Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com for everybody. We have a great show for everybody today, but we have a horrible tragedy here in the DC area, which we're going to go ahead and start with.
So go ahead, Chrystal.
Yeah, So we're going to have breaking news about that mid flight collision between a regional JED and a military helicopter. Tell you everything we know this morning. We're also going to take a look at some of the political news coming out of DC. We had the RFK confirmation yesterday. Tolcy's hearing is going to be today. We're going to give you the latest one whatever's going on with that spending freeze. Another judge, wait in there. We're going to try to get in a block with the breaking news.
The show is a little bit scrambled. We're going to try to get in a block about Elon's attempts to cull the federal workforce. Jeremy Corbell is going to join. We got an answer from the White House sort of on the new.
Jersey drone situation.
Not very satisfying, So Jeremy, I'll do a great job breaking that down. And Peter Binard is going to join me to talk about his new book, Being Jewish after the destruction of goz of It. Let's go ahead and break into that horrific news we got last night. A regional jet American Airlines Regional jet that was traveling from Wichita, Kansas, collided last night with a military black Hawk helicopter that was doing a training flight from Belvoir. Sixty four people
were on board that American Airlines jet. Three were on board the military helicopter. As far as we know, search and rescue efforts this morning are ongoing in the icy Potomac River at this point, you know, it's hard to imagine that there would be survivors, but we continue to pray for some kind of miracle. Thus far, as of eight oh one am, the latest that we have is that twenty seven bodies have been recovered of those who
were known to be on board. And this is the first major airline accident that we've had in this country since two thousand and nine. I'm going to show you a video that was taken from a nearby webcam that shows the mid air collision and the explosion. I mean, it is horrifying to watch, So just awarding before I go ahead and put this up on the screen. But let's go ahead and play this so people can see what we're talking about. This is the approach and then
you see this explosion mid air. If you look more closely here, you can actually see the jet and then the helicopter coming right towards it, and you see the moment of impact and this unbelievable flash in the sky. You know, people who were nearby at DCA, this is literally miles away from where we sit right now, said that they were able to see the explosion.
They heard a loud boom.
Of course, the airport is completely shuttered at this point in time, and you know, there are going to be a lot of questions about how the hell this happened. But let's take a listen to This is actually an Australian News broadcast, but they did a good job of breaking down what we know as of you know, relatively recently about what occurred.
Let's take a listen to that.
This plane was immediately diverted away from the airport, the passengers watching the horrifying news unfolding beneath them on their in flight screens. The Bitomac splits two states, Maryland and Virginia and Washington, d C. The White House is just kilometers from the crash site, as well as the Capitol Building and some of America's most important national monuments. The Pentagon is just across the river.
It's our deep sorrow about these events. This is a difficult day for all of us at American Airlines, and the American Airlines Care Team has been activated to assist our passengers and their families.
So that's a little bit of information that was coming out yesterday evening. We have a foe that we can show you here some of the wreckage that is being pulled from the Potomac. You can see the airport there in the background. Anyone who's traveled to DC or lives in this area very familiar with this airport, very familiar with the approach. The airspace around here is tremendously busy that something will returned to maybe one of the factors that contributed to this, But at this point, you know,
we're just learning the very basics. And then let's put the CNN tearsheet up on the screen as well. That gives what we know about what was going on at the time of this crash. Through the headline here, FA issues groundstop at Reagan National Airport after passenger plane collides mid air with helicopter, and they say in this article the passenger plane was American Airlines Flight five three four to two, operated by PSA Airlines that was traveling from Wichita, Kansas.
I saw some information this morning also that indicated there were a number of kids who were returning from a figure skating camp who had been you know, selected to get to go to this camp, and they were on their way back. The kids and the coaches, some of them were the individuals who were on board that plane was due to land at the airport outside of DC, per CNN Wednesday, even collided midair with that US Army
helicopter as it approached the runway. Flight records showed the plane was expected to land around nine pm local time. DC Police that it received calls at eight fifty three pm about an aircraft crash above the Potomac River, so it was just about to land. The US Army Blackhawk helicopter was on a training flight at the time of the incident. The twelfth Aviation Battalion, based out of Fort Belvoir in Virginia, provides helicopter transportation and technical rescue support
to the National Capital Region. Remains unclear where the Blackhawk took off from before the collision, so that is by and large what we know soccer at this point.
It's just really horrifying, honestly to think about. I drove past the crash eye this morning. The airport remained sealed. Very eerie morning here in Washington. There's no planes up in the sky. As we said, this is one of the busiest airports in the entire country, one of the busiest runways, one of the most congested pieces of airspace,
and it's very heavily controlled. Because it is so sensitive close to the White House, the National Monuments and to gone that's right, you know, you literally can see much of it on my entire drive in, and it's horrifying to learn from the emergency rescue people. They say that no survivors are expected. We're obviously praying for a miracle knowing some of what's happened, but yeah, for those who aren't aware, you know, coming into this airport, it happens
right off of a river. It's very similar if you've ever flown into San Francisco Airport, a similar type of approach that comes where you've come straight off the water, right onto the runway. This is a smaller aircraft, a regional jet that was coming in, so was coming into one of the smaller ones here in Washington, and that appears to be right where the collision.
But the big question mark is how this is all possible.
I mean, for me, it's genuinely unfathombal that helicopters are criss crossing this runway. I'm told by the Transportation Secretary who just did a press conference this morning. He says, a routine lightpath, of course, of which I had no idea. We can only speculate a little bit at this time.
Some of the aviation experts that I've checked in on basically say that it was a perfect storm of horrible things that happened where air traffic control called out to the helicopter told them to watch out for a RJ, which is shorthand for a smaller aircraft regional jet regional jet. There was actually a regional jet that was taking off at the same time. So the speculation is the helicopter pilots are looking over to the right at a taking
off aircraft. Air traffic control tells them, hey, you need to get behind that aircraft. They think that they have plenty of clearance for that takeoff, when meanwhile, what air traffic control really meant was this incoming regional jet that was landing making its final approach. Helicopter pilot's eyes are to the right where the jet is coming in on
the left. The other problem is when you're coming down, is that the collision lights apparently on the helicopter would have looked just like the landing lights.
There's a lot of other lights was happening here.
You know, as you come down, you're literally landing in the midst of a major city and there's lights everywhere, so it would have been difficult for the pilot to distinguish. And also literally coming out on top of something and your eyes are trained directly on your landing strip or the runway, then you're not necessarily looking for peripheral vision.
And that's how that happened.
Because that's the most shocking part about the video is that just it looks almost like the helicopter is making a bee right there. It For now, keep in mind out we don't have you know, look all indications right now this was an accident, but you know, there's all there's a full investigation that remains to be happened. So we have three US Army service members who are on
board the helicopter. You have some sixty odd passengers. Apparently this is the if all are confirmed dead, which is very very likely according to EMS and rescue recovery or the recovery operation currently going down, this is going to be the deadliest crash in the United States in twenty four years, even more so than that two thousand and nine crash in over New York States.
And while that is the case, we know because we've been covering here closely. There have been so many near misses tons in the past couple of years, and so many people raising red flags about do we have enough air traffic controllers? You know, some of this has to do with Also this is unrelated obviously to this crash, but that raised a lot of questions about the manufacturer Boeing.
This has been something that has been an ongoing concern because we had narrowly avoided horrible tragedies just in the past couple of years, several times, and now everybody's worst fears here coming true. This was Sean Duffy, the new Transportation Secretary's first day literally literally is first day.
On the job.
So now he's having to go out and give a press conference about this terrible tragedy. There are going to be a lot of questions about how the hell this could happen. Let me go and put three up on the screen. This is just the official announcement confirming the crash. Here from the FAA, they say PSA Airlines Bombardier C
three J CRJ. Sorry if I could read seven hundred regional jet collide in midair with the Sikorski H sixty helicopter commonly known as a black Hawk while on approach to runway thirty three at Reagan Washington, Nash Airport around nine pm local time. PSA was operating that flight as American Airlines departed, from WHICHITA, Kansas, FAA, and NTSB will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation. Saga was alluding to
the flight path of this regional jet. We have an animation we can show you of this specific flight path as it was being tracked here. You can see it there over Maryland and then it comes across the Potomac River and is just about to land there at the airport when it crashes and the Potomac River there separates Maryland Virginia. You go a little bit further down and you're right there in DC. And so that is, you know, typical flight path. I did read that this was a
particularly busy time at the airport. There were a lot of planes coming in, going out, et cetera. That could have contributed to Saga was eluding because you could have had confusion about which regional jet the helicopter was being warned about. Apparently, air traffic control was in communication both with the regional jet attempting to land and with this
military training helicopter. As a layman, I don't know anything, but it does seem crazy these helicopters were there at the time, especially as the airport is so incredibly busy, and I'm sure that will be a topic of talking.
I've been landing at this airport literally since i was eighteen years old. It's almost fifteen years. I've never seen helicopter out the window. Maybe I'm not paying attention.
I don't know.
But we do have a statement here from President Trump. Let's put that please on the screen.
Quote.
I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport.
May God bless their souls.
Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders.
I am monitoring the situation.
I will provide more details as they arise, And so that's really all we know now at this point. Now, the big question marks are about some of the things that we are going to look at for transportation safety. And in the background of all of this, we'll recall all of those near misses that were happening in for the last four years. Bizarrely, we seem to have weird connections to some of these. I mean, we were on
the ground in Austin. I think the very hour that there was one of the nearest misses ever in US history happened right there on the runway where they had to abort a landing, you know, very very quickly and avoid a collision there. But this raises big questions about specifically really about the air traffic control which have all the near misses have highlighted staffing problems, software issues. There's been accusations by the airlines, by the unions, et cetera.
Nobody really knows anything. They're going to be a spotlight now on aviation safety.
And that's the.
Question mark now because this is you know, look, you know it's not necessarily the Trump administration or whatever's fault, but they're going to have to deal with it now that this happens. And that's the big question mark is what are they going to do, because what I would like to say is somebody needs to burn for this, Like this isn't just some we're throwing it to the pilot.
If there is imprecise language that is not drilled into the heads of air traffic control, or if some guy is tired because he's been on for a double shift or something like that. We need to know every single thing about this because now it looks like some sixty odd people are dead as a result of this accident. You know, we need to talk about this helicopter situation. It's true there are black Hawks are circling Washington literally all the time.
For what reason. Why you're supposed to be training.
We're supposed to be doing training flights, which just apparently was right there across the airport.
You know, there's go two miles down the other way. Look again, easy, I'm a layman.
I can only say this, but literally a customer of the airport have been landing there millions of times, lots of other people in this area, and most importantly they're the families of these people. They they will need both answers and every passenger. That's what Secretary Duffy said that we all learned, like we don't have question marks when
we fly in the United States. It's a point of pride for our FAA, for our country to so see something like this, which is almost certainly some sort of horrible accident tragedy, there has to be major reforms.
Yeah, there's no doubt about it. And look, Trump's been in office a week. I think it will be dipping. A lot of people are sharing, you know, some of the moves that he's made. We can put the next piece up on the screen here for the Huvendon post that you know he came in. He got it, a key aviation safety committee, fired the head of the TSA Coast Guard. Obviously, we're going to try to get to a blog later in the show about this. People are
calling it a bio it's not really a biome. But they say that people can continue working from home until the fall if they promise to resign at that point. But you know, an effort to call the federal government again, Trump's been in office for a week. However, I do think that this is this will cast those attempts to strip the federal government down to bare bones in a different light, because it is a reminder that having sufficient personnel of high quality is can be a matter of
life and death. You know, these the air traffic controllers. We'll see whether they are to blame or not. That continues to be an open question. But the functions of the federal government really really matter. One thing that may be quite relevant here is some of the lever News outlet, David Cerrato's outlet that we always appreciate their reporting is out with this report, we can put this up on the screen. So months ago before this collision, lawmakers brushed
off warnings and boosted flights. So despite the fact that there had been mid flight near missus dire Plea's airline Bankworld lawmakers recently expanded flight traffic at Washington's busy airport. Apparently they just added an additional number of flights to this airport, and the.
All the.
Both senators from Virginia and Maryland, so for senators total, voted against this as a protest, saying this airport is already too busy. There are already it's already dangerous. There are already too many flights going in and out. You can't add five more flights to this airport. Everybody else voted for this bill. And was this a contributing factor
to this crash. Nobody knows at this point, but certainly potentially the case that the busyness, just the sheer number of flights in and out of this airspace helped to create the dynamic that led to this.
Horrific tragicy that's going to be one of the Actually was very supportive of those opening slots. But for people who want to know why they did that, it's because lawmakers don't want to drive figure not from DC.
It won't make a lot of sense. But there's two airports here.
There's Washington, DCA, which is like a ten minute drive from the city, and then there's Washington Dulles, which is like an hour drive, maybe more with traffic. And the people who represent the state of California and a few others who want direct flights from that they can get to from Congress open the up these new slots because.
They want to be able to go home quicker.
Just so everybody understands what their motivation was for voting for that. You a right and actually one of the reasons. So I was supportive of that. But one of the problems was they didn't increase the number of air traffic control and so the safety mechanisms that were at the airport. Now actually was not fully aware that that provision had
not been added or have been extended more fully. Now obviously we are so, like I said, somebody when sixty some odd people are killed clearly as a result of systemic and even if it is pilot error, there are systemic things that have contributed to that. You don't need to have a full route to branch examination of all
the problems that happened. It does appear that there have been people who have been warning about this now for years, about both congestion about DCA, specifically from the new slots being added at the airport and all of that, and so we should listen to them. We should need to have actual hearings. Is one of the least you know,
things that we should. It's one of those things where we really need to for the families of those people who have so tragically lost their lives, like actually do them service, and also for our own country.
Yeah, a servation's capital.
Right well, and to avoid this happening again because as of just a few months ago, air traffic control they're short roughly three thousand air traffic controllers nationwide, so there's been an ongoing shortage. So I certainly hope that no air traffic controllers are planning to take the buyout, because this is an area where we need more and highly qualified.
That's capable from home, not it's only for work from home employees.
Doesn't apply to everybody.
Well they received they receive the same email offering them the same thing.
I think it went to every federal employee. Yeah, in terms of eligibile. Look, I have no idea.
I actually haven't looked specifically to air traffic control. I know there were certain areas that were exempt in terms of which specific departments, because that when they say it's all federal employees, really only half the people who even qualify.
They blasted it to everybody.
We'll talk about it more in the buyout, but yes, yeah, listen, yeah, please stay and beyond that, let's think about it. And you're right, you know, look, some of the federal government is extremely superfluous, it's stupid, and some of it is extremely.
Absolutely life or death critical, and this is certainly one of those instances. So we'll, you know, keep an eye on anything new that comes out because you know, this obviously has immense, immense consequences for safety of air travel, which a lot of Americans already rightfully had a lot of concerns about, giving all the near Middle of.
Course, yeah, near missus, Boeing, you know, and all this all these questions, I mean, don't forget about all of the investigations that happened after those horrible Boeing crashes as a result of software.
And then nobody goes to jail for it.
You know, this is what I'm talking about, where we have you know, if you, if you, if you improperly are driving your car and it's your fault, like you're going to face consequences for that. But when hundreds of people get killed as a result of this, people, oh it's you know, they have to pay a fine or whatever. Well,
I don't think that's satisfactory. And so I'm really hoping that somebody gets punished for this, whoever is responsible, not a scalp or something like that, but somebody, an actual investigation from NTSP on downwards.
I don't know that we have real with the public.
Real change.
You know, yes, if it's a human error, but also like you said, it's it is likely to be emblematic of a broader systematic issue.
Human error has occur within it don't occur within a vacuum. They occur within.
This aviation is one of those which were most tightly controlled focused on specifically, like you said, because the.
Stakes well, and there's supposed to be multiple layers of fiales taces. It's supposed to be the case that you would have to have a whole series of things go wrong, mistakes and errors and things go wrong to result in this sort of a horrific crash because the stakes are so incredibly high.
So really really just so tragic for the families of all these people.
Are going to learn more.
I'll keep everybody updated as to all that, but you know, just awful for the city, for Wichita, where these people were all coming from.
For apparently there were two world world.
Class skaters champions who are on the plane from Russia, all of them you know, just really really tragically lost. Let's go to RFK Junior. So RFK Junior testified yesterday. He will testify again before the United States Senate two different committees that he appears over because HHS is actually split into two the Health and Human Services Department for oversight before the Senate. So this was first you did see the opening of what's we're likely to see more of today.
Lots of democratic attacks.
Here on RFK Junior using some of his past statements against him. First, we're going to go ahead and take a listen to his opening statement where he thanked President Trump and basically laid out the Make America Healthy Again movement. And we'll get into some of the Q and A. Let's take a listen.
Today, American's overall health is in grievous condition. Over seventy percent of adults and a third of children are overweight or obese. Is ten times more prevalent than it was during the nineteen sixties. Cancer among young people is rising by one or two percent a year. Autoimmune diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders, Alzheimer's, asthma, ADHD, depression, addiction, and a host of other physical and mental health conditions are all on the rise, some of them exponentially. There
is no single culprint in chronic disease. Much as I have criticized certain industries and agencies, President Trump and I understand that most of their scientists and experts genuinely care about American health. Therefore, we will bring together all stakeholders in pursuit of this unifying goal. I want to make sure the committee is clear about a few things. News reports have claimed that I am anti vaccine or any industry.
I am neither.
I am pro safety, pro vaccine.
Protesters behind rfk JR. By the way, don't worry, he was not singled out. It's a Washington tradition to be screamed down by protesters in your confirmation hearing for everybody. Let's get then to what he referenced their vaccine statements. That is where the bulk of a lot of the criticism against RFK JR was concentrated by from a lot of the Democrats. Let's take a listen to some of that questioning.
So I'm running out of time.
I think the gist of what you were trying to say today is you're really pro vaccine, you want to ask questions. You have started a group called the Children's Health Defense. You're the original note right now is I understand that on their website they are telling me what's called onesies, these little things clothing for babies. One of them is diled on Facts Unafraid. Next one of the sould for twenty six bucks a piece. By the way,
next one is no vax no problem. Now you're coming before this committee and you say you're pro vaccine, just want to ask some questions, and yet your organization is making money selling a child's product to parents for twenty six bucks, which cast fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines. Can you tell us now that you will, now that you are pro vaccine, that you're going to have your organization take these products off the market?
Senator, I have no power over that organization not You're hard of it.
I resigned from the board that was just.
A few months ago.
You founded that. You certainly have power you can make that.
How are you supportive of this I have had nothing to do with Are you supportive of these ones?
These I'm supportive of vaccines?
Are you supportive of these this clo which is militantly anti vaccine?
I am supportive of vaccines. Will I want good science and I want to protect but you will not tell.
The organization you founded not to continue selling them. Are you lying to Congress today when you say you are a pro vaccine or did you lie on all those podcasts?
We have all of the fund tape by the way.
Yeah, Senator.
As you know, because it's been repeatedly debunked, that statement that I made on the Lacus Freedman podcast was a fragment of this statement.
He asked me and anybody.
Who actually goes and looks at that podcast and we'll see this. He asked me, are there vaccines that are saving effective?
And I said to them, some of the live.
Virus vaccines are, and I said, there are no vaccines that are saving effective. And I was going to continue for every person, every medicine has people who are sensitive to them.
Are you supportive of the onesie being the iconic line from the hearing, but basically that I watched the entire thing that was basically a taste of all of the Democratic questioning. Do you want to weigh in before we play the Lex Friedman clip, because that's the one that Ron Wyden referenced in his opening statement and then was brought up several to more times by Senator Cantwell, Senator Bennett, and a few others.
I mean, listen, I would never support RFKA Junior for this position because he has been consistently over the course of the past two decades. I would say anti vax and so I would never support him for this position, But I would respect it more if he would actually rep the position that he has held consistently for the past two decades. And we'll show you the Lex Friedman thing.
The thing he says about it is total and complete nonsense, not to mention even if you take that out of it, Like he founded the Children's Health Defense in twenty eleven.
He led that organization.
It has been consistently anti vax. Now what he'll say is, oh, I'm not against vaccines. I just think that one of the existing vaccines are actually safe. He has his own children vaccinated, but he also has said he would do anything to go back and have them not be vaccinated. So listen, there's a lot of people out there now who are anti vacs. Okay, you've succeeded. Your movement has grown. I think that that movement is devastating to public health.
I think it's contra to science. And I think that vaccine development has been of one of the greatest inventions of modern medicine in terms of reducing extending life and reducing debts, et cetera, et cetera. But you have succeeded in winning a lot of people over this cause. So rep that cause, Like, why are you running away from it?
Confirmed?
Well, and that's the thing that's so pathetic is like, Okay, then, I mean you, like, one of the most preposterous moments here is you guys all know how critical RFK Junior was about the COVID vaccine. Many of you out there are probably like on board with his criticisms and actually believe what he says in this confirmation hearing is like Operation Warp Speed was amazing, it was great, The vaccine development was spectacular.
It's like, why should.
Anyone believe a goddamn word that you have to say about anything when this has been the core of your views and your life's work for the past several decades, and you will just throw it in the garbage so.
That you can get closer to power. It's just that's what I would get.
It's the only way that you're going to get confirmed.
So look, it's politics. I'm not saying I forgive it no necessarily. I do think you probably should have just man, this is part of the problem though, with these confirmation hearings. You know, it's like cable news. You know, you only have five minutes of question and answer. You can't really get into it. In terms of what he said for past criticism of MMR and the polio vaccine, his defense and the defense of Maha and all those other people is basically like the if no vaccine can be one
hundred percent safe and effective. All vaccines, all medicine has side effects.
Look in general, I don't think that.
You're wrong that there are a lot of people now whose eyes have really been open to the medical system. And to be honest, I find myself in that category. I mean, I thought RFK Junior was some evil person, and then you know, you learn a little bit more. I thought, COVID vaccine really opens your eyes. So there's a lot of questions here about vaccination schedules and the way that we do things, and that even the legislation that has been passed I think is a legitimate that's.
Not his position, but in practice that is not.
Of how it will look like as a member of the United States government.
And this well, I mean, but that's not really true. I mean, he has a lot of power if he's confirmed in this position, which there's still a question mark about. I don't think that any I mean, I thought the democratic questioning here was much more effective with RFK than it was with Pete Hegseth for example, for one key reason, which is they actually focused on his relevant policy statements
relevant to policy for this position. So I do think that they landed some effective blows here not to mention just how how like ridiculous you look to completely change your position on a dime with no real explanation. So if he was just like, oh, you know, maybe we should look at the schedule and other European countries do it differently, blah blah blah, that is not what he's been out there to it.
I mean true.
You know, there was questioning about him and his organization's involvement in these deaths in Samoa, of which you know, the people who were involved there say that the impact that the impact of his lives and his organization's lies helped you contribue not one hundred percent, but helped you contribute to the death of dozens of kids from not
getting vaccinated. After there was a you know, horrific human error type accident with regard to the MMR vaccine, they seized on it and lied and said that the whole vaccine was unsafe. People were terrified. They stopped getting their kids vaccinated. There was a virulent outbreak of measles and
dozens of kids died. So I listen, there are things that are K Junior says that I actually agree with, especially when it comes to food and pesticides and ultra process foods in particular, if he was up for AG Secretary, I might actually consider putting him in that position because I think that his views are more grounded in science, and I think he could actually effectuate some of the things he cares about with regard to nutrition, healthier lifestyle, etc.
Be in a better position to do that as HHS secretary. I think that he could be incredibly actually deadly for this nation, especially as we're heading into the possibility we have an ongoing threat of an avian flu pandemic. There isn't a vaccine. There is a vaccine, by the way, that exists for avian flu. And guess what. RFK Junior has gone out and said that he doesn't think it's safe, so.
In it maybe he's right.
What do we know about bird flu vaccines? What are we going to trust doctor Fauci and the rest.
Of these people Soccer.
This is part of what we're getting at here with the HHS. How can it be worse than right now you're saying it's deadly. We are already living in a deadly country.
It could be worse. It could be worse.
Vaccination, having plio and me outbreaks and these children.
Are going to die of diabetes. Answer like the.
Health Care for All I understand that that's your position, but that's not what the American people voted for.
Clearly, like can you even do about nutrition at HHS that that falls under the ad Secretary of better positions and deal with.
Dietary guidelines as he talks about with SNAP, he will have immense regulatory authority. I mean, this is part of what I'm talking about with this vaccine thing. Look, I completely understand, and I used to be really in this camp. I just don't see how it could be bad to publish the studies and the safety data and then leave parents with some choice.
Like.
Look, that's what I'm saying though, but that's in practice. He said, I will not touch the polio vaccine. I will not touch the MMR.
But he is clearly willing to lie about everything all the time when it serves his interests.
I think that it is Iolo.
I'm not assuming it.
I think we should assume that what his life's work has been, which is to tell people that all vaccines are unsafe and to try to get them to not vaccinate their kids as emblemized as you know, emblematic of the onesies, right, the fact that even he wants this like baby propaganda about them not getting any vaccines. I think you should assume that that is the ideology that
he takes into this position. And like I said, I'd have a lot more respect if he would actually rep what he has said and what he believes.
And the fact that he will just.
Run one hundred and eighty degrees, turn on a dime, do whatever he can to get into power is to me utterly disgraceful and unforgivable. And when you are in that position, he could effectively. So one thing he could do is eliminate certain vaccines from being covered by medicaid. By the way, he doesn't seem to appear to know the difference between medicaid and Medicare, was very confused about
that during the hearings. But he could eliminate a number of vaccines getting covered by Medicaid that in and of itself would make it impossible for many poor parents to get their kids properly vaccinated. He could also change the current structure and make it basically so that it is unprofitable and impossible for vaccine makers to continue to distribute and sell vaccines. He would have tremendous power in this position.
And so if you're anti vax and you just think that you should let it fly and you're cool with measles and pollion whatever coming back, then this is your guy. But this is one of the primary things he'll have responsibility for. And I think he already already has done tremendous damage and has blood on his hands literally in the case of Samoa, for the type of lies unscientific lies, not legitimate questions, of which that's fine, but unscientific lies that he has spent decades At this point, I.
Think, look, I understand that the Samoa thing is complicated, as we know.
No, I mean, look, I've cided the vena prosad thing. I read it.
It's pretty convincing. Not that it was necessarily one hundred percent fall. There's a lot of the questions about MMR, But look, I guess where it comes down to is that the VAX position is that blood on his hands, etc.
It's like, well, well, how come there's no smoke.
If there was a traditional pharma lobbyist here, wouldn't they have ten times more blood on their hands and more responsibility for all of the chaos that has been wrought in our healthcare system. Look, I understand your position universal healthcare and all that did not win within the Republican context.
Honestly, this is as good as it gets.
As opposed to what who is our previous AHHS secretary, that moron who's taken private flights?
What was his name? Tom Price?
Using US taxpayer dollars to pay for a private jet. You got somebody here who at least can publish some safety data.
Who what did he say?
Said?
People should be able to buy whatever they want as long as they have the knowledge in front of them. You know, look, you got to go to war with the you know, with the fighters that you have. This is, on balance, I think it's much better than any traditional AHHS secretary you could have taken that position. And you know,
look the vaccine question here about medicaid, et cetera. Right now, US government policy and state policy forces you to comply with the schedule or for or face immense consequences socially, public school and all of that. Do you think that that's fair in all of these era of the post COVID landscape.
I don't believe a.
Freaking word that these people say. I'm serious, I really don't after what I've.
Read, I don't think the polio vaccine is a good thing. I think the MMR.
I think the polio in the fact.
Okay, but there's sixty three vaccinations that children get before what the age four?
So help me, which one do you think get rid of it? I'll tell you right now.
There's no the HPV or what is the hepatitis B vaccine that's given to a child literally the moment is birth literally for societal reasons, which only applies to drug addicts.
No way, not happening.
Like, and you know the the societal consequences you face for this and the medical system and the way that they push this stuff.
It's unbelievable. You brought up vaccine profit.
It's like, I mean, you know how many times we talked here on the show about drug profit and the.
Ability that the answer to that is not Listen, here's my core problem. His diagnosis of them and what's wrong with it, I think is completely wrong. The problem is not that the vaccines don't work. The vaccines do work. We have decades of information showing that the vaccines work and have saved huge numbers of lives. That's not the problem. The problem is a lack of access to healthcare. The problem is a lack of ability to pay for healthcare. The problem is a profit motive at the center of
health care. What he wants to do has nothing to do with any of that. It's just a reaction and immediately knee jerk reaction against any actual like scientific medicine and advancements in favor of some like natural hippie dippy woo woo bolsheal, which is way less because why is.
To not get sick and die? That's why it's bad.
But this is a straw man argument. Schedule, what do.
We know about the is a straw man argument?
Okay, well we have sixty three people were dead from in Samoa again with an open question mark whether it's one hundred percent RFK Junior's fault or not. There are what tens of millions who have died now of chronic illness and of a disease here in the United States, Like where's this?
You know, smoke, But.
What going to do with regard again? If he was up for ag secretary, I think there's a lot more he could do about lifestyle, diet, pesticide, but.
HHS guidelines to control that. The SNAP program, as he talked about ten I had no idea. By the way, the ten percent of SNAP dollars are spent on sugary drinks and sixty percent of SNAP dollars are spent on processed food. Now again I don't even disagree, And my least libertarian opinion is he was like, oh, we shouldn't be telling what people what to eat. I'm like, actually,
we probably should, especially if they're on government assistance. Secondary I think question mark not going to happen in the Republican Party. But I mean, on balance, the current system is a disaster. We talk about it, drug addiction, obesity, cancer. I mean when you listen to not even him, go listen to the more credible people, doctor Casey means right, She's got a rant that's like three and a half minutes long of all of the chronic disease markers that
have gone up. His proposal for NIH is to end infectious disease covered great by the way, as we'll talk a little bit about with lime disease, and to focus on chronic illness like cancer and obesity. I think you know one of the big drug company dreams right now is to have Medicare and Medicaid cover ozembic for all, including children. Maybe, but you know, there should probably be some rigorous studies and long term views as to whether this is important or even useful for children, and what
the long term impacts are all of that. In this country we go drug first and not lifestyle. I think the AHHS secretary does have a lot of impact that there is the largest organization in the entire US federal government. Even when you accept Medicare and Medicaid payments that are gone out of that. I mean, what we look at the terms of the coverage like you're talking about with vaccines.
I had no idea even from the hearing that forty percent of births in this country are covered by Medicaid, which is insane, which means that the government has total authority over payment and control over people's lives.
I think that's why to me, it's terrifying that. I mean, the man is a liar and a quack whose spouts all kinds of He's an HIV truther. He doesn't even believe that aids's cover is caused by HIV.
He makes stuff up all the more bris quackery or quackery, institution query institutions, and pharmacie.
A different sort of death.
I mean, this is the thing, is I listen, I will grant maybe there are things he would do that I would, you know, support, although I don't know the snapchair that's a longer debate, but there I hold out the possibility that there are theoretically things he could do that I would support. In this position, to me, it does not outweigh the risk of confirming him and the immense damage that he could do to families and children and their health health simply through his consistent anti vaccine views.
I do want to get to the lex rayment clip because one of the things he'll say, oh you heard him in that clip that we played a long time ago at this point where he was like, oh no, I totally didn't say that. It's taken on a context. I was going to add, like, no vaccine is safe for everyone all the time. If you listen to the clips, So we'll play the extended thing. You can hear the
whole context. That's not what he was saying. He was saying, there is no he theoretically may support some vaccine that theoretically exists, but he does not support any of the vaccines that currently exist. Let's take a listen to what he had to say to Lex.
You've talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti vaxxer, and you've said that you're not anti vaccine, you're pro safe vaccine. Difficult question.
Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?
I think some of the live iris vaccines are probably of earning more problems than their causing. There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe, effective.
The big words.
What about Can we talk about the here's the problem, here's the problem.
Yes, yeah, here's the problem.
The polio vaccine contained a virus called semi virus forty SV forty.
It's one of the.
Most carcinogenic materials that it's not demand. In fact, it's used now by scientists around the world to induce tumors and rats and guinea pigs and labs. But it was in that vaccine. Ninety eight million people who got that vaccine and my generation got it, and now you've had this explosion of soft tissue cancers in our generation that kill many, many, many, many many more people.
Than polio ever did.
So if you say to me that the you know, the polio vaccine was effective against polio, I'm going to say yes. If I say, if you say to me, did it kill more people? That did cause more dessline I've heard, I would say I don't know because we don't have the data on that.
So but let's talk. Well, well, you know, so we're kind of have to narrow. Why is it effective against the thing it's supposed to fight?
Oh, well, a lot of them are. Let me give you an example. The most popular vaccine in the world is the DTV vaccine if their tennis and vertusses. It was used in this kind of introduce in this country
around nineteen eighty. That vaccine caused so many injuries that Lias, which was the manufacturer, was said to the Reagan administration, we are now paying twenty dollars in downstream liabilities for every dollar that we're making in profits, and we are getting out of the business unless you give us permanent immunity from liability. So the vaccine companies and were given and by the way, Reagan said at that time, why don't you just make the vaccine safe? And why is
said because vaccines are inherently unsaved. They said, unavoidably unsafe. You cannot make them safe.
You can hear the entire context there him saying, you know, no vaccine is safe and effective, and then going on to explain why he has an opposition to polio vaccine, why he has these other problems with vaccines, And like I said before, listen, if that's your view, there are some people that agree with you at this point.
Rep that view, rep that view.
But the reason he doesn't is because he knows that even though there has been an uptick in vaccine skepticism, it is still it is still dramatically unpopular to actually be blanket anti vaxx, which is why he always runs away from the label even though sorry, it does apply, and it has applied for a long time. So he has to hide the ball about what he actually believes. And so you know, I mean that shows you that
he knows what his views are. What he's articulated over decades are so poisonous in terms of how the American people would think about it that there's no way he could get confirmed if he actually held onto the views he's expressing.
There does look, I don't disagree.
I think it's probably fair to say that he's been skeptical of all vaccines in the past. He doesn't think any are safe and effective. Again, I think it's a chooser fighter thing. Would you rather have somebody who's deeply skeptical of that system or somebody who's.
Like, yeah, no, it's actually totally fine.
I mean, you know, using claude, So blame Claude if these numbers are incorrect. You know, a child born in the United States today will receive forty seven to fifty one and up to sixty doses of a vaccine by the age eighteen. Before nineteen ninety, that was, it was between ten to seventeen.
So with all with the advances in medicine, the same doses.
And all of that, do we really believe that the public health system which delivered US COVID nineteen and all of the death and everything where rigorous safety studies were done, and that all of the correlative long term data on top of their exemption exists. I do not believe it for one second. And this doesn't just apply to vaccine. This is the problem. It's not vaccine. There was another senator I forget her name. I think it was Cantwell who was railing at him for not supporting SSRIs.
It's like there's a religion in this.
Country around drugs, around let's just prescribe and move on and forget about it. I think that his general disposition against that is far more beneficial than any just wholesale quote unquote acceptance of whatever bullshit that these pharma companies publish in their pre prints and journals, and you know,
they don't even release all of the data. I mean, this was part of the real learning process, I think for me, for millions of other people, through the COVID net vaccine policy, through all of the justifications you know, even today that they're pushing COVID nineteen vaccines on pregnant women and flu shots and.
All this other stuff.
Again, maybe maybe it's safe, they tell us it is, but given how what has transpired over the last five years, and I think a lot of this comes back to I mean, let's make a political point here. Donald Trump is not president without RFK Junior. In my opinion, do you agree. I don't think there's chance in Helvit wins. He would never win Michigan, no way, considering how tight that the margin was there, especially if you look at
the margin in Pennsylvania and others. We did, we did a focus groups of.
A lot of these people.
If he had not explicitly endorsed him, a lot of them were not going to vote for Donald Trump. He is an integral part of the MAGA twenty twenty five coalition up there with the Libertarians.
And he should rop what he actually believes. But I mean, he should rep what he actually believes. Yeah, we should rep what she actually believes too, I mean, but that's.
Not how politics works.
I mean, I look, I agree, I wish it were that way. Why are the idiots in the United States Senate even get a stay over the cabinet?
I have no idea.
So insulting for him to try to claim he's not anti vacs, For him to try to oh, well, my kids are vaccing. Yeah, and you said you wish that you had never done that, you would do anything to go back and change that, like for you to just brazen lya a lot, I mean, And there were moments up there where he'd be they'd ask him a question, did you say that the chemicals in the water are turning kids?
Trendsaid, Oh no, I never I never said that.
Oh really well, here's five clips of you saying that, did you compare the rollout of the COVID vaccine to Nazi death camps?
Even though now.
You're like, oh, operation warp speed was amazing and Trump is it was great, it was such a great accomplishment, blah blah blah. Oh no, I didn't say that, Oh really well. Here's the transcript of you literally saying that. So listen, if you have those views which are wrong and not based on anything right, you can doubt the you know, pharmaceutical studies, but at least there are studies. At least we have years of data to back up the efficacy of these vaccines and the number of lives
that they have saved. At least we have that versus like what you made up in your head. Because it is just as foolish to knee jerk reject all of science, which is his posture. It is just as foolish to do that as to, you know, accept lockstock and barrel everything that a pharmaceutical.
Company tells you true.
So if you really want to get at the problem here, which I would love to do, you have to take the profit motive out of healthcare.
That's what you really need to do.
Is there any impetus in that direction with RFK Junior whatsoever?
No?
No, And so like I said, listen, for me, obviously we're not going to come to agreement here today. For me, the theoretical potential possible may be good that he could do in this position is vastly outweighed by the longtime track record and committed ideological belief which has been at the core of his adult work and life that he is against all vaccines and that he is a brazen liar who will say anything to anyone when it is convenient for him and his pursuit of power.
I think RFK, look, I accepted, we're going to move on to abortion.
I think he's a politician.
I agree, And I think it's sad what happens to these figures whenever they actually.
Have to get into power.
So yeah, I agree. I wish you would have actually defended a lot of his views. I think if you have to take a real politic view of this, would you rather have somebody who quote unquot accepts mainstream science, big pharma and all that. Again, within the universe of options for MAGA, for Donald J.
Trump.
You know, would we rather have the billionaire CEO of Pfiser or somebody be HHS secretary or somebody who thinks that the Visor people have been lying to people for decades. I'm going to go with the latter, and I think that that's a core to the reason why RFK Junior has even become a popular Maga like figure risk of a lot of skepticism about the COVID vaccine, which opened
up a lot of people's eyes now on abortion. I think this is where we can say, fairly for both a lot of the pro life and the pro choice crowd, arguably ten times more of a bigger flip flop that has happened. There are a lot of questions about RFK Jr.
In the AHHS role. The reason why is that he'll have jurisdiction, specifically over myth of press Stone, which is the abortion drug of which there has been a change in Biden administration policy about prescriptions for it, and of which the pro life Coalition has been pushing Donald Trump to quote unquote study the safety of it and to look at the drug and possibly hold it up, which of course would dramatically reduce the number of abortions in
the United States. So we have a lot of the questioning that back and forth on this issue, including some of the past statements that he's made.
Let's take a lesson.
I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with them how we cannot be a moral nation if we have one point two million abortions the here. I agree with them that the states should control abortion. President Trump has told me that he wants to and late term abortions.
With a life threatening bleeding from an incomplete miscarriage goes to the er and her doctor also determines that she needs an emergency abortion, but she's in a state where abortion is banned. You would agree, also as an attorney, that federal law protects her right to that emergency care.
Correct.
I don't know. I mean the answer to that is, I don't know if.
This st well, let me ask you this as an attorney. Doesn't federal law preempt state law?
The federal constitution does. Sometimes not every federal law preempt to state laws. It could be unconstitutional. Events are we need to understand the safety of every drug and if a person own and every other drug, and President Trump has made it clear to me that one of the things he is not taking a position yet if a prison a detailed position, but he's made it clear to me that he wants me to look at safety issues, and I'll ask nih FDA to do.
That, thank you.
So so, in other words, keeping it as is with Roe versus weight having been overturned and leaving it up to the states to determine if and when a woman can have an abortion.
I wouldn't it to the stage I would.
He would say completely, it's up to we should leave it to the woman.
We shouldn't have government.
Involved, even if it's full term.
Even if it's full term.
So we can all agree him being there. That was the the last clip there was showing what he used to say about abortion now.
Versus things on our show Confirmation times. You know true, Yeah, look, I think it is.
Uh.
That is the biggest hit against him, always has been.
That's why Mark Mike Lee, not Mike Pence, has been campaigning very hard against RFK Junior for being pro life. We had we've been talking sorry pro choice.
Uh.
James Langford, the person who was questioning for him there, that was really important.
He's the chair of the National prayer breakfast here in Washington.
He is probably the most pro life member of the Congress. Yeah, he's from Oklahoma. Makes sense in terms of the big evangelical population. But there are a lot of people who fall into the Langford category. It's still actually open question mark how some of them.
Jony Ernst is another one who's very pro life.
Well, we have a list.
If we want a six, can we put a six please? I'll just read off some of the names. These are the Republicans who are currently question marks on RFK junior.
We've got Mitch McConnell. We've got Bills that's right.
You've got Bill Cassidy, who's a doctor who actually he questioned him a little bit there. Senator Chuck Grassley who also questioned RFK junior. Senator Jeremy Ernst. You have Senator Tom Tillis, who now has come out as a lean yes. And then of course you have Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who if I had a guess who are probably going to be nos.
On I would think so, yeah, I think he'll probably lose those. And then what he can lose one more or he can't lose that's.
Well, he can he can lose McConnell, Murkowski, Collins just like Pete hag Seth. Yeah, that's it, because if he loses those three then jade Vans can cast the tie breaking vote. But there are big there's still I'd give him like a sixty five percent chance of getting confirmed.
I'm pretty sure.
I mean, look, the Magabase right now is behind RFK one hundred percent, and Trump is whipping for him.
JD is whipping.
For him, the online Maha army against a lot of like for these people, you should. I mean, the enthusiasm there was crazy yesterday. RFK has got it like a genuine constituency.
We've been waiting. People have been waiting a long time for someone like him to actually be in power.
So you would be surprised, I think, to see one of these Republicans turn, especially one who might be up for re election. But if anyone could get away with I mean, that's like, do we really believe Lindsay Graham is going to vote against RFK Junior. This guy's like a toad now, you know, in terms of his shucking up to Trump. You would really need these Murkowski and Collins people there, and McConnell who's never going to run
again for anything. They're unique for a reason because they're really insulated from the political costs.
Of all the rest of them.
You really do need the GOP behind you to be able to win. So I think what I did take away is no Democrats going to vote for him.
I don't think so.
Letterman was a possibility, but afterwards he came out and was like, I don't know how anybody could vote for that dude.
After that, he also voted against hag Seth.
You know, he's interesting guy, talks a big game, goes to the Lake and Riley thing and all of that. Still votes against all of the Trump nominees. So it's like, who are you, dude, Like, what are we doing here?
Yeah?
Brain day senator from whom Jerusalem?
Okay, one other thing I wanted to mention here, because you were talking about the political pressure. Nicole Shanahan, who was RFK Junior's running mate, who was a billionaire by dint of her marriages, she came out and said that she would use her billions to primary anyone on the Republican side who didn't vote for RFK Junior, and she specifically threatened I don't think that this really has any
particular impact. But she threatened Raphael Warnock of Georgia and said like, oh, I gave you lots of money before, and that's the only reason you won, which I don't know if that's really I mean, I know she did give money to super pac that supported him previously. But in terms of the democratic context, a Nicole sh Shanahan backed primary challenge against a Democrat is not going to get very far. And in a general election there's going to be tons of money going up against him anyway.
But in the Republican context, that could be a real threat, you know. And so this has become the norm of like individual Elon must did it before, threatening with regard to non means and with regard to the spending bill, like if you don't do what we want you to do, I'm going to fund a primary challenge against you. So these billionaires are also being used to enforce discipline within the you know, the Republican pro Trump coalition. So that's
another piece of what's going on here. Just the last comment on the abortion piece, because they do think that is important, just so people know. In the wake of Roe versus Way being overturned, actually aren't the number sager
that the number of abortions have actually gone up. Yes, and the reason primarily is because of MiFi pristone, which is you know, used very early in pregnancy for an abortion, and you know, even if you live in a state that's extremely restrictive, mostly allowed the ability to get that somehow through the mail. And so there was a court case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court if I'm not mistaken saying, oh, the FDA wrongly
approved this and it's not really safe. And the court was like, we're not going to go and second guess the FDA, like that's their job is to evaluate the safety and advocacy.
There's some forty.
Around studies that indicate if a persone is in fact safe to use in this manner. But this has been a primary goal. It was in Project twenty twenty five. It's been a primary conservative goal to get control of the FDA so that they can say, oh, no, actually we don't think it's safe, and this would be this would have a massive massive impact on women's reproductive rights.
Cue.
Oh, it's the biggest question mark on abortion.
Yeah, I don't think any and no one on either side of the debate would deny that. That's why they're so laser focused on it and why it's you know, was so noteworthy and important that RFK Junior in this hearing said I will look at the safety of that and I will follow Trump's lead on that, which is a you know, major goal of the pro life movement.
So even though he has personally been pro choice, he's trying to reassure Republican senators that he will also set his sights on rolling back use of myth a pristone which, like I said, will have a tremendous, in my view, very negative impact.
If that is impact, it will have a big impact no matter what.
And that's why that was one of the big you know, kamalaw campaign points there correctly in my opinion, you know, in terms of what the power the federal government can be.
Yeah, on this just very last thing one. I had to get this in here.
Senator Michael Bennett, whenever he was railing against RFK Junior, was like, did you really say that lyme disease was genetically engineered in a lab? As if it was some
sort of conspiracy theory. By the way, I thought everyone who knew everyone knew this, but can we please put my tweet up on the on the screen just so people can understand this lime disease is probably a lab leak, and I'm explaining it to people very clearly here if you're watching, and you can see this lime disease originated in Old Lime, Connecticut in the nineteen seventies, which just happens to be mere miles away from Plum Island, the
US Army bioweapons lab that was studying insects spreading bioweapons specifically with ticks in the nineteen sixties. Just so everyone knows, a lot of people actually have been suffering from lime disease through research of the tragedy and really of how decimated they are find themselves across books like Lab two,
five seven and others. But it really is sad because what's happened is that in the Cold War we had these literal Nazi scientists and others who were brought under from an Operation paper Clip to study bioweapons that we could inflict on the Soviet Union, specifically via insects, to decimate them, not kill them, but just cause chaos through
this bacteria. This lime bacteria is exceptionally rare. One of the dunks on the lab leak theory is like, oh, they found it in oatse the ice man, It's like, yes, it's traditional gain of function. You take a rare bacteria, you bring it to a lab, you try to weaponize it, you try to increase the infection, the infection, the vector the way that it will cause disease. And you know, there are millions of people now in America, specifically in
New England who suffer from lime disease. There are multiple offshoots and others. It causes devastating consocles. Actually, no, somebody wh's suffered lime disease for years. It's really never been the same since then. So yeah, it's really unfortunate. Lime disease is.
Probably a lab leak.
Ebola twenty fourteen was a lab leak, as we covered here on the show with Ryan Grim, COVID was a lab leak. So we need to figure this stuff out and tying it to RFK Junior, that's one thing.
At least I hope that we cut.
Let's cut all those We need to cut that NIH gain of function budget to zero, and we need to do some actual transparency on all this crap that we've been funding and hopefully shut a lot of these labs down who clearly don't have safety protocols or anything.
So it's really.
Sad because a lot of line people reached out to me and saying thank you, you know, for highlighting this because you know, so we've been suffering now for so long and there's still you know, the insurance companies fight them on lime disease. The doctors don't believe a lot of the people who suffer of lime disease is one of the most devastating conditions that's out there.
Yeah, it's very strange symptoms.
That's what I mean. And so then they just don't want to do anything for it. You're on your own.
Soccer did get community noted on this, but I oh, they took it off.
I was going to say, I looked at it.
I mean, it's not conclusively proven, but it's not a pretty big coincidence, that's right there. So I'll get I'll give him that one. It's just like this drugs, the drugs turning the kids trans not going to.
Give you that one.
Micals h ig oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, chemicals to what.
You think bird control, chemicals in our water, that zero effect.
The uh effect, HIV not causing AIDS, not going to give him that one either.
So yeah, there was a lot there going on with.
Look, there's a lot of shit in our water. Nobody even knows what the hell it is.
Reverse osmost as folks, if you can afford it, you should do it.
I highly recommend.
All right, let's get to Tulsa Gabbard at the same time, speaking of confirmation. We've got a lot of news concerning Tulsi Gabbert, who is up today for her confirmation hearing, and we're getting a taste of what some of the Republican attack against her will be. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Quote at Gabbard's
confirmation hearing, Edward Snowden may loom large. So a lot of very pro national security state Republicans have been very upset with quote Tulsi Gabbert's past support for Edward Snowden. While in Congress, Gabert introduced legislation that would have offered a bipartisan whistleblower protections for people like Snowden accused of violating the Espionage Act. She actually co sponsored that legislation with Matt Gates that called on the charges against Snowden
to be dropped. Now, since she will be the DNI, there are a lot of questions whether she is, according to them, is somebody who would compromise national security. So, for example, just a taste, Susan Collins said, missus Snowden's disclosures have jeopardized all the people who are helping us.
They say, one of my greatest concerns is how she views Edward Snowden in the light of the resolution that she co authored with Matt Gates calling all criminal charges against him, which were serious and involved high classification, to be dropped.
So that is the taste.
But Susan Collins is just one of many people who share these views. For example, Senator Tom Cotton, who is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has called Snowden a trader. You continue on down the line, you've got people like Mitch McConnell. You've got James Langford who said that he was quote spoken with Gabbard about Snowden, and he said that their office of the Director of National Intelligence has a responsibility to make sure that we don't have our
secrets leaked out. So this is in addition, this Snowden thing to the section seven h two about face that she has already made right on Faiza and on spying.
So I think he said it. They always attack you for.
The worst thing.
It's like the only good reasons to put Tulsie in here, and she's there like forcing her to change. I mean and listen, she has her own will. She's making her own decisions here as well. But yeah, that report for the New York Times says that she's expected to distance herself and say that she believes mister Snowden's disclosures hurt the intelligence community and national security. We have always said in Glenn Green would always makes this point.
If what Snowden revealed.
Had truly hurt national security or compromised our soldiers are intel assets in the field, we would all know about it. They would have screened that to the high habits a million times. They've never provided any evidence of that, something that Tulsi Gabbard knows and has no doubt said and pointed out herself. But now, in an attempt to, you know, appease the Hawks on the Republican side, She's going to
do this about face and be like, oh, Snowden so bad. Actually, I'm seven oh two that we got that all cleaned up, no worries whatsoever. So that's where we are with her. And there was one Senate aid who told the Washington Post, they're not even sure she makes it down a committee. So I don't know if that's I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's what's going to happen.
But I do think that her confirmation, her confirmation is certainly the most imperiled and the most in danger of failing, because you will definitely have no Democrats vote for her whatsoever. Fetterman certainly wouldn't be you know, he's the one who would be most likely to cross over, and he's like belligitor, insane hawks, so he's not going to be down with her either.
Well, i've got the list in front of you. You've got Tom Cotton, so that's probably a no. Maybe, I don't know, you know.
Cotton said something that was kind of open to her. He was like, oh, well, we have.
Our disagreements, but you know, I don't know. He said something that was like a little bit conciliatory towards her.
So, oh no, he said, I support her. Okay. Last night he was on Fox support her lead. I look forward to working with her. Okay, So that's good. She got the chairman.
You've got James Reisch from Idaho. That's he can be a weirdo. Susan Collins that she's already probably no John Cornyn, total national security state hawk.
Jerry Moran. I don't know much about him.
Langford, he's the guy who already got her to flip on seven zero two. So he'll probably vote for Mike Rounds the same thing.
He's wild card.
Todd Young also a wild card, and Ted but Ted Buddle probably vote well.
And this is a voter out of committee.
You're looking at a committee, and so if every Democrat votes against her, they only would need what one more Republicans. Yeah, but I joined the Democratic vote on a committee.
Can you still get a committee a floor vote with an unfavorable report out of committee?
I think he can.
I'm not sure I thought they had.
I thought they had to go through the committee first before you could bring them to the floor.
Test by before the committee.
I could be wrong, but it's like report, so sometimes like a piece of legislation will be unfavorably voted out of committee, but it'll still be brought. This is parliamentary nonsense that I have no idea about, so please keep that in mind. But yeah, that's where we are right now with Telsea Gabbert. If you want to taste again of the campaign against her, you've got the Wall Street
Journal editorial board, the voice of Mitch McConnell. Let's put this up there on the screen, Telsea Gabbert, Edward Snowden is intelligence? Does the US really want a director of national intelligence who excuses mass leaking of secrets? So you can see there they mentioned specifically Senator Tom Cotton's past reservations about her, and they also talk about quote unquote the damage that Snowden had done as a result of the leaks. But it's parodying a lot of the national
security state concerns against her. So I think you're going to get a real taste of what happened against RFK Junior. So with the Democrats, it's going to be all a sad all the time.
It's all going to be like, why did you meet with Asad?
You know all this twenty thirteen rehash about that.
Apparently there's some story.
Questions about her cults. It's been a maybe subject.
Recently, it's been a lot of chatter and Washington about Hezbollah.
I'm not really quite sure yet what it's about.
They say a story is coming about some of her alleged connections to Hezbola. I believe it when I see it, I guess for what that is then snowed in for a Republicans see it exactly. That's why the story's being plunted seven oh two and snowed in. So those are the top four things. But yeah, I would say she's the only one who I'm given like a fifty percent shot. She's got the lowest chance in my opinion. That doesn't
mean I still think she won't get confirmed. I think she probably will because Trump and Trump and JD have really made it, you know. I mean, look with RFK and with Tolsi and Hegseat, they have rammed these people through committee and they have made it like a real zero in against the folks. But you only need four and you've got three wild cars already, so you really.
Only need one. One person to flip who is like a traditional person.
McConnell, Murkowski, Collins would.
Vote against her almost certainly, pretty sure.
So then you can only lose one more and with the number of national security hawks that are on the Republican side, yeah, it's it's definitely perilous. I according to Chad GP two, Yes, you are correct. Regardless of the committee's vote, the nomination can proceed to the full Senate for consideration. The Senate Majority leader schedules the nomination for debate and a final confirmation vote.
So traditionally it.
Has to go from the committee and they have to you know, issue a positive referral, but it's not absolutely required.
So that's where that stands.
Yeah, there you go. Let's get to the Medicare Sectionaid. Sorry, I'm like a.
Difference, not a secretary either.
To be honest, the difference is honestly kind of difficult to understand sometimes, like Medicaid and in terms of the individual programs, not the senior care.
They're like, yeah, but you're talking about the way the funding works themselves.
Sometimes I'm like, well, because you know, there's provisions under Medicare that sometimes overlap with Medicaid, Like in terms of the there's like Medicare advantage, but then there's Medicaid plans for people who are born under Medicaid, but sometimes you can be covered by Medicare too.
I was trying to it.
It's actually like for me to wrap my head around it. I'm like, this is a behemoth thing.
I feel confident if you were up for hh, that's y.
Yeah, that's with that homework, and you would be ready to know the difference quite clearly inside.
I'm just saying as a layman, you know, just entering into this, I was like, oh, you know, it's.
Actually kind of complicated. I had no idea.
All right, let's get to the funding freeze or whatever the hell has been going on, which, by the way, continues to be a question. So Ryan and Emily did a great job covering this with Jeff Stein, who was all over the case when they issued this original memo, very broadly wording saying freeze all federal funding except for things that go directly to individuals, and they name specifically Social Security and Medicare, but not Medicaid. And as I
said before, the wording was very broad. So they said freeze all federal funding effectively, so we can assess whether or not these different programs match, you know, meet the standards as laid out by Trump's various executive orders against
green energy and DEI and whatever else he issued. So yesterday, after creating a whole disaster and the Medicaid payment portals being shut down, and you know, domestic violence shelters and addiction programs and meals on wheels and head starred and all these programs calling their senators and the representatives freaking out like what is going on, they decided to completely resend that memo. So let's put B one up on
the screen. This is the memo rescinding the original memo. However, then the White House Press Secretary came out and said, well, the first memo is rescinded. However, the funding freeze still applies for the programs that are in you know, in contradiction of President Trump's executive orders. So continued confusion. Effectively, Jeff Stein summed it up. We can put this up on the screen as how this timeline all went down. This is B two, he says to I have this right?
What am I missing? Sincere question from the White House on Monday? Omb memo will implement full federal pause on grants, including but not limited to, and that was the language from the original memo here, including but not limited to those that violate Trump executive orders on DEI, clean energy, trans related programs. Then, on Tuesday, White House issues Q and A, saying the pause only applies to dollars that
violate Trump executive orders. The White House Press Secretary says it's a limited freeze that will not affect individuals benefits, but major disruptions at medicaid, housing assistants and elsewhere. Wednesday, the OMB Offices Management of Budget formally rescinds the Monday memo. White House Secretary says on Twitter that the freeze on spending that violates executive orders remains in effect. We can put up that statement from Caroline Leven She says, this
is not a recision of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a recision of the OMB memo that's confusing.
Confusing to me.
At least why to and any confusion created by the court's injunction. The President's executive orders on federal funding remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented. Put in B five guys, skip ahead to be five the judge what was just ruled? So this has already gone to two judges at this point the first one said this is not going in effect. We're putting an immediate freeze on this, you know, on the freeze going
into effect. Another judge wighed in yesterday and said they will grant the restraining order, saying the withdrawal of the hugely ambiguous omb order is only distinction without a difference, based on comments by the president's press secretary. So it is still a bit of a jumble and very confusing and continues to be put on pause by you know, at this point multiple judges who have taken a look at this and sager, this is some major Trump twenty seven vibes.
This is major Trump twenty seventeen.
There's a portion of our audience which is shocking.
It was actually either in high school or younger whenever Trump was first president. So if you all want to know what covering the first administration was like, this is what it was.
It was like.
Orders and then they were rescinded and people didn't know what was happening, and then there was chaos, and then there was a judge and now we're back to well, this is still in effect, except it's not.
But it's also not an effect.
Yeah, welcome to Donald Trump America. This is what it's always like. Hope you're all enjoyable, enjoying the next four year Producer Max.
He was sixteen when all this was going on last time.
So fair enough. I saw on the show was sixteen.
Now.
I mean, I've met people who were like twenty two who watch the show. So I'm like, hold on a second.
I was like, so, how old are you when Trump was They're like, one of my often questions is so you were born after nine to eleven.
That's always a crazy one.
Yeah. And then it's like, do you remember anything about Obama? And they're like, no, not really, I wasn't really paying attention. So this is the Trump era. That's that's the thing that they most remember, which is kind of crazy.
But the point is that this is a lot what it was like.
This is also what I would say is what really caused him to become more unpopular the first time around. You look, I mean, governance is an art.
It's difficult.
It's one of those things where is maddening with bureaucracy, and it's one of the reasons why I always tell people we were going to cover buyouts, so maybe we can mention some of this in yere.
But look for all the talk of run the government.
Like a business, Like, what do we learn from this air traffic control thing?
It's not a business. It's a life and death stakes sometimes.
Like if you flash the workforce at Twitter and sometimes your DMS.
Crashed, right, which happens to me all the time. Who gives a shit? Nobody died, No one cares. Right when the stock goes down.
Let's say you have a company of stock goes down and employees lose their job. Tragic, not downplaying it. Not the same as a plane crash. H And this is what I always point to where the byzantine nature of the United States government and specifically of the welfare state is such where it is both maddening, ineffective, bureaucratic, stupid, bloated over, et cetera, and is one of the most beloved programs in the entire United States.
So don't screw with it.
Well, this is one of the main lessons that Obama learned in nine with Obamacare and all that is. I remember being some of those tea party protests. Those were some of my first acts of journalism and being like, hey.
Why are you all out here?
And They're like, hands off my Medicaid, hands off my Medicare.
And we were like, well, you know, it doesn't but it didn't matter.
Like the idea that you were even screwing with old people's healthcare, that is, you will send people into a rage.
Same here, you don't screw with Medicaid.
And watching the hearing had no clue how many babies are born in this country literally under Medica. Forty percent, that's nuts of all of the babies in the United States were being born under the Medicaid program. I'm not to mention the number of people of disability.
Et cetera, who are affected by this.
All of the hospitals and the doctors our hospital are our whole watch.
Our RFKA debate.
Our healthcare system is screwed up enough as it is, having to worry about, you know, reimbursement all of that while that's going on as a nightmare. So it was a one day thing, but it's a taste of if you screw this type of stuff up, you really only get one shot.
I'm not sure it was a one day thing because at least according to Jeff Stein's reporting, there continue to be a lot of you know, local programs funded by a federal grant.
Well, I'm talking about Medicaid.
Oh, the Medicaid.
Yeah, so all the Medicaid portals were shut down in all fifty states. Those are backup, but there continued to be, I mean, questions about what the state of affairs even is right now, what the White House actually wants people to be doing or not doing within all of these federal agencies. What the Press Secretary said in her very first briefing was like, oh, well, if you have a question,
just like you know, Russ Vote's line is open. Who's not even confirmed at omb by the way, And I think part of the reason they decided to rescind this first memo was because he is up, I believe tomorrow his hearing start, and I'm sure this was throwing his potential confirmation in to a little bit of chaos as well, just because listen, it doesn't matter if you're a Republican
or a Democrat. Like every single senator and representative was fielding calls from the head Start program, the Meals on Wheels program, the domestic violence program, like all the addiction recovery programs, all sorts of you know, veterans homelessness, all of these problems. Say, what the hell is going on? Like, are we going to get our funding or not? If not, we're gonna have to lay people off. We can't open our doors, the kids can't come to class, et cetera,
et cetera. So truly, you know, both parties were quite concerned about what was going on here, regardless of what they were saying publicly. Now apparently, as best we know, the backstory here is that and again this is very trump twenty seventeen, the memo was written. Steven Miller sort
of directed that this memo be written. Russ Vote writes the memo and puts it out but without going through any sort of like review process to recognize the fact that your language and here very clearly indicates all federal grant funding is frozen, not just like whatever trends or
DEI or whatever stuff they're not happy about. By the way, the fifty million dollar Gazacondum thing was total incomplete bullshit and nonsense, just so you know, as an aside, but to your point, soography could now put before up on the screen because this kind of gets to what you're talking about. So if you ask, people should you cut spending. The federal government spend too much? Is it inefficient? They'll be like yes. But then when you're like, okay, well
what should they cut? You know, should they spend more on Social security or less? They're like, definitely spend more. What about education? Definitely spend more. What about assistance to the poor. Definitely spend more. Medicare yes, Medicaid yes. Border security is where you get to fifty to fifty military, They're like, we're probably spending plenty there.
We're good there in federal law enforcement. Same thing.
But you know, by and large, if you go down the list of budget items, when it comes to these programs are very popular. So Republicans oftentimes run into this where you know, in theory, people are like, yes, the government's spending too much, but that when it actually comes down to these social safety net programs, they don't. They do not want to further strip our already threadbare safety
net even further. And you know, typically defense, the defense budget only ever goes up, so that's not on the table politically, even though actually the American people would probably be most open to cuts. There One other thing I wanted to get to here is we can put b six up on the screen. So even though this was chaotic and continues to be chaotic and unclear and not done in an effective way, it's not like it was
done haphazardly. The Huven and Post was able to actually get their hands on some internal documents that proved that this was This was a plan to provoke this constitutional challenge, to try to directly challenge the What's it called the Impoundment Control Act of nineteen seventy four, which says that effectively, you know, Congress has the power of the purse. If they pass funding, then the executive is obligated to spend it.
This was a Postwatergate reform had that Nixon administration didn't want to spend money that was appropriated by Congress on something I can't remember exactly what, and so this was put into place to codify into law. No, if you if the Congress appropriates the money, we have the power of the purse, use an executive branch. Don't forget to say like, well, I don't like that program, so I'm
not going to spend money on that particular thing. Except for rare instances, like if there's some new technological gain that creates efficiencies, then there might be a loophole there, but very very limited as part of Project twenty twenty five and something that Jeff Stein has been telling us about and we've been reporting on here, and it's also
part of the plan with DOGE. They want to challenge that and basically be able to say that Congress's appropriations are just a basically suggestion, and then the executive branch gets to be like, we like that, we don't like that, and have I mean, this would be this would almost be rendering Congress completely irrelevant effectively and making it so that the executive branch really has near monarchical powers to
do everything that they want. So that was revealed in terms of these internal documents, which many people have been speculating about, but sort of confirmed by having a post. Last thing I'll say, I don't get your reaction to the saga is Lever News had a good report about just looking at Okay, well, how might the Supreme Court rule on such a question. This is a very conservative
Supreme Court number. These individuals were put on the bench by Donald Trump, so you know, there's certainly possibility that even though this has never been the understanding and it's pretty clear in the constitution power of the purse with Congress, et cetera. There is certainly a possibility that they would side with the Trump White House on this. But let's put B seven up on the screen. This could end
up being relevant. Apparently, John Roberts wide in back in a nineteen eighty five communicate weight in.
On a question.
This is classic David sort to be able to find this. By the way, weide in on this very question with regard to whether the executive branch can just you know, say no, we don't want to do that. Sorry, Congress, we're not following the law that you passed. He said that no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse and discouraged going in the direction of questioning that whatsoever, so that could potentially
become relevant. I think it's almost certainly that the almost certain that this will end up at some point of the Supreme Court.
Not only that Justice Gorsich is a much more libertarian, much more skeptical of executive power, and just Barrett.
Also very much in that camp. So there's big ideological divides. I'd be curious to see.
Okay, Katan is usually more of a big power guy like executive branch. They've definitely got Thomas Rdy, Thomas Alito, Kavanaugh likely to go on the side of the Trump administration. But yeah, you could conceivably see a six ' three on something like this. Yeah, I'd be curious to see how it breaks down. I asked around and they told me the same thing. They're like Kavanaugh or they said, Gorsich, Cony, Barrett are both big question marks. A lot of it,
remember comes back to implementation as well. This chaos does not help your case, because that's something that they've written about often in Supreme Court opinions, is that.
You have to follow the letter of the law and the process.
That's what specifically came back to screw them on the census back in twenty eighteen when Justice Roberts ruled against the Trump administration. So he's got a long history of not buying some of this stuff, you know, going all the way back to Obamacare and others like novel conservative legal theories. So they really could have issues before the Court with this one. It's all about testing the limits of power. This was very basically laid out by a
lot of people incoming in the Trump administration. They want to be able to do as much as they possibly can, and they're trying to get it done early to figure out what they actually can do going forward.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's right.
And I will say, like Democrats have been utterly pathetic and responding to this time and are generally utterly pathetic and disappointing, et cetera. But it is also true that it is easier to like dismantle, cut and destroy than it is to like build new programs.
So you know, I mean.
That's what they're they're with this with the buyouts that we mentioned, which aren't really buying whatever.
Put that semantic difference aside.
But you know, they're trying to cut some ten percent kind of randomly broad swath of the federal government. All of those you know, all of those attempts to they want to they've talked about they want to demoralize the entire federal workforce. They want to use these sorts of truly unprocessed and extraordinary powers to just you know, take
a hatchet to all sorts of things within the federal government. So, yeah, the wrecking ball has arrived, and they're doing everything that they possibly can with it.
Yeah, that makes sense, all right, we will let's get to Jeremy Corbell standing by UFOs joining us now is my friend Jeremy Corbel to react to some of the news around the New Jersey drones.
It's great to see you, sir. Thank you for joining us.
Absolutely, Jeremy, we want your reaction here to the White House coming out with a statement on the New Jersey drone phenomenon.
Let's take a listen and we're going to get your reaction.
And before I turned to questions, I do have news directly from the President of the United States that was just shared with me in the Oval Office from President Trump directly an update on the New Jersey drones. After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey and large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons. Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational and private individuals that
enjoy flying jones. In meantime, in time, it got worse due to curiosity. This was not the enemy.
A lot going on there, Jeremy. So, in your expert opinion, what do you make of this?
Yeah, I mean the explanation is fundamentally nonsensical. I think we all had high hopes for a new era of transparency. Look for me on the UAP topic, but also just on a bunch of topics, we're not seeing it in that statement. Let me just give you a little breakdown here. The FAA would not approve research flights without communication with facility heads, and same with military bases. You know, did the fa authorize the ones that buzzed Langley seventeen nights
in a row. Did they authorize the untrackable drones that infiltrated three US and UK air bases and that was going on for weeks? You know, did they did the FAA authorized flight restrictions if they if they had originally authorized these drones, It's absolutely non sensical. And I'll tell you, I get reports from people that are actually guarding these critical infrastructure sites what they're seeing through their flear and through their thermal It's not just traditional drones. And so
this is an issue of transparency. We had high hopes. We're not getting it. Remember, these drones were not affected by anti drone technologists, so these just weren't approved tasks. It's just a blatant flat out line.
Yeah, I mean research and various other reasons. Like listen, I'm a skeptic personally, so I would be open to an explanation that's like research and here's exactly what's going on, and here's why it's confusing to people, and here's why the drone detection technology didn't work and why the flight space wasn't authorized, blah blah blah. But I don't think anyone skeptic, not skeptic, whatever your thoughts are about the situation is going to be satisfied with research and various other reasons.
Yeah.
And look, this is not necessarily something that we have to be, you know, skeptical about where they come from. This is just a matter of fact that we have unidentified craft that are loitering over sensitive military and nuclear installations and also power stations. So this is something that we should address face on and we should be honest
about it. Just the answer that they came up with is absolutely nonsensical, and that's the problem, right, especially when you consider all of the authorities involved the military bases.
And that's what I want to talk to you about here, Jeremy.
Can you put this answer in the context of all of these other UAP incidents that we have seen over military bases. And then the subsequent explanation somewhat month and a half later, that vague you know, Oh it was research, it was authorized. Does this fit with a pattern from the US government.
Yeah, it does.
And this is something back in twenty nineteen when we had ten navy warships over one hundred mile radius swarmed by over one hundred unidentified And that's where George app and I provided so many different types of footage showing that this is an issue everybody on the ships we've spoken with that we've brought forward. This is something where you have these incursions and this has been going on
for a long time. You know your history, you guys, you know the shutdown of nuclear based shutdowns of airports. We're not getting truthful answers, and that's what we were all hoping for. Again, this answer is just so nonsensical, it's almost comical if it wasn't a serious issue.
You know, right, what are some of the ongoing transparency issues that you're hoping are going to be resolved ultimately under this administration?
Jeremy Well, you know that I'm obsessed with the UFO and UAP issues. So I'd like that to be resolved, and we tried to do that in Congress a number of times. You know, I think the American public deserves, or not even deserves, it is our right to have transparency within government, and we're just seeing I hope we're not, but it appears we're just seeing the kind of same status quo as things unfold. Lot of promises are made.
Remember back in the day, the Clintons tried to get this information out, John Podesta, try to get this information out, ground truth on what uap UFOs are, what they represent to humanity. And it's just we're not seeing that right now. That's a fact.
Jeremy. Could you also give us your reaction.
This must some more whistleblowers and others that have come out, you know, government psionics and others. I'm just curious for your take on the matter and how that fits in the broader scheme of whistleblowers coming forward trying to give information to Congress and to the government. And then at the very same time, we have the White House here with a traditional obviously BS explanation about the New Jersey drones.
Right, and so that's what we're seeing. What we're seeing is we're not going to get the answers through the traditional means we were hoping. Unfortunately, you know, through through the Senate, through the House, just through through the White House in general. We're not going to get those answers. So how are we It's going to be on journalism, and that's okay. That's what we're all doing is trying to get to the bottom and core truth on all of this. So I'm very hopeful for journalism right now.
A lot of people are throwing down or a lot of people are getting involved with this issue. So we have to do good journalism no matter what the White House does.
Absolutely, So we'll end it there. Jeremy, thank you so much. And listen, Jeremy me us. We tried to warn you we could do it the easy way, but catastrophic is the way that you guys want to.
Go, So be it right. I mean, we try to see that.
Yeah, we've tried to give them the option of coming forward of disclosure. They are leaving it to the whistleblowers and the eyewitnesses and other staff to come forward and to force the hand. If that's the way they want to play it, fine, we can continue to fight if we need to.
Thank you very much, sir, We appreciate you.
Thank you.
Very fortunate to be joined this morning by Peter Binart. He is editor at large of Jewish Currents. He is author of buyne Art notebook on Substack, and also author of a brand new book that we can put up on the screen, being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza a reckoning. Great to see you, Peter, Thanks a lot. Yeah, So my typical first question is what prompted the writing of the book, But I think that much is pretty obvious.
But maybe you could start off by talking a little bit about what this period has been like, the post Ox October seventh period has been like, specifically for you and for your relationship with the Jewish community.
So one of the central metaphors in Jewish tradition is of a family, kind of imagined extended family. Weaving used the term, you know, bene Israel, the children of Israel to describe all of us, even though Israel is the name that was given to Jacob after he wrestles with the angel in the Book of Genesis, and.
So there's something there.
And it's also a family that has imagined family that has been through a lot of trauma and then experienced another tremendous level of trauma on October seventh, which was really, say, for many of us, one of the worst days of our lives. It's very in those moments. What families want
is solidarity and support. But the tragedy to me is that the way in which the organized American Jewish communities, rarely government asked for that solidarity is unconditional support for the brutal oppression of Palestinians and now the destruction of Gaza.
So for me, I think the emotions that led me to write this book were this struggle to show that I do feel a sense of solidarity and love for people and a tradition that is at the center of my life, and yet something has gone profoundly wrong when we take that tradition and that sense of obligation to one another and it becomes an excuse for doing just the most horrifying things to another group of people.
So you talk about how the Jewish community needs a new story. Talk a little bit about what the current story is and what are the problems with that current story, and what a new story that may better served not just the Jewish community about the world at large what that might look like.
I think Jewish public discourse tends to be dominated by a narrative of Jews as kind of history's permanent virtuous victims. The truth is the Jewish sacred texts actually tell a much more complicated story than that, but that becomes the one. I think that is often in the kind of folk the folk kind of narrative that exists. And then so you hear this even in the description of October seventh.
Right to be clear, October seventh was a horrifying act of violence, including against many many Israeli civilians, but it gets called a poe grown. So what happens then, is you are linking this to violence against Jews in the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Is if basically the Jewish condition is the same, because they're always going to be these these vicious anti Semitis who are going to try to kill Jews wherever they are, right or that people say it's the worst killing of Jews since the Holocaust, Right, But the truth is the conditions that exist for Palestinians in particularly Palacines in Gaza are nothing like the conditions that exist in the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century or or during the
Nazi period, because you can't understand European anti Semitism and violence against Jews without under staying Jews is a legally subordinated group of people. But in Israel Palestine it's the reverse. Jews have legal supremacy. It's Palestinians who are legally subordinates,
who live without basic rights. And if you want to understand Palestinian violence and you want to make sure that it doesn't happen again, that everybody is safer, you have to face that reality of the oppression that Palestinians exists for palties, not to justify God forbid what happens on our pobrase seven, but to understand the conditions so you can ensure that doesn't happen again, which means responding to the desire of Palestinians to be free.
You have a quote in here you say, treating a state as a God is a very frightening endeavor. It confers upon mortals a level of veneration that we do not deserve and will always abuse. Leibowitz called it the essence of fascism. How did support for the state of Israel not just you know, broadly the state of Israel existing, but even the specific policies effectuated by an extremely far right I would say fascist government under bebing at Yahoo.
How did that get tied up so much with Judaism to the extent that, you know, the ADL and other groups. The definition that the US government is working with now will say that if you criticize this state, you are actually yourself anti Semitic.
You know, I don't think I really understood. I don't think I know the answer to that question and Begause, But I think it's actually a global thing that's happening now. When I look at the way some white evangelical Christians in Trump's talk about the United States, it seems to be almost a parallel in which that in Trump's America, it's in Trump support. It seems to be if you don't have an American passport, if you don't have the
right documentation, you are worthless. Your life is meaningless. The worship the state is all that matters, and whether you
have citizens anything. I mean, I'm not an expert on Christianity, but my understanding is that Christianity has a message about the universal dignity of all human beings, irrespective of what passport you have right, And I think something parallel has happened in much of the organized American Jewish community in which Judaism's message of the universal dignity of all human beings.
Because Todah does not start with a story of Jews.
The first according to Jewish tradition, Adam eve Noah, the first characters in Torah are not Jews. They're universal human beings, and they are symbols of the infinite value of all human life. And yet what happens when we talk about Israel and Gaza is that the first thing that's demanded is that people accept Israel's right to exist. Jewish tradition does not think in terms of states having rights to exist. It thinks in terms of human beings having rights to exist.
States are mere instruments for the protection of human life, and if they do a really terrible job of protecting the lives of the people under their control, they should be reimagined, recreated. And yet instead it's inverted. So the lives of the children of Gaza and the other people of Gaza are considered not to be precious, but the right of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state with a political certain political system is considered sac percent And to me, that's idology.
It's funny you make that connection because I was thinking about that same connection too, in the context of the freak out over what the bishop had to say about mercy for migrants, mercy for LGBTQ people, and how there was such a vociferous reaction against that from the right. You know, obviously the President was upset, Jade Vance was tweeting about it, and you know, it was a subject
of primetime programming on Fox News, et cetera. Even though listen, I'm also not a Christian, but I do have reading comprehensions and skills, and I have a basic understanding of Christianity, and I know that, you know, humanity for the foreigner is kind of a key theme throughout the whole thing, even the Old Testament, New Testament. Jesus like whoever you want to look at that was that is a key message. And I think Tim Alberta has done he's I think,
probably done the best job writing about this connection. Yes, but I really it did actually help me to understand also the societal process that has gone on in on within the state of Israel. And I think, you know, more broadly with many exceptions, but more broadly within the stridently you know, Zionist Jewish community that has led to this place where the state itself is sacercanct and that that is put above even you know, the religious texts
that are supposed to be so central. You know that that really did kind of hit home for me as well.
Thanks.
Thanks, Yeah, I mean it's interesting if you look at you know, if you look at Jewish religious thinkers in the early you know, in the early decades of Zionism, there's a great fear actually of nationalism, as of secular nationalism, that secular nationalism actually doesn't that the seculars will undermine and threaten the kind of ethical principles in Judaism.
And I think that's exactly what's happened.
That nationalism has become a religion, not just nationalism, but ethno nationalism has become a religion. And you know, and you see it among you see it in the United States, you see it among Jews, you see it in India right where where Hinduta kind of is kind of has become a version of Hinduism or replaced Hinduism, in which basically the rights of Muslims now are considered to be you know, you know something that don't doesn't need to
be respected because this is a Hindu nation. It's a very dangerous thing that I think is happening globally.
Yeah, I think that's a really important point. I did want to ask you a little bit about some some current events and Elon Musk in particular, because it certainly it directly relates to your book. I mean, you know, this is a person who has shared and spread the quote unquote great replacement theory, which is brazenly anti Semitic. He had to go and like pay you know, do penance with the ADL and go on this trip.
To Israel, et cetera.
But routinely, you know, as algorithm on Twitter boost my feet is filled with a bunch of Nazis kind of constantly like amplifying their talking points, goes now and speaks to the far right German AfD party.
Absolutely reaction.
Era did what sure look to be, in my humble opinion, like a Nazi salute twice on Inauguration Day. And yet you know, the ADL, which is supposed to be the arbiter of what is and what is an anti Semitism, comes out and is like just an awkward jet we understand tensions are high, just an awkward gesture and not just them bb not Yahou himself comes out and says, Elon's a.
Friend of the Jew.
I mean, how do we explain this whitewashing of Nazism directly from the organs that are supposed to be repelled by such an ideology.
Well, first of all, it's just sheer cowardice, which we're seeing where there's an orgy of cowardice happening across American institutions. Right, people are afraid of Elon Musk and they're afraid of Donald Trump. So that's just I think on one broader thing which is happening, which is the ADL is doing
as well. But it's also because the struggle against a certain kind of bigotry, in this case anti Semitism, has been proundly corrupted by the equation of a struggle against bigotry with the defense of a state, and indeed with the defense of a state that itself is practicing state sponsored bigotry. Right, Israel's own leading human rights organizations say
that Israel is practicing apartheid. So you can't be an anti bigotry organization if you define your mission as defending a state that's practicing bigotry, right, and so, you know, I sometimes imagine what would happen if the NAACP defined its struggle against anti black bigotry as also including the defense of Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Sudan, and a bunch of
other African governments. Right, they would be lobbying accusations at progressives all the time who were criticizing these governments for their human rights abuses.
Right.
It would completely distort and undermine their effort against anti black racism. And this is really what's happened with the ADL and other American Jewish organizations since the nineteen seventies when they redefine themselves as Israel defense organizations.
What do you make of some of the developments that we've seen here early in the Trump administry, even before he comes into office, they're able to secure what is at least a temporary cease fire deal in the Gaza strip. We see people who have just recently been able to return to their homes. At the same time, a lot of question marks about what is going to happen next. You see increasing mass violence in the West Bank, both by violent settlers but also very much backed by the IDF.
You know, VVN at Yahoo has already seemed to promise that they're going to go back to the war and the atrocities as soon as this phase is complete. What do you sort of make of where we are, What are your hopes and fears for what happens next?
I think that look, obviously it was a good thing that there was a cease fire, that some of those hostages are coming home, that Palestinians at least can get some aid in so they're not starving to death. But the trajectory overall looks incredibly bleek. If you had to ask me what I think is the most likely scenaire, you know, trajectory that we are headed on and it will take decades maybe to be head But this is unless we change US policy and Europe changes policy, and
Israeli impunity ends. I think we are on a path towards the destruction of the Palestinian people. Not that every last Palestinian is going to die, but something analogous to what the United States did in the nineteenth century with Native Americans. Right, we didn't create a two state solution, you know, we didn't stop along when we stop at the Mississippi River and say you can have the land.
Right.
Basically, the US just continued and continued until Native Americans were destroyed as a political entity that could resist. And I think that what we are seeing is that things that we did not believe were possible in the twenty first century, we believed were relegated to an earlier era
in human history, are very much possible. And I don't think they will stop with Palestinians, and I don't think they will stop with Gaza unless we can stop it through a mass political movement that can change the political.
Dynamics in the United States.
I think that's the only thing that's going to because Donald Trump is not going to stand in the way of this. In fact, he's going to He's going to applaud this. He said the people of Gaza should go to Jordan and Egypt. I mean that statement alone should have him sitting in the Hague before the International Criminal Corps.
Is a call.
It is a monstrous call for mass ethnic cleansing. The United States has, with our weapons, destroyed this piece of territory, destroyed most of the hospitals, the schools, the agriculture, the buildings, and now Donald Trump says, oh, it looks like it's really awful there.
Not that we're going to rebuild it.
Not that those people deserve freedom, not that they should be able to return to Israel, which is where their families are actually from, and we're expelled in nineteen forty eight, but that they should go and become stateless refugees in a foreign country unless we can change the politics through a mass movement.
This is where things are headed.
I fear, and I think that your right to point out that even if even if this was quote unquote only this treatment was only reserved for Palestinians, obviously that
would be horror enough. But to me, the implication is much broader, because once a complete genocide and ethnic cleansing is on the table, with the backing of the world's superpower and our weapons and the parts of the United States saying hey, this is the solution I want going forward that doesn't just stay in that corner of the world, that opens up a Pandora's box.
Of new horrifying.
Possibilities that we really haven't fully I mean, not that the world has ever been perfect, not that the post World War two order has been not that the US has been benevolent, not that we haven't fallen down, but it truly opens up a new order of pure might makes right barbarism that has ramifications for the entire world. The United States of America included absolutely.
You know what I think we forget.
Actually we could be entering a real new age of ethnic cleansing. I mean, there was it was ethnic cleansing of Armenians that actually happened in the summer of October twenty three that people don't remember so much. But countries learn from each other. Governments learn from each other, right, and they see what's possible, they see what you can get away with. And so there are a lot of countries,
country governments in the world. You think of Orandra Modi with Muslims in India, there are a lot of governments to say, we have disposable populations, We have populations that are that are a nuisance for us and our vision of the state that we want right and if we if Israel can do this to the Palestinians, and Israel
is also exporting this technology all over the world. That's right, right, it's testing and exporting this dystopic technology of surveillance and death, and it will be used in it will be used all over the world in populations that their governments consider a nuisance.
Yeah, no, that's right. Palestine, you know, Gaza has truly been a sort of laboratory for AI driven death and destruction. The drop site and nine seventy two plus magazine both revealed Microsoft's biggest AI customer now in this open AI's partner, biggest AI customer now is the Israeli government post October seventh, and you know, our own government obviously pushing huge amount of dollars in their direction and celebrating this sort of development.
And so it's not just obviously we already have nuclear webs, we already have the capability to destroy the world. But the level of barbarism that will be enabled by these AI tools also ups the stakes, just insane levels that we can barely comprehend.
Absolutely, you know, And and in the in the you know, in the in the Torah idolatry is linked to barbarism again and again because it means idolatry is that you don't respect the dignity of the human being. And I, you know, you were referring to that to the woman I'm forgetting her name, who spoke out in you know, at the Episcopal Church, you know, for it to Donald in front of Donald Trump and J. D.
Mann.
And when I looked at her, I thought, where are our equivalents of that woman in the Jewish world? People who are willing to risk being publicly attacked, people who are willing to risk violence against peopleho are willing to risk their jobs. Abraham Joshuahshel, one of the greatest American Jewish figures of the twentieth century, said that during the Vietnam War, he could not pray, he could not open the prayer book because he saw images in his mind
of children being napalm. Where are our rabbis that are speaking that way about the about the fact that Goza now has more child amputees than any place in human history. I feel like there's a huge moral absence there.
Yeah, well, you're not a rabbi, but your voice has been really important, not just with this book, but you know, with your track record is speaking out and risking significant consequences, both in terms of your personal and professional life. So Peter, tell people where they can where they can get the book, and we can put the book back jacket back up on the screen too.
Thank you. You can get it.
You can just get it online that any of the online booksellers are hopefully your local bookstore. And I'm really really grateful to have the opportunity to talk about it with you.
Yeah, it's absolutely our pleasure and it's always an honor to get to speak with you, Peter, Thank you so much for taking the.
Time at all.
Right, guys, thank you so much for watching jam pac day. We did not, in fact get to that promised blog about bioce because there's just too much to say about too many other topics. But thank you guys so much for sticking with us and trusting us in this very very busy and consequential news cycle. And we'll see you guys again next week.