Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 3: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 4: When do we have crystal Many things to discuss this morning.
Speaker 1: So first of all, after Biden State of the Union,
Speaker 1: he laid down a red line for Israel, which Babe
Speaker 1: immediately said he was fully intending to cross. We have
Speaker 1: additional fallout from the State of the Union, including some
Speaker 1: pulling about how exactly the public felt that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: did and we all know how the liberal pundits felt
Speaker 1: he did toward a force, says Joe Scarborough. So I'll
Speaker 1: get into all of that. Last night was the Oscars.
Speaker 1: We have some highlights of some celebrities who were speaking
Speaker 1: out against Israel's assault on Gaza, which apparently triggered a
Speaker 1: leap freak out.
Speaker 4: We'll take you through that.
Speaker 1: We're also going to be discussing a new bill that
Speaker 1: targets TikTok soccer and I will have a little discussion
Speaker 1: potentially debate.
Speaker 4: On that front. Where is Princess Kate?
Speaker 1: A new photo has raised many questions among many people
Speaker 1: and sparked a lot of conspiracies, so we'll this is.
Speaker 4: Story I don't even know. It is crazy.
Speaker 1: CNN had a shocking report about those protesters who are
Speaker 1: blocking AID. We're also getting new details about this temporary
Speaker 1: port situation, so we'll break all of that down for you.
Speaker 1: I'm taking a look at how Israel tortured you and
Speaker 1: staffers in order to coerce confessions. Crazy story, so we'll
Speaker 1: dig into all of that.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: Thank you all to everybody who's signed up during our
Speaker 2: State of the Union live stream.
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Speaker 2: you all so much for signing up. But let's get
Speaker 2: to the Biden interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Joe Biden after a State of the Union,
Speaker 1: seemed to be pretty excited, feeling energized. He actually gave
Speaker 1: a rare interview, of course too friendly over at MSNBC,
Speaker 1: but some interesting news was made nonetheless. Specifically, Jonathan Cape
Speaker 1: part of MSNBC, asked him whether he had any red
Speaker 1: lines for Israel.
Speaker 4: Listen closely to the response, what is your.
Speaker 5: Red line with Prime Minister Netanyahu? Do you of a
Speaker 5: red line? For instance, would invasion of Rapha, which you
Speaker 5: have urged him not to do, would that be a
Speaker 5: red line?
Speaker 6: It is a red line, but I'm never going to
Speaker 6: leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical, so
Speaker 6: there's no red line. I'm going to cut off all
Speaker 6: weapons so they head don't have the iron dome to
Speaker 6: protect them.
Speaker 7: They don't have.
Speaker 6: But there's red lines that if he crosses in the
Speaker 6: cannot have thirty thousand more Palestinians dead as a consequence
Speaker 6: of going up. There's other ways to deal to get
Speaker 6: to to deal with with the trauma that caused by Hamas.
Speaker 6: It's like, well, look, the first time I went over,
Speaker 6: I sat with them, and I sat with a warcap,
Speaker 6: and I said, look, don't make the mistake America made.
Speaker 6: America made a mistake. We went after bin laduntil we
Speaker 6: got them, but we shouldn't have gone into Ukraine. I mean,
Speaker 6: we shouldn't have got into the whole thing in Iraq,
Speaker 6: in Afghanistan wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary. It has caused
Speaker 6: more problems in the race than it's the cured. After
Speaker 6: what happened in World War Two and the carpet bombing
Speaker 6: it took place. What happened was we ended up in
Speaker 6: a situation where we changed the rules of the game.
Speaker 6: The constitutions legitimate rules of war, and they should be bited.
Speaker 1: By so a lot there on the red line, he's
Speaker 1: just a recap so k Part asked specifically about Rafa,
Speaker 1: Biden says it is a red line, but then he
Speaker 1: immediately says, but I'm never going to leave Israel. He
Speaker 1: says there's no red line where he would cut off
Speaker 1: all weapons, and then he says, we can't have thirty
Speaker 1: thousand more Palestinians dead. So your red line is sixty
Speaker 1: thousand dead Palestinians. I mean, it's a muddled mess. And
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, Soger I thought the chiron they had up
Speaker 1: on the screen with MSNBC was actually accurate, which said
Speaker 1: Biden says no red lines for Israel.
Speaker 2: I agree, actually, because that's the only honest way of
Speaker 2: reading the text. And in fact, I saw many tortured attempts.
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal, for example, said Biden has red
Speaker 2: line on Israel, and I was like, well, but if
Speaker 2: you read the quote, that's not.
Speaker 3: What he says at all. Yeah, it also goes back.
Speaker 2: I mean there's a lot of debates around red lines,
Speaker 2: et cetera, but the famous one is like Obama and Syria,
Speaker 2: and of some presidents actually learned from that.
Speaker 3: I actually remember.
Speaker 2: Asking Trump once like what his red lines were in
Speaker 2: a particular issue, and he's like, I don't do red lines.
Speaker 3: That's what Obama did. I don't do red lines.
Speaker 2: And I think that's exactly why, because if you say
Speaker 2: that it's a red line, there has to be consequences,
Speaker 2: whereas with Biden, he's like, but there is no scenario
Speaker 2: where I'm going to take my maximalist power in order
Speaker 2: to shut off weapons or any of that. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: then you have a strongly held inclination, but that's not
Speaker 2: the same thing if there's not going to attach any consequence.
Speaker 2: So it fits with the utter pattern of the Biden
Speaker 2: administration is they have rhetorical criticism for the press, for
Speaker 2: the media pr purposes, but action wise, policy wise, there
Speaker 2: has been no substantive change. And in fact, this I
Speaker 2: assume that's really what he's telegraphing to the Israeli establishment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've seen what the red lines
Speaker 1: are and they're non existent. I mean, we've had all
Speaker 1: of these, you know, previous desires stated through leaks to
Speaker 1: the press about we don't want a full wholesale invasion,
Speaker 1: will that happen, We need you to scale back the bombing.
Speaker 1: Well that didn't happen. You know, every wish that the
Speaker 1: US has sort of like floated to the Israelis, they've
Speaker 1: immediately dispensed with. And I'm going to tell you in
Speaker 1: a minute with Nanya who responded to this sort of
Speaker 1: red line that he talks about with Rauffa before immediately saying,
Speaker 1: but I'm never going to leave Israel. There was another
Speaker 1: moment that really caught our attention as well, where Biden
Speaker 1: was asked about that uncommitted vote and about voters feeling
Speaker 1: that he is aiding and abutting a genocide.
Speaker 4: Listen closely to this response.
Speaker 5: One told Charles Blow of The New York Times that
Speaker 5: I'm quoting as bad as mister Trump's rhetoric was, and
Speaker 5: him putting a travel ban on five Withlim countries, he
Speaker 5: wasn't overseeing and actively arming a genocide.
Speaker 3: Those are tough words.
Speaker 5: What's your response to that widely shared sentiment?
Speaker 3: It's not widely shared.
Speaker 6: You guys make judgments, you know you're not capable of making.
Speaker 6: That's not what all those people said. What they said
Speaker 6: was they're very upset, and I don't blame them for
Speaker 6: being upset. There are families there, there are people who
Speaker 6: are dying. They want something done about it, and they're saying, Joe,
Speaker 6: do something, do something. But the idea that they all
Speaker 6: think is genocide is just not. That's a different situation. Look,
Speaker 6: I can fully understand, and can't you. You have a
Speaker 6: family member there, a family member of families that come
Speaker 6: from a family that is still isolated there and may
Speaker 6: be victimized. It's to understandable they feel that way, and
Speaker 6: that's why I'm doing everything i can to try to
Speaker 6: stop it.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to talk this answer up to delusion
Speaker 1: because we know the polling, fifty percent of Joe Biden
Speaker 1: voters from twenty twenty think it is a genocide.
Speaker 4: Number one. Number two, he really wants.
Speaker 1: To ascribe the protest movement and the uncommitted votes just
Speaker 1: to people who potentially have family members who've been directly impacted.
Speaker 1: And you just can't look at the numbers in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, the voters who are voting uncommitted, in terms
Speaker 1: of the mass wave of protests that who have made
Speaker 1: it so that Joe Biden cannot go anywhere without facing
Speaker 1: protests that have made them terrified to go to college campuses,
Speaker 1: for example, and think that this is just limited to
Speaker 1: people who have a direct familial connection to the Gaza strip.
Speaker 1: And I think that was perhaps the thinking maybe a
Speaker 1: few months ago among the Biden campaign and Biden ministration.
Speaker 1: I mean, their first thing was just like, Oh, people
Speaker 1: don't really care that much, they'll get over it. The
Speaker 1: second thing was like, oh, maybe Arab Americans and Muslim Americans.
Speaker 1: Maybe they've got a little bit of an issue, but
Speaker 1: you know, we can we can deal with it by
Speaker 1: making up with suburban women. I mean, what we've seen
Speaker 1: is that this is a very widespread sentiment that even
Speaker 1: outside of this sort of activist protest movement, the young
Speaker 1: people in the Democratic Party have really won. The argument
Speaker 1: that came out in a poll that we shared with
Speaker 1: you last week that older voters in the Democratic base
Speaker 1: now agree with young voters in terms of their position
Speaker 1: on this conflict in visa vases fire. Even a majority
Speaker 1: of Jewish Americans support a ceasefire. So the idea that
Speaker 1: this is just, you know, this very limited demographic, or
Speaker 1: that a majority of Democratic voters don't think it's a genocide,
Speaker 1: is just wildly delusional.
Speaker 4: Off base, a lie.
Speaker 1: It's totally inaccurate and disconnected from reality.
Speaker 3: I think it's biggest problem.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's Biden like the bubbles that they swim
Speaker 2: in and they're in.
Speaker 3: But I think he genuinely believes.
Speaker 2: A lot of the analysis that says that this isn't
Speaker 2: going to be a problem for him. He thinks that
Speaker 2: it's highly localized. Now that we've had actual votes cast,
Speaker 2: we've seen problems in Hawaii and in Michigan. You know,
Speaker 2: the Hawaii number, if anything, is most interesting to me
Speaker 2: because Hawaii is the bluest of all states, right, I Mean,
Speaker 2: it's like Washington, DC level of blues. So it's like, well,
Speaker 2: if you have that many blue voters who are coming
Speaker 2: out against you, you can extrapolate that maybe to some
Speaker 2: of the national coalition.
Speaker 3: And we don't have to.
Speaker 2: I've said this a million times, but if you just
Speaker 2: have the same number of people who voted in twenty
Speaker 2: twelve and twenty sixteen in the state of Michigan, then
Speaker 2: Hillary wins the election.
Speaker 3: Same in the state of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: So you have very very critical parts of a coalition
Speaker 2: where you're not able to lose one or two percent.
Speaker 2: Now we combine that with RFK Junior, Cornell West, and
Speaker 2: Jill Stein, the three of them making up a decent
Speaker 2: percentage of protest vote. Every poll that we've looked at,
Speaker 2: Crystal says that Trump is going to come out on top.
Speaker 2: Not only does he lead Biden in the head to head,
Speaker 2: but specifically with the protest votes in there, they disproportionately bleed.
Speaker 2: Not RFK Junior per se, but definitely Cornell West and
Speaker 2: Jill Stein. They're on the ballot, and now I've seen
Speaker 2: some discussion of RFK potentially being on the libertarian ballot,
Speaker 2: at least on in some states. That would be absolutely devastating,
Speaker 2: I think for Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1: So I mean, just a completely delusional response.
Speaker 4: I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think you can see from the fact that he
Speaker 1: and his team believe that these little pr stunts like
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about later the aid drops, which
Speaker 1: by the way, killed five Palestinians and provide, you know,
Speaker 1: woefully inadequate levels of aid, this floating temporary peer that
Speaker 1: may get constructed sixty days from now. I think they
Speaker 1: really believe that's going to be enough to you know,
Speaker 1: change the messaging and just say, co opt the language
Speaker 1: of ceasefire, even though you don't actually want a permanent
Speaker 1: cease fire. You want this little six week pause. They
Speaker 1: think that'll be enough, and I think they have dramatically miscalculated,
Speaker 1: And that answer reflects an astonishing level of delusion and
Speaker 1: disconnect from just how upset so many people are and
Speaker 1: the impact that's going to have electorally come the fall.
Speaker 1: So Bibe was asked in an interview This Is with
Speaker 1: Axel Springer and Politic co about some of the comments
Speaker 1: that Biden made, in particular the hot mic moment where
Speaker 1: he said he and people were going to have a
Speaker 1: quote unquote come to Jesus moment.
Speaker 4: Bibe said, I'm Jewish, I'm not coming to.
Speaker 1: Jesus and also asked about Biden's comments that asserting that
Speaker 1: Israel's actions in Gaza are doing Israel more harm than good.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to a little bit of his reaction.
Speaker 8: Well, I don't know exactly what the President meant, but
Speaker 8: if you meant by that, then I'm pursuing private policies
Speaker 8: against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis,
Speaker 8: and that this is hurting the interest of Isuel, then
Speaker 8: he's wrong on both counts. Number one, these are not
Speaker 8: my private policies only, they're policies supported by the overwhelming
Speaker 8: majority of the Israelis. They support the action that we're
Speaker 8: taking to destroy the remaining terrorist battalions of Ramas. They
Speaker 8: say that once we destroy the Kramas, the last thing
Speaker 8: we should do is put in Gaza in charge of Gaza,
Speaker 8: the Palestinian authority that educates its children towards terrorists and
Speaker 8: pays for terrorism. And they also support my position that
Speaker 8: says that we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram
Speaker 8: down our throats of Palestinian state.
Speaker 5: Mister PRIMEI says, so you took the decision you want
Speaker 5: out to put some sure that you go into Raffa, Oh,
Speaker 5: we'll go there.
Speaker 8: We're not going to leave them. You know, I have
Speaker 8: a red line. You know what the red line is
Speaker 8: that October seventh doesn't happen again, never happens again.
Speaker 1: And so you can hear there the purported Biden red
Speaker 1: line of going into Rafa that he responds, yes, that
Speaker 1: is a red line, before immediately says, but I'm never
Speaker 1: going to leave Israel. Natanyahu just dismisses that out of hand.
Speaker 1: You know, no, we're going in. We're determined to do it.
Speaker 1: Our only red line is October seven is never going
Speaker 1: to happen again. The commons he made prior to that,
Speaker 1: we're also interesting because in a sense he's correct that,
Speaker 1: you know, the policies we've seen the polling coming out
Speaker 1: of Israel, the policies they're pursuing of all out war
Speaker 1: and total annihilation are broadly popular now there is dissent.
Speaker 1: We're seeing it very much in the streets of Tel
Speaker 1: Aviv with regards to the families of hostages, who want
Speaker 1: much more to be done to strike a deal to
Speaker 1: bring those hostages home. So there is descent in that regard.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, Sager, it's also very disingenuous
Speaker 1: because he is claiming a mandate from the Israeli public
Speaker 1: that also does not exist, because as much as they
Speaker 1: may support the overall war aims, they are absolutely disgusted
Speaker 1: with the leadership of Benjamin Netnahu himself. So it's this
Speaker 1: sort of very politician, he carefully crafted answer that does
Speaker 1: have a grain of truth, but is also very highly misleading.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, can we put the next one up there please
Speaker 2: on the screen too, because there's also these comments of
Speaker 2: a Palestinian state, which I think is important, he says.
Speaker 2: When asked about the European view that there cannot be
Speaker 2: peace without tu state, he says, yeah, they would say that,
Speaker 2: but they don't understand that the reason we don't have
Speaker 2: peace is not because the Palestinians don't have a state.
Speaker 2: It's because the Jews have a state, and in fact,
Speaker 2: the Palin studients have not brought themselves recognized except the
Speaker 2: Jewish State, so consistently basically batting back against the Western
Speaker 2: held position, including the United States official position at least
Speaker 2: of our government, that we support a two state solution
Speaker 2: and that's the only endurable path to some sort of
Speaker 2: lasting piece. Also very difficult, I think now at this point,
Speaker 2: because their overall strategy for attaining peace after the war
Speaker 2: and not becoming a geopolitical pariah is having the UAE,
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf Arab states to
Speaker 2: fact and clearly Egypt as well to facto recognize or
Speaker 2: have their relations with Israel be totally normalized, which is
Speaker 2: what they were pursuing ahead of this. However, the Palestinian
Speaker 2: now question been making it such that that is almost
Speaker 2: certainly impossible, just leaving them in a very difficult position
Speaker 2: in the future.
Speaker 3: We see some of us in the ceasefire negotiations happening
Speaker 3: right now too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Saudi came out and pretty directly rebuked
Speaker 1: some comments from the Biden administration. Remember we covered that previously,
Speaker 1: where the Biden administration was trying to say no, no,
Speaker 1: Saudi normalization still on the table, and Saudi came out
Speaker 1: and was like, no, it is not on the table
Speaker 1: barring an actual progress towards a real Palestinian state, not
Speaker 1: to some fake lip service bullshit. So that is certainly reality.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Be these comments first of all,
Speaker 1: saying listen, the domestic populace is behind me. And again
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pulling back this up. This not
Speaker 1: behind him as a leader, but behind the direction of
Speaker 1: the war. You know, only a tiny, tiny percentage thinks
Speaker 1: that the idea has gone too far. As an example
Speaker 1: in any case, that just underscores the fact that Biden,
Speaker 1: you know, meekly asking for a certain things, oh please
Speaker 1: don't go on an offer or whatever, is not going
Speaker 1: to do anything. The only way that you're going to
Speaker 1: change the course of this war is if you, in
Speaker 1: fact use the tremendous power and leverage that the United
Speaker 1: States has, And so these little rhetorical shifts are not
Speaker 1: going to do anything whatsoever. And then it's also you know,
Speaker 1: that's also really underscored by the fact that this purported
Speaker 1: sort of kind of redline that Joe Biden lays out
Speaker 1: in that MSNBC interview. I mean, Biebe thinks nothing of
Speaker 1: just immediately being like, no, I don't care if I'm
Speaker 1: going to do what I want to do, and do
Speaker 1: any of us have any expectation that Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: going to do anything more than like meekly protest and
Speaker 1: then accept whatever bbe wants to do and whatever Israel
Speaker 1: wants to do. No, of course not, because we've seen
Speaker 1: how this has played out time and time and time
Speaker 1: again throughout this conflict. To your point, Sager, about those
Speaker 1: supposed ceasefire negotiations, let's go and put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. An interesting note from Times of Israel and
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal originally reported this. Qatar is apparently threatening
Speaker 1: to deport Hamas chiefs if they don't agree.
Speaker 4: To a hostage truce deal.
Speaker 1: As far as I can tell, the biggest sticking points
Speaker 1: are a really crucial one. Hamas wants a permanent, lasting
Speaker 1: ceasefire and Israel wants to go back to all out
Speaker 1: assault in annihilation in let's say six weeks time. So
Speaker 1: that's a pretty hard gulf to be able to close.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: There have been reports previously that there were some disagreement
Speaker 1: between the political leadership of moss which is based in
Speaker 1: places like Katar, and the military leadership which continues to
Speaker 1: be in the Gaza strip. The military leadership more interested
Speaker 1: in the full lasting ceasefire, and the political leadership, you know,
Speaker 1: more open to a short term ceasefire. So I don't
Speaker 1: know how those things will play out. But this is
Speaker 1: also a critical moment soccer because we are now officially
Speaker 1: in that month of Ramadan.
Speaker 4: This was something else.
Speaker 1: Remember back when Joe Biden was worried about the uncommitted
Speaker 1: vote in Michigan and he came out licking his ice
Speaker 1: cream cone and was like, oh, I think we'll have
Speaker 1: a seasfire by Monday.
Speaker 4: Total bullshit.
Speaker 1: And he had laid out before that his goal was
Speaker 1: to get there before Ramadan. Well, here we are at
Speaker 1: Ramadan and no progress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's also some pretty inflammatory images coming out
Speaker 2: of Jerusalem. Let's goud and put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen where you could see this happened yesterday. There
Speaker 2: were some major clashes actually at the All Oxa Mosque
Speaker 2: in Jerusalem where police appeared to be banning anyone from
Speaker 2: under the age of forty from actually praying at the
Speaker 2: mid This is look in a previous life, Crystal, This,
Speaker 2: you know, before the war would have been a major
Speaker 2: international incident, because I believe now you can try and
Speaker 2: correct me if I'm wrong, that it's in violation at
Speaker 2: least of the general understanding and or treaty that governs Alaxa,
Speaker 2: the mosque and the security zone that's there. I've actually
Speaker 2: been to the area as well, and it is very
Speaker 2: confused as to who exactly controls what. But in general,
Speaker 2: and this goes back to some of the uglier moments
Speaker 2: of violence in Israel, like messing with the Alaksa Mosque
Speaker 2: and control and access to the mosque is itself one
Speaker 2: of the most inflammatory incidents in the past, especially den
Speaker 2: during the holy month of Ramadan for Islam.
Speaker 1: Right it's in East Jerusalem, it's occupied territory. Some of
Speaker 1: the most extreme you know Israelis, including some who are
Speaker 1: in the government, always are looking for intense provocations here.
Speaker 1: This is a classic, you know, consistent flash point, very
Speaker 1: high emotions around Alazamusque, and so you know, this is
Speaker 1: a potential additional escalatory point, additional potential conflagration here. So
Speaker 1: something we definitely want to keep our eye closely on
Speaker 1: the same point that also in that interview with Jonathan
Speaker 1: k Part, Joe Biden made some news about these comments
Speaker 1: he made off the cuff in the State of the
Speaker 1: Union speech about a quote unquote illegal killing Lincoln Riley.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen, just so we have the context
Speaker 1: to that moment in the State of the Union speech,
Speaker 1: and then we'll show you on the other side how
Speaker 1: he tried to clean it up with Jonathan k Part.
Speaker 4: Take a listen.
Speaker 10: Lincoln Riley and then acent young woman who was killed
Speaker 10: by an illegal that's right, but how many of the
Speaker 10: thousands of people being killed by legalists to her parents,
Speaker 10: I say, my heart goes out to you, having lost
Speaker 10: children myself, I understand.
Speaker 1: Okay, so very the yeah, I mean, listen, we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about on the other side. But there was a
Speaker 1: tremendous democratic pushback here. Nancy Pelosi said she didn't like
Speaker 1: that language. Of course, they don't talk about the policy,
Speaker 1: just the language. Typical democratic stuff. So in any case,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was asked about this in this MSNBC interview,
Speaker 1: estatele isn't what he had to.
Speaker 5: Say during your response to her heckling of you. You
Speaker 5: used the word illegal when talking about the man who
Speaker 5: allegedly killed Doc Riley.
Speaker 6: An undocumented person, and I shouldn't have used the legal
Speaker 6: as undocumented. And look, when I spoke about the difference
Speaker 6: between Trump and me, one of the things I talked
Speaker 6: about on the border was that his the way he
Speaker 6: talks about vermin, the way he talks about these people
Speaker 6: polluting the blood. I talked about what I'm not going
Speaker 6: to do, what I won't do. I'm not going to
Speaker 6: treat any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built
Speaker 6: the country, the reason our economy is growing. We have
Speaker 6: to control the border and more orderly slow. But I
Speaker 6: don't share to do at all.
Speaker 5: So you regret using that word, Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, I regret using it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just it's just perfect like Democratic Party theater.
Speaker 1: Because they most of them, there are a few outliers,
Speaker 1: I think Cooleion Castro among them, and a couple others
Speaker 1: who were upset by the direction of the Biden administration
Speaker 1: on immigration, of the policy choices that they made, of
Speaker 1: the reaching out the hand to Donald Trump after I mean,
Speaker 1: you remember the reaction against Trump era immigration policies when
Speaker 1: he was president and Democrats were in the opposition, and
Speaker 1: now they, you know, Biden decides we're basically going to
Speaker 1: adopt a lot of their policy. We are going to
Speaker 1: reach out our hand to Donald Trump directly and say, hey,
Speaker 1: how about you we do your border policy.
Speaker 4: And the objection isn't to that.
Speaker 1: The objection in the speech isn't to the portion on Gazo,
Speaker 1: which had a you know, is insane, like the port
Speaker 1: situation and even the whole framing of that. Instead it's
Speaker 1: to the use of this one word, which again I
Speaker 1: don't love that language either, but that is like, the
Speaker 1: language is so far from my top priority that it's absurd.
Speaker 1: But again it's a classic Democratic Party I.
Speaker 3: Mean yeah position.
Speaker 2: For me, it's just like, oh, this is the political
Speaker 2: correctness battle that we're fighting. I mean yeah, the policy
Speaker 2: actually is where the argument that you should be having,
Speaker 2: and we talked about it in our post show. We've
Speaker 2: done our debate here as well. I do also think,
Speaker 2: you know, the optics of it are terrible. It's like
Speaker 2: what you can apologize for saying illegally, you can't apologize for,
Speaker 2: you know, not saying Lake and O'Reilly's name correctly.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, which one? You know?
Speaker 2: So if you believe quote unquote no human being is
Speaker 2: different and or not illegal, it's like, well, you're supposed
Speaker 2: to treat them the same.
Speaker 3: So I was bothered by that.
Speaker 2: But overall, I just think that the freak out on
Speaker 2: it by the Democrats.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, nobody is buying this. It all is
Speaker 3: going to come back to And.
Speaker 2: We've talked about that nauseum, Crystal about at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, like if you care about the border
Speaker 2: and it's your number one issue, which it is for
Speaker 2: the vast majority of Republican voters, and there's some pulling
Speaker 2: out there that shows that it's at least number one
Speaker 2: or number two for a lot of general election. They
Speaker 2: are not paying attention to Biden saying a legal there
Speaker 2: up on the state of the Union. They are like, Okay,
Speaker 2: what are we going to do about the number six
Speaker 2: to eight million migrants that have come into the country
Speaker 2: since and is that an acceptable policy? What's the number
Speaker 2: that we should have, Are we actually going to have
Speaker 2: a control boarder, what does security look like? What is
Speaker 2: the overall consensus in going forward as to like what
Speaker 2: we accept for overall levels of immigration, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: you know, focusing here on the political correctness on it
Speaker 2: is ridiculous. I mean that said, I don't think there's
Speaker 2: anything wrong with the term of the use of illegal
Speaker 2: undocumented actually personally drives me insane because it doesn't it's
Speaker 2: a meaningless term, whereas at least here we have a
Speaker 2: clear delineation because somebody who entered under a legal process
Speaker 2: and or not. That said, you know, with Biden in
Speaker 2: the way that he's handled this, I just don't think
Speaker 2: he believes anything. I don't know if he saw this.
Speaker 2: I sent this to our group DM for our show.
Speaker 2: I mean, people should go and watch. Maybe I wish
Speaker 2: i'd cut it. Biden's response for the State of the
Speaker 2: Union to George H. W.
Speaker 3: Bush.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a Republican like it's He's like, I
Speaker 2: wish that we had longer jail sentences. I wish I
Speaker 2: didn't have to all my mom and worry that somebody's
Speaker 2: going to beat her up. I wish that we could
Speaker 2: control He actually advocated I had no idea in the
Speaker 2: early eight in the late eighties for striking drug cartels
Speaker 2: in Mexico using the US.
Speaker 3: Military, all of this on camera.
Speaker 2: Oh and by the way, if anyone's wondering, there was
Speaker 2: no stutter miraculously in that eighties. But see, he doesn't
Speaker 2: believe anything, but he personally that really bothers me.
Speaker 4: That is what he actually believes.
Speaker 3: I don't think what you're just going.
Speaker 4: Is what he actually believes.
Speaker 1: That's why he's so willing to you know, the instant
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of political pressure on immigration, he
Speaker 1: reverts back to where he has been his entire career,
Speaker 1: and you know, you see it. It is a little
Speaker 1: bit of like a mass slip moment when he tried
Speaker 1: to sort of reform himself in the modern democratic era.
Speaker 4: And we remember those.
Speaker 1: Debates with the high school Spanish and whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: back of the Democratic primary, trying to fit in with
Speaker 1: where the Democratic base and where the Democratic Party had moved.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean him being like, yeah, she's killed
Speaker 1: by an illegal. That actually is the way that he
Speaker 1: relates to this issue. And again it's consistent across decades
Speaker 1: of his career. That's why it's always so preposterous and
Speaker 1: why I never landed when the right tries to paint
Speaker 1: him as some like, you know, open borders communists just
Speaker 1: taking his order of marching orders from Bernie and AOC,
Speaker 1: because he's never been that politician. And you see it also,
Speaker 1: I mean, he has a certain stubbornness around certain issues,
Speaker 1: so you see that with Israel too. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he is locked in with He's going to give Israel
Speaker 1: whatever the hell they want, and it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: What they do.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't you know when you say he doesn't
Speaker 1: believe anything, he has these sort of reflexes in place,
Speaker 1: I guess, is what I would say. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: comes out here and it shows up in.
Speaker 4: A variety of ways.
Speaker 1: Occasionally it's a good it's actually good, like when he
Speaker 1: withdrew from Afghanisty and over the objections of everybody else.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, so in any case, that was
Speaker 1: that was the area where he got the most pressure
Speaker 1: is over the use of this one word, which I think.
Speaker 3: That's very telling to me.
Speaker 2: I mean, and that's why I would say I don't
Speaker 2: think he believes anything, because I mean, he did drop
Speaker 2: a lot of what he supposedly believed on immigration. This
Speaker 2: is a man who voted for the fence and made
Speaker 2: the case for basically a border wall in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven and then completely flipped.
Speaker 3: On a dime.
Speaker 2: So then he rhetorically yeah, I agree, But that's my
Speaker 2: thing is with him, it's just all over the place.
Speaker 2: And then whenever he I mean, look, let's be honest,
Speaker 2: like whenever he came into office, he did rescind a
Speaker 2: lot of Trump era policy, and there have been a
Speaker 2: ton more migrants that have come across the border under him.
Speaker 2: Now that is not one hundred percent of his fault.
Speaker 2: A lot of that is pre existing. But you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of allowing it to fester, I think that
Speaker 2: it has been a tremendous disservice. And that's part of
Speaker 2: the reason that you see some of the major flip
Speaker 2: flops is the situation became so untenable and insane and
Speaker 2: politically toxic specifically with the migrant crissease in the in
Speaker 2: the blue cities and the sanctuary cities, such that he
Speaker 2: was compelled to at least try and do something with
Speaker 2: this quote unquote bipartisan border bill. All of that has
Speaker 2: now come to the place where he doesn't know how
Speaker 2: he doesn't have a consensus that I think is politically
Speaker 2: sustainable going into this election. Trump, you know, you can
Speaker 2: criticize it or not. Trump has an answer. He has
Speaker 2: a coherent answer as to what it is, which we
Speaker 2: should shut it down, we should depour people here who
Speaker 2: are illegally Biden he's all over the place. He actually
Speaker 2: kind of I think you noted that in his Lake
Speaker 2: and Riley answer if we had the full one, he
Speaker 2: was trying to try and make a point. He's like, well, actually,
Speaker 2: it's like native born people create commit more crimes.
Speaker 4: It's like legal Yeah, by the way.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's not the right time.
Speaker 2: And also, I mean, there is a substantive difference between
Speaker 2: somebody shouldn't be here committing a crime and not committing
Speaker 2: a crime. But it's like he's very tortured in the
Speaker 2: way that he's trying to talk about this, And I
Speaker 2: don't find that politically. I don't find that a political answer.
Speaker 2: I agree, and it's coherence act. It's not coherent to Trump.
Speaker 2: It's not coherent. And as I've said a million times,
Speaker 2: you are not going to win the border cruelty race
Speaker 2: with Donald Trump. Not going to do it if your
Speaker 2: answer quote unquote is to accept the Republican framing that
Speaker 2: the whole situation comes down to how much of how
Speaker 2: hard asked can we be at the border, how cruel
Speaker 2: can we be at the border? How much enforcement can
Speaker 2: we do at the border.
Speaker 4: If you accept that.
Speaker 1: Framing, then you are laying the groundwork for Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: arguments to fully land the reality is actually, you know, immigration,
Speaker 1: legal immigration is good for this country.
Speaker 4: Now it should be controlled.
Speaker 1: It should be that we don't have chaos at the border,
Speaker 1: that we're able to know who's coming in, etc. But
Speaker 1: the fact that he completely abandoned that argument, which by
Speaker 1: the way, has even at a time when there has
Speaker 1: been a large search in migration, there is a lot
Speaker 1: of concern about, you know, the level of migration coming
Speaker 1: across the border, those are still core values that land
Speaker 1: with the American people because people are complicated, like they
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, we should know who's coming in and
Speaker 1: we should have a handle on this. They also feel
Speaker 1: like this is a nation of immigrants and that has
Speaker 1: been a benefit to our country overall. And to totally
Speaker 1: abandon that argument and just see the ground to the Republicans,
Speaker 1: I think it's politically foolish. And we've seen this. There
Speaker 1: was that study of a bunch of different countries in
Speaker 1: Europe where the quote unquote center left politicians tried this
Speaker 1: path that Joe Biden is right now trying, and it
Speaker 1: didn't work out for them for exactly the reason that
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and not to mention, you know, it really
Speaker 1: demoralizes the base of the party that thought you meant
Speaker 1: it when you had a very different line back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty than you do now. And lord knows the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party already has a big problem with the base.
Speaker 1: So politically, I think this direction is very foolish, you know,
Speaker 1: putting aside the morality of it, which obviously I disagree.
Speaker 3: I just wish he would look. It's like, you need
Speaker 3: a coherent answer, and if.
Speaker 2: You really believe in the open border stuff, I mean,
Speaker 2: then run on it, like say it fine. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think you'll get your ass kicked at the ballot box,
Speaker 2: and you should be.
Speaker 3: I think there's big debates to be happy to use orection.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying up in borders, Joe Biden has never
Speaker 4: been open border.
Speaker 2: Well if you're okay, well, then it's about the definition.
Speaker 2: If you think that's six to eight million people here
Speaker 2: who are coming basically illegally and taking advantage of asylum loophole,
Speaker 2: and they get to stay here for months, years on
Speaker 2: end with no orderly process and most of them aren't
Speaker 2: going to leave, then I think that's an open border.
Speaker 3: I mean think, but.
Speaker 1: That's objectively what I'm I mean, that's a polar opposite
Speaker 1: of what I've argued, well, no, which is that we
Speaker 1: should actually have a huge surge in resources to be
Speaker 1: able to appropriately adjudicate asylum claims like that. I fully
Speaker 1: support that, but to only have enforcement and to only
Speaker 1: have cruelty and I mean, you support zero migraine like,
Speaker 1: I'm wildly opposed to that, and it would be devastating
Speaker 1: for the economy. You know, we just have gotten reports
Speaker 1: about how actually part of the reason why we avoided
Speaker 1: a recession and why we have you know, higher GDP
Speaker 1: than expected, et cetera, is because we have had so
Speaker 1: many migrants. Migrants have been a benefit of the country. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a limit to everything, right, of course, if you
Speaker 1: flood the zone with too many people, it causes friction
Speaker 1: in terms of getting people adjusted and the job market
Speaker 1: and all of those things. But net net immigration is
Speaker 1: a net positive, and I think Joe Biden should be
Speaker 1: making that case. And by the way, a majority of
Speaker 1: the American people agree that migration has been a net
Speaker 1: positive for the United States.
Speaker 2: Well, the GDP argument is a deeply neoliberal one because
Speaker 2: it's one where increasing GDP because you have a bunch
Speaker 2: of unskilled people you can pay.
Speaker 4: Wages are going to Wages are going up faster than inflation.
Speaker 2: Wages also dramatically increased from the Trump administration because we
Speaker 2: specifically had far less immigration.
Speaker 3: It was just what increased. We know, it's true, you're
Speaker 3: going to go.
Speaker 2: We could pull all that out if we want to,
Speaker 2: all of the wage increases from If you look at
Speaker 2: the study in Onward.
Speaker 4: Case migrants from diminished wages.
Speaker 3: No, No, this is asletely not accepted.
Speaker 1: That absolutely accepted by almost every mainstream economy that if
Speaker 1: you look at the overwhelming majority of studies that have
Speaker 1: been done in this area, increased migration does not diminish wages.
Speaker 1: It helps uspur the economy. Again, I'm not saying open borders,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying completely unlimited, but I think that there
Speaker 1: is a strong case to be made that increasing migration
Speaker 1: is good for the country. We can see it in
Speaker 1: economic numbers that are coming out right now, and I
Speaker 1: think Joe Biden was on stronger ground when he was
Speaker 1: willing to make that cout.
Speaker 2: Much of this comes back to conflating people who are
Speaker 2: high skilled migrants people who are Indian, specifically h one
Speaker 2: b visas using their wages and are drawing them into
Speaker 2: low cost If you look at the sub fifteen dollars
Speaker 2: per hour level, it.
Speaker 3: Is very clear. I mean, look, this is the basic
Speaker 3: supply and demand.
Speaker 2: If you have millions of people who are coming here
Speaker 2: who are unskilled, and you have a domestic population who
Speaker 2: has to compete against them for wages, what's going to now?
Speaker 1: But that just assumes that the economy is this set
Speaker 1: thing and the number of jobs is this set thing,
Speaker 1: which is not the way that an economy actually works.
Speaker 1: The thing that does can depress wages is if you
Speaker 1: have a large undocumented population being paid sub minimum wage
Speaker 1: with no labor protections under the table. That is a
Speaker 1: problem for native born workers who have to compete with
Speaker 1: you know, with that situation. But that's why you should
Speaker 1: have a path to citizenship and you should have a
Speaker 1: legalization process so that people are working in the shadows
Speaker 1: and are subject to the same you know, competitive landscape
Speaker 1: as every other worker.
Speaker 2: Well okay, but again you know we're talking about rewarding
Speaker 2: bad behavior which is coming here illegally. This all comes
Speaker 2: down to seeing people as widgets and units instead of citizens.
Speaker 2: Like citizens are the ones who get first grabs and
Speaker 2: should have the benefit of the economy. They are the
Speaker 2: ones who should have the first shot at anything. Then
Speaker 2: we can make a coherent decision. We can take actual analysis.
Speaker 2: Right now, the current status quo is outrageous that it
Speaker 2: has been for twenty five years or so. There're probably
Speaker 2: nobody knows the number. It's probably between twenty five to
Speaker 2: thirty million. That's is hig that I have seen of
Speaker 2: the illegal population in the United States. I mean, you
Speaker 2: can't say with a straight face it's not going to
Speaker 2: have a huge impact on the economy, especially when positive one. No,
Speaker 2: but we have no idea whether we have no idea
Speaker 2: as to the actual benefit of that.
Speaker 3: As you're just say you do no, no.
Speaker 2: Because okay, if you are to do if you were
Speaker 2: a construction if you're a construction forman, you're going to
Speaker 2: pay a guy ten dollars an hour under the table, AHAs.
Speaker 1: You have to pay another guy they should be legal?
Speaker 4: Well, no, why they should be have a.
Speaker 1: Pathway to citizenship because that's right. No, because the problem
Speaker 1: is when you are paying people under the table, that
Speaker 1: is actually the issue.
Speaker 4: When you have a significant amount of legal migration.
Speaker 1: By the way, that also cuts down on the quote
Speaker 1: unquote chaos at the border because people have a way
Speaker 1: to get in. People are going to flee desperate circumstances.
Speaker 1: The circumstances that many of these individuals are fleeing are
Speaker 1: so desperate they're going to do it no matter whether
Speaker 1: it's Trump or Biden, what sort of border cruelty there is,
Speaker 1: they are determined to get here.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Migration is a fact of human history throughout all of mankind.
Speaker 1: We're not going to stop that, okay, So do you
Speaker 1: want an orderly process where we have a significant amount
Speaker 1: of legal migration that we are able to track and
Speaker 1: we're able to control, and yes, benefits this country as
Speaker 1: previous waves of migration clearly have and is by the way, again,
Speaker 1: majority of the American people believe in and support our
Speaker 1: country depends on immigrants. Like to deny that is insane
Speaker 1: and has tremendously benefited from previous ways and currently benefits
Speaker 1: from the legal migrants and the undocumented population that's here.
Speaker 1: So it is having a wildly different view of if
Speaker 1: people morality and what is actually beneficial for.
Speaker 2: The morality in saying that people from Al Salvador should
Speaker 2: not be allowed to come and to America just because
Speaker 2: they're fearing for their life.
Speaker 3: And by the way, El Salvador is doing a lot better.
Speaker 2: It turns out again that these people can make determinations
Speaker 2: for themselves.
Speaker 3: That's not my argument.
Speaker 1: My argument is it's good for us, but most democratic question,
Speaker 1: woe to us When we are a place that immigrants
Speaker 1: don't want to come to, that's one will be in trouble.
Speaker 3: Maybe, I mean, that's not necessarily.
Speaker 1: That's one will be in trouble. Is you can become
Speaker 1: a country where people do not want to go, where
Speaker 1: there is not opportunity for people, then we're going to
Speaker 1: have a problem. I mean, you can see it, but
Speaker 1: you know it's it's a little bit of a different situation.
Speaker 1: You see it right now in Israel because they have
Speaker 1: blocked so many Palestinian workers who they really relied on.
Speaker 1: Their economy is in shambles. Right if we deported all
Speaker 1: of the immigrants here, if we had net zero migrace,
Speaker 1: it would be a catastrophe for our catastrophe for our people.
Speaker 2: Made those arguments in the nineteen twenties and turned out
Speaker 2: we were completely fine, Like this is not what I'm
Speaker 2: saying is that you see this.
Speaker 1: When it comes to our birth rate, right, you're concerned
Speaker 1: about our low birth We need more people, we need
Speaker 1: more Americans, we need a higher birth rate. But somehow,
Speaker 1: you know, immigrants then are bad, Like more people when
Speaker 1: they're born from native born citizens are good. But then
Speaker 1: more people when it's immigrants are bad.
Speaker 4: That doesn't make it that.
Speaker 3: It's not logical, it's not necessarily bad.
Speaker 2: It's just that we're again we're looking at citizen re
Speaker 2: versus widgets. It's if you look at it as a
Speaker 2: widget and you're like, yeah, it doesn't matter where you're from,
Speaker 2: or if we care about the COMPREHENSI like the actual
Speaker 2: cohesiveness of the nation. Look all of the arguments you
Speaker 2: and I had happened a century ago. I would say
Speaker 2: we're substantially in a different economy than the Irish waves
Speaker 2: of immigration filled a rapidly industrializing economy. What do we
Speaker 2: have a rapidly de industrializing economy that's transitioning to US
Speaker 2: service based one that is not one where highly low
Speaker 2: skilled labor that doesn't even speak English can easily assimilate
Speaker 2: into and in fact it creates what you have in Germany,
Speaker 2: which is a vast underclass of people that just serve
Speaker 2: their betters at the top. I don't think that's fair
Speaker 2: to the Turks in Germany. I don't think it's fair
Speaker 2: to Mexicans. Hondurance migration policy. That's about labor policy. That's
Speaker 2: about labor policy. That's about union rates.
Speaker 1: That's about minimum having the high high world and minimum wage.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not that's about making sure that your
Speaker 1: working class is doing well.
Speaker 4: Period.
Speaker 1: And of story, that's not about that's not an immigration story.
Speaker 2: No, but it is an immigration story because one it
Speaker 2: was is that you have a complete you have a
Speaker 2: complete diversion in the culture, have no shared values between
Speaker 2: those populations where even when you do have some of
Speaker 2: the highest union rates in the entire world, they're not
Speaker 2: accepted as citizens.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just one of the things we have.
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, you can't perfect, but we have to.
Speaker 2: Saying that anybody from anywhere can just come here and
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, you know what, I'm supposed to accept you.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's completely that is that's actually talktrary to
Speaker 2: the American story.
Speaker 4: No, that's insane being as a human being.
Speaker 2: Of course, but if you move here, you don't speak English,
Speaker 2: you move and then you take somebody's job, or you're
Speaker 2: competing at somebody's job.
Speaker 3: You can't expect somebody else to be happy with that situation.
Speaker 4: There's no evidence that is happening.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing is, like, you can, yeah,
Speaker 1: if if immigrants were genuinely like a problem for people
Speaker 1: in the economy and it was pushing out all these workers,
Speaker 1: et cetera, that's not the issue. If you care about
Speaker 1: American workers, then you know, focus on unions, focus on
Speaker 1: lifting the minimum wage, focus on getting universal health care,
Speaker 1: paid family leave, making things better for them, not you know,
Speaker 1: punishing people who want to come to this country, not
Speaker 1: dehumanizing and saying them they don't belong and they you know,
Speaker 1: can't assimilate, which just looking at the American experiment is insane.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been called the Great Melting Pot for
Speaker 1: a reason. I believe in that vision of America. So
Speaker 1: in any case, I think Joe Biden should be affirmatively
Speaker 1: making the case that immigrants are positive for the country,
Speaker 1: something American people already agree with. I think he the
Speaker 1: pieces of the bill that he put forward that would surge,
Speaker 1: for example, judges to admunicate asylum claims. I think that's good.
Speaker 1: But I think you also have to have path to citizenship.
Speaker 1: I think you have to celebrate the contribution of migrants
Speaker 1: and make the affirmative case that it is a net
Speaker 1: positive for Americans because it is.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, I mean, if people want to run on that,
Speaker 3: go for it.
Speaker 4: I think it did last time. Anyone, Okay, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, let's let's have it. Let's see it.
Speaker 2: I mean, if Trump wins this time, then I think
Speaker 2: we'll have a pretty clear answer is no, because people feel.
Speaker 1: About But that's not true because Biden accepted the cruelty
Speaker 1: at the border situation. So it's not like we're running
Speaker 1: one candidate who is talking the way that I'm talking
Speaker 1: and another one who you know has.
Speaker 3: Trump's Well, I mean this account of factual, man, and
Speaker 3: it's never going to get tested.
Speaker 2: That said, a vast majority of the polling shows us
Speaker 2: that whilst people may support a pathway to citizenship, although
Speaker 2: some of that gets somebody.
Speaker 1: Gets very certainly don't support net zero migration.
Speaker 3: Well, that's not necessarily true. It is true. I mean
Speaker 3: if you put it in terms of a merit based system.
Speaker 2: Whenever you say that people who come in based upon
Speaker 2: our birthrate or whatever should be calculated such that any
Speaker 2: but coming.
Speaker 4: But you're not saying they're based. You're saying, no, I.
Speaker 2: Believe in a merit based immigration system with the net
Speaker 2: number being zero. I didn't say that zero people should
Speaker 2: be coming in. I said the net number should know that.
Speaker 4: It would be a catastrophe by the economy.
Speaker 2: That's not Again, Look, these are all counterfactuals. These are
Speaker 2: not ones that can be proven. We have done it
Speaker 2: many times in the past. In the past it worked
Speaker 2: out fine. We actually do a much stronger country for it.
Speaker 2: So all I'm trying to come back to is that
Speaker 2: the arguments that we're having here in Crystal, I agree,
Speaker 2: should be democratically tested. I also can read a poll
Speaker 2: and I know that people definitely reject a lot of
Speaker 2: the underlying philosophy of what you're advocating for when it
Speaker 2: comes to the border.
Speaker 1: No, they don't, well because because the majority of people
Speaker 1: agree with me that migrants have been a net benefit
Speaker 1: to society. Now again, I think people are complicated. I
Speaker 1: think it depends on the question you ask them, and
Speaker 1: they may have some contradictory impulses, But you also have
Speaker 1: almost no one actually making the case that migration is
Speaker 1: positive that, yes, it should be controlled. Yes, we should
Speaker 1: not have chaos at the border. And part of getting
Speaker 1: rid of that quote unquote chaos at the border is
Speaker 1: to have an actual pathway to citizenship that functions and
Speaker 1: lets a sufficient number of people in that you don't
Speaker 1: have people, you know, coming in undocumented, coming in illegally
Speaker 1: because there's just no other.
Speaker 4: Option on the tape.
Speaker 3: But there are many options on the table.
Speaker 2: No, there's not one million people come to this country
Speaker 2: legally every single year.
Speaker 3: It is actually very much on where you are from.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, as it should be.
Speaker 2: Wow, everybody said in Mexico should just get an automatic
Speaker 2: visa to the US.
Speaker 4: That's not that's not what I said.
Speaker 3: Well, anywhere around the world we have quotas for a reason.
Speaker 2: Also, a lot of it is to crack down on
Speaker 2: chain migration, which is the number one way that we
Speaker 2: function currently, which is whether you have a family member
Speaker 2: here or not.
Speaker 3: Not hate. Do you have any skillus if you're interested anything.
Speaker 1: But if you're interested in this question of assimilation, which
Speaker 1: you seem very interested in, chain migration is actually a
Speaker 1: good way of trying to achieve that assimilation. If you
Speaker 1: have people who are already here who can help you
Speaker 1: assimilate into Actually, again I.
Speaker 2: Don't agree with that at all, because what ends up
Speaker 2: happening is you have these subcommunities where nobody speaks in
Speaker 2: the English and there's no real incentive in order to
Speaker 2: assimilate and in fact, merit based in the past, what
Speaker 2: we have seen in many other countries Australia and others,
Speaker 2: is that they have much higher rates of assimilation and
Speaker 2: they have much better results in terms of the way
Speaker 2: that the native born population feels about the people who
Speaker 2: are there because they know that as an orderly system. Now,
Speaker 2: Australia has some advantages. Being an island is number one,
Speaker 2: so it's not really one that we can have here.
Speaker 3: But I mean chain has a lot.
Speaker 2: Of issues whenever it comes to assimilation, but most importantly
Speaker 2: skill and the fact is that we don't assign. I mean,
Speaker 2: even Canada has merit based migration, Like are we going
Speaker 2: to say that Canada has a cruel migration policy, Like
Speaker 2: they have plenty of immigrants who are living in Canada.
Speaker 3: They don't come there based on chain. They come on
Speaker 3: a points.
Speaker 2: Based system which was explicitly rejected, which under the trumpet
Speaker 2: Miss I.
Speaker 1: Think extremely classystem means basically, just like if you're rich
Speaker 1: you can come, and if you're poor you can.
Speaker 4: And I think poor.
Speaker 2: People in other countries that's their problem, that's their country
Speaker 2: the problem.
Speaker 1: Again, they're framing this as a problem, and I don't
Speaker 1: see it as a problem. I see it as a
Speaker 1: challenge to make sure the system works properly, and on
Speaker 1: that we have definitely failed. But I don't see it
Speaker 1: as a quote unquote problem that we have people who
Speaker 1: want to come here or have something to offer to
Speaker 1: the American public, to the economy, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I see it as a benefit. So anyway, all.
Speaker 3: Right, I guess we can call it there.
Speaker 2: But I mean I would just say, Crystal, Okay, Well, then,
Speaker 2: for example, if there's high rates of people who come
Speaker 2: here illegally or legally and then.
Speaker 3: Go on welfare, do you think that's acceptable? Well, I
Speaker 3: don't think exactly. I think why are you coming here?
Speaker 1: I think if you the chain migration that you're talking
Speaker 1: about actually helps with that too, because you have a
Speaker 1: built in safety net. But yeah, I think it's reasonable
Speaker 1: that if you are coming here and you're unskilled, that
Speaker 1: it may take you some time to get on your
Speaker 1: feet but we've seen how hard working immigrants are, how
Speaker 1: important they do all the bunch of jobs that native
Speaker 1: born Americans won't do, and are not interested.
Speaker 2: In any price as long as the wages high. I'm
Speaker 2: totally four eye wages. But you know the problem that
Speaker 2: we have right now is that, like you just said,
Speaker 2: there are a bunch of people who are willing to
Speaker 2: work for nothing, and that's what depresses wages.
Speaker 3: And so there you go.
Speaker 2: At the same time, the State of the Union reaction
Speaker 2: is in and the pundits, including ones who previously had
Speaker 2: called for Joe Biden to drop out of the race,
Speaker 2: are dropping their sword and surrendering.
Speaker 3: Put it up there on the screen. Ez reclined. Chrystal,
Speaker 3: who famously did a podcast.
Speaker 2: A well researched story all about how Joe Biden should
Speaker 2: drop out with all of this incredible polling and data
Speaker 2: to back it up, just says, fine, call it a comeback.
Speaker 2: If Joe Biden wh showed up to deliver The State
Speaker 2: of the Union addresses that Joe Biden wh shows up
Speaker 2: for the campaign, you're not going to have to worry
Speaker 2: about any of those weak need pundits suggesting he's not
Speaker 2: up to running.
Speaker 3: For reelection.
Speaker 2: Here's hoping he does so, maya culpa of all Maya
Speaker 2: culpaks and falls exactly Backlee, in line with the way
Speaker 2: that the pundit class felt about this, which contrasts very
Speaker 2: differently from the way that the public did mourning Joe,
Speaker 2: for example, literally drooling and fawning.
Speaker 3: Over the president's speech. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: This was This was a tour de force by Joe Biden,
Speaker 7: and yet Peggy noon In last week calling him cranky
Speaker 7: old Joe after his angry press confidence who last night
Speaker 7: Michael Beschloss likened him to Harry Truman, And there was
Speaker 7: a real give him hell Harry a part of this.
Speaker 4: But what really completed it was it was.
Speaker 7: Give him hell. Harry meets Ronald Reagan's a city shining
Speaker 7: brightly on the hill for all the world to say.
Speaker 7: We always under Democrats always underestimated Ike, They always underestimated Reagan.
Speaker 7: Now it's us we always underestimate Biden.
Speaker 2: Yes, Joe Biden is Eisenhower, General Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan all rolled into one.
Speaker 3: He's actually better than all of them, Crystal.
Speaker 2: You know, turns out I would I would, I would
Speaker 2: die happy if we could just have one of those
Speaker 2: gentlemen to come back as opposed to the husk that
Speaker 2: we have in front of us. And yet who do
Speaker 2: we have next here? The view also giving their laudatory comments.
Speaker 2: Anna Navarro, the quote unquote Republican host, very much talking
Speaker 2: him up after the State of the Union.
Speaker 3: Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 11: Joe Biden is old. Yes, he's slower of step, yes,
Speaker 11: but he is far from being incoherent, from having dementia,
Speaker 11: from not being in charge. Yesterday, he showed he is engaged,
Speaker 11: He was impassioned, he was pissed off Scranton. Joe showed
Speaker 11: up and fought. He had his gloves on from moment one.
Speaker 11: He was knowledgeable about policy. He turned the immigration issue,
Speaker 11: which I agree with you is the most difficult issue
Speaker 11: he's facing, and he turned it to one of the
Speaker 11: most strongest moments of that speech. He they thought they
Speaker 11: were going to rattle him by wearing the buttons of
Speaker 11: Lake and Riley. He took it, and he looked at
Speaker 11: our parents and he offered condolences. He made it, you know.
Speaker 11: He went and he rattled off all the points that
Speaker 11: were in that bipartisan immigration legislation that Donald Trump and
Speaker 11: his minions sabotaged. I loved the ending four more years
Speaker 11: and four more years okay for more alrighty, I loved it.
Speaker 3: Scranton, Joe's back.
Speaker 2: Who is who is this mythical man that these people
Speaker 2: are talking about?
Speaker 3: He sounds great. Yeah, Look, it's just going I.
Speaker 1: Mean, it's just so delusional to think that one like,
Speaker 1: okay speech performance off of the telebrondra is going to
Speaker 1: just eliminate, you know, it's just gonna wipe clean the
Speaker 1: memories of everything everybody has seen over the past number
Speaker 1: of years. And also to think that that image is
Speaker 1: going to then persist throughout whatever additional Joe Biden brain
Speaker 1: melts we are certain to witness. So you know, they're excited. Though,
Speaker 1: So for him, he needed to quiet people like Azra
Speaker 1: Klein who were floating that he needed to be replaced.
Speaker 1: I mean that was job number one, was him to
Speaker 1: do enough so that he could get exactly this fawning
Speaker 1: reaction from the pundit class, And he did that. The
Speaker 1: rest of the American people, though not quite as convinced
Speaker 1: as they are, that that he's really the man for
Speaker 1: the job going for and that This was the quote
Speaker 1: unquote toward a force that morning. Joe thinks, I also
Speaker 1: just have to say on the Azra client thing, like
Speaker 1: how pathetic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you believe in something for.
Speaker 1: You, right, if you're going to go through to write
Speaker 1: a whole do a whole podcast late, how do the
Speaker 1: interview like really make the case? And he made a
Speaker 1: good case, and then he gives one okay performance that
Speaker 1: was still at times very dicey, and you're just gonna
Speaker 1: mount and like collapse into groups and it just shows you,
Speaker 1: like he must have gotten tremendous amount of pressure after
Speaker 1: that last column, slash podcast and just infillent caves, which
Speaker 1: is kind of hilarious.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and Biden himself addressing the age issue at least
Speaker 2: at the top of his brand new ad. They're calling
Speaker 2: it the quote spring media campaign. Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 6: Look, I'm not a young guy, that's no secret.
Speaker 3: But here's the deal.
Speaker 6: I understand how to get things done for the American people.
Speaker 6: I led the country through the COVID crisis. Today we
Speaker 6: have the strongest economy in the world. I passed the
Speaker 6: law the lowest prescription drug prices cap Sense are thirty
Speaker 6: five dollars a month, forcedures.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: He's basically like, I'm not a young guy, rolls into
Speaker 2: a bunch of policy stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it's probably the best he can do.
Speaker 1: Right Honestly, it's he talked about, you know, things that
Speaker 1: pull well for him, right the thirty five dollars insulin
Speaker 1: lowering prescription drug prices. He goes on in that to
Speaker 1: talk about rope versus weight and you know, lies that
Speaker 1: he's going to codify it into law, which we don't
Speaker 1: know is not going to happen, but obviously that's a
Speaker 1: key issue for them. I thought it was a solid
Speaker 1: enough and probably lands you know, decently enough.
Speaker 3: As far I thought it was fine.
Speaker 2: It just is interesting to me that for everybody else,
Speaker 2: so the pundits and all that, they're like, no, it
Speaker 2: was amazing and all that. But for him, he's acknowledging
Speaker 2: the age at the top, which at least demonstrates that
Speaker 2: they have some political acumen now to get though to
Speaker 2: where some of this is coming from in terms of
Speaker 2: the media response versus the public response. Let's put this
Speaker 2: up there, because even the Washington Post is forced to
Speaker 2: admit here early polling of the Biden State of the
Speaker 2: Union does not match the hype.
Speaker 3: They even say.
Speaker 2: Democrats would like you to believe that this changed the
Speaker 2: game on Thursday, it is not clear that the American
Speaker 2: public saw the home run that they did. According to
Speaker 2: the CNN Instant poll, sixty five percent offered a positive view,
Speaker 2: but viewers also shifted seventeen percent toward believing the country
Speaker 2: has had in the right direction. That's what they're saying
Speaker 2: in terms of what they say is true. But what
Speaker 2: they also true is the State of the Union speech
Speaker 2: is quote almost always receives strongly favorable views, in part
Speaker 2: because the viewership tends to draw disproportionately from their allies.
Speaker 2: And in fact, what they point to is that quote.
Speaker 2: Dating back to Bill Clinton's nineteen ninety eight State of
Speaker 2: the Union, viewers have always shifted an average of fifteen
Speaker 2: points toward a more optimistic view whenever they are watching.
Speaker 2: They also show that quote in Trump's twenty seventeen and
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen speeches. Republicans were outnumbering the Democrats by five
Speaker 2: percentage points in CNN sample Trump's reviews and those teachers
Speaker 2: were still stronger than Joe Biden's on Thursday, showing the
Speaker 2: relative to where.
Speaker 3: Trump was again.
Speaker 2: I mean, remember Crystal, how crazy things were in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: That was like the peak of the Trump madness. And
Speaker 2: even in that actually Trump was getting better remarks on
Speaker 2: his State of the Union response. So when we look
Speaker 2: at it here, it is pretty clear that when you
Speaker 2: look at it history, he's right within the line against Trump.
Speaker 3: He didn't actually do all that well.
Speaker 2: So the home run, I mean a home run would
Speaker 2: be vastly overperforming all previous presidents are combined, or at
Speaker 2: least by a magnificant margin, or overperforming your predecessor, which
Speaker 2: he did not do in either of these cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the reality is it's probably not going
Speaker 1: to matter at all.
Speaker 4: At the end of the day.
Speaker 1: I could see he may get a little bit of
Speaker 1: an approval rating bump out of this, you know, people
Speaker 1: feeling a little better about him. The vibes, the way
Speaker 1: the pundits are selling it so so so hard across
Speaker 1: all of these networks. By the way, the Republican reaction
Speaker 1: and opposition was equally deranged to the liberal reaction.
Speaker 4: They were like, you know, after.
Speaker 1: For so long complaining about I think accurately that he's
Speaker 1: so feeble and whatever, then it was oh my god,
Speaker 1: he was like so over the top and so angry.
Speaker 1: You can't really have it both ways anyway. Putting that aside,
Speaker 1: I think the probably reality out of the state of
Speaker 1: the Union is is not really going to matter either way.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a like major obvious health event while
Speaker 1: he was silvering at which is what people sort of
Speaker 1: like wondered whether that would happen and feared it would happen.
Speaker 1: It had a lot of downside risk, Like if it
Speaker 1: had been a catastrophe, I think it would have had
Speaker 1: a huge and lasting impact because it would have affirmed
Speaker 1: people's deepest fears about Joe Biden. But since it was,
Speaker 1: you know, adequately handled, he avoided that catastrophic downside risk.
Speaker 1: Is he able to significantly achieve like higher pull numbers,
Speaker 1: higher lasting approval ratings.
Speaker 4: I think that's probably unlikely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right, Crystal, And I think overall,
Speaker 2: what we can see is that the pundit class and
Speaker 2: all of them have very very low expectations for Biden.
Speaker 2: I've stolen your line. You're like, guys, if this was Obama,
Speaker 2: we would all be saying, we're.
Speaker 4: Like, man, there's something wrong. What's going on, and you.
Speaker 2: Know, he is a guy who actually won elections, actually
Speaker 2: was a Look, whatever you think of him, he was
Speaker 2: good at speaking, and he was a good politician, and
Speaker 2: he was able to at least get himself re elected twice.
Speaker 2: Pretty remarkable. Whereas with Biden, you see the curve that
Speaker 2: he's being graded on, You're like, oh my god, what
Speaker 2: are we doing here? So if that's where the bar is,
Speaker 2: as far as h I think we can at least
Speaker 2: put some trust in people. Ryan also had a good
Speaker 2: point in our post coverage where he said, look, this
Speaker 2: isn't like the old days. They're still going to see
Speaker 2: clips of Biden unable to physically speak and function over
Speaker 2: and over again, simply because of the Internet. So this
Speaker 2: monolith media like environment that these people want to live
Speaker 2: in where this matters, and this is really the only
Speaker 2: connection that we have to our president like we did
Speaker 2: in the nineties, that doesn't exist anymore the current media environment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a good point there, you go.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk a little bit about what unfolded
Speaker 1: at the Oscars last night, especially vis a vis protests
Speaker 1: of Israel's assault on Gaza. So before the big ceremony
Speaker 1: even got underway. You had protesters out in the street
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen, so they are actually.
Speaker 4: Blocking the main.
Speaker 1: Route to the what is it called the Dolby theaters
Speaker 1: that where it happens, and they were able to block
Speaker 1: it so effectively, and you can see a large number
Speaker 1: of people out there that they actually were a little
Speaker 1: bit late.
Speaker 4: They were worried.
Speaker 1: About having to use seat fillers, I think that's what
Speaker 1: they're called, so that it didn't look empty in the auditorium.
Speaker 4: When the show got underway.
Speaker 1: You had stars ditching their heels and having to hoofit
Speaker 1: into the theater. Some people had golf carts sent for
Speaker 1: them to be able to make it there. So before
Speaker 1: it even started there was a strong procease fire, anti
Speaker 1: war protest going on.
Speaker 4: But the moment that actually.
Speaker 1: Got the biggest attention was Jonathan Glazer accepting his award
Speaker 1: and the comments he made. Listened very carefully to them,
Speaker 1: and then I'll tell you the way they were interpreted.
Speaker 4: On the other side, all.
Speaker 12: Our choices were made to reflect and confront us in
Speaker 12: the present, not to say look what they did then,
Speaker 12: rather look what we do now. How film shows where
Speaker 12: dehumanization leads at its worst it shaped all of our
Speaker 12: past and present. Right now we stand here as men
Speaker 12: who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by
Speaker 12: an occupation which has led to conflict for so many
Speaker 12: innocent people, whether the victims of October, the victims of
Speaker 12: October the seventh in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza,
Speaker 12: all the victims of this tea humanization. How do we resist?
Speaker 12: Alexandra Bistron Calasihchek, the girl who glows in the film
Speaker 12: as she did in life, chose to I dedicate this
Speaker 12: to her memory and her resistance.
Speaker 1: Thank you, so, I thought very powerful and courageous comments there,
Speaker 1: clearly saying, you know, we refute our Jewishness and the
Speaker 1: Holocaust being weaponized in these and appropriated in these ways
Speaker 1: that we do not support, making sure to talk not
Speaker 1: only about the Gaza victims but also the victims on
Speaker 1: October seventh. But Sager, that has not prevented a full
Speaker 1: and complete meltdown over these comments, and absolutely disingenuous mischaracterization
Speaker 1: of what he said, people clipping out of context. Just
Speaker 1: him saying we stand here as men who refute our
Speaker 1: Jewishness without going on to say and the Holocaust and
Speaker 1: the way that they're being weaponized. Not that he's refuting
Speaker 1: as Jewishness, he's refuting the weaponization of that identity, which
Speaker 1: I think many many especially American Jews right now, really
Speaker 1: resonate with in support because they don't feel that the
Speaker 1: Israeli government actions reflect them, reflect their identity, reflect their Jewishness.
Speaker 1: And in fact, it would be the height of anti
Speaker 1: Semitism to say that every Jew must be in lockstep
Speaker 1: with exactly what the Israeli government is doing. And that's
Speaker 1: something you see in Israel where there's quite a bit
Speaker 1: of debate and dissent about exactly the policies of the
Speaker 1: net Yahoo.
Speaker 2: Govern Even if ninety seven percent of Jews felt that way,
Speaker 2: there would still be two to three percent.
Speaker 3: And to me, they are not Jews.
Speaker 2: They are American citizens who have the First Amendment right
Speaker 2: to say and speak what they wish. Mister Glazer didn't
Speaker 2: say anything all that controversial. Many of the protesters that
Speaker 2: I see here in Washington often have the no in
Speaker 2: our Name t shirts on, which means that they are
Speaker 2: members of a Jewish organization. I mean, again, not that
Speaker 2: it matters, but I think rhetorically it's one of those
Speaker 2: that they're able to. You know, it's a powerful rebuke, right,
Speaker 2: It's like this is one where they were being basically
Speaker 2: tone policed by a lot of Jewish commentators. And Jonathan
Speaker 2: John put Harrits, who's the editor at Commentary, failed son
Speaker 2: and inheritor of his father's magazine, and one of these
Speaker 2: individuals saying by saying he refutes his Jewishness on the
Speaker 2: biggest stage in the world, five months after the attack
Speaker 2: on Israel, Jonathan Glazer has instantly made himself into one
Speaker 2: of Judaism's historical villains, like we're going to put him
Speaker 2: up there with Hitler, We're gonna put him up there.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen JPod make comparisons like this in
Speaker 2: the past, comparions.
Speaker 3: He is an incredibly unhimed individual.
Speaker 2: But he's one of those where I've seen him align
Speaker 2: Jews who speak out against the war in Gaza, like
Speaker 2: copposed in concentration camps, which are like basically Jewish prisoners
Speaker 2: who cooperated with the Nazi regime. But I mean, it's
Speaker 2: one of those where it takes a special level of
Speaker 2: insanity to ascribe here, who is I mean, he sounds
Speaker 2: British to me. Not exactly who he is, but you know,
Speaker 2: he's on a stage in the United States of America,
Speaker 2: and I mean, frankly, it wasn't all that controversially even
Speaker 2: mentioned the victims of October seventh. It's like, well, what
Speaker 2: else do you want from somebody who's speaking out against violence.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one of those where he can say
Speaker 2: what he wants. He's using and I mean in some
Speaker 2: ways kind of honoring his religion, just saying like this
Speaker 2: was a historical horrible event, like please don't use that
Speaker 2: event in order to perpetrate what we see personally as
Speaker 2: an atrocity. I think that's fine, you know, once again,
Speaker 2: and it's I think the response to it is frankly
Speaker 2: just disgusting in it. It goes back to the Biden project,
Speaker 2: and frankly a lot of American Jewish commentators project, which
Speaker 2: is to conflate all Judaism with the State of Israel. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's right, I mean, that's honestly disgusting.
Speaker 4: That is anti Semitic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to say you have to if you are Jewish,
Speaker 1: you are fully identified with the State of Israel, you
Speaker 1: must support everything that they do. You have to speak
Speaker 1: about it in these set prescribed ways I mean to
Speaker 1: paint with that broader brush, is like the definition of
Speaker 1: racism and anti semitism.
Speaker 4: And the other thing I saw.
Speaker 1: That people were intentionally construing his comments is they were saying, oh,
Speaker 1: he's comparing what's happening in Gozen now to the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: which personally, if he did that I would also find
Speaker 1: perfectly fine, and not in obviously the number of people killed,
Speaker 1: but in the ideology and the genocidal rhetoric and ideology.
Speaker 1: I think that comparison is perfectly apt. But that's also
Speaker 1: not what he was saying. He was saying, stop weaponizing
Speaker 1: the Holocaust to justify atrocities, to justify things that should
Speaker 1: not be justified. So I think the reason there was
Speaker 1: such a freak out is number one because of them
Speaker 1: being Jewish. Number two because the movie itself the zone
Speaker 1: of interest, which I haven't seen. I don't think you've
Speaker 1: seen either.
Speaker 3: I've seen it. I am going to watch it.
Speaker 1: I want to watch it. This actually made me want
Speaker 1: to watch it. But it's about the Holocaust. It's about
Speaker 1: the banality of evil. So the fact that he did
Speaker 1: this movie about the Holocaust and then used his platform
Speaker 1: in order to oppose Israel's assault on Gaza. I think
Speaker 1: that was, you know, particularly apparently sensitive for a number
Speaker 1: of people. Rabbi Schmoli of course had to weigh in
Speaker 1: in the way that he does. He described it as
Speaker 1: absolutely disgusting. Jonathan Glazer, who deserves so much credit for
Speaker 1: his incredible Holocaust film The Zote of Interest, which I loved,
Speaker 1: betrayed his people and disgraced himself and trivialized the six
Speaker 1: million martyrs of the Holocaust when he said Israel's Warren
Speaker 1: Gaza was hijacking the memory of the Holocaust. How dare
Speaker 1: you compare the two? Again, he wasn't actually comparing the two,
Speaker 1: although again I personally would support that comparison.
Speaker 4: You fool.
Speaker 1: The whole purpose of Israel's Warren Gaza to make sure
Speaker 1: there isn't a second Holocaust, so we don't need more
Speaker 1: of your films because Jews actually remain alive. AMAS has
Speaker 1: one intention genocide of Jews. How is it the Jews
Speaker 1: in Hollywood have absolutely no pride in being Jewish and
Speaker 1: never ever stand up for the only Jewish country on earth, Israel,
Speaker 1: it seems to me very much has pride in his
Speaker 1: Jewish identity and what he objects to is that identity
Speaker 1: being used in the service of things that he finds
Speaker 1: to be morally unconscionable. So, you know, I thought the
Speaker 1: response to it, especially the way the words were intentionally
Speaker 1: twisted in misunderstood, was really telling and really disgusting and
Speaker 1: showed you why it took courage by the way, and
Speaker 1: you could tell he was nervous when he was delivering
Speaker 1: the remarks that he had prepared and written down so
Speaker 1: that he could get the language exactly as he wanted
Speaker 1: it to. So you know, I really applaud him for
Speaker 1: being willing to do that knowing that there would be
Speaker 1: an unhinged.
Speaker 4: Freak out on the other side.
Speaker 1: You also had a number of artists who were wearing pins,
Speaker 1: you know, a sort of more quiet form of protests.
Speaker 1: We can put some of these images up on the screen.
Speaker 1: These pins were in support of a ceasefire. Some of
Speaker 1: the actors, directors, et cetera, who were wearing the pins.
Speaker 1: You had a pneumona actors out. How you say that
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about pop culture, Sorry, guys. Eugene
Speaker 1: Lee Yang, director Ava Duverne, director of Massan Harriman, who's
Speaker 1: behind Best Live Action Short nominee The After Writer director,
Speaker 1: I'm really going to butcher this one. Kyle, author Ben Hania,
Speaker 1: Best Documentary Feature nominee Four Daughters singer Billy Eilish also
Speaker 1: and one of the people you saw there on the
Speaker 1: screen was Ronny Yusef, who was in Poor Things, who
Speaker 1: also spoke out in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 8: Tell me about the pin.
Speaker 13: Yeah, we'll come on for immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Speaker 3: We're calling for peace.
Speaker 13: And justice, lasting justice for the people of Palestine. And
Speaker 13: I think it's a universal message of just let's stop
Speaker 13: killing kids, let's not be part of war.
Speaker 14: War.
Speaker 13: No one's ever looked back at war and thought a
Speaker 13: bombing campaign was a good idea. And so to be
Speaker 13: surrounded by so many artists who are willing to lend
Speaker 13: their voice, the list is growing. A lot of people
Speaker 13: are going to be wearing these pins tonight, and it's
Speaker 13: because we want to kind of use where we're at
Speaker 13: to speak to people's hearts. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 13: of talking heads on the news. This is a space
Speaker 13: of talking hearts, and so we're trying to just kind
Speaker 13: of have that big beam the humanity.
Speaker 3: Are you a hopeful there will be a ceas fire?
Speaker 13: Yeah, there has to be. I don't I don't think
Speaker 13: that there's any there's no there's no other root. It's
Speaker 13: just it's taking so long. And you know, the president
Speaker 13: has now called for it in a State of the Union,
Speaker 13: the Vice president has and so I think we need
Speaker 13: to kind of really look at ourselves and be honest
Speaker 13: of Okay, if the leadership supposedly thinks that should happen,
Speaker 13: why has it not happened? And so I think that's
Speaker 13: what we're all encouraging, you know, everyone to be vocal about.
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of interesting framing since Biden
Speaker 1: and Kamala have co opted the language language of seas
Speaker 1: fireman that they don't actually support a full and lasting ceasefire, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you're saying.
Speaker 4: Ceasefire, that's great.
Speaker 1: Where is it you claim you want to you know,
Speaker 1: you claim you want this now, So why isn't it
Speaker 1: actually happening? You'll recall that, especially immediately after October seventh,
Speaker 1: there were a number of high profile firings in Hollywood
Speaker 1: over people who are expressing support for Palestinians. So it
Speaker 1: still is you know, a cause that is take some
Speaker 1: courage to speak out on. So kudos to these individuals
Speaker 1: who took this protest to the oscars and tried to
Speaker 1: raise a visibility there for.
Speaker 3: One that was interesting. I mean the freak at on
Speaker 3: is that's just a whole other level.
Speaker 2: And like compare it to some of the other historic
Speaker 2: ones like Michael Moore at the Oscar stage see that, Well,
Speaker 2: that one was wild because remember he got booed people
Speaker 2: really memory hole how pro war Hollywood was too at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: So things certainly a little bit yeah.
Speaker 4: So true.
Speaker 2: At the same time, there's some major domestic news here
Speaker 2: with the shock passage of a new bill through the
Speaker 2: House Committee on Energy and Commerce Affairs on TikTok. Let's
Speaker 2: go and put this up there on the screen. If
Speaker 2: this advances to the full House, of which there's every
Speaker 2: expectation that it will and will likely pass, will go
Speaker 2: to the Senate, and would result in an immediate status
Speaker 2: quote change for TikTok. So what it says is that
Speaker 2: this TikTok crackdown is now shifting into overdrive quote with
Speaker 2: sale or shut down on the table. So I actually
Speaker 2: went through read the full bill talked to some of
Speaker 2: the people who have helped craft it, and details are
Speaker 2: basically like this. TikTok is owned by byte Dance. The
Speaker 2: holding company Byte Dance is headquartered in China. I've done
Speaker 2: extensive work on this in the past, and they would
Speaker 2: not even really dispute it that they are controlled by.
Speaker 3: The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government.
Speaker 2: Byte Dances specifically, which is the holding company of TikTok.
Speaker 2: So this bill would require Byte Dance to immediately, within
Speaker 2: forty days a passage of the bill divest itself of
Speaker 2: TikTok as a media asset, or then face a shutdown
Speaker 2: and a ban. Inside the United States. It's very substantively
Speaker 2: different from the Restrict Act. The Restrict Act we previously
Speaker 2: had spoken about Crystal would have resulted in the discretionary
Speaker 2: authority of the President to ban such a thing, whereas
Speaker 2: this relies on export import control laws that we have
Speaker 2: on our books that say that control of assets by
Speaker 2: foreign governments, as it could be applied here to social
Speaker 2: media would then result in an immediate divestiture and or
Speaker 2: a band. So substantively it is a little bit different.
Speaker 2: This has though transformed itself into a major political issue.
Speaker 2: TikTok immediately push notifications to many of its users, resulting
Speaker 2: in a flood of calls on Capitol Hill TikTok cleaning
Speaker 2: that the legislation would have resulted in an immediate ban,
Speaker 2: failing to neglect the sale part that I mentioned here. However,
Speaker 2: the discourse has now transformed and is now all about
Speaker 2: whether we should ban TikTok or not. Donald Trump actually
Speaker 2: weighing in on this on the opposite side of the
Speaker 2: issue that.
Speaker 3: He was previously.
Speaker 2: He says, if you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and
Speaker 2: Zucker Schmuck will double their business. I don't want Facebook,
Speaker 2: who cheated in the last election, doing better. They are
Speaker 2: the true enemy of the people. Immediately then backed up
Speaker 2: by Elon Musk. If we can put that up there please,
Speaker 2: he says. Trump's statement there is correct, and a lot
Speaker 2: of this actually traces back to an interesting gentleman who
Speaker 2: recently become acquainted with named Jeff Yass.
Speaker 3: If we can put this up there please on the screen.
Speaker 2: Mister Yoss is a billionaire Republican donor and happens to
Speaker 2: own a nice thirty three billion dollar steak in byte Dance, which,
Speaker 2: of course is reaping massive benefits from the TikTok profits
Speaker 2: and has been whispering, it seems in Trump's ear. He
Speaker 2: is also the major funder of the Club for Growth
Speaker 2: pack here in the United States, which is like a
Speaker 2: major kind of libertarian organization, and apparently has now placed
Speaker 2: Kelly am Conway, Trump's former community strategic communications advisor on
Speaker 2: retainer and she's being paid a nice, healthy salary to
Speaker 2: lobby against us.
Speaker 3: So with all the details there, Crystal, what do you think.
Speaker 4: Well, we should also keep it.
Speaker 1: I mean Trump in his way, he does make a
Speaker 1: point that banning TikTok will be a tremendous gift to
Speaker 1: all the TikTok competitors. Yes, correct, tremendous gift to you too,
Speaker 1: I mean we self interestedly, I should be in favor
Speaker 1: of it, I guess, because it would funnel a bunch
Speaker 1: people our white potentially. You know, all of these social
Speaker 1: media giants. They've been desperately trying to recreate TikTok success,
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg in particular with Instagram reels.
Speaker 4: So banning TikTok is a massive.
Speaker 1: Gift to the tech industry, which I think is part
Speaker 1: of why this bill sailed through Committee with the unanimous vote,
Speaker 1: because yes, while TikTok obviously has a.
Speaker 4: Lot of interest in not being banned and not having.
Speaker 1: A sale force on it, you also have other money
Speaker 1: to interest on the other side that are pushing in
Speaker 1: the other direction.
Speaker 4: So that's number one. Number two.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's no mystery to me why this is
Speaker 1: coming about right now, which has everything to do with
Speaker 1: the fact that young people are getting, you know, a
Speaker 1: very different and very real view of what's happening in
Speaker 1: Gaza right now on TikTok, and so this conversation to
Speaker 1: you know, sort of spike during the Trump administration has
Speaker 1: sort of died down. The reason it's coming back right now,
Speaker 1: I think is directly tied to the fact that.
Speaker 4: They see the numbers among young people.
Speaker 1: They see the different view of Israel, they see the
Speaker 1: different view of Israel's assault on Gaza, and so there's
Speaker 1: a panic about like these young people and we got
Speaker 1: to control what they see in disinformation.
Speaker 4: Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So I think that's also part of why you see
Speaker 1: this new initiative and this bipartisan unanimity when it comes
Speaker 1: to banning TikTok, and you know, the other thing I
Speaker 1: would say is I do think that there's huge First
Speaker 1: Amendment issues here. You know, I mean Twitter has taken
Speaker 1: like money from Saudi Arabia. Does that mean that they
Speaker 1: should be banned as well? If YouTube got a huge
Speaker 1: you know, had a huge investment from a foreign country,
Speaker 1: we're just going to ban or force the sale.
Speaker 4: Of YouTube as well.
Speaker 1: You're really directly attacking a lot of people's livelihoods number one,
Speaker 1: number two a lot of people's creative outlet, and number
Speaker 1: three a lot of people's social outlets. So I think
Speaker 1: it is a real sort of outrageous assault on freedom
Speaker 1: of speech and creative expression.
Speaker 2: Well, that would be if it was a ban. Now
Speaker 2: let's be clear. I mean if we did a segment.
Speaker 4: As a ban or a sale.
Speaker 3: Well, we did a segment.
Speaker 2: Here previously, for example, about US Steel being acquired by
Speaker 2: Nip and Steele. I oppose that transaction, even though Japan. Look,
Speaker 2: I love Japan, I we're blood brothers.
Speaker 3: Where are allies?
Speaker 2: I respect their Honestly, I like their culture more than
Speaker 2: I like our own. Sometimes that said, sorry, you shouldn't
Speaker 2: be owning critical parts of our steel infrastructure because you're
Speaker 2: going to use it for your purposes and not. I
Speaker 2: don't think there's really a substantive difference here. Now, the
Speaker 2: difference between a Twitter investment is that Twitter is headquartered
Speaker 2: and controlled here in the United States. TikTok is hold
Speaker 2: one hundred percent as a subsidiary of the Byte Dance Corporation,
Speaker 2: by Dance itself one hundred percent controlled by China. Very
Speaker 2: different than a non controlling stake or even frankly like
Speaker 2: a board seat.
Speaker 3: As opposed to where we are right now.
Speaker 2: I think they now I will as I understand what
Speaker 2: I would say is one of the reasons as I've
Speaker 2: sailed through fifty to zero through the Energy and Commerce Committee,
Speaker 2: was not just because the Israel issue, although look, let's
Speaker 2: not deny it's obviously true, but that TikTok actually showed
Speaker 2: its ability to influence US election, which was the worst
Speaker 2: thing that they should have done, because they demonstrate it
Speaker 2: through their ability to flood the zone and by having
Speaker 2: all these calls that they actually could flex political power.
Speaker 3: If they wanted to.
Speaker 2: Honestly, it was a huge backfire on their part because
Speaker 2: they opened a lot of people's eyes. They're like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: if they do push notification to any of their users,
Speaker 2: their users actually will call.
Speaker 3: And we'll face it. Now.
Speaker 2: I have complicated feelings at this point. I don't think
Speaker 2: we can ban it. I think we waited way too late.
Speaker 2: If we had banned it five six years ago, we
Speaker 2: would have had a different competitor, different conversation.
Speaker 3: I mean it is.
Speaker 2: Look, I wish that we weren't in this situation, but
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy million people now use this thing.
Speaker 3: What are you going to do?
Speaker 2: I think that a fail forced sale is the best
Speaker 2: possible option, and that's what this legislation does now. Look
Speaker 2: by dancers, wasn't to let go of it, even though
Speaker 2: TikTok is banned in China, because it's tremendously profitable already,
Speaker 2: there are US investors and US companies that are very
Speaker 2: willing to buy it, frankly, for a premium. They'll buy
Speaker 2: for eight nine hundred million dollars, then the ins the impetus,
Speaker 2: or an eight nine hundred billion dollars to be clear,
Speaker 2: possibly even a trillion dollar transaction, apparently for what I've
Speaker 2: been reading. Just because it's overall media, its ability to
Speaker 2: compel so much watch time, which is why Instagram and
Speaker 2: others want it banned I think where we are is
Speaker 2: it's a matter of sovereignty.
Speaker 3: So I agree with you.
Speaker 2: I think that if it was an outright ban itself
Speaker 2: and did not give the option at least for sale,
Speaker 2: then we could talk about First Amendment considerations. But at
Speaker 2: a baseline level, we're talking about sovereignty in US markets
Speaker 2: like China does not allow American technology companies to operate
Speaker 2: in China. Thus there is no reason why we should
Speaker 2: not have reciprocal trade rules. We have reciprocal actions against
Speaker 2: the European Union, against Indian companies, against Panic Canadian companies,
Speaker 2: every other in the world. Why should we have a
Speaker 2: Chinese exception whenever it comes to tech, And I get
Speaker 2: the common retort I get is yeah, but big tech
Speaker 2: is just as bad. It's like, okay, but we can
Speaker 2: change that. There are American companies subject to a US jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: We have no jurisdiction over TikTok.
Speaker 1: But see that's actually a good point, which is, I mean,
Speaker 1: we do have jurisdiction over TikTok when they're operating in
Speaker 1: our borders. So the real problem is like overall data
Speaker 1: privacy issues, because that's the that's the case that I
Speaker 1: hear made, I mean the election interference stuff that sounds
Speaker 1: a lot to me, like the like Russian Facebook moment
Speaker 1: memes and like that direction of chanic and freak out right.
Speaker 1: In terms of the data privacy concerns, these are not
Speaker 1: limited to TikTok. In fact, the data that you know
Speaker 1: TikTok would have available to it is widely available for
Speaker 1: sale already on the open market. So that's the issue
Speaker 1: I think we should be dealing with versus going after
Speaker 1: this one platform because there's this like you know, freak
Speaker 1: out about China and this freak out about oh my god,
Speaker 1: the youths as per usual. So the other thing I
Speaker 1: would say is you're right, we can do it. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying we can't do it, Like as a sovereignation,
Speaker 1: we could.
Speaker 4: I just don't think we should.
Speaker 1: And part of why is because I don't think it'll
Speaker 1: lead to a better outcome. It does end up consolidating
Speaker 1: even more power in the hands of the already gigantic,
Speaker 1: you know, monopolistic social media monoliths. And for example, one
Speaker 1: of the things I was cited in this Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal piece was that Sam Altman and open AI and
Speaker 1: conjunction with Microsoft were like, maybe we'll buy TikTok, maybe
Speaker 1: we'll use it to train our AI algorithms, which to me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's how is that a better state of affairs?
Speaker 1: How is that an improvement over the current situation. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's a reason why when people
Speaker 1: got that prompt to call into the legislators, why they
Speaker 1: were so active about it. Because for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: this is important to them, and they use it a lot,
Speaker 1: and they drive a lot of benefit from it. And
Speaker 1: so for them to like, you know, feel like it
Speaker 1: was under assault, that was enough to spur to actually trying.
Speaker 4: To take some action.
Speaker 1: The other thing I would say is Joe Biden said
Speaker 1: that he would sign a ban if it came to
Speaker 1: his desk. He signed this bill if it came to
Speaker 1: his desk. And if you want to lose young people,
Speaker 1: for sure, Joe Biden, go ahead and try to mess
Speaker 1: with TikTok, because I think that would be a political
Speaker 1: absolute catastrophe and.
Speaker 2: Disaster that sport could shut down. I mean, they can
Speaker 2: sell it, I mean they should, There's no reason, there's no.
Speaker 1: It would probably be hobbled if it was sold. I mean,
Speaker 1: even they acknowledge that in this Wall Street Journal pieces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I mean Instagram reil is not great,
Speaker 2: but like it's fine, and it's like not an insane
Speaker 2: technology that we're trying to duplicate here at this point,
Speaker 2: especially if they sell whatever their subsidiary is with the
Speaker 2: exist pre existing technology. I mean, look even to your
Speaker 2: data privacy point, though, there is again a substante difference.
Speaker 2: The servers and all the data that TikTok takes is
Speaker 2: routed through Singapore but goes back to China, whereas our
Speaker 2: servers again are under US jurisdiction, of which we as
Speaker 2: a democratic people, can legislate, can change.
Speaker 3: I mean we have correctly.
Speaker 1: They've been open to having exactly that arrangement that you're describing,
Speaker 1: the arrangement that they have.
Speaker 2: The arrangement they've described is one where they would route
Speaker 2: their data through Oracle through Singapore, but ultimately has back
Speaker 2: doors from China. Much of their much of their like
Speaker 2: their reply, and all that comes down to the fact
Speaker 2: that they want to keep their bike dance ownership. And listen,
Speaker 2: if I were by Dance, yeah, I would want to
Speaker 2: keep it too. But guess what, you don't let us
Speaker 2: do business in your country. So why should we let
Speaker 2: you do business in our country?
Speaker 3: That's nuts?
Speaker 4: Are people really like it?
Speaker 3: A lot of people?
Speaker 1: I mean, just imagine if it was YouTube and like
Speaker 1: it is very dependent on it, right, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people whose livelihoods at this point are
Speaker 1: tied up in TikTok. And so I've just I've never
Speaker 1: really understood the scariest scenario. People always sort of like
Speaker 1: allude to these like nefarious things that could happen, but
Speaker 1: I've never really understood how that could play out in
Speaker 1: this way that would be disastrous, which isn't already unfolding.
Speaker 1: Like I said that the data and privacy has already
Speaker 1: invaded Our legislators have already failed us on that front.
Speaker 1: And I just don't see it as being really any
Speaker 1: different with TikTok.
Speaker 3: Versus I think it's a basic market fairness position.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, like listen, try going to China or
Speaker 2: Japan or Korea and try opening a social media app.
Speaker 2: It's not going to happen, period to their level, because
Speaker 2: it's it's a typical trade agreement.
Speaker 3: It's not about that.
Speaker 2: It's like this is a very libertarian argument too, which
Speaker 2: is that, oh, well, we shouldn't resort to that. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: this is about basic market sovereignty. Americans should have control
Speaker 2: of their markets. We have no control over.
Speaker 4: This asset amendment.
Speaker 1: Those which is like, you know, if we're cracking down
Speaker 1: and censoring based on foreign ownership and foreign influence, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I mean, those are the sorts of things that more
Speaker 1: dictatorial countries like China tend to.
Speaker 3: I think we should do so.
Speaker 4: I don't think that we should be doing that.
Speaker 3: What if TikTok was old by an Israeli company? What
Speaker 3: would you?
Speaker 2: I mean, like Ways, for example, I believe I think
Speaker 2: Ways is owned by Israel.
Speaker 3: I mean that means that they have.
Speaker 4: Do you see me out there pushing for Ways to
Speaker 4: be banned?
Speaker 3: But if you did, I would be like, hey, it's
Speaker 3: a valid argument.
Speaker 2: It's one of those where like, I don't know, should
Speaker 2: they really have access to all of our data here?
Speaker 2: It seems a little bit for what if they use
Speaker 2: it for their state purposes, which.
Speaker 3: They definitely would.
Speaker 2: It's one of those where we could see from a
Speaker 2: basic market fairness position as we apply to Japan, China, Canada, Mexico,
Speaker 2: any other country in the world, why do you get
Speaker 2: complete access to our markets whenever you do not allow
Speaker 2: our companies to do business there.
Speaker 3: This is sovereignty.
Speaker 2: Now, in terms of forcing a sale, I think it
Speaker 2: was the best option.
Speaker 3: I would also.
Speaker 2: Say Trump is the reason that all of this happened,
Speaker 2: and I will never let him off the hook for this.
Speaker 2: If you'll recall in twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty, he
Speaker 2: tried to do a forced sale option, but screwed it
Speaker 2: up so badly that both the US government and TikTok
Speaker 2: basically folded. At that point, there are only some sixty million,
Speaker 2: I mean, still a lot, but sixty million people who
Speaker 2: were using the app. He probably could have bannoned at
Speaker 2: that time and there wouldn't have been the attendant social
Speaker 2: chaos at this point. Now, I don't think it is
Speaker 2: possible just because we have some one hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty million people. It is a part
Speaker 2: of the culture, whether you like it or not. And
Speaker 2: it's with then now a question of like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: how do we manageably have this asset you know here
Speaker 2: in the US operate and not take something away.
Speaker 3: But the first Amendment thing I want to come back to.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's fair because you're not censoring people's
Speaker 2: right to speech. We're talking specifically about ownership of the company.
Speaker 3: And then the onus goes.
Speaker 2: To bike dance, because if we apply that First Amendment right,
Speaker 2: then any foreign company in the world would have right
Speaker 2: to do business in the US. And it's just like
Speaker 2: a premise that I fundamentally reject, like they do not
Speaker 2: have the rights under our system, especifically when specifically when
Speaker 2: we're talking about reciprocal trade, which long time has been
Speaker 2: an avenue for the executive and has always been biased
Speaker 2: towards like a sovereign direction over control of markets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like I.
Speaker 1: Said, I think we could do it. I just don't
Speaker 1: think we should. I think that I don't see the
Speaker 1: case that you know, banning TikTok or for forcing its
Speaker 1: sale is going to improve data security for Americans. I
Speaker 1: think it's gigantic gift to Mark Zuckerberg, to Trump's point,
Speaker 1: and to the other really and to the other you know,
Speaker 1: large tech platform you have if they sell it, because
Speaker 1: it would likely be bought by one of these platforms.
Speaker 4: I mean that was likely to buy it by one
Speaker 4: of these people.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean they could try but oh, okay. But
Speaker 3: then here's the other thing.
Speaker 2: We have a Department of Justice, Crystal, we have an
Speaker 2: anti trustpens. We could say no, you can't buy that.
Speaker 2: Under Alena, she hasn't even allowed like Spirit Airlines and
Speaker 2: Jet Blue defuse.
Speaker 1: I think this is all based not on genuine concerns.
Speaker 1: Not you, but many of the lawmakers and a lot
Speaker 1: of the conversation around this isn't based on genuine concerns.
Speaker 4: It's based on an.
Speaker 1: Anti China freak out, and it's based on the worry
Speaker 1: that young people are forming views that the political elite
Speaker 1: do not find to be acceptable, and they want to
Speaker 1: be able to, you know, to sort of coerce them
Speaker 1: in better manufacturer consent.
Speaker 4: So I'm, you know, not for it.
Speaker 2: I won't deny not that's certainly part of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's said. I mean, especially with the for sale option,
Speaker 2: I don't see any reason not to at least try
Speaker 2: and pursue it. Just to highlight though and give you
Speaker 2: your due, Nikki Haley really gave the reason away as
Speaker 2: to why she wants to ban TikTok. Let's take a
Speaker 2: listen to that from back during her debate moments.
Speaker 15: We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all.
Speaker 15: And let me tell you why. For every thirty minutes
Speaker 15: that someone watches TikTok every day, they become seventeen percent
Speaker 15: more anti Semitic, more pro Hamas. Based on doing that,
Speaker 15: we now know that fifty percent of adults eighteen to
Speaker 15: twenty five think that Hamas was warranted and what they
Speaker 15: did with Israel, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: For every thirty minutes, you become seventeen percent more anti city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even though I'm going to be late, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure about that one, Nicky.
Speaker 1: Well, and even more telling, there was some leaked audio
Speaker 1: a while back of that dude is the head of
Speaker 1: eighty l's num.
Speaker 4: I always forget.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, guys, my brain is absolute mush, but saying
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing of we got a big problem.
Speaker 1: We got a big problem with young people. TikTok is
Speaker 1: at the center of it. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: what he had to say.
Speaker 14: I also want to point out that we have a
Speaker 14: major manor major animational problem all appalling. I think an
Speaker 14: L palling by falling independent palling a cap and not
Speaker 14: a left right gap. Folks, the Asian, the United States,
Speaker 14: and support for Israel is not left and right, it
Speaker 14: is young and old. And the numbers of young people
Speaker 14: hooking that Hamas's you know, massacre was justified is shockingly
Speaker 14: and terrifyingly high. And so we really have a TikTok problem,
Speaker 14: the gen Z problem that our community needs to put
Speaker 14: the same brains that gave us Tag Lead, the same
Speaker 14: brains that gave us all these other amazing innovations, need
Speaker 14: to put our energy towards this like fast as again,
Speaker 14: like we've been chasing this left right divide. It's the
Speaker 14: wrong game.
Speaker 1: So we really have a TikTok problem. We really have
Speaker 1: a gen Z problem. You do have a gen Z problem,
Speaker 1: but it's not so much about TikTok. It's just people
Speaker 1: being able to see what's happening for themselves.
Speaker 3: That's why I get annoyed to because I'm like, guys,
Speaker 3: it's not a TikTok problem. And go on Twitter. You
Speaker 3: can see these xact same things, like what are you
Speaker 3: talking about? Like get you don't even need Twitter.
Speaker 2: You can go on Google, go on WhatsApp, like you
Speaker 2: have people Telegram, any of these other channels.
Speaker 3: It's like, you have an Internet problem. You don't have
Speaker 3: a take.
Speaker 4: You have a reality problem. That's the truth.
Speaker 3: So there it is.
Speaker 2: By the way, if anybody's wondering, I doubt that this
Speaker 2: thing is going to go anywhere, as I understand, the
Speaker 2: Senate very unlikely to take it up, just because there's
Speaker 2: multiple TikTok pieces of legislation inside of that. Even though
Speaker 2: Biden said he would sign it as politically, it'd be
Speaker 2: a problem for him, and they have their own what's
Speaker 2: it called, they have their own Scifius review that's actually
Speaker 2: going on right now. Sifius is like the it's like
Speaker 2: the organization inside of the Treasury Department which sets the
Speaker 2: kind of export import rules that I'm talking about here.
Speaker 2: That would be an easy thing to fall back on,
Speaker 2: and then they would likely just come to some sort
Speaker 2: of data agreement that you and I were talking about yastly.
Speaker 3: So my prediction is that's probably where we end up.
Speaker 2: I don't see any scenario politically where it's going to
Speaker 2: be banned where even that the forced sale. The problem
Speaker 2: in the past with the forced sale was specifically individuals
Speaker 2: like Jeff Yass sued against securities guidelines because they're like, well,
Speaker 2: you're robbing me as my rights as a US investor
Speaker 2: in BYTDW. So there's a lot of legal hurdles before
Speaker 2: we get to any of that point for any TikTokers
Speaker 2: who are out there. At the same time, we had
Speaker 2: to do a fun story and we had to put
Speaker 2: it here to the show. People here may know my
Speaker 2: obsession with the UK Royals. Well, there has been a
Speaker 2: major discussion in the UK and I guess actually here
Speaker 2: in the US two as to where Kate Middleton is.
Speaker 2: And this all comes after Kate Middleton, it appears, had
Speaker 2: gone undergone surgery.
Speaker 3: Nobody knows what's for. She hadn't been seen in public.
Speaker 2: There were some leaked paparazzi images that showed her in
Speaker 2: a car where there was some speculations whether they were even.
Speaker 3: Real or not.
Speaker 2: And so Kensington Palace released actually a photo of Kate
Speaker 2: Middleton with her three children. But a very interesting saga
Speaker 2: has since unfolded because the photo was meant to quell
Speaker 2: speculation as to her well being and exactly what was.
Speaker 3: Going on with her.
Speaker 2: But the photo now has been revealed to have been
Speaker 2: pretty heavily photo edited. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. Just yesterday, the Royal correspondence out of the UK.
Speaker 2: We're noting that at least three international picture agencies, including
Speaker 2: the AP, the AFP and Reuters, have refused to distribute
Speaker 2: the photo that was released by Kate Middleton and her children,
Speaker 2: saying that the quote the source has been manipulating the image.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next part because it actually shows
Speaker 2: the specific problems. There were some major photoshop errors in
Speaker 2: the mirror behind one of her son's head in terms
Speaker 2: of the blending between this red sweater, there pattern matching
Speaker 2: that happened there on the left, and then also weird
Speaker 2: things going on with the finger that was crossed in
Speaker 2: the photo. Now, this is not the most important news, Crystal,
Speaker 2: but for some reason this has reached escape Velocity online as.
Speaker 3: To what is going on with this lady? Is she okay?
Speaker 2: There have been all kinds of jokes and all of this,
Speaker 2: so this really could not be a worst possible situation.
Speaker 2: We have an update actually from Kate Middleton if we
Speaker 2: can put it up there please on the screen, in
Speaker 2: which she says, like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally
Speaker 2: experiment with editing. I want to share my apologies for
Speaker 2: any confusion the family photograph. We shared yesterday cause I
Speaker 2: hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother's Day.
Speaker 3: For those wondering they have a different Mother's Day in
Speaker 3: the UK, no idea. Why so, that's what it is, Crystal.
Speaker 2: They release an image, people very quickly online are like,
Speaker 2: this is horribly edited, and then every major photo wire
Speaker 2: from Getty, APAFP, Reuters immediately puts a kill button on
Speaker 2: the image and just vastly explodes a lot of the
Speaker 2: constituency as to what's going on with Kate.
Speaker 1: So she had this surgery surgery a month ago, yes,
Speaker 1: and she has not been seen in public.
Speaker 2: Well, allegedly in a paparazzi photo, although the Royal influencer
Speaker 2: some say that it's a fake photo.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, And so I mean to me, if you're
Speaker 1: going to put out the statement like, oh ga, sorry guys,
Speaker 1: it sort of screwed up the editing on this photo.
Speaker 1: Why don't you release like the real photo without the editing,
Speaker 1: and then we could all be like, oh, she's fine.
Speaker 3: This is your problem that I keeps.
Speaker 2: So for example, King Charles announced that he has cancer,
Speaker 2: but he won't tell anybody what kind of cancer he has.
Speaker 3: And now here.
Speaker 2: It's like, guys, you're the world fan. First of all,
Speaker 2: you're an outdated institution. You're lucky that you still survive. Also,
Speaker 2: all of your income comes from the public in terms
Speaker 2: of like appropriated from Parliament. It's complicated in terms of
Speaker 2: like the ownership and how exactly they derive their income
Speaker 2: and all that. But ostensibly, the only reason they're still
Speaker 2: around is that they're the heads of state and they're
Speaker 2: the figureheads and they're controlled by the state. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: why exactly, then, are do you claim the same right
Speaker 2: to privacy as any as any like average Joe who's
Speaker 2: on the street. You guys are basically living a billionaire lifestyle,
Speaker 2: genuine kings and queens, not even metaphorical gangs, and we
Speaker 2: don't know anything about your health or about anything that's
Speaker 2: going on there.
Speaker 1: Right Well, and you're the royal expert on me. But
Speaker 1: my understanding is Kay was really looking for this life.
Speaker 3: Wow, this is very cool.
Speaker 6: She was.
Speaker 4: Okay, so I'm touching on something that's touchy.
Speaker 3: Depends what you ask. If you were to watch, the lady.
Speaker 4: Was getting into that.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. She knew was the game. Okay, so
Speaker 3: let's let's just put it this way.
Speaker 2: From the very early days of their relationship, she knew
Speaker 2: exactly what she was getting into from the tabloids, et cetera.
Speaker 3: They've had their own wars.
Speaker 2: Kate Milton has her sister too in terms of the tabloids,
Speaker 2: et cetera. The real I think, just like shock factor
Speaker 2: here is like you said, she still didn't release the
Speaker 2: unedited photo, right, and she didn't get for any other
Speaker 2: thing but as to her condition. And there was also
Speaker 2: some sketchy stuff where Prince William actually canceled an engagement
Speaker 2: last minute and he was like, gave no explanation, and
Speaker 2: people were like, well, what's going on here, Like what
Speaker 2: is happening? So yeah, So you've got the King who's
Speaker 2: undergoing cancer treatment and we don't know his prognosis, We
Speaker 2: don't know whether he's sick or not, what kind of cancer,
Speaker 2: what treatment he's undergoing. Now we've got the princess who
Speaker 2: had this crazy something like mysterious surgery and she hasn't
Speaker 2: been seen in public. They have no events on the
Speaker 2: calendar in the future. It just for me, it comes
Speaker 2: back to and actually, what's funny too is a lot
Speaker 2: of this discourse is us base because the Brits abide
Speaker 2: by all of these censorious laws. So, for example, that
Speaker 2: paparazzi photo I'm talking about was leaked to TMZ, it
Speaker 2: was not published in the British press because they want
Speaker 2: to respect the privacy of the royals, to which I say, guys, are.
Speaker 3: You a real country or not?
Speaker 2: Like listening to the King or queen, they're afraid of
Speaker 2: recreating a Princess Diana thing because they still feel guilty
Speaker 2: for they think they're.
Speaker 1: Rozzi chasing her and then she's her dying in that
Speaker 1: horrible car crash. I mean, listen, in general, I don't
Speaker 1: really care about these people or what they're up to,
Speaker 1: but you can't help but resist, like the good mystery
Speaker 1: and potential conspiracy, conspiracy of whatever the ell is going
Speaker 1: on here. And so obviously she doesn't didn't answer any
Speaker 1: of the many questions that people have. And I'm also
Speaker 1: just perplexed by the incredible badness of the photoshop or AI, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're the royal family and you're gonna put out
Speaker 1: a fake photo, at least get some experts.
Speaker 4: Really, we got the tech.
Speaker 1: Now, you could have done this and no one would
Speaker 1: have even noticed, right, But it was so sloppy in hanmhand.
Speaker 3: You're the princess of Wales, you have the future queen
Speaker 3: of England. You ain't got any boats.
Speaker 4: In photo chef. Can we have her?
Speaker 2: All three people on staff here who could do a
Speaker 2: better job. Absolutely, absolutely, the youngest of our chaff, he
Speaker 2: could put that thing out. You have no problems, all right,
Speaker 2: No twisted fingers, no pattern. How is this even possible?
Speaker 2: It is too crazy to believe that. I actually do
Speaker 2: believe her story now at this point.
Speaker 4: Really do you think she just did it?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's so terrible, it's really bad.
Speaker 2: The thing with the sweater and all that. But man,
Speaker 2: she has no idea what she lit on fire. Like
Speaker 2: I said, there are speaking of TikTok, which we previously
Speaker 2: talked about. There there are ladies out there whose entire
Speaker 2: careers on TikTok with millions of followers. It's just tracking
Speaker 2: every single one of these things. So congratulations to them
Speaker 2: because they all just got a lot more.
Speaker 1: Content, amazing content, and for us too, apparently. All right,
Speaker 1: let's move on to much more serious matters with to
Speaker 1: US policy visa Israel and Gaza. We have new details
Speaker 1: about this stupid fricking temporary port situation the President announced
Speaker 1: last week in his State of the Union. Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. So these are
Speaker 1: the new details from the Department of Defense, and we
Speaker 1: just read to you what we have learned. So this
Speaker 1: is going to the construction of this temporary peer is
Speaker 1: going to require over one thousand US military personnel. It
Speaker 1: will take about sixty days to plan and execute, so
Speaker 1: we're talking about about two months before this is even
Speaker 1: up and running. US Army seventh Transportation Brigade Expeditionary from
Speaker 1: Virginia is tasked with this mission. Maintains the ability to
Speaker 1: provide unique capabilities from offshore without US military presence within Gaza.
Speaker 1: The US Navy will not play a role because it
Speaker 1: doesn't require combat capability. Working with military Sealift Command and
Speaker 1: logistics support vessels involved. Multiple ships from across the world
Speaker 1: will come together j last Joint Logistics over the Shore
Speaker 1: operation confirmed employed last year in Australia, will be loaded
Speaker 1: from Cyprus, taken to the floating peer, barged to a
Speaker 1: causeway brought ashore by quote unquote partners don't know who
Speaker 1: that is into Gaza. Working with like minded countries and
Speaker 1: partners who will provide security and assistance on the ground. Again,
Speaker 1: still very amorphous and undefined, sending out prepared to deploy
Speaker 1: orders and process provide up to two million meals per
Speaker 1: day under Sentcom command.
Speaker 4: I mean, listen, there's so much to say about this.
Speaker 4: Let's go and put the visual up on the screen too,
Speaker 4: so you guys can see.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like, it's difficult to talk about this
Speaker 1: in a way without first establishing that this is just
Speaker 1: a pr move to try to make the Biden and
Speaker 1: give the Biden administration some sort of message they can
Speaker 1: take to the base to try to claim that they
Speaker 1: actually care about the starvation suffering of the Palace in
Speaker 1: any population.
Speaker 4: So that's number one to keep in mind with all
Speaker 4: of this.
Speaker 1: Number Two, even if you take this seriously as an idea,
Speaker 1: it's got a whole lot of problems. The whole issue
Speaker 1: right now isn't that there aren't roads into Gaza and
Speaker 1: plenty of aid available to go into Gaza. The issue
Speaker 1: is Israel blocking that aid.
Speaker 4: Going through.
Speaker 1: Establishing a temporary peer doesn't change any of those dynamics.
Speaker 1: The only two things that change those dynamics are number one,
Speaker 1: pressureing and forcing Israel to allow that aid in and
Speaker 1: number two a permanent and lasting ceasefire. Obviously, a temporary
Speaker 1: peer does not accomplish either of those things.
Speaker 2: Soger, Yeah, I mean, this entire idea is totally ridiculous.
Speaker 2: What it also the DoD just casually confirming. By the way,
Speaker 2: when they say up to one thousand troops, that means
Speaker 2: five thousand, just so everybody who speaks up, and.
Speaker 1: I assume when they say sixty days, that probably means that.
Speaker 2: Means three hundred days, whatever they like. I love how
Speaker 2: over one thousand, what does that mean? That could mean
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand. It doesn't mean anything great.
Speaker 4: It's not gonna be less than a thousand.
Speaker 2: Ivan covered the Pentagon, and watching the way that they
Speaker 2: do the counting tricks in Syria, it will all be
Speaker 2: fake if it's over one hundred and seventy nine days
Speaker 2: and they have to acknowledge it, which means every one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy nine day, they'll rotate everybody in and out.
Speaker 2: All of the details here demonstrate and confirm all of
Speaker 2: our worst suspicions, which are Israelis inspecting US military cargo,
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of American soldiers who are involved in
Speaker 2: this mission, probably tens of billions of dollars that this
Speaker 2: will require putting American soldiers in harm's way.
Speaker 3: I mean, what are we all going to just.
Speaker 2: Trust the accuracy of the Israelis whenever it comes to
Speaker 2: our guys who are there. I mean, I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't put them in a combat zone. And yet
Speaker 2: that is the preferred solution of this entire thing. Plus
Speaker 2: talking about like a D day level, you know, mission,
Speaker 2: when we have perfectly ten good entry ways that are
Speaker 2: right there, it'd be a lot cheaper. It's the eight
Speaker 2: is waiting. We can just send it in there. And
Speaker 2: yet that's not the option that we're pursuing.
Speaker 1: And people are starving. Children are starving two days right now.
Speaker 1: They are starving. And by the way, those warnings have
Speaker 1: been coming for months now. It's been clear since the
Speaker 1: beginning of Israel's assault on Gaza that we would had
Speaker 1: in this direction when they announced a complete siege. So
Speaker 1: all of this was predictable, and this is clearly no solution.
Speaker 1: The press corps picking up on some of exactly the
Speaker 1: questions that you are raising, Sager and pressing the Pentagon
Speaker 1: on a number of key issues, one of them being
Speaker 1: I mean, we just watched the Flower massacre where hungry
Speaker 1: Gazans were trying to get food off of an AID truck.
Speaker 1: These raally military fires on them, and over one hundred
Speaker 1: are massacred in this horrific incident. That's not the only
Speaker 1: time either, far from it, that hungry Palestinians have been
Speaker 1: fired on by the is Israeli military while they are
Speaker 1: trying to seek aid. So one of the questions I
Speaker 1: was asked of the Pentagon was, hey, are you going
Speaker 1: to make sure that Israel isn't firing on people who
Speaker 1: are trying to obtain starving Palestinians who are trying to
Speaker 1: obtain this aid.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that response.
Speaker 12: We received assurances from the Israelis that they will fire
Speaker 12: upon Palestinians as they seek to retrieve the aid.
Speaker 16: Look, well, you know, our focus is on delivering the aid.
Speaker 16: I'm not going to speak for the Israelis, obviously the
Speaker 16: focus make.
Speaker 1: Sure, thank you, So, No, we have no assurances that
Speaker 1: the Israeli military isn't going to fire on the starving
Speaker 1: civilians who are trying to obtain this temporary port delivered aid.
Speaker 1: There's another question, though, which is, Hey, are our soldier
Speaker 1: is going to be safe the one thousand plus who
Speaker 1: are involved in constructing this or are you afraid that
Speaker 1: Hamas could fire on this temporary peer.
Speaker 4: No assurance is there either. Let's take a listen to.
Speaker 3: That duty anticipate that Hamas will try to fire on
Speaker 3: them on the operation.
Speaker 16: You know, look, I mean that's certainly a risk. Again,
Speaker 16: but if the the if Hamas truly does care about
Speaker 16: the Palestinian peep, then again one would hope that this
Speaker 16: international mission to deliver aid to people who need it
Speaker 16: would be able to happen unhindered.
Speaker 4: That's certainly to prayer a risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, the reason they're doing this
Speaker 1: peer is so that they don't technically have quote unquote
Speaker 1: boots on the ground. But this is an extraordinary admission that,
Speaker 1: of course our service members are being put once again
Speaker 1: in harm's way. Why because we don't want to pressure
Speaker 1: the Israelis to allow in the trucks that are already
Speaker 1: masked at the border, and we don't want to pressure
Speaker 1: the Israelis to have an actual cease fire so that
Speaker 1: Palestinians are able to live. I mean that is the
Speaker 1: height of your responsibility and insanity. And this is just
Speaker 1: an utter boondoggle.
Speaker 2: The whole thing is completely nuts. We even saw more
Speaker 2: recent evidence of this. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. Tragic news, but actually exactly why dropping aid
Speaker 2: from the air is pretty inefficient, not all that reliable.
Speaker 2: At least five people were actual killed after airdrop AID
Speaker 2: fell on them in Gaza because their parachutes didn't deploy.
Speaker 2: I mean this, it's inaccurate. It's not enough food in
Speaker 2: the first place. There's plenty of food waiting on the
Speaker 2: other side of the border. That doesn't take sixty to
Speaker 2: ninety days to build, that doesn't take thousands of American
Speaker 2: service members being put in harm's way.
Speaker 3: And just take a look here of the video of
Speaker 3: what this looks like.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's you know, the American plane that's there,
Speaker 2: the AID I believe, with the cooperation of the Royal
Speaker 2: Jordanian Air Force, that's falling down everywhere around them in Gaza.
Speaker 2: You can actually see it is dropping, you know, quite quickly.
Speaker 2: But it just just highlights the ridiculousness of the whole situation.
Speaker 2: There's all this AID that's waiting on the other side
Speaker 2: of the border. All you have to do is just say, hey,
Speaker 2: let it in, or we're not going to allow you
Speaker 2: to continue to prosecute.
Speaker 3: This war this way.
Speaker 2: Just let's have a ceaspar let's allow some of this
Speaker 2: that's come in, and instead we're going to build a
Speaker 2: port on the other side Hamas may or may not
Speaker 2: fire on it. Also, who wants to bet this is
Speaker 2: the greatest Israeli plan ever. All that it's gonna take
Speaker 2: is one idiot in Gaza to fire a rocket and
Speaker 2: now we're in the damn war.
Speaker 3: And that's what they want. That's what they've been begging
Speaker 3: for from day one.
Speaker 2: They want us to take security control, to pay all
Speaker 2: their bills like we always do. And you know, you
Speaker 2: don't hear any you hear silence from Congress. How can
Speaker 2: they allow something like this to happen? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of their overview, do they should defund this product?
Speaker 2: They should with whole funding or something to keep our
Speaker 2: people safe and not have to go into this situation.
Speaker 3: The whole thing is crazy.
Speaker 1: It's just it's completely insane. I mean, I really am
Speaker 1: genuinely losing my mind over the insanity of it, because
Speaker 1: it's long it's expensive, and it doesn't solve any of
Speaker 1: the existing problems when there is a very obvious, glaring
Speaker 1: solution staring right in the face, which is to allow
Speaker 1: in the AID that is right there and to have
Speaker 1: a ceasefires. Part of the picture of the starvation of
Speaker 1: Palestinians in Gaza which has reached horrific levels, and I'm
Speaker 1: talking a little bit more about this in my monologue
Speaker 1: as well, but part of that picture which we have
Speaker 1: been covering is these protests which have been allowed to
Speaker 1: persist by the IDEF and the Israeli government. Israeli police
Speaker 1: force have allowed these protesters to block AID coming into
Speaker 1: the Gaza strip. CNN's Clarissa Award, to her credit, went
Speaker 1: and talked to these protesters and argued with them a
Speaker 1: bit about what they're doing.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to how that went.
Speaker 9: Under international law, it's Israel's obligation to make sure that
Speaker 9: the ordinary citizens of Gaza don't starve to death, and
Speaker 9: right now they are starving to Deathmas.
Speaker 17: Is making it very difficult because Ramas is not allowing
Speaker 17: this to they're.
Speaker 15: Not holding it, they're not receiving it, but they're doing it.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you here and now.
Speaker 17: If we knew it's getting to children of Gaza, we
Speaker 17: will do it. This does not arrive there's those steps.
Speaker 11: This arrives into the chunnels of Ramasta that affighting us
Speaker 11: on holding our hostages.
Speaker 18: No, there was no evidence to support the idea that
Speaker 18: all of this aid is going to Hamas, not.
Speaker 19: To the rest of the population. This is intelligence only
Speaker 19: for terror.
Speaker 17: That's why they're.
Speaker 19: Getting They should get only the minimum colories required to survive.
Speaker 9: They're starving to death.
Speaker 10: They are not.
Speaker 3: They are starving to death.
Speaker 17: You know what, if they are starting to death, give
Speaker 17: us back, give the hostages back. No, a single a
Speaker 17: loaf of bread should go there till our hostages are
Speaker 17: coming back.
Speaker 18: To many people in the world listening to what you're
Speaker 18: saying and what you're protesting for, it sounds like a
Speaker 18: a contravention of international law and b incredibly callous.
Speaker 19: You know, even if there is a humanitarian crisis, and
Speaker 19: there is no Even if there is, it's my right
Speaker 19: and my deality to prioritize the life of fewbieve us
Speaker 19: one year old babies are desert over a dozen.
Speaker 4: Babies just wild.
Speaker 1: The justifications here. I mean, first, the denial of reality. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: they're not starving. They literally are. I mean, we've had
Speaker 1: now dozens of especially infants starving to death and this
Speaker 1: is happening now on a daily basis. Infants particularly at
Speaker 1: risk because mothers are so weak they're unable to breastfeed,
Speaker 1: formula and milk is not widely available, difficult to come
Speaker 1: by when you do come by it, there is effectively
Speaker 1: no clean water available. So these babies are being dispatched
Speaker 1: from the hospital, they're immediately getting sick, having diarrhea, and
Speaker 1: just literally wasting away.
Speaker 4: So that's where we are. So that's the first thing.
Speaker 1: Well, they're not really starving. There isn't really a humanitarian crisis. Also,
Speaker 1: Hamas is just stealing the aid. There's not evidence of
Speaker 1: that either. I mean there may be some one off instances,
Speaker 1: but we have not seen widespread indications that Hamas is
Speaker 1: stealing the aid anyway. Basically, the bottom line is, even
Speaker 1: if there is a humanitarian crisis, I don't really care
Speaker 1: because it's my duty to prioritize me and my line first.
Speaker 4: And again, Sager, let's be honest. This is the view.
Speaker 1: Not only are the Israeli government, which we've seen implement
Speaker 1: in terms of policy, their official government policies to basically
Speaker 1: collective punishment, hold the entire population of Gaza hostage for
Speaker 1: their own ends, and additionally enjoys a lot of support
Speaker 1: from the Israeli domestic population, which is why these protests
Speaker 1: have been allowed to go on.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it comes at a certain point.
Speaker 2: It's like, they're crazy people in any country, and it's
Speaker 2: about how the government deals with said crazy people. And
Speaker 2: it's like, well, whenever you're going to spray people in
Speaker 2: Tel Aviv w members of hostage families because they're protesting,
Speaker 2: and you're going to break them up with police force,
Speaker 2: but these people get to stay there with impunity, then
Speaker 2: this is a government sanctioned protest. That's why it's worth highlighting.
Speaker 2: It's not like, yeah, I'm not denying that this element
Speaker 2: and all that wouldn't exist in Israeli society at a
Speaker 2: private level, but it's more about the allowing it to
Speaker 2: continue and not I mean not even allowing in many
Speaker 2: case being cheered on by members of the cat It.
Speaker 2: Then this is a government policy. This is something that
Speaker 2: you're sanctioning and you support. That's what connects back to
Speaker 2: the debates or in the US and to specifically why
Speaker 2: it is so crazy that we're building this peer in.
Speaker 3: This military operation when these people.
Speaker 2: Are the only ones standing in their way, and these
Speaker 2: reelities have proven to us that they have no issues,
Speaker 2: you know, using force against their own citizens whenever it
Speaker 2: comes to civil protests and all that that they don't like.
Speaker 2: So then do the same thing here, but they won't
Speaker 2: do it. And that's why the whole situation is nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, to bring it back to US policy,
Speaker 1: as Biden is now pretending, because you realize he has
Speaker 1: a political problem that he cares about the suffering the
Speaker 1: plight of Palestinian civilians.
Speaker 4: We just learned put this up on the screen that.
Speaker 1: There have been more than a hundred arm sales to
Speaker 1: Israel post October seventh, and this Guardian article details how
Speaker 1: they use these legal loopholes to avoid public scrutiny and
Speaker 1: to avoid congressional oversight.
Speaker 4: Let me just read you a little bit.
Speaker 1: They say the US is reported to have made more
Speaker 1: than one hundred weapons sales to Israel, including thousands of bombs,
Speaker 1: since the start of the war in Gaza, but the
Speaker 1: deliveries escape congressional oversight because each transaction was under the
Speaker 1: dollar amount requiring approval. The Arms Export Control Act makes
Speaker 1: significant exceptions for arms sales to close allies, a limit
Speaker 1: of twenty five million for major defense equipment, and the
Speaker 1: limit rises to one hundred million for quote other defense
Speaker 1: articles like bombs. They have a number of quotes here
Speaker 1: from people who are concerned about this policy. One person
Speaker 1: who's the director of the Security Assistance Monitor at the
Speaker 1: Center for International Policy think tank said, this doesn't just
Speaker 1: seem like an attempt to avoid technical compliance with US
Speaker 1: arms export law. It's extremely troubling way to avoid transparency
Speaker 1: and accountability on.
Speaker 4: A high profile issue.
Speaker 1: So how are you going to claim and even MSMBZ
Speaker 1: is calling this out at this point, how are you
Speaker 1: going to claim that you care about Palestinian civilians when
Speaker 1: you are skirting congressional authority to ship as many weapons
Speaker 1: as possible, as quickly as possible, to destroy all of
Speaker 1: Palestinian civilian institutions, to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians,
Speaker 1: something even the Biden administration admits at this point, which
Speaker 1: really raises a question for me of what the actual
Speaker 1: death toll really must be. How can you claim that
Speaker 1: this little pittily bit of aid is anything but a
Speaker 1: pr stunt when this is the actual reality of your policy.
Speaker 3: I think that's right, Crystal. What are you taking a
Speaker 3: look at?
Speaker 1: Well, take a look at this image. Bombs and aid
Speaker 1: simultaneously dropped on Palestinians from the skies above the gaza
Speaker 1: strip the perfect encapsulation of an outrageously insane and in
Speaker 1: moral US policy. On the one hand, we ship two
Speaker 1: thousand pounds bunker buster bombs to help our ally with
Speaker 1: their genocide. On the other, we drop a pathetic amount
Speaker 1: of food so that our murderous president can pretend he
Speaker 1: cares about these lives.
Speaker 4: And there's an election coming up after all.
Speaker 1: An artist captured this dynamic well too, portraying an onslaught
Speaker 1: of bombs raining down on a destroyed gaza. Interspersed among
Speaker 1: those bombs couple loaves of bread. Unfortunately, even this aid
Speaker 1: has proved deadly for Palestinians. Five people, including this beautiful child,
Speaker 1: were killed by one of these AID drops when the
Speaker 1: parachute malfunctioned, bringing to awful reality the warnings of experts
Speaker 1: that these drops are dangerous and are no substitute for
Speaker 1: a lasting ceasefire and forcing Israel to allow in the
Speaker 1: hundreds of AIDS trucks that are amassed at the Gaza border.
Speaker 1: But as not only are bombs and bullets that have
Speaker 1: helped to push this population absolute desperation. We have backed
Speaker 1: Israel at every turn when they throw on a new
Speaker 1: set of lives in propaganda, whether it's headed babies or
Speaker 1: a Hamas command center underneath of a hospital, or the
Speaker 1: evidence free allegation that un AID workers are actually Hamas terrorists.
Speaker 1: You remember that, right on the very day that the
Speaker 1: Internet Court of Justice ruled Israel was plausibly committing genocide,
Speaker 1: we parroted here in the United States Israel's evidence free
Speaker 1: claims that some dozen UNRAUT employees were involved in October seven,
Speaker 1: and then we use that as a pretext to strip
Speaker 1: funding from that critical organization, which just so happens to
Speaker 1: be the top AID organization on the ground in Gaza.
Speaker 1: So our response the ICJ ruling was to heighten the
Speaker 1: genocidal conditions, exacerbate the starvation by cutting aid. Of course,
Speaker 1: even if true, these claims about a dozen employees would
Speaker 1: not justify an attack on the entire organization, But it
Speaker 1: almost immediately emerged that no evidence was actually offered by
Speaker 1: the Israeli government to back up these extraordinary claims. The
Speaker 1: UN says they still have not been given any evidence,
Speaker 1: and now we are learning something even more shocking. According
Speaker 1: to the UN, the IDF tortured UNRA aid workers in
Speaker 1: order to extract false confessions of Hamas affiliation. Really sit
Speaker 1: with this because I can scarcely believe the depths of
Speaker 1: depravity that this revelation reflects. The Israelis tortured UN staffers,
Speaker 1: humanitarian aid workers. They then use these fake confessions to
Speaker 1: push the world to defund UNRA, also that they could
Speaker 1: more effectively starve the civilian population, and we here in
Speaker 1: the United States, our president went right along with it.
Speaker 4: Here is a bit of that report.
Speaker 1: The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees said some employees released
Speaker 1: into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by
Speaker 1: Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas
Speaker 1: links and that staff took part in the October seventh attacks.
Speaker 1: The assertions are contained in report by the UN Relief
Speaker 1: and Works Agency UNRA, reviewed by Reuters and dated February
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, which detailed allegations of mistreatment in Israeli
Speaker 1: detention made by unidentified Palestinians, including several working for UNRA.
Speaker 1: The document said several Unrepealastine Means staffers had been detained
Speaker 1: by the Israeli army, and added that the ill treatment
Speaker 1: and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding,
Speaker 1: and threats of harm to family members. Severe physical beatings, waterboarding,
Speaker 1: and threats to family members. I guess we shouldn't be surprised,
Speaker 1: since Israel has already killed more un workers than anyone
Speaker 1: else in history, and Israel has so little shame about
Speaker 1: these war crimes that they proudly broadcast them to the
Speaker 1: entire world and especially to their own revenge drunk nation.
Speaker 1: Here's a report that was broadcast on Israeli TV showing
Speaker 1: how they humiliate his prisoners and demand that they admit
Speaker 1: that they are actually Hamas even when they swear that
Speaker 1: they are not that as of now, unreleased un report
Speaker 1: that we were just discussing that says a lot more, too,
Speaker 1: about the routine torture meted out against anyone fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to be detained, not just those un AID workers. Former
Speaker 1: prisoners testified that they were beaten they were deprived of sleep,
Speaker 1: they are held without adequate food and water, not allowed
Speaker 1: access to bathrooms, and some were sexually abused. The injuries
Speaker 1: sustained during their captivity were severe enough in the medical
Speaker 1: neglect so profound that every prisoner release necessitated ambulances to
Speaker 1: transport former captives for emergency medical care. And those are
Speaker 1: the lucky ones. Accorney to Israeli outlet Haretes, at least
Speaker 1: twenty seven Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October seventh.
Speaker 1: The Israeli government refuses to divulge to the details surrounding
Speaker 1: those deaths. Now, the wake of these revelations about forced
Speaker 1: under confessions, and as reports pour out of the strip
Speaker 1: of babies starving to death, children with bodies wasted for malnutrition,
Speaker 1: countries with slightly more shame than the US have actually
Speaker 1: reversed course. Of the dozen countries which had suspended funding
Speaker 1: to UNRA under US and Israeli pressure, Sweden, Canada and
Speaker 1: the EU have now all restored their aid dollars to
Speaker 1: this aid group, whose mission has literally never been more
Speaker 1: critical or more impossible to fulfill.
Speaker 4: But not the US.
Speaker 1: We are standing strong with our big bombs and tiny
Speaker 1: bread strategy, shipping the weapons of death, defunding the most
Speaker 1: critical aid agency, and acting fox shocked at the predictable
Speaker 1: results that we ourselves engineered. And what are those results? Well,
Speaker 1: let me show you another image which perfectly encapsulates us policy.
Speaker 1: This precious angel, only ten years old, Yasan Kafarna, died
Speaker 1: from nolnutrition shortly after this video was taken. Yazon had
Speaker 1: cerebral palsy and was reliant on a diet of soft
Speaker 1: foods with high nutrition.
Speaker 4: He couldn't walk, but he loved to swim.
Speaker 1: His father, who you see in this video, lovingly tended
Speaker 1: to Yazan's care, therapy and feeding every day until the
Speaker 1: siege on Gazan Constant bombing made that life given care impossible.
Speaker 1: But Yazon is not alone. Fifteen percent of northern Gaza
Speaker 1: children are acutely malnourished, and the south in number is
Speaker 1: roughly five percent. Dozens of children, mostly babies, have died
Speaker 1: already of starvation. Infants are the most at risk. Their
Speaker 1: mothers are too weak to produce milk, formulas, rare, clean
Speaker 1: water non existent.
Speaker 4: But don't worry.
Speaker 1: Worry starving babies of Gaza are great president. After defunding
Speaker 1: the main aid agency based on torture force confessions and
Speaker 1: helping bomb the hell out of a trop population, He's
Speaker 1: building a temporary port in a few months to facilitate
Speaker 1: a slightly larger but still wildly inadequate amount of aid,
Speaker 1: an absurd boodoggle so that Biden and the Dems can
Speaker 1: pretend they aren't just.
Speaker 4: Cold hearted killers. But they are.
Speaker 1: They killed Yason just as surely as if they had
Speaker 1: put a gun to his head. It's applying the bombs
Speaker 1: that up ended his world, ignoring the desperate warnings that
Speaker 1: famine was imminent, defunding the most important AID organization, and
Speaker 1: running cover for Israel's lives at every chance they could.
Speaker 1: When the history is written of the Gaza genocide, many
Speaker 1: of the details are going to be forgotten. Well, we
Speaker 1: remember this stupid frickin port. Are we going to remember
Speaker 1: how Kamala called for a temporary ceasefire and the media
Speaker 1: pretended like was the actual policy shift, Or how Biden
Speaker 1: sort of told MSNBC that he had red lines before
Speaker 1: immediately proclaiy Aim that he will never leave Israel. Probably
Speaker 1: not out of those details will be lost, but the
Speaker 1: images of yazan body, impossibly wasted skin stretched over his
Speaker 1: tiny skeleton, an image that unavoidably recalls the tortuous horrors
Speaker 1: of the Holocaust. These images, and our complicity in causing them,
Speaker 1: we could never forget if we spent our whole lives
Speaker 1: trying and sager and.
Speaker 2: If you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
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Speaker 3: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Apologies, we had a lot to cover today, but we
Speaker 2: will get it out to you as.
Speaker 3: Soon as we can. We'll see you guys tomorrow.