7: points according to these pulling averages.
Speaker 6: Thirty five, thirty four. So maybe that's maybe that's dipping
Speaker 6: a little bit.
Speaker 7: There isn't a ton of good pulling out of South
Speaker 7: Carolina yet. But the bottom line is even Nikki Haley
Speaker 7: climbing above DeSantis in New Hampshire, and even Trump dipping
Speaker 7: by a couple of points in South Carolina still has
Speaker 7: him up by thirty points.
Speaker 4: This is not a race, and that's her home state,
Speaker 4: so what more can she.
Speaker 7: Do is her home state, unless the polling is dramatically off,
Speaker 7: which is something the Vake Ramaswami told me that on
Speaker 7: Federal Austradio Hour last week that he thinks the polling
Speaker 7: is very off in Iowa.
Speaker 6: It seems plausible giving the House he's.
Speaker 5: Only at five, and he's like, I'm feeling good.
Speaker 7: But if the polling is really off, maybe he's at fifteen,
Speaker 7: maybe he's actually at fifteen, maybe he's actually hit twenty.
Speaker 7: The bottom line is Donald Trump is still the clear favorite,
Speaker 7: to the point where if this were anybody else, we
Speaker 7: would say this is not a race at all. This
Speaker 7: primary is a laughing stock. And so that's all that
Speaker 7: is to say. This sort of tit for tat DeSantis
Speaker 7: versus Trump has some interesting, kind of.
Speaker 6: Broad ideological.
Speaker 7: Relevancy for the conservative movement as they're kind of trying
Speaker 7: to figure out where they go. But in terms of
Speaker 7: this primary, the material reality, this is.
Speaker 6: Not a competition right now, Yeah, all.
Speaker 7: Right, Well, we're going to transition into an interview now
Speaker 7: with the leader of the Freedom Caucus, Representative Bob Good.
Speaker 7: He allowed to admit that that he's the leader of
Speaker 7: the Freedom Coxs.
Speaker 6: Yes, because the ed you can ask about that. So
Speaker 6: we'll be back with Representative Good right after this.
Speaker 7: We're excited to be joined now by Representative Bob Good
Speaker 7: of Virginia, who was recently elected as the leader of
Speaker 7: the Freedom Caucus, which has a huge amount of leverage
Speaker 7: obviously going into the new year as the House resumes
Speaker 7: its business in the new year.
Speaker 6: So Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 8: Great to be with you, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 6: I want to start with that first question. I mean,
Speaker 6: we still have the one person motion to vacate.
Speaker 7: That rule is still in place, which is obviously a
Speaker 7: huge piece of leverage that the Freedom Caucus has over
Speaker 7: Mike Johnson. You know that you were certainly part of
Speaker 7: how that was used against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 6: Going forward, What is the red.
Speaker 7: Line for the Freedom Caucus on Ukraine with Mike Johnson?
Speaker 7: Have you are you in conversation, are you in contact
Speaker 7: with Mike Johnson? And what is the red line for
Speaker 7: you on Ukraine on the border as Mike Johnson negotiates
Speaker 7: with House Democrats and Mitch McConnell on the Senate side.
Speaker 1: Well, if I may, just since you mentioned the motion
Speaker 1: of ak you know that's something that's been in place
Speaker 1: for the better part of two hundred years, going back
Speaker 1: to the Thomas Jefferson days, until Nancy Pelosi changed it
Speaker 1: when we were able to negotiate or leverage support for
Speaker 1: the speaker for a new House rules package, a new
Speaker 1: Republican Conference rules package that would restore regular order and
Speaker 1: empower individual members instead of the elites controlling it. Part
Speaker 1: of that was to restore that accountability measure that a
Speaker 1: speaker serves with the pleasure of two and eighteen members.
Speaker 1: So frankly, that is restored to empower all members to
Speaker 1: hold the speaker accountable.
Speaker 8: Even the minority can.
Speaker 1: Try to utilize that, and every speaker serves again the
Speaker 1: pleasure of two and eighteen members.
Speaker 8: You know, one would hope that we would never reach
Speaker 8: a point where we'd have to do that again.
Speaker 1: But I will just point out I think we're in
Speaker 1: unprecedented times as a country. We've never had this level
Speaker 1: of debt. We've never had this level of a monthly deficit.
Speaker 1: We've never had our credit downgraded twice like it has
Speaker 1: been this past year. We've never had the debt to GDP.
Speaker 1: We've got forty year high inflation, twenty year high interest rates.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the border invasion. I mean, we've never
Speaker 1: had a president intentionally harmed the country the way this
Speaker 1: president is with facilitating this border invasion. You've got unprecedented
Speaker 1: trampling on our constitutional freedoms and liberties with vices, surveillance.
Speaker 1: There's so many crises, the weakening of our military, the
Speaker 1: war on American energy, affordable reliable energy, the climate, environmentalism,
Speaker 1: and extremism. So like no time before, must we stand
Speaker 1: up and deliver for the American people and validate the
Speaker 1: faith and trust take place to us when they gave
Speaker 1: us the majority a year ago, and so far we
Speaker 1: fail to do that. That's why some of us are
Speaker 1: well and do whatever it takes and try to bring
Speaker 1: transformational change to Congress. That said, you asked specifically about Ukraine. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're in regular contact with the Speaker, and certainly I've
Speaker 1: had conversations with him and interact with him to a
Speaker 1: greater degree since I was elected as the incoming chairman
Speaker 1: of the Freedom Caucus. But his position is and I
Speaker 1: think will remain, and we're certainly encouraging him to that effect,
Speaker 1: that Ukraine is dead on arrival.
Speaker 8: Support for Ukraine is dead on arrival in.
Speaker 1: The House, until if, and when the Senate passes HR
Speaker 1: two our outstanding, strong border security build the House past
Speaker 1: months ago, and the President signs it into law. And
Speaker 1: not until we have that done and we begin to
Speaker 1: see measurable metrics demonstrated performance on securing our border. Would
Speaker 1: we even talk about support for Ukraine. And if that
Speaker 1: was to even be considered, it must be paid for,
Speaker 1: which is not, which is unpreprecedented. We don't pay for
Speaker 1: supplementals in this town. It must be paid for an offset.
Speaker 1: It must have accountability, transparency, It must have a strategy
Speaker 1: attached to it for a defined limit to US involvement.
Speaker 1: All of those things to even be considered. I'm unlikely
Speaker 1: to support it irrespective of those things. But it can't
Speaker 1: be brought to the floor of the House. We can't
Speaker 1: trade our border security in a phony way, a phony
Speaker 1: version that comes out of the Senate that pretends to
Speaker 1: secure the border. We already have the good legislation. The
Speaker 1: Senate must sign it. Lets pass it, rather than it
Speaker 1: must sign it. It must become law. It must be
Speaker 1: enforced and by a lawless administration who to this point
Speaker 1: is breaking our laws and purposely facilitating this border of
Speaker 1: asion that is doing irreparable harm to the country.
Speaker 7: So is that emotion would you move to vacate Mike
Speaker 7: Johnson if he plays ball with McConnell and Democrats on
Speaker 7: Ukraine over the border.
Speaker 1: Well, similar quick answers. We're not trying to obviously vacate
Speaker 1: our speaker. I believe he's a conservative. I believe he's
Speaker 1: an honest guy. I believe that he loves the country.
Speaker 1: I believe that he wants to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: That said, this is not personal. It wasn't personal with
Speaker 1: the previous speaker. It's not personal with this speaker. This
Speaker 1: is performance based. And I will just note that I
Speaker 1: got asked for months from January to September about motion
Speaker 1: to vacate with the previous speaker, and I said, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're focused on trying to bring change. We're trying to
Speaker 1: advance conservative policy. We're trying to influence the conference to
Speaker 1: stand up and deliver for the American people. We're not
Speaker 1: just willfully excuse me, flippantly or cavalierly just flowing around
Speaker 1: wretch to motion to vacate.
Speaker 8: I didn't talk about that until we got to the
Speaker 8: point when it happened.
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about that, certainly, and that's not an
Speaker 1: inference that that we're in the same place. That's the
Speaker 1: current speaker inherited a very difficult situation. There's a reason
Speaker 1: why we have a new speaker and we put him
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter when we're down thirty five nothing
Speaker 1: and we've lost ten games in a row. That's the
Speaker 1: Republican Party that's failed to deliver for the American people.
Speaker 1: That's fail to show the demonstrated willingness to fight and
Speaker 1: to draw and enforce red lines that we're going to again.
Speaker 1: We're going to stand and fight for the American people
Speaker 1: instead of caving and surrendering as we have done for
Speaker 1: the last thirty years, I would suggest.
Speaker 8: So that's what we're working, is to.
Speaker 1: Try to help the Speaker to get the Conference to
Speaker 1: stand behind him and be willing to have a fight
Speaker 1: overfunding this government and cutting spending year over year, to
Speaker 1: be willing to have a fight to reform visas or
Speaker 1: veillance so we don't continue to trample on the constitutional
Speaker 1: freedoms and rights over the American citizens that continue to
Speaker 1: have a fight or be willing to have a fight
Speaker 1: to secure the border. What are we willing to do
Speaker 1: or what are we prepared to do to achieve that,
Speaker 1: and then to continue to fight to keep Israel aid
Speaker 1: as a standalone package that's paid for, that that that
Speaker 1: isn't hijacked utilized, you know, to hijack support for Israel
Speaker 1: and tying it to Ukraine. Again, we will not consider
Speaker 1: aid to Ukraine until this border is secure, not talked
Speaker 1: about being secure, not promised to be secure, but actually
Speaker 1: is secure. So that's where we are trying to influence
Speaker 1: the right things and trying to work with our speaker
Speaker 1: when he's right and encourage him to do the right things,
Speaker 1: but then the challenge him when he's wrong when we
Speaker 1: don't think he's doing the right thing.
Speaker 8: And I think that the.
Speaker 1: Demonstration of that as we were adamantly opposed to Continuing
Speaker 1: Resolution that passed, we're adamantly opposed to the NDAA that
Speaker 1: didn't have the good policy reforms in it and was
Speaker 1: negotiated secretly in the back room between House and Senate
Speaker 1: leadership instead of a true conference committee and worse, attached
Speaker 1: the Viso Surveillance Extension without the necessary reforms to protect Americans.
Speaker 5: We do want to get into that that fis an
Speaker 5: extension in a moment, But I'm curious, why does Israel
Speaker 5: AID deserve kind of a clean up or down vote
Speaker 5: whereas Ukraine AID ought to get tied to HR two.
Speaker 4: What's the what's the difference there? It feels like we're
Speaker 4: talking war in peace. Each ought to get an upper
Speaker 4: down vote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question, And I would just point out that
Speaker 1: what's one of the many things that's wrong with Washington
Speaker 1: is that you you try to avoid tough too often.
Speaker 1: We try to avoid tough votes and protect members from
Speaker 1: taking controversial votes and being on record for what they
Speaker 1: stand for or against. So you package things together that
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily related. So in other words, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's like the farm bill. The farm bill is seventy
Speaker 1: five percent a welfare bill. But you know what, we
Speaker 1: don't don't vote against farmers. You got to vote for
Speaker 1: the welfare package. Or if you're a Democrat who wants
Speaker 1: the welfare package, then we sort of use that and
Speaker 1: to get you to vote for the farmers instead of
Speaker 1: having both of them separated and stand alone on their
Speaker 1: own merits or lack thereop so we can reform and
Speaker 1: improve both of those instead of putting them together.
Speaker 8: Same thing with Okay, Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Aid has nothing to do with Israel, age to do
Speaker 1: with humanitarian assistance for Hamas, or nothing to do with Taiwan,
Speaker 1: or nothing to do with disaster. Really, this one hundred
Speaker 1: and ten billion dollar package that the President and the
Speaker 1: Senate want us to pass together. So the Speaker was right,
Speaker 1: and we certainly encourage him to do that. Surely have
Speaker 1: to become a speaker, because the American people and the
Speaker 1: Congress overwhelmingly support aid to our what I consider one
Speaker 1: of our top two or three allies in the world, Israel,
Speaker 1: and for a number of reasons, Americans and the Congress
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly supports that. So let's consider Israel Israeli aid without
Speaker 1: controversy in and of itself on its own merits, and
Speaker 1: it passed with every Republican I think is at one
Speaker 1: in the House and twelve Democrats. It was paid for
Speaker 1: by cutting Biden's Irs expansion. Because Israel is not bankrupt
Speaker 1: as a country. They are not fiscally unstable like we
Speaker 1: are as a country. They don't have thirty four trillion
Speaker 1: national debt, so we ought not to borrow from our
Speaker 1: kids and our grandkids. We can pay for it by
Speaker 1: reducing Biden's IRS expansion, which is breaking the mold of
Speaker 1: borrowing more and exacerbating our debt situation for US supplemental
Speaker 1: which is by by designers, never paid for.
Speaker 4: It, but real quick.
Speaker 5: Though, doesn't that increase the deficit to cut back on
Speaker 5: tax enforcement?
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't, because you've got again Biden's trying to
Speaker 1: spend eighty billion dollars to hire eighty seven thousand new
Speaker 1: IRS agents to go after, harass, intimidate, threaten regular income
Speaker 1: Americans who are audited at five times.
Speaker 4: That stuff works. People are right there.
Speaker 1: The reason people, the American people don't need a more oppressive,
Speaker 1: more powerful IRS going after them, especially when the IRS
Speaker 1: has been demonstrated, like many of our federal agencies, to
Speaker 1: be political in its nature on who it goes after
Speaker 1: and who it doesn't. And again, we're bankrupt, so don't
Speaker 1: we can't afford an expansion of the IRS. American people
Speaker 1: aren't paying too much in taxes. The government is spending
Speaker 1: far too much. We've got a spending problem. We don't
Speaker 1: have a revenue problem in this country.
Speaker 7: So one thing I wanted to ask about is the
Speaker 7: comments Merger Taylor Green made to CNN. And the only
Speaker 7: reason I'm asking about it is because, again, just to emphasize,
Speaker 7: the Freedom corcass has a huge amount of leverage going
Speaker 7: forward in the new year, in the new Congress, and
Speaker 7: you know, from the perspective of a conservative, well, we'll
Speaker 7: hopefully be calling some shots going forward. And Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 7: Green is claiming that your chairmanship, your impending chairmanship of
Speaker 7: Freedom Caucus is hurting fundraising, that your endorsement of Desantus
Speaker 7: over Donald Trump has hurt unity in the Freedom Caucus,
Speaker 7: et cetera, et cetera going forward.
Speaker 6: Is there any truth to any of that?
Speaker 7: And is it true that that sort of Trump Destantus
Speaker 7: divide and potential fundraising issues are hurting the Freedom Caucus's
Speaker 7: ability to sort of work together as one unit that's
Speaker 7: able to call shots kind of cohesively with all the
Speaker 7: leverage that it has in the new year and a
Speaker 7: very slim margin of a majority in the House and
Speaker 7: the motion of vacate back in place.
Speaker 8: That's a long question. Then let me take stab at it.
Speaker 8: Martin Keyler.
Speaker 1: Green has demonstrated that she'll say anything to smear or
Speaker 1: attack or lie about those who she has a personal
Speaker 1: bandetta or a grievance against Marjorie Tayler. Green showed herself
Speaker 1: to be the fraud that she is when she unconditionally
Speaker 1: supported the former Speaker a year ago, and then of
Speaker 1: course she got lots of blowback against her because she
Speaker 1: had positioned herself as a brand of somehow anti establishment
Speaker 1: and a change agent in Washington. Then she unconditionally supported
Speaker 1: the former speaker that was obviously very unpopular with her base.
Speaker 1: She then smeared and lied against a slide against those
Speaker 1: of us who were fighting to change or to prevent
Speaker 1: the former Speaker from getting elected back in January. She
Speaker 1: was then subsequently kicked out of the Freedom Caucus because
Speaker 1: of her behavior. So she knows very little about the
Speaker 1: Freedom Caucus. She is an island to herself now. She
Speaker 1: was kind of a useful idiot at the hands of
Speaker 1: this former speaker back in January to try to help
Speaker 1: him become speaker. Now she's kind of isolated herself. She
Speaker 1: has no support among the membership, and so she lies
Speaker 1: and smears and attacks others.
Speaker 8: The Freedom Caucus board overwhelmingly elected me as chairman. The
Speaker 8: general membership overwhelmingly elected me as chairman.
Speaker 1: We as a Freedom considered, continue to fight for the
Speaker 1: conservative principles that the Republican Party is supposed to stand upon.
Speaker 1: We are the anchor the conservative conscience of the Republican
Speaker 1: majority in the House. We're willing to challenge our own
Speaker 1: leadership when we're wrong because we don't work for them.
Speaker 8: We work for our constituents and those who elected us.
Speaker 5: Did she have any support inside the Freedom Caucus during
Speaker 5: that debate? I don't quite know how the Freedom Caucus
Speaker 5: internal stuff works, but was there anybody that.
Speaker 4: Was like, no, she's great.
Speaker 8: I won't get into the eternal dynamics of it.
Speaker 1: I'll just say that there was an overwhelming decision to
Speaker 1: remove her from the Freedom Caucus.
Speaker 8: And uh, and I guess she's got an Actra grind
Speaker 8: as a result of that.
Speaker 5: Going back to the FIZA fight that you talked about earlier,
Speaker 5: there was some hope that there would be a kind
Speaker 5: of Progressive Caucus Freedom Caucus alignment on this issue that
Speaker 5: would be able to kind of roll back some of
Speaker 5: these surveillance authorities. You guys seem to get steamrolled at
Speaker 5: the very end, and as the NDAA was going through
Speaker 5: the House, I think you needed what one hundred and
Speaker 5: forty six votes to be able to stop it from
Speaker 5: getting the two thirds majority go through to kind of
Speaker 5: force the spymasters back to the table to negotiate the
Speaker 5: surveillance authorities. Guys fell short by a couple dozen votes.
Speaker 4: What went wrong?
Speaker 5: And what can the Progressive Freedom Caucus coalition, if it exists,
Speaker 5: do differently when this fight comes back in the spring.
Speaker 1: Well, the American people don't want FAISA extended without the
Speaker 1: reforms to protect them. We can't have warrantless searches of
Speaker 1: US citizens where you don't have to go before a
Speaker 1: judge with probable cause and get permission, if you will,
Speaker 1: validation for the reason to surveil or spy upon US citizens.
Speaker 1: So they want us to reform five. So they don't
Speaker 1: want it extended without that. It was terribly disappointing that
Speaker 1: we would do that, that we would attach it to
Speaker 1: the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, which didn't have
Speaker 1: the policy changes that we had voted for in the
Speaker 1: House last summer. Frankly, UH extended the the Biden, Pelosi
Speaker 1: Schumer vision.
Speaker 8: For the military. UH, and it was it was NDYA
Speaker 8: that that we overwhelmingly rejected.
Speaker 1: From a freedom calling standpoint, it received four to one
Speaker 1: support from Democrats, two to one support by Republicans, and
Speaker 1: so it ultimately passed. But I think it was a mistake,
Speaker 1: and I think it was a mistake to extend Vaissa surveillance.
Speaker 8: It's extended until April.
Speaker 1: We'll have another crack at that to bring reforms into
Speaker 1: place early in the new year, and I certainly hope
Speaker 1: that we will do that.
Speaker 5: And we talked about Israel and it's funding for Israel
Speaker 5: earlier in this interview, and I wanted to ask you
Speaker 5: why why it is? I'm curious just from from from
Speaker 5: the left, it seems like the America first kind of
Speaker 5: movement that has really surged over the last several years
Speaker 5: and has influenced the way that the right has kind
Speaker 5: of interacted with Ukraine funding and support for the Ukraine
Speaker 5: War doesn't seem to translate when it comes to Israel,
Speaker 5: like what why why is that?
Speaker 1: Well? Israel has long been a historic ally of the
Speaker 1: United States, certainly in the what seventy five or years
Speaker 1: since Israel became a nation in nineteen forty eight. Israel's
Speaker 1: a key allies, the only true democracy in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: It is surrounded by nations who want to destroy it
Speaker 1: and push it into the sea. Israel has every right
Speaker 1: to defend itself to whatever it's necessary defend its national sovereignty.
Speaker 1: It's a key US ally and again it's overwhelming support
Speaker 1: in the Congress and among the country, and so I believe,
Speaker 1: similar to the United Kingdom, it's one of our true few,
Speaker 1: real genuine allies that stand with us through thick and
Speaker 1: ben and we all to stand with Israel.
Speaker 5: Yet yesterday, and we played this clip earlier in the show,
Speaker 5: I was at the State Department briefing and I asked
Speaker 5: the State Department spokesp Uson Matt Miller about comments made
Speaker 5: by the Pope just recently where he was talking about
Speaker 5: the IDF attack on the Catholic church in Gaza and
Speaker 5: he described it as its terrorism. And I'm curious, from
Speaker 5: your perspective, what does it say about kind of the
Speaker 5: the the US role on the international stage, and it's
Speaker 5: its alliance with Israel, which you've said, one of our
Speaker 5: one of our closest allies. If even the Pope is
Speaker 5: willing to describe, uh, you know what we are supporting
Speaker 5: in Gaza as as terrorism or one incident. Yeah, that
Speaker 5: that that incident and is there a point at which
Speaker 5: members of the Freedom Caucus start to say, you know, this.
Speaker 4: Is actually harming our national interests.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't see those comments, and I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: what you're referring to a specifically's relations to the pope. However,
Speaker 1: I believe that Israel does its best, the best that
Speaker 1: it can in a wartime situation, to protect civilian casualties
Speaker 1: and to protect innocent victims.
Speaker 8: There is a willing, there's a reason why they were willing.
Speaker 1: To have that pause, temporary pause in operations to try
Speaker 1: to from a humanitarian standpoint. But they're dealing with an
Speaker 1: enemy that has said they do not have the right
Speaker 1: to exist, and is willing to kill children, to burn
Speaker 1: children alive, to rape and kill women, to kill senior citizens,
Speaker 1: to put people in ovens, to cut off their heads.
Speaker 1: This is an unbelievable evil that they have to defeat.
Speaker 1: And frankly, that's an evil that's willing to use schools
Speaker 1: and mosques and churches and hospitals and so forth to
Speaker 1: shield their military operations, to use their own citizens, Palestinian citizens,
Speaker 1: individuals as shields against what they're doing. And so Israel's
Speaker 1: in a tough situation obviously, but Israel needs to do
Speaker 1: whatever is necessary to defend itself and prevent something like
Speaker 1: this that happened on October seventh happening again in their country.
Speaker 6: I have one more question, sort of from a broader
Speaker 6: thirty thousand.
Speaker 7: Foot view, why is it You know, you've seen a
Speaker 7: lot of this up close, and I know a lot
Speaker 7: of average Republican voters who are outside of Washington, d C.
Speaker 7: Maybe in your district in Virginia, who look at what
Speaker 7: happens in Washington, who look at what happened with the NDAA,
Speaker 7: which was just shameful but also shameful in that it
Speaker 7: was so typical of the way.
Speaker 6: Business works here in DC.
Speaker 7: Why is it that so many elected Republicans in DC
Speaker 7: vote against their voters. Why is it that they are
Speaker 7: so willing over and over again to sort of put
Speaker 7: their priorities, the priorities of the lobbyists of special interests,
Speaker 7: above what their constituents say they want, and then they
Speaker 7: get to DC and do something contrary to that. You've
Speaker 7: seen it up close. What's their sort of perspective on
Speaker 7: why that happens?
Speaker 1: There's an interesting dynamic in DC and in Washington, and
Speaker 1: I just say. In elections, generally Democrats will run as
Speaker 1: moderates and then when they get into office they vote
Speaker 1: as radical leftist communists and lockstep.
Speaker 8: I mean, there's no difference.
Speaker 4: Between the vote like Brian, there's no difference.
Speaker 1: Between the way AOC votes, for example, and those Democrats
Speaker 1: who claim to be moderates, find me the daylight between
Speaker 1: them on anything substantive in Congress and their nine to
Speaker 1: nine percent a lockstep. Republicans tend to run as conservatives,
Speaker 1: but then they get to DC and they often behave
Speaker 1: as moderates. It's a very different dynamic, and it is
Speaker 1: contempt for seemingly the voters, the grassroots, the base, those
Speaker 1: who elect them. They get to Washington sort of that
Speaker 1: we know best mentality. You don't understand how Washington works.
Speaker 1: And Republicans seem to think that the way to the
Speaker 1: majority and the way to winning in Washington is to moderate,
Speaker 1: to work with Democrats, to compromise. But they don't run
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 8: But that's what they do.
Speaker 1: And you've got about a third of Republicans in the House,
Speaker 1: I would submit, who are willing to fight for genuine
Speaker 1: conservative principles to do what they said they would do.
Speaker 1: To buck their party leadership when it's wrong on something
Speaker 1: like the NDAA and the FAISA extension. But unfortunately got
Speaker 1: about two thirds who are willing to do what leadership
Speaker 1: says to kind of just be a team player no
Speaker 1: matter what the play call is, who really don't want
Speaker 1: to limit government or cut spending or make the tough
Speaker 1: choices or do the things that they run on. And
Speaker 1: unfortunately that's reflected and that certainly makes it difficult for
Speaker 1: the American people to trust us with leadership with the majority,
Speaker 1: with the ability to govern if we don't deliver on
Speaker 1: the things that we said we would do.
Speaker 7: Representative Good you have been so generous with your time.
Speaker 7: We went long because it was so interesting, but we
Speaker 7: thank you so much for coming and talking to us
Speaker 7: a little bit about hfc's plans for the new year,
Speaker 7: and we hope to talk to you again soon.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Thank you great to be with you.
Speaker 7: All Right, that does it for us on today's edition
Speaker 7: of Counterpoints. We certainly hope everybody has a very merry Christmas,
Speaker 7: a happy new Year. We'll see you back here in January.
Speaker 7: Don't forget to subscribe, get a premium subscription. Maybe it's
Speaker 7: a holiday gift to yourself.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 4: You earned it all right.
Speaker 6: We'll see you all soon.