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Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
What do we have Crystal, Indeed, we do lots of breaking news to cover This morning. South Africa presented their case at the ICJ at the Hegue, so we break that down for you. This comes as the hoofies have stepped up their attacks, leading to a very dangerous situation in the Middle East. We had a debate last night between Rond de Santis and Nikki Haley.
We also had a Trump town hall. We have all of the.
Highlight, oh highlight light out of those interactions.
What is it mean?
And of course Saga covered this yesterday. Chris Christy has now dropped out of the race that could actually have some significant impacts in New Hampshire, so we'll talk about that as well. There are some significant developments in numerous Trump legal cases, some cutting in his direction, some cutting against him. We will break those down for you. Hunter Biden made a big surprise visit to Capitol Hill and it led to some very interesting fireworks. We'll tell you
about that. Sager is taking a look at how Ron DeSantis invented affirmative action for Jewish people.
Yeah, oh wow. Interesting.
A lot to us there.
And I'm taking a look at some new reports revealing just stunning bias in media coverage of Israel and Palestine.
So a lot to get to you this morning.
Yeah, I'm really excited for all of that, especially at two monologues back in the show.
So that's very fun.
That's a reminder, by the way, a while you can sign up Breakingpoints dot com to become a premium member. We're currently soliciting premium member questions for our RFAJU and your focus group. It will be taking place tomorrow on the ground in Detroit. Our entire team will be there, so we've got a great number of people that we'll be voting for RFK Junior. We want to hear from them what do you guys want, like, what are you looking for? Why do you support RFK? How strong is
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So, whether you know it or not, CNN hosted a debate last night between Republican presidential contenders Nicki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Came right after Chris Christy had actually dropped out of the race, which is very interesting. He didn't make the debate stage anyway, so it's not like he would have been there, but has obviously changed the dynamics of the race. I took a look at some of the quote unquote highlights from the night. You know, the big story here is, of course Trump is not on
the stage. He is overwhelmingly leading the Republican presidential nomination contest, and so at the beginning of the debate, both Ron and Nicki made some nod towards the fact that Trump was not there and attempted to attack him, but most of the time they just spent going after each other in an aggressive manner. So let's take a listen to a little bit of their attacks on Trump and then how they were going at one another.
I wish Donald Trump was up here on this stage. He's the one that I'm running against. He's the one that I wish would be here. He needs to be defending his record right now. He's not defending the fact that he allowed us to have eight trillion dollars in debt over four years, that our kids are never going
to forgive us. For the fact that he didn't deal with China when it came to stealing intellectual property, the fact that they gave us COVID, the fact that they've gone and continue to put up Chinese police stations and continue to threaten our military. He didn't do enough to make sure that we were really standing with our.
Friends and doing that.
He said he was going to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. He did not deliver that. He said he was going to drain the swamp. He did not deliver that. He said he was going to hold Hillary accountable, and he let her off the hook. He said he was going to eliminate the debt, and he added seven point eight trillion dollars to the debt. So we need to deliver and get this stuff done. And I think the difference and we need to go.
Back to the basics and education, so we get back problem.
Though that word salad is the problem. She's always supported school choice and she failed to deliver. She blames other people. Leadership is about getting things done, stop making it.
If leadership is about getting things done, how did you blow through one hundred and fifty million dollars in your campaign and you were down in the polls.
So here here's.
Now.
I'm going to say, it's very instructive about what.
I think I have the political.
That's important.
Education what is more important? Here she's saying something go it's Governor Hale, is time go ahead.
I think I hit a nerve. So I mean that was basically the dynamic all night.
It was a lot of like they get into it with each other on these little like parts of their record that people aren't even particularly familiar with, and you're just asking yourself the whole time, like what are we have.
Him doing here?
You're going mercilessly at each other for the honor of being in second place, Like what is going on and will I mean, I will say, in terms of the blows that were landed, I think Nicky's attack on Ron of basically like you're a loser. You spent one hundred and fifty million dollars and you've done nothing but tank in the polls is probably the most effective attack at this point.
And the only reason is because it's not about you.
When twenty ten spent twelve dollars at a Chinese restaurant, it's like, it's there was.
A lengthy discussion of a like two thousand and nine bathroom bill.
I don't know, I'll stop.
Yeah, all right.
So what this is about is he's tainted and he seems like a loser. People don't want to be part of a losing campaign. That's it, period. A lot of this is about vibes. The problem, though, is that at the very same time Crystal that the debate was happening, Donald Trump was on Fox News giving The Trump Show, and guess what, sorry to say it, The Trump Show is way more compelling, it's more fun to watch because
he understands that at a very base level. And so we have some of the highlights there from Trump's town hall and frankly, just given his political position, these are going to matter way more in the actual eventual general election.
Here's what he had to say.
Can you say tonight that political violence is never acceptable? Well, of course that's right, and of course I'm the one that had very little of it. Take a look at Wars again, I didn't start. I wasn't involved in Wars. We beat the hell out of Isis. We won one hundred percent. We brought our troops back home. Look at the violence that we've had, look at the violence we have recently. But when you say bedlam, what do you mean I think said bedlam? I think you look at
Joe Biden's bedlam. You have a man who can't lead. You have a man who can't find his way off a stage after he makes a speech that lasts for about two minutes. Now, I think Bedlam is Joe Biden. I think that he's using this. This is just a political ploy. Trump is a dictator. He wants to be a dictator. You know, it's interesting. I did a show Sean Hannah. Did you ever hear of him? He's a very nice man, and he said, essentially, you're not going to be a dictator.
Are you tell me.
I think he was trying to give me a nicer question that maybe you guys, but he meant it very well. I said, I'm going to be a dictator for one day. We're going to do two things. The border, we're going to make it so tight you can't get in unless you come in legally. And the other is energy. We're going to drill, baby, drill.
Some of my friends that supported you in twenty twenty are not this time because they believe a Trump presidency will bring four years of chaos due to your haters. What is your response to them?
Well, I think, first of all, I'm glad you're asking the question, and I'm very glad that you started off by saying you're with me, because I want you on my side. I figured maybe Fox would have written that question if it was just the second part of the question. But just so you understand, we don't write any of the questions.
You all wrote the questions, just Claire.
We'll figure that one pretty soon.
Oh javit, Fox is there suggesting that they scripted the.
Come on, he asked it in the nicest way possible and say like, I'm with you. Yeah, He's like, look, sir, I'm with you.
Yeah, he is so thin skinned. He is unbelievable.
But listening, you have to give it to him. He's trying. It's funny any what he does.
Listen the content aside, because honestly, I think his content and Ron and Nicky's content to be horrifying, but we'll put that aside of him. I mean, he's an another league in terms of the showmanship. Absolutely in terms of the charism, it's just not even comparable. On the dictator question, it's interesting that he brought that up on his own.
I think he thinks it's very amusing.
I think he thinks it's amusing, and I think he's right that there's an appetite in the Republican base of like, screw the roles and we want the strong man who's just going to do what we want him to do, who's going to be that bulwark against the Libs who we see is this like existential threat and pulling bears that out that there are these you know, tendencies throughout the American public, but disproport on the Republican side that's like, you know, actually, we're willing to bend the rules of
democracy to have that strong man leader, do what we want him to do. I think Trump intuit's that and so far from it being this like negative, at least in terms of a Republican primary contest. Maybe it's different in a general election. I'm not really sure, but he intuits that. No, actually people want to hear that I'm going.
To be that guy.
I think he both. There's two things.
So A there definitely is a desire, but be what I as far as I understand, what he knows is how to drive the media crazy.
He knows how to get the.
Headlines that he wants that both work to his political benefit and absolutely drive insane Washington Post columnists.
This is the perfect, you know, way to do it.
And so bringing that up the problem and you know, this is what really gets to it is that Trump also does not seem to yet have a sense that stopped the steal was a massive problem for him.
Yeah, he did not intuit.
In that chaos question that while it is not true in a Republican primary, it is absolutely true for the overall general electorate. And this is not I have to be I totally underestimated this in twenty twenty two. I didn't think people would care. I was like, yeah, you know, it's a long time ago, we're talking about a new election. No, it's a huge problem for a lot of normal voters. And I think now that I've just come to understand it, it's just like people felt like, you know, tight in
the chest at the idea of political problems. They also don't they really hate Joe Biden, but a lot of people are willing to do lesser of two evils. I think he needs a lot better answer actually on that second question than he did. I don't think the dictator the thing is a problem. I think it really is.
It gets down to just give us some calm, and that's just not what he's calibrated to do.
So that was his big problem, on top of rovers his weight, which are about to get Yeah.
Yeah, Trump is a master like creating suspending reality and.
Creating his own reality totally.
You know, this is something that he has excelled at is a politician. He excelled at as a businessman as well. But I think to deny that there was political violence during the Trump term, that's a difficult one for people to swallow because obviously they.
Think immediately of January six, But.
Also I mean the violence associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Wow, that happened under his term as well.
I would go all the way back.
I mean, I remember what twenty seventeen, that was a whole Antifa thing, and then there was Proud.
Charlottesville also happened.
That was all one year.
Yeah, that was, if anything, I remember, more political violence really than modern memory. I wouldn't even necessarily say it's like his fault, but it did exist, right, And that's something you've got to you know, you have to acknowledge that, right.
I think a lot of it is his fault, just because of the incredibly polarizing force that he is. But even if you don't think that, like to just deny the reality of what we all experience for those four years is a lot.
It's a lot to swell.
And like I said, of course, instantly what people think about is like what about January six?
Dude?
So, as you mentioned, Sager, he got asked about Roe versus Wade. He had had to try to tow an interesting line on this because he knows that the abortion politics for Republicans at this point are a disaster. Like he knew that immediately when the Supreme court decision came down. On the other hand, it continues to be very animating issue for the base. So let's take a listen to part of how he responded to a question about abortion rights.
For fifty four years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I'm proud to have done it. They wanted to get it back right, You wouldn't be have that. There would be no question nobody else was going to get that done with me, and we did it.
And that was immediately meet it out by the Biden.
That is a Biden campaign ad. Just right there.
You will, I guarantee you will hear those words again packaged into a campaign ad.
This is the difficulty of this race is that Biden is tremendously unpopular and he's so old. I genuinely don't think he should not be qualified to run for president. And I still think that he's got a decent chance of winning. Now I don't think he has like a great chance of winning, but he's got The fact that they has a chance in the first place, to me is nuts. And the problem with that is abortion politics.
We saw over and over and over again that there is an entire animated new political base that is willing to come out and willing to vote on this. It's deeply personal, and it's one that is willing to override the rarest of things. To me, Crystal is a social issue which can a one hundred percent override economic issue. It's almost never happened in modern American history except for this time in twenty and twenty two. Now, there are a couple of reasons to be optimistic on the Trump side.
The economic situation continues to fester, The global position is bad. The Israel position for Joe Biden within the Democratic Party is a problem. We're getting farther and farther away to a post row Ish consensus. You know, the states that don't want it have generally carved out or done different things. So there's reason to believe also that you have these non frequent voters that don't aren't as animated by Roe, that would come out and would vote for him.
So I'm not coming him out. I genuinely think it's fifty to fifty right now, yeah, point, but I think it should be seventy five.
To twenty five. I don't even think it should be a concern. That's a problem.
I don't know.
I mean, they're both like, both Biden and Trump are so disliked by the American public, so many people just want to move on from both of these dudes that to say, like who should be winning in this Senate, I don't know. They both are so extraordinarily weak that it is pretty pathetic, you know, I want to make the case. So going back to the Republican primary, there has been some you know, there have been some interesting developments.
We covered Nikki Haley surging in the polls in New Hampshire, like genuinely multiple polls have her now within single digits of Donald Trump in New Hampshire, which I'm really surprised by. We also have her now in the Real Clear Politics average, in the national average, and in Iowa she has overtaken Ron DeSantis in the second place position, so she has
really claimed that second place Trump alternative spot. At the same point, you have to assume that even though Chris didn't endorse her and also got caught on a hot mic completely trashing her hilarious, that his exit from the race is going to benefit Nikki Haley in particular in New Hampshire. And I think it's very likely that many, if not most, of his voters go to her campaign, and since she was already only facing a single dig at least according the polls, single digit deficit wit Trump,
is it possible she wins New Hampshire? Then, you know, we've seen primaries in the past where somebody gets a surprise win and it completely flips the polls and shifts the dynamics overnight.
Do I think that's likely?
No?
Is it possible? It's possible.
There's a theoretic, theoretical case out there. So on the one hand, let me give the anti Nikki case. And this was laid out pretty compellingly in Politico magazine by Jonathan Allen. Let's put this up on the screen and basically what he argues here, he says why Haley won't break through. The today's up has split along class lines in her college educated support are not the majority. He just argues, like the wine track beer track case. Yep, the beer track folks who make a majority at this
point of the Republican base are with Trump. The wine track folks are increasingly with Niki. But even if they all consolidate and behind Nikki, it's still not enough. And that that's sort of like the fundamental issue that she's facing in this campaign is she is yet to demonstrate any ability to reach into Trump's working class base.
It just remains so patently obvious to me. I even in a one to one race. So Trump's internals, he released them yesterday. They weren't great for Trump, but it did show him beating one on one NICKI Haley. I think it was like fifty eight to four, or it was like fifty two to forty.
Something like that.
I have those, I'll show those.
Yeah, the point being that there was an internal Trump pull that show him still beating her. And the reason why is that the vast majority of people who will vote in a GOP primary are non college educated white people, and those people are dramatically pro Trump. Now there is a small portion which are college educated, the remnants of the Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush type voter by and large, though most of those people who are very political are Democrats now they voted for Joe Biden.
There are very much like the CIA Democrats here in Northern Virginia, and that is the probably the great political realignment of our time. So if you're just winning college educated you know, so called wine track voters.
It's just not going to work.
This was the reason why the only two candidates and the Democratic primary of twenty twenty who had any shot, we're Bernie Sanders and we're Joe Biden. Yeah, they're the only two who had any chance with working class voters. Warren, you know, Kamala Corey, all these other people, they're MSNBC nobodies. It's like you got to be able to have a
bartender or union worker, any these other people. Because while yes, a huge portion of the Democratic base is college educated, still the majority of people who vote Democrat in this country are not college educated. So but they're totally erased, you know, from media, from everything.
Yeah, so I agree with you on that. I do want to present the case for Niki right, the most hopeful, optimistic case of how she could find a path to winning the Republican primary outright.
So you referenced this was.
Really interesting and I think this was a real own goal from the Trump campaign. They released after Chris Christy dropped down, they released this internal poll that they had taken that showed what would head to head between Trump and Nikki Haley look like in the states of Iowa and New.
Hampshire, and they still had Trump winning.
But again, this is your own internal poll, so it's going to very likely be more favorable towards you than reality actually is. And they had him beating Nikki fifty six forty in Iowa and only fifty two forty four in New Hampshire.
Those are not overwhelming numbers.
That's a race, right for the overwhelming majority of the Republican primary process, save for right after the midterms, there has not been a race. These numbers here in single digits. You know, you're within ten fifteen points. That's actually a real race. Those are the sort of numbers where you can imagine if Nicki is surging right now in the right moment, which she appears to be, that she could theoretically close the gap.
The way that this could.
Happen is just to play the sound so Iowa caucuses. Ron has invested so much money in Iowa and it's not looking good. You know, his polls have continued to trail off. If he underperforms in Iowa gets third, Trump sort of get you know, wins but has a less more lackluster performance than expected, so he you know, does
not meet or exceed expectations. Ron drops out, and then you are effectively facing this Nicki Haley versus Donald Trump race in New Hampshire, and if the Vek is still hanging in there, he's probably taking more from Trump than he is from Nicki.
He's actually helping Nicki at that point.
If he hangs in there, and then if Nicky's able to pull off the upset victory, which polls shows she's got a shot of at this point, then you could create a permission structure for people who have felt like I need to stay with Trump, or I need to say I'm staying with Trump, even though I'm kind of sick of him. I kind of do feel like he's old, Like I'm this chaos. I'm not really down for it, but I have felt like I need to stay in line, and I felt like he's the guy, and there isn't
really room for an alternative. She creates a permission structure for this theoretical group of people that I don't know whether they exist or not, to then switch loyalties and for the polls to flip in a dramatic way in the way that they did for Joe Biden last time around. In the way that they did for Barack Obama back in two thousand and eight against Hillary Clinton. I think it's theoretically possible. Again, do I think it's the most likely outcome. No, I think the most likely outcome is
Trump romps. He wins basically every state, and this is over in a couple of weeks. But this is the first time where I can even really visualize a path for anyone else to actually win out.
Right now, I totally agree.
I would say that the odds of it are less than twenty percent. Honestly, that might even be generous. But let's give it to her just for the sake of it being fun. It just makes New Hampshire. They'll all make or break. It's like she has to win. Yes, primary Luckily we'll be having a great show during New Hampshire, so we will all digest it. We would do so here together. But I'm excited to see it. Oh, I forgot to mention this. Have to put this up on
the screen. Trump is now pulling out the greatest hits against Nicki Haley. He is now says in Nikki Haley, this.
Is from Gateway on It in one of the original birth places.
He says in Nicki Haley situation, reports indicate that her parents were not US citizens at the time of her birth in nineteen seventy two. Based on the Constitution as interpreted by one of their in house analysts, Chris disqualifies Haley from presidential or vice presidential candidacy under the Twelfth Amendment.
The birth certificate.
Nikki, Well, no, this is different because this is she was born here, but her parents weren't citizens whenever she was born. Unfortunately for Trump, that's pretty well trodden territory in terms of US citizenship law.
So anyway, though, you know, you got to throw whatever you can. I actually don't think it'll be impactful at all.
It's more so that it demonstrates he sees her relatively serious, right, and so.
He's got it. He needs a big win in Iowa.
I mean, I think big win in Iowa twenty sox or some points, blowout win that softens her up a little bit going in New Hampshire.
But let's say she gets them within ten. She could spin that and maybe she could win. Maybe that would be extraordinary.
Because so much of politics is number one about expectations. Yeah, and the expectation for Trump is that it's a blowout in Iowa. And if so, if he doesn't meet those expectations. And you also know, the media loves Nicky Haley. They love her, and the billionaire class on the Republican side they have lined up behind her like she is their chosen Canadate.
Fox News loves her.
Yes, so you know they will do everything they can to spin the Iowa results in her favor even if she doesn't win. I think it's very unlikely she wins the Iowa caucus. I mean, listen, anything can happen, especially it's supposed to be like minus freaking thirty in Iowa that day. And so maybe she's really super organized, maybe her people are really dedicated and die hard. Trump's aren't aren't. If anything, I would think it would cut in the
other direction. But who the heck knows. But if he fails to meet the very high expectations, the media is going to spend it in her favor. She goes into New Hampshire with the head of steam. Who knows what could happen?
We will certainly see. Okay, let's move on to Trump and his legal problems. This's probably more This probably is the more important conversation for the overall election. There's a couple of different instances that have happened. There was recently, there have been a lot of hearings with respect to Trump and in much of his challenges, specifically to the January sixth prosecution that has been mounted against him by
Jack Smith. That all centers around presidential immunity and the theory of how and when a president can be charged, even a former president, and be held liable legally for whether that person was currently occupying the executive office of the president. So one of the judges who is hearing this presidential immunity argument leveled a very interesting hypothetical. They got an even more interesting answer. Here's what they had to say.
Did a president order sealed Team six to assassinate a political rival an official act in order to seal Team sits.
He would have to be and would speedily be, you know, uh uh impeached and convicted before the criminals.
But if you weren't, there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that.
Chief Justices opinion in murder against Macison and h h and the ar concut tradition and the plain language of the apeachment judgment clause all clearly presupposed that what the founders were concerned about was not.
I asked you a yes, no, yes, or no question. Could a president who ordered seal team sits to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached would he be subject to criminal prosecution.
If he were impeached and convicted first?
And so your answer is.
Is my answer is qualified?
Yes?
Answer? Is it qualified? Yes? Interesting?
You know, I actually thought about it, and it doesn't seem as nuts as it sounds, because if we think back to the only similar analogous case Barack Obama. Uh, do you remember whenever you assassinated anwar al ALWICKI? Yeah, so this was twenty eleven. I mean, this is actually
a crazy legal president. Yeah, Barack Obama, the president of the United States Executive Office, held a due process style hearing inside the executive branch and assassinated an American citizen on foreign soil using the United States military.
Now, obviously it's substantively.
Different in that we're talking about a political rival here, but technically, because all citizens are the same under the Constitution, it's one of those where we somewhat kind of had a test to this and nothing happened to him.
Now, I do not believe that that was the right thing to do.
I don't think it was right that that was even allowed to happen, and that there was some sort of crazy. But the problem is is that because that did happen, what I have seen is that could be cited as an instance for which this has been held.
Right that I did.
Anyone try to bring charge is dismissed on the presidential immunity.
So his family brought charges or tried to bring them in a US Corps, they were dismissed. It wasn't necessarily on the grounds of immunity. I believe it was under counter I'd have to go back and read. It has been a while, but it was around counter terrorism grounds.
But I mean, if you do think about it substantively, that was an insane.
But like, of course it's an insane situation. But that couldn't be cited as precedent since there wasn't a ruling that this was barred because present unity.
Yeah, but your point is taken. That's interesting.
That's what I hadn't thought of. But I mean, what he's arguing for here is really wild.
I agree, because if you.
Think about just to lay on a separate scenario under his legal theory here, Joe Biden could have Trump assassinated resign Yes, before there are impeachment hearings, good to go, can't prosecute me presidential immunity, this was an official act.
I wasn't impeached. Sorry, you can't get me.
So, I mean, it really is like an insane thing to argue that there is literally as long as they're not impeached, they can do absolutely whatever they want. And I believe it was perhaps our friend Bradley Moss on Twitter who was pointing out like there also may be a lot of politicians who are pretty reluctant to impeach in the Senate when they know this person is so crazy that they will just have you assassinated, you know, willy nilly.
So it is, it is a wild thing dark.
This all traces back to the imperial presidency theory under Richard Nixon and then really popularized by Dick Cheney and the White House phill a lot of these people who this is a very very actually recent interpretation of the US presidency, but it combined at a time, unfortunately, when the executive office became more powerful than ever before. This is the most logical conclusion of that. I absolutely heart that.
I absolutely would hope that a court would strike somethingness down because this is as king like as it gets.
Absolutely yeah.
I mean, this is literally how they treated monarchs and so called monarch monarchical constitutional systems.
They're like, yeah, the Constitution applies to everybody except for the.
King, except the king.
It seems like these judges were very skeptical of the Trump lawyer case that was being made here.
This was in the d C.
Circuit Court of Appeals. This applies to some of the crimes that Trump has been charged with. But even though it appears they're going to side against Trump on this pretty wide reaching claim he's making for immunity here, that doesn't mean that this was necessarily a loss for Trump, in that his whole goal is to delay the longer that he files these appeals and challenges, and they have to be heard, and it takes a while to decide.
The clock is ticking, and really his hope at this point is that he gets elected president and he's able to part himself and get out of all of this legal jeopardy. So even though again I think it seems like the court is going to side against him on this specific claim. There's still an important effect here in favor of Trump.
Was just just to delay the proceedings.
Absolutely, So let's combine there, because there's a lot of other developments. So that one was probably I would say, net bad for Trump. Well, this one is definitely a net good for Trump. Let's go ahead and put this
up there on the screen. Some absolutely wild allegations that are coming out showing Fanny Willis, who's the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, Well, her name is now being brought up in divorce proceedings by a guy named Nathan Wade, who Fanny Willis had been tapped as the prosecutor against Trump in the grand jury investigation.
In the subsequent case, well, it seems now.
Quote as they put it here, the relationship between missus Willis and mister Wade has not taken center stage in the case against Trump, because on Monday, a lawyer for one of the co defendants charged in a court filing that miss Willis and mister Wade have been romantic partners who are now quote profiting significantly from the prosecution at
the expense of the taxpayer. So in divorce proceedings, effectively against mister Wade, the allegation is made that mister Wade and miss Willis were in a romantic relationship, and that mister Wade, while being unqualified as the prosecutor, has now billed the Special Prosecutor Office for there are a total of six hundred and fifty three thousand, eight hundred and eighty one dollars. Now currently none of this has been confirmed Crystal, but much of it traces back to the
ongoing divorce proceedings. I think we would probably trace it back to his wife, missus Joscelyn Wade, who is trying to burn everything but honestly good firm. Yeah, I hope she gets the bag. But the issue that comes through this is that it would obviously taint the investigation for the Georgia Fulton counter case, and in a lot of cases. I actually thought this is the single strongest one against Trump because.
It's about state law.
State law is the most iron clawed place where we know election law is completely you know, the jurisdiction and all that applies here. We had Trump on the phone, we had the Grand Jurian investigation that was against him, they have total authority. There's no actual major constitutional questions about whether Georgia a state, you know, Georgia state court.
And that's part of the reason too, Crystal, why so many of the people that they were charged co conspirators have all flipped against him, including Sidney Powell and others. They don't have the same level of constitutional defense. But I mean, this is the thing about Trump. I don't know what he has been blessed by or whatever?
Does how does how is it that.
His opponents always seem to hand him something, because this would be genuine grounds for at least trying for dismissal in others, if you can argue a personal charge by the person who's investigating you, it's just crazy.
It is wild if this is true of their allegations at this point. But she has been brought up in these Colors filings that part I think we have been confirmed.
But if it is true, it's the level of slaughter.
What are you doing here?
It's wild.
Yeah, this person who you know is allegedly in the relationship with Fanny well Willis and who was appointed as by her as the prosecutor. Apparently it's just some basically like kind of random suburban lawyer with no real relevant like in the Georgia legal community. When he got picked, there was a lot of head scratching of like, really, this guy, he doesn't really like the experience, Okay, whatever, I guess. And she was made to defend his choice
a number of times. She said, this is someone she trusts that you know, she whatever he is, he has experienced that she knows that she can go at him and he'll come right back at her. She had to defend it a number of times. So that's part of why it looks a little bit fishier. I will say the legal analysts that they quoted in the New York Times, for whatever it's worth, seemed to think that it probably
wouldn't be grounds to completely like dismiss the case. But for Trump, as we were just saying, so much of this is not about the legal arguments. It's about the politics. And this is a very potent political argument to make that, you know, if it's true that this is her lover, that she picked him and she's been, you know, funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to him as part of
this prosecution. There's also allegations that were going on vacations together using some of the money that came from this.
You know that he's benefiting from from the prosecution.
Again, this is allegations, but you can see how this will be very politically salient for Trump.
And I just cannot imagine if.
Your fanning will is and know the level of scrutiney you're going to get, you know what's coming at you, that you would be this sloppy.
So we'll see how this one plays.
I will certainly see who That is the best news for Trump that I've seen in a long time.
Let's go to the next one.
Please, this just gets to a little bit we can't forget because there's so many freaking legal proceedings around Trump, So don't forget that he's also currently involved in a civil fraud trial. He was supposed to be able to give his own closing argument, where he was basically going to say that this entire thing is a crazy witch hunt, but the judge has now ruled that he is not going to be allowed to give a closing argument and instead that his attorneys will be required to do so.
He said, quote mean and nasty of the decision so far. The issue here is that if this trial finds him guilty, he will be liable for quote, hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties, strips him of his business license in the state of New York. Currently he is fighting the allegation that he inflated his net worth.
About you know, you've done a lot of work on this.
People go and read in the past around whether he's guilty or not. Honestly, at this point, given the situation and all that, and also some of the prejudgments that were made before they even went to trial, it's almost certain that he's going to be convicted. So on a personal level, this actually is a huge threat to his overall quality of life.
So they've already found that he inflated the networth.
The question now is what is the penalties.
And again this is a civil case, so he's not going to end up in prison. It's just a matter of how much is he going to have to pay, what is the impact to his businesses? And basically the rub here and why they didn't end up letting Trump give his own closing statement, is because the judge was like, you have to just stick to the merits of the case.
You can't just go out and give some campaign speech and Trump was like, no, basically, I want to give a campaign speech, and they were like, you can't do that.
So that is why that fell apart.
But you know, it's a reminder that all of these things are unpredictable, chaotic. The timelines are incredibly unsettled. The revelations that continue to emerge are you know, interesting and potentially relevant in a political situation. And it also underscores Trump is politically he is in the fight of his life, Like if he does not end up in the White House, it is very likely he's going to prison. You said
you thought the Georgia case was the strongest. I do think the Georgia case is strong I think the Documents case is probably stronger.
Even though I honestly forgot about your right.
In terms of the cases centering around January sixth and stolen electors and whatever, I think the Georgia case is the strongest. I think overall, the Documents case is strongest. And yes, they have some constitutional questions that they're gonna, you know, assert, but it seems pretty open and shut that one, just in terms of the facts, in terms of the cover up, in terms of the level of classification of the documents, et cetera. So if he's not in the White House, it again very likely.
He is headed to prison.
So he's going to do whatever it takes to try to avoid getting nailed on these charges to try to make sure that he does end up back in the White House. And the stakes for him personally could not possibly be higher.
Absolutely well said, let's go to the next part here about trials stakes, how they could not be higher. So Hunter Biden made a shocking and unannounced visit yesterday to Capitol Hill, despite actually not even being invited. So we have to remember he showed up to the opening of the House Oversight Committee. The reason why is that currently the House Overside Committee and Republicans have subpoenat Hunter Biden,
of which he's been refusing to cooperate with. He says, I will not testify behind closed doors and in a longer form setting. I will, however, testify in public. So yesterday mounted a publicity stunt showed up to the opening of that oversight hearing. He was not recognized actually to speak, but it didn't stop stuff from absolutely going crazy. Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Green blasting him to his face, saying with some choice words, let's take a lesson.
First of all, my first question is who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today? That's my first question. Second question, You are the epitome of white privilege, coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed.
What are you afraid of?
You have no balls to come up here, mister chairman, point of inquiry.
Mister chairman, if the general, if the general lady wants to hear from Hunter Biden, we can hear from him right now, Miss chairman.
Let's take a vote and hear from unter Biden. What are you afraid?
Order?
Order?
Speak?
Are women allowed to speak?
To keep interrupting me, I'll interrupt.
I know that he's a lady.
I think that, uh that Hunter Biden should be arrested right here, right now and goes straight to jail.
Our nation is founded on the rules.
Come on, come on the premise that the law applies equally to everyone, no matter.
What you're last point to order, mister chairman, point of matter.
Who you are, chairman, big zob here?
So all right?
So no balls? Wow, that privileged white privilege, just white privilege.
I can't stand Nancy May. She's like as MacCarthy. McCarthy was like, she's a whole other story. I could not agree with that. The way she conducts herself, opens her mouth everything she's said in the past.
Uh.
I Also, though, we have to show Marjorie Taylor Green shouting out Hunter Biden as he stormed out of the committee meeting hearing after he was not called actually to testify publicly.
Here, let's see what happened.
Gentlemen, Tom's expired Cherwick and as missus Green from Georgia for.
Thank you, mister chairman.
Excuse me Hunter, Apparently you're afraid of my words and why you Ah, I like to reclaim my time, mister chairman.
Wow, that's too bad.
So he stormed out there of the committee room hearing. You know, we were saying, I have to give Hunter this. This was a Trumpian move, like he showed up and he's like, all right, call on me, call on me, even though you know he knew it wasn't going to happen. And it showed he both is able to defy a subpoena and then draw attention to the fact that he is literally defying a congressional subpoena. So look, that's the overall like quote unquote investigation update and all of that.
I do wonder though, how the White House feels, because there's been a lot of talk that Joe Biden and the White House would really prefer that Hunter hiding a rock in Malibu and live off of his millions with his latest wife and just you know, just not be in the headlines. But it seems here that he has hired his own counsel and he's determined to fight back, which politically, I mean, I'm not gonna say it.
Matters all that much.
Yeah, I can't imagine that he's not doing this without Dad's.
Maybe you're right, I can't imagine that.
Yeah.
So just to give people the backs, right, so they subpoenaed him, he said, I'll testify and public, but I'm not doing it in private, partly because of what happened with Devin Archer, where he helped testified in private and then they like cherry picked and sort of misrepresented some of the things that he said. So Hunter's like, listen, I'll answer questions, but I'm going to do it in public. So that's the context in which this stunt plays out. So he comes in and it's like, listen, I'm here,
you got questions for me, I'll answer your questions. I do think it was kind of a clever, like Trumpian stunt, but then I don't think that necessarily storming out is the right way to stay there, and you look like you're the adult in the room, as they like accuse you of having no balls in right proplas. There was also a bunch of like conservative girl boss moments of like he just doesn't want to hear a strong conservative woman and are women even allowed to speak in this hearing?
Blah blah blah.
So I don't know, the wokeness on the Republican side has really gotten out of control lately, which I know you're covering in your mind life, which I'm very excited.
About as well, but does genuinely make me want to kill more.
I just I don't know what to say about this Hunter thing. Everything's so fake in American politics. Like the investigation is fake, the concern is fake, the stunt is fake, the like.
The defense is fake.
It's all just theater. It's all just theater, and it's sort of disgusting to.
Watch it unfold, certainly, and you know to to that point, I mean, like Hunter's corruption is just so blatant and obvious. Now listen, you can say whether it should be you know, voted on or not. But just the latest example of this, the braziness of this man. Let's put this up there on the screen. I just I love this. So new revelations show us if you guys will remember about Hunter
Biden and his art. So it turns out from what we can see here is it quote Hunter Biden actually knew most of his art buyers, despite the quote unquote ethics plan contradicting the White House. If you guys will recall when Hunter, out of nowhere just decided to start
selling art and doing it for a very high dollar. Well, Crystal, it turns out that the major buyer of Hunter's art is the very same person who paid off his irs two million dollar tax bill, which is the end as a major Democratic donor and is the only reason.
He was never criminally prosecuted. Like, this is the most obvious form of money laundering I have ever seen, Crystal.
He bought eight hundred and seventy five thousand dollars worth of this man's art. Yeah, and he previously had paid off his tax bill and is a huge Democratic donor. Now list today this is the most important story in the world. No, but it's just like, come on, this is just it's almost an accounting gimmick at this point as to who's being propped up who's not. Recall also that the White House said that they had a whole ethics plan in place for Hunter's art.
Since he's not going to know who bought it and all this, it's complete bist. It's like, what, he's not going to.
Go to his friend's house and see his art on the wall and know that he received almost a million bucks even though he'd never painted anything in the past. Look, I know it's clownish. Whether Biden himself got any of the dollars, I don't know. I think he's certainly benefited from it in the past. You know, we'll see. But the art thing is just like whole Biden is the president, You've got the donor who's getting paid off.
It's just as blatant as when.
Trump was president and all those foreign dignitaries which just go stay at his hotels.
It's like you.
Cannot deny that you're getting paid that him and his family are not benefiting well.
And this is this is why Republicans have no leg to stand on when they're in you know, Foe concerned suddenly about corruption because yeah, we just got this report about the many millions of dollars that were spent by foreign governments like China and Saudi Arabia at his properties, and he got asked about it, by the way, at the Fox Newstown. They basically bribed about it. I mean
did he totally admitted to it. So you know, when you're looking at his foreign policy actions, you're like, Okay, well, is this on behalf of the country or is this because you got millions into your personal bank account through via your businesses from China, from Saudi Arabia, et cetera. So yeah, I mean this is why there's no accountability.
This is why these things are not prosecuted. This is why the Supreme Court has made it basically impossible to prove corruption because they're all so complicit and they're so selective in which types of corruption they're going to care about, depending on whether it's a D or whether it's an R.
Yeah.
Absolutely, it shows you why, you know, It's like you said, a lot of it is just theater, and most of it is almost entirely fake. But at least we did get a hilarious clip of Nancymas out of it, So thank you Hunter, at least.
Thank you for that.
Yes, all right, Sacher, were we looking at.
It's become cliche and it's tried.
But in discussions about free speech or any other principle, the maximum is this. Unless you support free speech, or you apply your principles for those who you hate most in society, those even who you find the most reprehensible, then you don't really believe in it at all. For a while there many Republican politicians were singing a tune that I could get on board with pro free speech, anti affirmative action in essence an embrace of equality of
outcome and equal application of law. That is, a heterogeneous society of three hundred and thirty million should be governed under this equal application. By and large, this is mostly the case in the last seven years since the mainstream establishment decidedly became liberal with the capital L. But much of it was then thrown out of seemingly overnight after
October seven. Sames is what we'll discuss with Glenn Greenwald later this week that much of the American right now has a pro Israel exception, and there is perhaps no better example of this than Governor Ron DeSantis's Israel turn.
One of the ways that Ron de Santa's built.
A national name for himself was specifically signing into legislation anti critical race theory measures, a key tenant of which is attacking the foundation of affirmative action, the notion that specific groups in American society deserve special treatment and separate admissions categories because they have been so called oppressed throughout history. The day after that ruling actually came out on affirmative action from the Supreme Court, Desantas said that his state
would go even further. They would not only abolish affirmative action in Florida, but also eliminate diversity, diversity, equity, and inclusion, otherwise known as DEI. As those who watch no, I'm very anti DEI. I think it is on American and has imported the affirmative action rules into the workplace, elevating people based on the color of their skin or their sexual orientation instead of whether they're good at their jobs
or not. In fact, the day after the ruling, af new Florida law went into place, specifically prohibiting colleges or universities from spending state or federal money quote to promote, support or maintain programs campus activities that advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Again, that is law and policy that I have one hundred percent support, which is why it was so shocking to see someone who has said this, acted
on it, and touted it flip on a dime. In the last three months of moral panic about so called anti semitism on college campuses, Republicans have turned themselves into the same snowflakes that they castigated for the last eight years. Now, all of a sudden, a student crying on campus or quote not feeling safe because of words is caused for action, so much cost for action that in the state of Florida, DeSantis is now funneling state resources specifically.
For Jewish students, he announced.
Yesterday quote Today, I am directing Florida's colleges and universities to make it easier for Jewish students to transfer to a Florida higher education institution. While leaders of if elite universities enable anti semitism we will protect Jewish students and welcome them to Florida. So, in other words, DeSantis invented affirmative action for Jews. It is beyond parody because affirmative action itself has roots that go back to the early
twentieth century, specifically to keep Jews out of universities. Without explicitly saying so, the new DeSantis policy will allow the state University system of Florida to waive credit hour requirements and application date windows for Jewish students who are quote facing anti semitism on their campuses to transfer into a Florida based university. The policy will also grant in state tuition on a case by case basis, so quite literally
directing state resources for special treatment of American Jews. Even more clownish is the defense that I have seen from the pro DeSantis crowd. They say soccer k read in the executive order, it says it applies to any religious group who is facing discrimination. It doesn't technically say anything about Jews as usual. They should read the words of the governor, who on Twitter and in his official release from his state office, said that the policy is specifically
intended for Jewish students. Imagine a counterfactual, Governor Gavin Newsom. He said, I'm going to direct state resources for black kids, but that technically the policy will apply to all races. Would we say yeah, I mean he said it would direct to all races, right, Or would we believe him when he said he's going to preference blacks over everyone else?
The same defense is so patently absurd and pathetic here they would have been better off just staying silent and hope that their blatant hypocrisy is unnoticed.
The Dessantis policy already has.
Come after he banned the Students for Justice for Palestine organization on Florida campuses in executive order that the free speech organization fire said quote believes higher education can only fulfill its important mission when students can speak their minds. We will defend the rights of all Florida students and all Americans.
To speak freely. That's exactly correct.
Being for free speech, being against racial or religious quotas is only a principle when you hold it both against people who you don't like, and you don't make special exceptions for those that may be politically convenient for you in the moment. Otherwise you're a hypocritical hack. That's what Desanta say is now and that's what it seems that a lot of the American right is too so Honestly, and.
If you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at a violent incident unfolded recently in the occupied West Bank, which has seen an onslaught of violence and land grabs by extremist settlers enabled by the IDF as well as IDF raids. Two
Palestinians rammed into Israeli border police. Those police then fired on the assailants and in the chaos, astray bullet fired by the Israelis killed a three year old Bedouin Palestinian child. Take a listen though to how Sky News described these events.
This happened to the border checkpoint.
You can see a car going through and ramming some of the police that we're actually manning that checkpoint. The video going to free shortly, but the two people as a man and a woman in the car.
In the subsequently they were killed by the police.
But it looks like accidentally a stray bullet found its way into the van ahead, and that killed a three or four year old young lady.
So tragic events in the West Bank.
That's right, a three year old was described as a quote young lady. The bullet, of course, just magically found its way into the vehicle. Now contrast this language to a recent report in The Daily Mail decrying the continued captivity of four Israeli women still being held by Hamas. Their headline reads the faces of the girls still being held by Hamas as their families make a desperate plea for their release three months.
After they were captured.
The article features deeply emotional interviews with the families of these women, who I am sure are absolutely tormented. But these are not, in fact girls. They are adult women, old enough to serve in the IDF, which all four of them do, a fact that was conveniently left out of that entire Daily Mail Peace. So you're left with the specter of a literal toddler being called a young lady,
while adult women soldiers are called girls. And while these soldiers, combatants in an ongoing war, are portrayed in the fullness of their humanity, with their hopes, their wishes, the terror of their families all showcased. We will never know anything more than the most basic of details about the three year old. What was her favorite toy? Does she have a big brother who misses her? Will her parents ever be able to get over the loss of their darling girl.
Now you might think I'm cherry picking here one off incidents of shoddy and one sided journalism, but a growing mountain of evidence shows that the dehumanization of Palestinians and gregiously lopsided coverage is systematic, and it is widespread. In fact, according to a new analysis, the unprecedented toll that Israel's assault on Gaza has taken on children has been rendered nearly invisible, featured in just two headlines out of eleven hundred that were examined by the Intercept.
But that is far from all.
Wild imbalances are happening at CNN, where we now know they willingly operate under the IDF censorship regime, but also at prestige papers like The Washington Post, which positions itself as a beacon of journalistic courage and integrity, At right wing outlets like Fox News, and also at liberal ones like MSNBC. Right here in the US, that imbalance is manifest,
but also in Britain at the BBC. Even for someone as Jaden's skeptical of mainstream coverage, as I certainly am, the insanely imbalanced nature of these numbers is still shocking.
So let's start with the new report.
This was published in The Intercept, compiled by Adam Johnson and Athmanali. They took a look at coverage in three ostensibly liberal outlets, The Times, The Washington Post, and The La Times over a six week period from October seventh through November twenty fourth, and they compiled a number of metrics seeking to show the consistent way that Israeli lives are valued to a dramatically greater degree than Palestinian lives.
Just take a look at this chart.
So they calculated that the words slaughter was used to describe the killing of Israelis on October seventh sixty times, Yet when it came to Palestinians, many thousands more of them have been killed, only a single time was their mass killing described as it should be, as a slaughter. It's a similar story with the word horrific. Hamasa's actions were described as horrific thirty eight times. That's appropriate Israeli assaults on innocent civilians were only described as horrific four
times in six weeks. October seventh was labeled a massacre a full one hundred and twenty times during the relevant period, but as Palestinians were being killed by the tens of thousands,
these deaths were only described as a massacre four times. Now, keep in mind, according to EUROMED Monitor twenty eight thousand, two hundred and one Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel since October seventh, and estimated six hundred and ninety five civilians were killed and the Hamas attack on October seventh. In other words, forty times more Palestinians have been killed
than Israelis. But if you were to judge the relative loss of life by the number of mentions in media outlets, you would have to presume far more dead Israelis than Palestinians by long stretch. According to Adam and Ali's analysis, for every two Palestinian deaths, Palestinians are mentioned once. For every Israeli death, Israelis are mentioned eight times, or a rate sixteen times more per death than that of Palestinians.
And you can see this from this chart. As more Palestinians were killed, they were actually mentioned less and less. We witness this in real time. How invented university anti semitism scandals and whatever the hell is going on with Bill Ackman, how that took the place of coverage of the increasingly undeniable horrors that Palestinians are being subjected to. This chart tracks how has the horror increased the coverage actually decreased. Also revealed in this report, real and invented
anti semitism was covered far more vigorously than Islamophobia. This in spite of the fact that multiple violent incidents during this time appeared spurred by anti Muslim or anti Arab hat. Eighty seven percent of mentions of discrimination concerned anti Semitism, only thirteen percent concerned Islamophobia. The cable news landscape is unso prizingly at least equally as grimm This chart from
Adam Substack. The column tracks how many times Israelis were described as having been massacred versus Palestinians over the first month of the conflict. Out of seventeen hundred and thirty three massacre mentions, one thy six hundred and fifty five came of them. When describing Israelis killed on October seventh, This evocative language was only applied to Palestinian deaths seventy
eight times. They further document in this piece that usually when massacre was actually used with regard to Palestinians, it didn't come directly from network anchors or commentators, but as comments attributed to Palestinians. So, for example, Richard Angel of NBC News he said that quote Palestinians call it a
massacre passive language that is debatable rather than unequivocal. Ali and Adam also reveal in this report that although children in journalists, sympathetic and protected groups have been slaughtered at rates far higher than any other modern conflict, they have received scant media coverage. This contrasts dramatically with the cover of the Ukraine War, where the impact on children and on the press was a frequent subject of commentary and
of reporting. Now, to be clear, six journalists were killed in the early days of the Ukraine War, and that is a terrible tool. Forty eight were killed in the first weeks of Israel's assault on Gaza. That number has now skyrocketed to over one hundred and ten. These people have the nerve to posture as defenders of the free press. What utter and complete garbage. Finally, to show you, I guess we're not alone in insufferable and completely dishonest coverage.
British commentator Owen Jones recently featured analysis on BBC coverage conducted by Mona Chalabi with a lot of very similar results. Just take a listen to a portion of Owen's report.
As for a motive, words murder or murdered is used one hundred and one times in reference to his reignees compared to one time in reference to Palestinians. So he might go, well, look, come on, an airstrike killing lots of people is extremely horrific, but it's different to someone just going up to someone and shooting them. Well, look, if you take that place, we'll have to beg to differ.
There's ample evidence that Israel is deliberately killing civilians. I make no apology for saying that the so called diahead doctrine, first developed in the two thousand and six Lebanon War, to deliberately kill civilians to put pressure on civilian populations to achieve political goals, is clearly in action in Gaza and indeed, nine to seventy two magazine using leaked information from Israeli military intelligence sources, makes it abundantly clear that
Palastine civilians are clearly being deliberately killed. In any case, what are the fact that several Palatins have been objectively murdered in the West Bank alone in this time period, and where it's extremely comparable actually to the way that many Israeli civilians were killed on the seventh of October. The West Bank, as you will know, is of course
not run by Hamas. Now as for other emotive words, well, massacre or massacred is used twenty three times in reference to Israelis, it's used just once in relation to Gaza. That for me actually just sums up the whole problem western media coverage, because if it actually reflected reality, we would be referring to what's happening to Gas as one of the great masakers of our time. But in any case, clearly the BBC does not believe that, for example, wiping
out entire blood lines of Palestinians constitutes of massacre. As for slaughter or slaughtered, those words that's used twenty times, twenty times in reference was Raeli's in reference to Palestinians zerotypes, not once.
So here is a visualization of what Owen was just discussing there that you can take a look at. And the bottom line is this, So Raelis are murdered, Palestinians simply inexplicably die, something that I've grappled with over these past several months that has really shaken me. How How
is the unrelenting assault allowed to persist? How is there not uniform condemnation of the killing of civilians, of their starvation, of their permanent destruction of their homes, schools, mosques, neighborhoods, and so much more, the massacre of children, journalists, aid workers, doctors. As fellow at the Institute for Global Affairs, Assaul Rale put it stupid for thinking that we believed as a society that killing thousands of children, bearing them under rubble
and amputating their limbs without anesthesia is wrong. No matter what I naively thought, that was one thing we could all agree on. And when the history is written, how the West looked on with approval and rushed to supply the bombs that were dropped on the babies of Palestine. When that history is written, these charts will need to be shown. They must be shown because a vital part of that story is how the Western press their absolute damnedest to hide from citizens the horse that their own
taxpayer dollars are paying for. For the real story, you will do a hell of a lot better joining the zoomers over on TikTok and soger and if you.
Want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Okay, we had a great show for you guys, really appreciate you. You can sign up breakingpoints dot com otherwise we will see you all on Monday.