Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent.
Coverage that is possible.
If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday.
It's been a long time since I said that we have an amazing show.
What do we have for this?
Indeed we do.
It's an amazing person Foremost because Sager is that thank you. Thanks nice to have you here, my friends. Yes, indeed, I hope you enjoyed your time. I do much deserved.
I certainly did.
All right, lots to get to this morning. So actually just breaking, I just saw this. HESBLA says that one of their commanders was killed in a strike. This comes as the US defense establishment seems to be kind of freaking out about the chances of a broader warshole. Break all of that down for you. Also, this was really something the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin was secretly hospitalized and in the ICU did not tell the White House,
the President didn't tell, The president didn't tell. The person who took over for him had no idea, just as like.
First in command.
A crazy story, and apparently he's still hospitalized.
So we'll break that down for you.
I've got Obama freaking out about Biden's reelection prospects and trying to intervene. We've got a billionaire freaking out about plagiarism accusations against his wife.
Lots to say about that.
One we'll talk Saga is taking a look at that horrifying situation on an airplane where the whole door blew out. Thank god everybody was safe, but it has grounded again a number of planes. And excited to talk today to Ahmed Khan. He is a former Biden donor who was done and had it over Biden's unconditional support of Israel.
So we'll speak with him about his thinking.
Yes, that's right, but before we get to any of that, it is the new year, an election season is officially on.
It's twenty twenty four, So if you can.
Go ahead and sign up to help us out, we would greatly appreciate it, just to show you that we're very serious, and we're already hitting the ground. This week on Thursday in the state of Michigan, we will be conducting a focus group with ORFK Junior supporter. So this is I believe the first time that a media organization
has done a focus group. We're going to spend just as we did previously with Trump and with Democrats, voters, talking to them about why they support OURFK Junior, what independent views that they have, which particular ones, whether they just hate Trump or Biden.
We're going to get really down into the specifics.
I mean, we're going to treat him as I think that he should be treated like the ross puro really of this election. And I'm honestly most excited and going to be fascinated by their responses. Yeah, more so, I think even than the Trump and the Biden people, just to be like, what do you think?
Why do you support our FK Junior.
It was interesting, of course talking to the Republicans and the Democrats, but to be honest with.
You, like they get focused, grouped and pulled all the.
Time exactly, so we had a little bit more of a sense of who they are, how they're thinking about things, et cetera. And so it was very edifying to see that confirmed with our focus group. But you know, I really have a lot of interest in who are.
The people who are saying I'm with RFK.
How strong is their support do they consider themselves, form're Democrats, Republicans? Where are they on the political spectrum? A lot to get into. So super excited about that. So if you're able to support us on that front, it would be fantastic. And like Sager said, the Iowacaucuses are freaking'.
Next next week. We're already planning.
We got our New York, New New Hampshire plans, like we're ready to go.
Wild, yea.
So it is all upon us, all right. So speaking of things that are upon us, let's go ahead and put this first element up on the screen. As I just mentioned, haswell as saying one of their top commanders was killed in a strike in southern Lebanon. And this comes as the US defense establishment is leaking furiously to the press about their concerns that what is happening right now in the Middle East with our unconditional support, could spark a broader war that.
Draws US into it.
This was a really quite bombshell report from the Washington Post. Israel's talk of expanding war to Lebanon alarms the US. Let me read you a little bit of this report. US officials are concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnah who may see an expanded fight in Lebanon as key to political survival amid domestic criticism of his government's failure
to prevent Hamas's October seventh attack. This is something we've been warning about from day one, that the fact that NANYAHUU is on the rocks pushes him to continue the war, to continue to escalate, and it seems like our concerns are very well founded. I'll read you a little bit more here. They say in private conversations. The administration has
warned Israel against the significant escalation in Lebanon. If it were to do so, a new secret assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency found it will be difficult for IDF to succeed because its military assets and resources would be
spread too thin given the conflict in Gaza. Since Samasa's October assault, Israeli officials have discussed launching a preemptive attack on HESBLA US officials said that prospect has faced sustained US opposition through the likelihood it would draw a run which supports both groups and other proxy forces into the conflict, and eventuality that could compel the US to respond militarily on Israel's behalf. And you know, this is something we
have been tracking soccer from the beginning. The incredible danger, the incredible risks of escalation here. You know, the one time when there was a little bit of a lull intentions during the ceasefire, you saw the attacks on our troops in.
A rock stopped.
The Huthies dramatically scaled back their attacks.
And yet it's remarkable.
You know, the Biden administration is trying to figure out, Okay, how do we avoid this escalation without ever floating the one obvious thing, which is to push for a ceasefire, which would immediately dramatically less intentions and avoid this potential disaster.
Well, it's obviously that's not going to happen at this point. We'll talk a little bit about the diplomatic front, but on the warfront, I mean, they should be terrified about this. And one of the ways that I really began to understand that this was real is when some of the most pro Israel voices in the US began warning about it. So let's go and put this up there on the screen.
This is Jonathan Chanzer. I'm going to contextualize him a little bit for it, which is Chancer works at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies, which is basically one of the largest pro Israel, anti Iran think tanks here in the United States and in Washington a bit quite literally are funded by the Israeli government. So when they start warning, we should definitely take listen. Let's keep this up here so I can read it.
He says.
In the aftermath of the idea of strike, the killed Hamas leader salle A l A Ruri in Lebanon, and the subsequent increase in the intensity of Hesbela attacks, the risk of a full war between Israel and Hesbola is now the most serious since the war began on October seven.
Let's go to the next one here, please.
He says that the Israeli media is now openly speaking about a two front war. Nusrella, the leader of Hezbolah, has now told Shiah residents of southern Lebanon vacate to the north. Netanyahu is now hinted that Nusrella could be next. The US wants to prevent such a war. This was a reason that we dispatched the carrier group to the Mediterranean. Officials are now leaking that Israel cannot afford such a war. Israel is not standing down, nor as Hezbola, as evidence
now by continued strikes. I will say this, a war between Israel and Hezbela is inevitable. These are his words. He says, Israel's northern residents will not return until the security situation has changed, and what change will not likely come through clever diplomacy about the US or France, and not the UN go to the next one. This is to me the most important, he says. It now becomes a question of when, if not when not if. My sense is that Israel not just a few high value
kills of Hamas leaders in Gaza. The leadership may then be willing to look north, but make no mistake, a war in the north will be highly destructive, the worst war that Israel has seen ever, and the destruction is only part of it. International pressure will escalate, the Iranians could escalate two. This would be a regional war, very difficult decisions lie ahead, mistakes can be easily made. All
eyes on Israel's northern front. So when a pro Israel voice, I mean this, entire groups you know exists specifically to defend Israel and to advocate for war with Iran. We actually have interviewed people from FDD in the past over on rising. I think it was after the Soleimani strike and he was one of the people who is defending it. So the context in all of this to be seen here is that the battlespace quote unquote for the in the Internet and in the war of opinion is now
playing out. The Biden administration doesn't want this to happen, but it's pretty clear to me that the Israelis do. I mean that quote that from the Washington Post article of the Israeli Defense minister. He says, we prefer the path that agreed upon diplomatic settlement, but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over. This is not Gaza Hamas has you know, basically is
mounting an insurgency campaign. I think there'll be a low grade military insurgency there for many years to come, but that's I'm not going to say it's manageable because it's going to be horrible, but it is a difficult It's
a different military situation. Hes Bolah, with their military capabilities, they've been preparing for this since two thousand and six, and don't forget two thousand and six was one of the worst wars that Israel has ever engaged in, and it caused significant strife in the country and the IDF. Right now, you know they're sending reservists back. It's pretty clear the Israeli economy is suffering pretty badly from the overall effects of the war. The Houthy blockade is disrupting
global shipping. That is nothing compared to what happens if this goes hot with Hezbolah, the Hoothy attacks, the Iranian attacks, the attacks on American soldiers, and the likelihood. I actually, I'm pretty willing to state that if Hezbola enters this war, and especially if Irani and proxy attacks continue, there's simply no way the US will stay out of it.
I'm not saying we shouldn't stay. I believe that we should, but there's just I.
Mean, given the current environment, given the political situation, the Biden administration, and our number of thousands of troops in the Middle East. If you attack us, then what is it? I mean, there's no other choice. Yeah, that I think a lot of US face. So this is this is a very very dangerous moment the war.
Absolutely.
I don't think it's ever been more fraud and dangerous and more clear the escalatory track that we're already on.
Than it is right now at this moment.
There was another report Huffing and Post has actually done some good reporting on Israel's assault on Gozolo's put this up on the screen. Bronco Marcatic was tweeting about this. He says, all US war games, this is from the Huffing to Post report show an Israeli Lebanon war quote escalating into something terrible. But the Biden White House still
not considering putting conditions on arms transfers to Israel. One US official set as the problem is no one can rain in Biden and Bronco says this is alarming and damning, which I would have to agree with.
So you have the you know, various defense officials.
Leakol in the huffn and Posts, leaking in the Washington Posts, leaking to the Wall Street Journal, leaking to all of these papers and media outlets, and maybe or maybe not, behind the scenes, Biden and co. Were saying, hey, please don't start a war with HESBLO. We really don't want you to. But there is zero indication that they are actually willing to do anything to use US leverage to try to prevent an outcome which they know would be
completely disastrous. And so it's just yet another emblem of the completely pathetic and impotent.
Direction of US policy.
And you know, to be honest with you, does Biden, you know, what is his actual view of the risk here? Doesn't really understand the actual risks here. I have no idea, but at this point, given them months we've had of you know, US actions being unconditional support, We're going to bypass Congress. We're going to bypass our normal State Department
procedures to ship weapons into the region. We're going to tell them absolutely red lines, and then we're going to have these little comments about how we're concerned about civilians, et cetera. I mean, at this point we have to say all of that is nonsense. They actually completely support what Israel is doing with regards to Gaza.
With this, do they support it. Do they not support it?
I have no idea, but what I can tell you is they're not doing anything to forestall the possibility that we get dragged directly into this thing, whether we want to or not.
Yeah, that's right on.
In Israeli media, they're already talking about some of the effect of what this war will look like. Let's take a listen to this. This is from I twenty four News Inside of Israel.
Has bla's claim to struck a very strategic air force ready air force facility that is a raidar facility of the Israeli Air Force on Mount Mirrole that's sort of a raidar facility is the one that enables these ready air force to control all of its aerial activity in the North, like we saw perhaps in that strike in Beirut last week and so many other is ready airstrikes
in the region. I can also remind you in our viewers that just prior to the October seventh attack, Hamas has struck so many of Israel's surveillian systems, the cameras and other more advanced facilities, and even on October seventh itself was able to use drones to hit some of the very important strategic defense and radar.
Systems on the border.
What's enabled Hamas to go on with that attack, and of course that is extremely worring if Israel's surveillance systems in the northern part of the next to the Levities border will also severely hit.
Yeah, Chris sol and that came right after forty different projectiles put this please up on the screen. Has Bulah fired dozens of rockets in their quote initial response to the killing of the Hamas leader. This is all across of northern Israel. We've flagged this before, but we haven't touched on it quite a long time.
Don't forget.
One hundred thousand people inside of Israel have been relocated from the northern border. It is the largest internal migration in Israeli history actually since nineteen forty eight, which demonstrates the really fear on their part that the civilians will get caught into it, and the Israeli government is paying I mean billions of dollars just to house these people inside their own country. This just demonstrates us what it
will continue and may look like. And the two front war I think would be genuinely catastrophic because they would have to make the same choices that we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we are one of the world, We were probably the world's greatest military, and we had to call up all of our National Guard and all of our reserves, and we were stretched very thin. This is a much smaller country. The reservists, many of them have already been sent home. Some you know, many hundreds
people have been killed IDF soldiers. This would be the big getting and the worst and the bloodiest incident in them so far. So I think we should take these warnings very, very seriously and diplomatically. I think I just come down to this. I don't see a way out. You know, Netsa Yah, who is cut you know, he's stuck. So between what is it? Ben Gavie and Smotrich and these guys are openly dissing America and public which you guys did a great job of.
Covering, being like, hey, we're different.
You know, you guys are a friend, but you're not where Israel is not the fifty first state. I'm like, yeah, I agree, we shouldn't treat you as one. And yeah, exactly the way. It's interesting, you know, loyalty runs one way. What's the client state? In this relationship. It's just like Ukraine and Saudi Arabia and all these other people. It's like we're apparently just we cut the checks and we have too much. I don't know, we don't have enough
pride to actually stand up for ourselves. Separate that, though, politically inside Netsa yah Who, this is a good thing for him. His right wing coalition is the only thing keeping into power. They want war with Hesbola. They're openly going out and they're saying it. So this would also stave off any more questions of the longer we get away from October seventh, it's no longer about it October seven. It's just like Iraq, and it would just drag things
on for longer and longer. The real question is about the Israeli public, and we haven't seen polling yet though to that effect. At a certain point, though, polling doesn't matter. If we see a series of you know, escalatory strikes, this thing could go hot in just a matter of days. It only takes one facility struck, then you strike another person and that's it. You know, a ship goes down, and then we're in a totally different situation.
Well, here's the other thing is that the truth of the matter is as horrific as the Israeli assault on Gaza has been for Palestinians living in Gaza, it has not been that successful in terms of getting yoa Sinwar who you know, is like the big name that they were supposed to be going after.
They haven't succeeded in that.
They're claiming that they've basically, you know, not eliminated Hamas in northern Gaza, but they've you know, severely degraded their fighting capabilities. But Hamas is still taking out top Israeli military officers in northern Gaza. So is that even accurate you'll buy their own estimates of which is the rosiest possible projection of how many Hamas militants they've taken out, it's nowhere close to even half of the fighters that they have.
They've had to shift their.
Language even you know, within Israel of oh, you know, the goal is no longer eliminate Hamas, it's more like degrade Hamas, you know, So they've had shift their language.
So the other piece of the incentive here with Netanyahu is he's got to bring home a victory if he has any prayer of staying in power, and so if victory is not going to come in Gaza, well, I guess we got to start a war on another front, which is something, by the way, they've been teasing from the beginning, even though keep in mind Heswell was not involved in October seventh, Right, it's sort of like us going into a rock when they had nothing to do
with nine to eleven. And it's the very similar vibes here because Heswell had nothing to do with October seventh.
You'll recall Yev.
Galant, who is the Defense Minister in Israel, saying they could do in Beirut what they did in Gaza. This was very early on, so they have been teasing this for quite some time now. You also had I believe it was you of Galant as well, saying we are fighting a seven front war and we are taking actions already on six fronts. So in some ways this in
some manners of speaking, this is already underway. And just to underscore that video that we showed you a moment ago, that analyst on an Israeli news stage news channel senior editor of I twenty four News. He was talking about the fact Hesbela they've acknowledged now the idea of his acknowledged Hesbela was able to inflict severe damage on this Israeli bas, this important strategic Israeli bas pretty close to Lebanon border. They were able to inflict severe damage. They
have significantly more military capability than Hamas. I mean, it's not comparable at all. So you already see the escalatory chain. You had these tit for tat, you know, attacks between Hesbla and Israel that's been going on for some time. Then you have Israel target and assassiny a top Hamas leader in the suburbs of Beirut. That was a huge escalation. Then in response, you have Hesbla able to inflict severe
damage on the Israeli air base. And now this morning we get the word that Israel has been able to kill a top Hezbla commander. So you can see the way that this is already building and US hand ringing is not going to do a damn thing unless we actually are willing to back it up with some actions. Speaking of that, speaking of our impotence in this whole conflict, are feigned impotence, I should say, pretending like oh there's nothing we can do, and we're doing our best. Antony
Blancn is back in the region. I believe that this is his fourth time traveling there since October seventh. Let's put this up on the screen. He was meeting with various leaders in the region and King of Dullah of Jordan, warning Antony Blancn, Secretary of State that there would be catastrophic ramifications if the war in Gaza does continue.
This is the full.
Redout of their meeting in Aman. Yashar Ali tweeted this out. His Majesty, King of Dullah, during a meeting on Sunday with US Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln, warned of the catastrophic ramifications of the continued war on Gaza, stressing the need to end the tragic humanitarian crisis in the Strip.
This goes on at the meeting, attended by His Royal Highness, His stressed the important role of the US and pushing towards an immediate ceasefire in Gaza protection of civilians, while guaranteeing the sustainable delivery of sufficient humanitarian and relief aid to the Strip. The King reaffirmed there will be no stability in the region without a just solution to the Palestinian issue and adjust and comprehensive peace on the basis
of a two state solution. His Majesty expressed Jordan's rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is something that many Israeli politicians at this time have been pushing for, which constitutes a clear violation of international law. The King also reiterated Jordan's rejection of attempts to separate Gaza and the West Bank, as they are both part of the Pala to me in state
and soccer. We also had two Democratic senators it was Chris van Holland and someone else and blanking on who the other person was, who were just in the region as well, and they are calling out Israel for blocking aid delivery and imposing this insanely cumbersome process that makes it impossible to get anywhere close to sufficient aid into Gaza. This at a time when you know the un IS reporting path of Gozin's are starving and ninety percent are
regularly going full days without eating anything. So even apart from you know, the bombs and the bullets, the starvation, dehydration and disease is likely to ultimately claim more lives than even we've seen from the direct assault.
Yeah, a direct assault, looting, all of that.
There's also some breaking news I want to mention Crystal is tying us a little bit back that just came from Haratz. One hundred and three Israeli soldiers were just wounded yesterday in the war. Only nineteen of those in Gaza. So that's over eighty Israeli soldiers wounded in a single day by Hesbolo.
I mean those are stunning numbers. I mean this just just came out.
Now, this.
Is at the northern front, you know, in for israel I.
Just wanted to mention it because I mean that's what they It took them weeks to lose one hundred people or to even have a wounded casualties in Gaza, just to demonstrate again the military capabilities. This is what actual ballistic missiles look like, not you know, pittily little rockets that are launched from Gaza. So all that situation, you know, together is really really terrifying. We have this last piece we can put up here about the escalating attacks between
the US and the HOO. This they say the US six to contain the running proxies is concerns about a wide middle East war is breaking out are increasing and honestly, this policy has been a failure of been watching from Afar to watch.
I mean, we've watched the vast.
Majority of traffic that was supposed to go through the Red Sea now divert around the Horn of Africa. The big problem with that is it costs a lot of money and all of us are the ones who are going to be paying for it. So congratulations, inflation is almost certainly going to be back. This is a devastating blow actually to the European economies. This was an easier way for a lot of them to get goods. You know, the Chinese and others are going to be going around
in different ways. But this level of disruption to global shipping is absolutely unprecedented. We have not seen anything like it since the Russian invasion, and before that, honestly, we had not seen anything like that in decades, you know, maybe the Suez crisis.
Yeah.
Well, the Houthis are very clear about why they're doing this. It is in direct response to Israel's assault on Gaza and our enabling of that, by the way, and they actually put on a statement saying listen, we're actually upholding you know, the Genocide Convention, which obligates you not only to not commit genocide, but to take actions to prevent genocide. They say, hey, that's what we're up to here, that's
why we're taking these actions that we're taking. So again, you have this long CNN report, you know, defense officials leaking to them, freaking out about the risk and the possible broader war. And nowhere in it do they indicate there's a very clear your direction to go in to stop and to cease these hostilities and to you know, eliminate the risk that this blows up into some larger conflict and that's a ceasefire. That's to push for a ceasefire.
Nowhere is that reported in the press. They don't put that context in whatsoever that you know, we're trying to pull this coalition together. It is like a new coalition of the well it did. There were countries that initially joined that back down. We never really had significant regional participation. Bahrain that was the only regional country that participated at all.
People didn't want to be associated with it. And so it really has been yet another humiliating failure for the US here in terms of their attempt to deal.
With that, I want to spend some just a few moments on this because I've seen a lot of people like, let's bomb them, and I'm not above bombing. You kill an American soldier, you target a US flagship, we should bomb the hell out of you. Here's the issue. The Cassaudis have carpet bombed Yemen to Kingdom.
Come right, what happened? Who these won? They won the war.
So it's like if bombs could solve this issue, then the Saudi would have already done it. And if you think that, you know they're incompetent or whatever. They're using our weapons. Just so everybody knows. We were helping them pick targets and we were helping, you know, supplying their entire war and Yemen it became a horrific humanitarian disaster. And the Hohothis still have the capabilities. This is Unfortunately, this is not a problem which can be solved with
airpower alone. To solve this and to actually put an end to the attacks, we could pursue diplomacy, or we're going to have to occupy Yemen.
We there's just no other way around it.
Actual, you know, ground soldiers would have to go in and they would have to dig them out of the fortifications that they've had now throughout the entire civil war, they have huge stockpiles of weapons. I mean, the military capability of the Hoothies.
And of Hesbola.
I would put it on par with like Europe, a small European nation. It's it's not a paramilitary force in the same way that Hamas is. So I just want to, you know, to put that out there because people are like, well, why isn't the military doing anything?
They would if they could.
That's not you know, if it was as simple as just bombing a single ballistic missile state or whatever inside of Yemen, it would be easy. But you know, we have learned from the Saudis that it's not that simple. And in fact, the Saudi's in the middle of there were they often had missiles raining down on their own country and they have freaking patriot batteries and all of that. This would take billions of dollars and there was just no there would be no way of quote unquote solving
this problem without American ground troops. Also, Saudi campaign shows us up for sure.
There's an ongoing peace negotiation with Saudi and the Houthi's I mean, the Hoothy's control portion of Yemen, including the capital city. The Saudi backed you know forces control another part of Yemen. So there's this ongoing process to come to some sort of negotiated terms. US is also concerned about upsetting that process. The Saudis don't want that process upset, So there's those considerations as well. But you know, from the Houthis perspective, this has been tremendously.
Prestige building for that of course.
Yeah, it's tremendous disrupting global shipping.
This little force that's able to like disrupt the whole globe and have massive and now go and toe to toe with the you know, world's great superpower if we struck them directly, if we hit them directly, that would only further enhance their prestige. I mean for them, this is really a win win situation that they have figured out here because there was some you know, discontent among their own people, as you know, as the war is coming to a close, and so the Palestinian cause is
one that unites everyone in Yemen. So they're able to demonstrate that they're fully behind that they're able to raise their profile globally, and you know, if we were to hit them, that's we're saying like they've been bombed to hell. If bombs were the answer, that would have been solved long ago. I just want to come back finally, and then we'll move on to some of the information that's come out about the way the media is reporting on
all of this conflict. That there is a very simple way for this to all to end, and that's sort a ceasefire.
And then you know, the hu this have made it clear this is their beef.
They will stop messing with the Red Sea if you have a ceasefire. The attacks in a rock, those will stop if there's a ceasefire, the escalation with HESBLA, if there's a So there is a very clear direction we should be going in if we are concerned about these things, and more bombs and more aircraft carriers and more handring to the Washington Post is not going to solve the problem.
I unfortunately think you're probably right, and I don't see a situation. But I mean, the political wins in Israel are just so far, you know, beyond that that until something really truly breaks here in Washington, which I think we're still a very very long way away from this is the more likely page, and it.
Really is Biden.
I mean, it's very clear now that even his top defense officials seem very unhappy with the direction things are going in.
This really does come down.
When they're conscious and more. We see you go again to that.
This was quite a report from the intercept. Let's put this up on the screen. So Daniel Boguslaw reported this out for them. The headline here as CNN is running Gaza coverage past their Jerusalem team, operating under the shadow of the IDF censor. So here's a little bit of context. Any foreign news outlet rating in Israel is obligated to run all their stories past the IDF sensor, and with
very predictable results. Now, other news organizations have made the choice to route their Israel coverage through other bureaus outside of Israel to try to avoid this censorship. CNN has not done that. Let me read you a little bit of the report. This is sort of laying out what
I just said. Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNN's Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the IDF Censor, which dictates subjects that are off limits for news organizations to cover, and sensors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. As The Intercept reported last month, the military censor recently restricted eight different subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, reporting on weapons captured by
fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of that sensor. Only democratcs see in the Middle East people. Also in October, CNN hired a former IDF soldier to contribute writing and reporting to CNN's war coverage. Tomar Mchayley's first byline appears on October seventeenth,
just ten days after Hamas's attack. Since then, her name has appeared on dozens of stories citing the IDF spokesperson and relaying info about the IDFs operations in the Gaza strip. At least one story that has her byline alone is little more than a direct statement released from the IDF, So this is who they brought in for their coverage, which they are also choosing to run by the IDF censor.
She apparently served in the IDF's spokesperson unit, a division of Israeli military charge with carrying out positive pr both domestically and abroad.
Seems like she still works for that unit actually, and.
Israel coverage is subject to a special review process that is unique to just exclusively to Israel coverage. A CNN's staff member described how the policy works in practice. Quote war crime and j side are taboo words. Israeli bombings and Gaza will be reported as quote blasts attributed to nobody until the Israeli military ways into either acceptors and i responsibility. Quotes an info provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from
Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed. Sober Can you imagine if a news outlet was running all of their stories by Hamas Yes before publishing it, how people would feel about that, And yet CNN thinks that this is all fine and well and good and counts as journalism.
It's just outrageous.
You know. There's so many ways in which there's media manipulation that happens behind the scenes and eventually just comes really forward. At moments like this, we saw a glimpse of that earlier when you had reporters who went in there, and actually, I'll give them credit at least for this is that they admitted it. They're like, look, the only way we could have this footage is if we gave it to the Israelis and they were able to edit it.
That you're in a tough situation.
I probably I think that on par as long as you disclose that, it's okay. But here they're not disclosing how much of the editing is happening and screening behind the scenes to a direct foreign government. And it just goes to the question like, who are you working for here? Are you just supposed to be reporting the news about what's happening. I mean, we are a small little YouTube show.
We would never.
Adhere to anything like this, And I want to give people, you know, an idea. People try this crap all the time. So when we were over at the Hill and I interviewed Trump, this is a fun story.
So the whatever, who was that woman?
Egen Carroll had just she had just that day she'd come out against Trump and said she's sexually assaulted her. Before we went in there, Sarah Sanders looks me directly in the face. She's like, look, just don't ask about the Egen Carroll thing. We were like, yeah, totally, of course. And what do you think we asked about at the end Egen Carroll? You know why cause it's like, sorry.
I don't work for you. And then and there's another one.
So in that they said Trump had said something about how he was going to go meet Kim Jong un at the DMZ the famous meeting, and she was like, hey, if you guys report that, then the.
Meeting won't happen. It's a national secure risk.
And we're like, okay, well we can hold off, but we're going to put it out there the moment that the meeting happens or you know, before security situation. So that I think was a reasonable one, because you know, if we report that and a meeting doesn't happen, it's one of those where if there's a genuine security risk and all that, but the eg and Carroll thing, we're like, oh, this will look bad for us.
It's like I'm sorry each shit.
Honestly, I mean, that's just one of those where you don't get to tell us what to do. I'm going to I'll lie to your face just to get into the room. But you know, after that, okay, don't invite me back. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, And it's one of those where that's how you're supposed to operate in the media. That's that's what actual journalism is supposed to look like. That's a small thing, but it's just a demonstrative of an attitude as opposed to and you and I when we do this, we do
not adhere to any preconditions when we do interviews. Part of the reasons many politicians are afraid to come on the show is because they will say things like, oh, he only wants to talk about taxes, and it's like, okay, that's fine, but you know, just so you know, that's not going to happen, right, or we'll be like, yeah, sure, come on in and then we'll ask you about whatever we want. That is how traditionally you're supposed to operate
with anyone in power, Republican, Democrat, anyone. And yet this is just I mean shocking, it's too shocking.
There's a dance that goes on with these politicians where they routinely, you know, they want to know what you're going to ask about they want to limit the conversation, and if you are worth your salt, you say no.
You can say no. And I think you can.
Tell by the interviews we conduct here that we don't abide by the US and guidelines.
That they're asking for, you know.
So obviously we have no transparency into what has been blocked, what has been censored, what language has been changed, what stories never got run or surfaced at all. So all you can do is look at what they're publishing and see the way that it is framed.
So I kids, you not.
After I read the story, I went on CNN's website and this was literally one of the first stories that popped up.
And the impact of the sensor is plainly obvious. Like the language that they talk about here, Oh, it's going to be blast, but we're not going to attribute.
To Israel is manifestly clear. Put this up on the screen. This is a horrifying story. More than ten children a day are losing one or both legs in Gaza, according to Save the Children. So their headline does not attribute the fact that these kids are losing their limbs to Israel, which is the reason that they're losing these limbs.
And then when you read the story, here's what they say.
More than ten children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October seventh. Again, like the limbs just fell off. No, they lost them because they were bombed by Israel. While many of the amputations are conducted without anesthetic. Again, why because Israel is blocking medical supplies from coming in. The charity Save the Children said in a statement Sunday, referencing statistics released by
the UN. And then they quote someone as saying doctors and nurses are completely overwhelmed when children are brought in with blast wounds, blast wounds. So again the language is specifically cited in the intercept report. Nowhere in here in this first part of the report do they explain why these kids are losing their limbs. Ten kids a day losing one or both legs and having to be operated
on with no anesthetic. No responsibility attributed there. Now, if it was in the other direction, if it was talking about the October seventh attacks and the atrocities that Hamas were committed, no problem attributing responsibility, no problem using visceral language about those horrors. But here when it's Israel totally different.
That's what's so stupid is that obviously we should do it when you're talking about the victims of October seventh, then usually should just talk to when you're talking about the victims of war. And again, let's be very clear, we should use it when we're talking about anyone who is a non combatant civilian. I mean, and you can't even argue that these like small kids at least in this you know instance, are not working for or not like fighting for Hamas.
It's just look passive.
And the way that you do use language and all of that is one of the oldest forms of medium manipulation and of the way of presentation and all that of a story. And I think the passive language, the way that you use it is always, you know, the most is the most significant for the way that they frame something. It's like the traditional thing when Democrats do something bad and the New York Times will be like, Republicans pounce and the fact that Republican Democrats and it's like, well,
just say they did a bad thing. Okay, we don't have to be we don't have to play dancing games here. And look, the right wing media does it too obviously. So it's just you can present things without trying to spin them at all times.
But apparently that's that's not what they want to do over there.
Adam Johnson flagged another example where you can see the potential impact of the IDF censor here.
Put this up on the screen. He's his commentary.
Says, losing my mind, you wann special Robert Or on the Human Rights of internally Displaced Persons correctly accuses Israel
of work and to expel civilian population of Gaza. CNN reports it as mere allegation without mentioning Netanyahu himself explicitly said this is his goal just yesterday, and then he posts the report where yeah, they're just saying, oh, well, they're accusing them of this, without providing any of the context that literally, the Prime Minister, the dude who's in con has made it clear that this is also his goal.
And this is the same game that the State Department and the Department of Defense has been playing as well, like, oh, we condemn the statements from these extremists Smotrich and Bezaleel, and this is totally contradictory to the Israeli's actual policy and it's like, what makes you think that when everyone from the President of Israel to the Prime Minister of Israel, to numerous cabinet ministers and top lacued party members and military officials are all saying this is their goal, how
can you claim that this is just some fringe opinion not to mention when you look at public sentiment in favor of the mass displacement of Palestinians on of Gaza. So these are the sort of games that they are playing, which, listen, maybe they didn't need the IDF censor in order to frame things in this way. There are plenty of Western media outlets who are doing equally poor jobs without running
things by the IDEF censor. They're self censoring. But when you have this intentional policy of rooting everything through jrualism, of having an underneath the shadow of the idea of censor, these are the results you are guaranteed to get.
Absolutely, let's move on to the next part here. This is one of the most insane stories that we've ever seen from a public official. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin apparently has now been hospitalized for more than a week and did not inform his superiors. The President of the United States, any of his peers at the National Security Council, or his number two. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen because the details are genuinely shocking.
So the Pentagon's number two official did not learn that her boss was hospitalized on January first until four days later, after she had to assume some of his duties. This is according to the US military themselves. That's the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathy Hicks. She was actually scheduled on leave in Puerto Rico at the time and had already assumed some of Austin's duties, but did not know what.
Had happened to them at the same time. Crystal.
We are now learning that, according to these officials, the President of the United States was not informed until four days after it was known that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is laid up continued to this day in the hospital for some sort of unknown condition. So according to them, the details of this are super vague. On the evening of January one, Austin bien experiencing quote severe pain. He was taken to Walter Reid, where he was then admitted
to a hospital's intensive care unit. Now Previously, officials had said that he had undergone an elective procedure during his scheduled leave on December twenty seconds, so that's eight days prior to experiencing these pains. The officials have not described to us yet, though, what that elective surgery procedure was. A lot of us are speculating here. I mean, at a certain point, you got to release it. We were saying on the phone, like what is it like a
BBL or something like? Is it a face slipped?
I mean, is it?
What is a light boat section? I mean, what's happening here? I know there's a lot of different types elective surgery.
I looked in here, yeah, okay, looked first of all, what are the most dangerous plastic surgery that you can have done? And BBL is actually dangerous. But I don't want to laugh. His condition could be very serious. I mean, he's this man is still in the hospital, but he is out of ICU as far as I understand. But I also looked into I mean, this is this is ridiculous.
But I also looked into what are the most common elective procedures for a man his age, And there's a lot of things like to do with your colon and hernia, stuff like that, which you know, when you hear elective, you do think something like, oh, you're getting a nose job or something like that. But they can be things that are like needed, but they still somehow get classified
as elective. In any case, whatever it is, it must be sort of embarrassing or else there wouldn't be all of this reluctance to release the information, not only to the public, which whatever, the public's one thing, but to the people who were taking over for your job. And the irony here is of horse by it tempting to hide it. He has made the whole world, yes, aware of what's going on.
Right, and let's put this up there.
They again, to their own, by their own admission, it did not inform President Biden the White House for days about his hospitalization. This man was in the ICU. So I have a lot of questions about this. Number One, I guess I'm just naive and assumed that the President would talk to his Defense secretary every day in the middle of a global international crisis.
Apparently that's not true.
Apparently the President, the National Security Advisor, the top team at the White House just doesn't talk to the sect deaf all that much. I'm actually very disturbed by that they don't find out until four days later. Now I understand everyone's on vacation, there's no vacation when you're the president. Then you have the means here of Secretary of Defense. Lloyd Austin did not inform his number two until days
after he was in the ICU. Now, you guys are not going to believe what his or excuse for this is. Put this up there. The excuse is that the Pentagon's chiefest staff was sick. Therefore she could not notify the number two about his hospitalization for four days. Are we really supposed to believe that the Secretary of Defense only has one person who is capable of notifying the number two.
I covered the Pentagon.
He is surrounded at any one time by up to fifteen to twenty people.
There are actually crystal over.
One hundred people who work in the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. And so that tells me that actually the number two was the only or his chiefest staff was the only person who even knew about what was going on. So he's not only hiding things from his staff, he's hiding it from his superiors, from the Secretary of State. I mean, imagine if a global conflagration had kicked off and this man is.
A real one, Like what if? What if the who he's fired on the US ship? What happens? You know?
I mean, if anybody has ever done this, go and read the minute by minute account by Daniel Ellsberg of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. I mean that Secretary McNamara was literally issuing minute by minute orders, but like, do not fire until I tell you to do so, I'll
speak to the president. And you know he was giving orders at certain points during the Cuban missile crisis and during the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which demonstrates, like, imagine a situation of something like that that could have happened, which is why this is never supposed to be allowed. And I would actually put it this way. Secretary of Austin was a four star.
General in the army. Imagine if any there are a.
Lot of people who are in the US military in the show, who watched the show, Imagine if you in a superior position, a commanding officer would disappeared for four days straight and did not tell his subordinates about what was happening, leading to chaos and a leadership vacuum in a time of peace. Even that's it, you're fired or at the very least boom. That is a career ending move.
That's genuinely psychotic, you know, to be doing something like this. So, I mean, in my opinion, I don't think he can last. I think he's gotta be fired. There's just no, you can't. You can't stay for this. We cannot stand you to have somebody who's clearly hiding their medical issue.
He can date with dignity and be like I'm sick. I got to go, you know, something like this. But that's it.
I mean, in my opinion, if I was Biden, I would fire. I would have fired. His asked the day I found.
Out Biden is basically yeah, cover for him. I mean, there's a few thoughts that come to mind. First of all, the fact that you know you said if there is a pobe compagation, It's not like there isn't a lot. It's kind of a pivotal moment. There's kind of a lot going on. There's a lot of risks that are unfolding that we just covered extensively. There's obviously our you know, ongoing support for the horrors that being inflicted on Gaza.
There's all sorts of concerns that are unfolding before our eyes globally right now, So not a great time to take time off Number two.
It also raises the question of, like, what are you even doing on in.
Daily I know that you thought that it would be fine to just like vanish for a few weeks and not even tell. The one that in some ways is the craziest to me is that the person who was in having to take command, who was in charge, didn't even know like that the number two didn't even know that they were now in charge. That to me is
in some ways the craziest thing. But yeah, I'm looking like so, I guess you're just not really doing all that much if you feel like you can just go willy nilly and take a significant break and that you think you're going to be able to get away with not telling anyone.
That was to me maybe the most.
Revealing, the saddest thing.
When I was eighteen years old, I came to the city to college, and I had these grand ideas about what politicians and all of them were like, and I was very lucky. I got an internship, you know, my first fluid, my first day of college, I show up to Capitol Hill and I was like, oh no, this is not uh you know what kind of what I thought it would be. The best and the brightest are
not the ones who are working here. And more than decade now of living in the city and working in very close proximity and covering people in power, really what I've learned is that it's far more mediocre, incompetent, and awful than anyone is really led to believe. We want to believe that the people who are in power are you know, very are intelligent, and they work very hard and.
All of that.
But what comes across these people are like white collar employees all over the world.
They're just checking out over Jan one to Jan. Five.
And that's fine when maybe you're a host of a show, a YouTube show, and you have a competent co host who's capable of taking over for you. It's not fine whenever you're working in public service. And I think it just you know, whenever we talk about the Supreme Court and all that, these people just want to have it both ways. They want to be like their peers in corporate life, who are able to jet set to wherever.
They want to go.
But you can do that when you're in charge of a corporation, you can't do it when you are in charge of the world's most powerful military. And you would think that a former four star general of the United States Army would know that more than anybody.
So he should be fired.
He should be kicked out, He should be unceremoniously dismissed, as he would if he were still a member of the US Armed Forces. We should never accept this from people who are in.
Power, you know.
He also made some of the I thought most honest comments about Israel's star. Yeah, Za was the one that said they were facing a strategic defeat, which you know, raised a lot of eyebrows at the time because that was early on that he made those comments. But I think he must have gotten used to that bord of directors of raytheon life. That's true when he was in the private sector. And it's like, listen, that option is still available to you, sir.
That's right, you could go and do that any.
I'm sure they will take you right back, no problem whatsoever.
So they'll pay you wild situation. You can get your tummy tucks.
You know, you can do whatever you want, but you can't be doing that when you're the Secretary of Defense. And again, I just want to underscore this. Let's put this up there. As of last night, he's still in the hospital. According to the Pentagon Press, Secretary quote Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, this is the next one, guys, says, we will remain hospitalized at Walter Reed National Medical Center, but is quote recovering well and in good spirits.
Crystal, you and I.
Don't have a specific date for his release, so you were still in series.
No, I know enough to say this. If you were in the hospital for a week straight, things are not good. Things are absolutely that could be an infection, that could be mean, who knows. I mean, he's not particularly a fit guy and he's only seventy years old, so it's really this could be a bad situation. But regardless his secrecy, the people around him, there's just this cannot stand.
He's got to go.
That terrible judgment.
Yeah, also just on the basic level, like terrible judgment to think that you were going to be able to pull this.
I totally agree all right.
So, speaking of things that aren't going well the Biden campaign, Obama apparently raising a lot of concerns directly over the direction of the Biden campaign. This was a report from the Washington Post, which, again it's interesting not only what's said in this report, but also the fact that it is leaked to the press is in and of itself interesting and very intentional.
Put this up on the screen.
Former President Barack Obama has raised questions about the structure of President Biden's reelection campaign, discussing the matter directly, with Biden telling the President's aids and allies the campaign needs to be empowered to make decisions without clearing them with the White House. According to three people familiar, the headline is Obama worried about Trump, urges Biden's circle to bolster campaign. I'll read you some of these details because they are interesting.
On that first part, where he's saying, like people need to be empowered, this is something. Biden is a famous micromanager. He's the worst combination of micromanaging and indecisive. So and he relies on this small circle of advisors.
Who've been with him since the eighties.
And so even when he brings in someone new to the circle, like, he doesn't delegate responsibility to them, and they're completely disempowered. So they're over in Wilmington on the campaign. The people he actually trusts are in DC, and so there's this huge disconnect which has, apparently, according to Obama in this report, completely hamstrung the campaign. It's a very
different model from what the Obama campaign did in twenty twelve. Which, listen, whatever you think of him, the man ran two very effective campaigns in two thousand and eight and twenty twelve. Couldn't get anybody but himself elected, wasn't good at that, but in terms of getting himself elected president, he was very effective, all right.
More from the report.
Obama grew animated in discussing the twenty twenty four election and former President Trump's potential return to power, and has suggested to Biden's advisors the campaign needs more top level decision makers at its headquarters in Wilmington, or it must empower the people already in place. Obama has not recommended specific individuals, but he has mentioned David Pluff, who managed Obama's two thousand and eight race, as the type of
senior strategist needed at the Biden campaign. So he saying, like, I'm not sure you got the right folks here. Maybe talk to some of my people, maybe you'll do better. Very arrogant guy, but anyway, Obama's conversation with Biden on the subject took place during private lunch recently. During the lunch, Obama noted the success of his own re election campaign structure when some of his top aids, including Axelrod and Messina, left the White House to take charge of the reelection
operation in Chicago. That's a sharp contrast from Biden's approach. He also recommended Biden seek council from Obama's own former campaign aids, which Biden officials say they have done. People said, and they also so quote Alyssa Slotkin here, Well, this was not a direct quote. She denies that she's concerned about the re election campaign, but she's running for Senate in Michigan and she has apparently expressed concern to allies she might not be able to win if Biden is
at the top of the ticket. So there are a lot of Democrats who are freaking out, even Biden. This was kind of remarkable to me. Zagarin just shows you what kind of a quote unquote leader. This man is even Biden's frustrated by his public standing, frequently complaining about his low public low poll numbers in private conversations with AIDS. In one meeting, he demanded to know what his team and his campaign staff were doing about it.
Dude. Maybe it's not their fault.
Maybe it's the fact that your unconditional support for Israel has horrified key voting blocks. Maybe it's the fact that you have literally promised nothing to do in a second term, and they're like, literally nothing, and you have given people no reason to vote for you.
Maybe you to look a little bit.
At your own actions here run thinking that a new message or a new advisor is going to really be the thing that does the trick here.
It's so far beyond that. Go to the grocery store once like that, that's all it takes. I see people all the time at the grocery store with coupon books. You know, I've told you this previously about how YouTube channels about Grandma's cooking Great Depression recipes are more popular than ever right now. Just you know, if you're if you like to like look at recipes or whatever, go on Instagram or you know, any of these other places and scroll through your reels.
You know what half of it is.
It's like how to feed a family of five on one hundred bucks from Costco? And look, that's always one of those like that should always be popular, but it is exploded because of inflation. It's horrifying. I you know, I'm obsessed kind of recently with cat nutrition. Make sure my cat is treated the best. And on the cat subreddits, you know, the number one concern about feeding your cat the healthiest wet food and all that cost. They're like, hey, guys,
how am I supposed to pay for this? I got X amount of mount You know, I don't want to love him so much. He's got kidney disease or whatever. I need to make sure he's got you know, he or she needs enough moisture in their diet.
But I just can't afford it. I mean, that is a horrible situation to be in.
And then you get to the you know, even worse case of oh now you're in a situation where you have to make trade off choices and all of that which previously you never had to do. And I think that that is a horrible lot. That is just the degradation of quality of life in the United States over the last three years for a variety of multifast in factors. Whether it's Biden's fault or not, it is still up to him to speak to those concerns, and he doesn't do it. You know, he just doesn't do it on
a daily basis. At their entire gamble, Crystal is January sixth. I just don't think that's gonna Look, it's possible jan and six an abortion. I would give him at least to a forty eight percent shot, just because electoral successes over the last couple of years have demonstrated that. I read a really interesting piece over the break about how this could be really analogous to the nineteen forty eight election. So in nineteen forty eight, Harry Truman was historically unpopular.
You have the war, yeah, you had the post war period. He was almost certain to lose the election according to the press, the gallop poles and all that had it against him. But what ended up saving him was that he rallied the you know kind of he rallied the populace against the quote unquote do nothing Congress. He was like, it's their fault that we're not doing more about this.
And even though we have historic strikes and all that, you should stick with me because I got us through the World War two and I'll pull us out again. But reading it, you know, to see the way that Truman did win that extraordinary election with the famous you know, Dewey defeats Truman headline is Truman was an editor at a guy. You know, he was only twelve or so years younger, but he relentlessly talked about the issues that really faced people at that time who were very upset
about inflation. And so I just don't structurally, I don't see the same thing. You just have a different man at the top of the ticket. Yeah, he's just he's a husk. I mean, there's just no way to describe it. We have to stop being polite at a certain point.
So let me tell you what their cope is with their theory of the cases. And listen, you're right. I don't want to say he's going to lose. I think he's in a very poor position, as the lowest approval ratings of any income and president seeking reelection.
It doesn't look good.
But people also really hate Donald Trump and really don't want that chaos back and they were horrified by January six and by the ongoing legal issues. They do think that he's a criminal, and so you know, and then you add on top of that Roe versus Wade, and you know, you have a real contest.
Right.
It's not a slam dunk either way. But this is what they'll tell you. This is an Axios report says when pressed on why Biden allies think that things are fine, put this up on the screen, guys as a second element. They say, the war they think will be far in voter's rear view mirror by November fifth. Okay, I think that is insane. I do not think that they understand the break that they have made with younger voters. I think they are completely in a bubble if they think that's the case.
Okay, so that's number.
One, number two, By then, the economy will be so good voters can't ignore it. Voter confidence the whole is we'll catch up with the encouraging macro signs.
Also delusional.
Also delusional because over the course of the Biden administration, what has happened. The Social Safety net constructor during COVID was systematically reduced and eliminated so that people have less money in their bank accounts. That happened on Biden's watch. Also delusional abortion rights. Now this may not this one. They have a point. Dems will be boosted by the anti GOP backlash following the Dobbs decision overturning Roe versus Weight.
Swing voters won't want to give Trump a chance to appoint another Supreme Court justice as second Gentleman Doug M Hoff has put it privately, Dobbs and democracy.
That's the plan.
Biden and allies will spend more than a billion dollars telling voters Trump is terrible. Oh, they've never tried that before. In the end, Biden's inner circle contends most independents won't look themselves in the mirror on election day then go vote for Trump. They go on to say they worry though people close the White House fear there aren't enough
people willing to give Biden bad news. And there's this sense of complacency that has come out and multiple articles where because Biden sort of defied the odds last time, they think that all of this is just like handwringing and bed wedding, and oh, normal people don't care about these things.
And they don't really understand the landscape, and we do. And this is.
A very different situation than when you had Trump actually in the White House, when you had people feeling really horrified at his handling of COVID and upset about it, when you had on a daily basis reminders of why you didn't like this man being president.
And I thought this was a I saw somebody make this point on Twitter. I thought this was a really good point.
The superpower that Biden used to have is the sense that like he's a nice guy and he's empathetic. That has been destroyed by what people see unfolding every day in Gaza.
That's gone.
Like the sense that this is some nice, grandfatherly figure who's not going to do anything terribly evil the way that you feel like Trump might.
That's gone.
You no longer have that advantage, especially with young voters.
So again I come back to I think, especially with regard to their view of the war, that they think people are just going to forget it and it's going to be in the review mirror, if anything, After the worst of the hostilities, after the worst of the assault on Gaza is over, that's when people will actually be able reporters will be able to get into the Gaza Strip and actually document what has happened here and how unprecedent it is, and the lives that have been ruined, and the
people that have been killed, and the long term impact of the hunger that they're facing right now in the disease, and the fact that Gaza they'll already saying the entirety of the Gaza Strip is completely uninhabitable, unlivable. This is all going to be documented over these coming months. So I just think that they are completely detached from reality with almost all of these points.
Well, I actually don't believe that the war will be over at all.
I think Israel is going to have to occupy the Gaza Strip, and I think they're going to be stuck there and dealing with a very similar situation that we did with Iraq. But you know, it doesn't stop that, because that means that there will just be continuing, ongoing hostilities. But I truly believe that his single biggest problem is just the general sense of malaise and chaos that has
engulfed both the United States and the world. And the more that you read the news and all that you don't have to be a geopolitical genius, to be like, well, this is a bad situation. You know, he got the Red Sea, you've got Ukraine, we had Afghanistan previously. And while I defended him for that, he didn't exactly rouse the public as to why it's a great idea and defend his decision. He mostly just retreated and got ornery that the American people didn't believe in him then on
the economic front and all that. And yet, as you say with Trump, Trump is his own worst enemy and always has been. He easily he lost one of the most easily winnable elections in twenty twenty just from his shown sheer idiocy, and he has refused to drop much of that sense. I wouldn't count him out because I
do think he's a very savvy political player. And if he returns to some of that twenty sixteen energy, and you do have husk of Biden up there, and you have the deep unpopularity that you don't need to win the popular vote. We all learned that in twenty sixteen you could just win the electoral college. So it's one of those where I see deep peril for Joe Biden. And I think that his arrogance from his campaign of twenty twenty. He doesn't understand that it was not him.
He got elected because of COVID. He got dragged across the finish line through circumstances that were not that were out of his control. And this time COVID is not going to save you, my man. And you know, possibly abortion will. But again that's not something that you have done on anything. You should always try as if you're going to lose. There's this, you know, great politicians, even LBJ for example, he always believed that he was on the precipice of losing, or he would always act as
if he was. He would have to do absolutely everything to win, because he said, you can only control what you can control. You got to ruthlessly exploit that to your advantage. He won one of the greatest electoral victories in all of our history. But he ran that race in nineteen six as if it would have been, you know, within a margin of a point. That's what the great ones actually do in order to present something. But you know, we're a long way away from that.
Yes, for sure.
So their plan as first what is it called the second first husband, what is it.
Called Doug m it's the second second.
Gentleman, there we go a.
Second to dress better if he wants to be a.
Jail anyway, as he put it, dobbs in democracy, that's the plan. Well, Joe Biden did this big, you know, highly touted speech near the anniversary of January sixth. Partly, I mean this was sort of like the official like launch of his actual campaign, and he is leaning into this democracy message, which I find extremely hypocritical, which I'll get into in just a moment, but let's take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say.
I promise you I will not that Donald Trump, for the Maggan Republicans.
Forced us to walk away.
I determined minority. He's doing every other his power try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda. The American people know it, and they're standing bravely in the breach. Remember after twenty twenty January sixth Insurrection, don't do the election in which more Americans had voted than any other in American history. America saw the threat posed to the country. They voted him out in twenty twenty two historic midterm election and state after state election after election. The election
deniers were defeated. Now in twenty twenty four, Trump is wanting as the denier in chief, the election denier in chief once again. He's saying he won't honor the results of the election if he loses. Trump says he doesn't understand. Well, he still doesn't understand the basic truth that is, you can't love your country only when you win.
Now, how are you going to claim to be the guardian of democracy when you and your party are actually right now canceling primaries democratic primary elections across the country.
Put this up on the screen. This is just the latest.
You know how, I think five states that have just said, no, we're not going to put your opponents on the ballot, We're just going to cancel the primary. So the DNC is blasting New Hampshire Democrats over what they call a meaningless primary. The DNC scolded New Hampshire Democrats for selecting delegates for the state's unsanctioned primary. You'll recall this all goes back to Joe Biden, the Dance's attempt to rig the primary for him.
He did really badly. It was a fourth fifth place last time in New Hampshire. Didn't even stay for the results.
To come in went to South Carolina, and so they didn't want anything to do with New Hampshire this time, or Iowa for that matter, and so instead they're like, we'll put South Carolina first because of diversity.
No, it's not because of diversity. It's because you.
Were terrified of what voters of New Hampshire actually big of you. Yes, So in New Hampshire, their state constitution actually has provision that says no, we go first, and New Hampshire is even though it's typically a blue state or swing state, it's actually governed right now by Republicans. So even if New Hampshire Democrats wanted to change this provision,
they can't. So they're going ahead with their primary, and the DNC has sat is trying to like scold them and punish them and say their delegates aren't going to even mean anything. So if you're a voter in New Hampshire, they're saying we are, You're just out. You're not going to get to vote, You're not going to get to have your say. And there's a very awkward situation that Biden has put himself in where he's not going to appear on the ballot. So people who want to even
select him, have to write his name in. But again, what a hypocrite. How are you going to pretend like you care a bit about democracy when you have completely blocked any debates. It's not clear he's going to debate Donald Trump, by the way, which obviously Trump should be debating the Republican primary as well.
And you have actively had these states just completely.
Even cancel their primaries, So you know, listen, do I think the January sixth message has some potency you even though it's been a while now, you know, or four years later, I still think it has some potency. I do think it is a reminder of some of the worst things that people hated the most about Donald Trump. Is this sufficient at a time when voters are disgusted with you, when young people see you as enabling absolute
atrocities and war crimes in the Gaza strip? No, No, it's not sufficient, and you are a complete hypocrite.
Yeah, I mean, the democracy point is one Actually a shout out to Joe Rogan. Maybe he's been watching us or you're seeing the news where he was talking about that recently he's been canceling his primaries. He's like, I don't like that at all, So hey, that's good. But then he was like, Dean, who are you, fella? And I was like, you know, kind of a good news. Yes, fair, honestly, fair.
Listen, I want to give credit to d Yeah.
I didn't see it, but I saw that it happened.
I really didn't expect it to because the first time we had him here it was very you know, we had quite a debate over Israel.
I sort of.
Thought that, you know, like we'd already had it out, but it got pretty hey again. But listen, credit to him for coming back. At least he's willing to go out there make the case.
I agree.
The point is people want choices. They deserve choices. If you really were so concerned about democracy, and if you really believe your own rhetoric about Trump being a direct threat to democracy, which I think is fair at this point, then you would actually care about putting up the best possible candidate to defeat this man.
And you'd have to be.
On another planet to think that Joseph Robin and Biden at this point in his life, is the strongest possible candidate to defeat Donald Trump.
You don't have to take my word for it. You look at the polls.
Actually, Dean Phillips, you know, is just sort of like generic Democrat.
He would beat Trump. I mean you would, You would probably beat Trump by like ten points eight points.
On the on the converse, if you had NICKI Haley against Joe Biden, she would win by probably like ten points. Much as I like can't stand her, But somehow we ended up with these two people that everyone is just like disgusted by, tired, you know, tired of, et cetera, because of the basic failures of democracy that enabled this rotten and corroded system.
Speaking of corroded systems, I don't know how of transition to this. I have watched with great and I cannot tell you, Crystal how much self control it took for me not to weigh in on Harvard and the.
Sharing I'm baring take was story ready to roll.
But Gillian looked at me and she was like, if you start going into this in vacation, we're gonna have a problem, and you know what, shut my mouth, and I followed her orders and she was right, she was certainly right. But now I'm back and I have to weigh in. So a little bit on the latest of what is going on here. Bill Ackman, the famous multi billionaire hedge funder extraordinary who lied to the American people on CNBC in twenty twenty he said, you know, terrible
things are coming. Meanwhile, bet two billion dollars after he helped crash the market on CNBC.
People have forgotten a little bit about that. I certainly haven't.
But he has led kind of the plagiarism campaign, a cancelation campaign, I should say, against the Harvard University president, MIT president, and UPenn president. It's very important, I think, for us to separate all the separate actors that are involved here. Ackman was not involved in this fight over
any original concerns over DEI, about plagiarism or anything. He was mad that these university presidents did not say that calling for the genocide against Jews was not a direct call in and of itself, you know, in order to have expulsion from any of these ivy the universities. Also was one of the people who helped basically try to cancel all of these Harvard students who had signed some BLM you know. And look, I don't say pro hamas, but those statements actually were insane. We talked about them
at the time. If people want to go back and look at some of the justification language that they used, we just.
You know, talked about it.
I personally thought it was disgusting, but that does not mean I don't believe that it is false within the realm of free space.
Can I just on that.
The part I took issue with was they attributed sole responsibility in over seven to Israel and denied complete agency from Hamas, who were you know, directly targeting civilians. So that was my issue with it. Do what I cancel them or whatever, you know, blacklist them. This is a man who wanted to get them permanently canceled and never get hired anywhere in America.
Absurd, Yes, ridiculous.
So that began on October eight, and then we eventually got to a point where people like Christopher Rufo and Aaron Sabarium, two people who I know and I know you don't like them, but I respect them both because they both were original DEI activists. They did not, you know, mount this as some sort of Israel campaign. They started reporting about plagiarism accusations against Claudine Gay, who was the Harvard University president. She eventually was forced out because of
these plagiarism accusations, and it was very clear. I did a monologue, but the last monologue of the year, people can go and watch it about the clear cut examples. Is very obviously she violated the Harvard student conduct. But you cannot ignore that the original reason why all of them wanted to be expelled was because of Israel and a free speech.
Okay, so I think that's the ground.
Now we are at a point though, where Akman has opened kind of a Pandora's box, And in that Pandora's box, now it turns out that there is a controversy erupting over Ackman's wife, who is an Israeli American entrepreneur, former professor at MIT.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
So now it turns out that Narry Oxman, that his Bill Ackman's wife is now apologizing for plagiarism in her twenty ten dissertation. Now, currently Ackman is caught up in a war of words on Twitter or and or known as X in which he is defending his wife with great aplom saying no, it's not plagiarism because she incorrectly did not cite basically direct copy paste from Wikipedia and several other instances. I think it is worth noting that Narry Oxman herself has apologized for the incident. If you
don't want to call it plagiarism, I don't know. I mean I remember being in college and they were like, you can't copy and payte from Wikipedia? Is it technically plagiarism? I don't you know what through Wikipedia? Why don't we put this academic integrity? Shall I just call it that? Do we have to call it plagiarism?
Now?
According to Akman in this instance, let's put this up there please on the screen, He says, it does not strike me as platio. Oh really, Nor do I think it takes anything away from her work. I am not sure who would even complain that they were not cited properly. I also wish I knew how to reach a human being at Wikipedia, as my Wikipedia biography needs correcting and would be meaningfully improved if there was someone that I
could speak to. He truly is one of the most He's just one of the most cloudl entitled figures that I've ever seen operate in politics. And I just want to note this when the original plagiarism accusation came against Claudine Gay. Here's what he said the day that it dropped. He said, new whistleblower complaints alleged forty instances of plagiarism. They raise serious issues about the initial investigation in their
work was conducted. The whistleblower levels have credible accusations against Harvard. Now whenever it's wife, he says a few questions, how can one defend one's self against an accusation of plagiarizing Wipedia for a dissertation written fifteen years ago in two thousand and nine.
Isn't the whole point of Wikipedia.
It's a dynamic source of information that changes minute by minute based on edits and contributions.
It's like, dude, come on, you know, it's such.
A clear thing.
His new tack is like, it's disgraceful that they are attacking my wife.
I'm like, well, dude, here's the thing.
Normally I would have a lot of sympathy because you know, he's involved, and she didn't necessarily enter the fray. But Narry Oxman is a public figure in the same way that I'm a public figure, and you are as well, Crystal. She's appeared on Alex Friedman podcast, and I think more importantly, I think for our purposes is some of the past work that she engaged in with a man named Jeffrey Epstein. And just by the way, to underscore Ackman's Titanic ego,
let's put this up there, please on the screen. He is literally bragging and reposting a meme that shows him as a Roman emperor talking about quote, this guy literally beat out Brad Pitt competing for his wife, and he's not hiding it. He continues to kind of flaunt that, which if I was his wife, I'm not sure I would be too happy about that. But whatever, There's a lot of questions that are happening here. Just again, to underscore miss Oxman, let's put this please up on the screen.
Narry Oxman was deeply involved in a gift to Jeffrey Epstein a bizarre giant glass marble after helping solicit a donation from him. This goes back to twenty nineteen, and I actually did a couple of things about this at the time because one of the ways that Epstein kind of whitewashed his reputation is that he would constantly he would solicit like meetings with MIT scientists and others, so he could give them money and he would then be
seen appearing with all these prestigious scientists. Some say he may have been working for a foreign intelligence agency, but at the very least, what they do show is that her lab received one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars gift directly tied to Jeffrey Epstein, and she then presented a gift to Jeffrey Epstein of this weird glass marble. Now, I personally find that to be the most objectionable thing
that involves his wife. Bill Ackman has said now that you know, he says there will be more to say on the Epstein accusation.
He's like, but to be.
Clear, I never knew him, and he's now saying that it's very unfair because there has been no due process, because his wife was only given ninety minutes to respond. Here's my like, once again, did you give Claudine Gay to process? And two process is a legal term. We're talking about journalism right now, Business Insider. They only gave her ninety minutes to respond to a six thousand word article.
I personally think they should have given her a data respond I think I don't think that was the right thing to do. If I had written this article, I would not have done that because I do understand that there should have been some back and forth. So I'm not going to defend that, but I will defend the idea that Bill Ackman himself basically made it so that anybody is up for grabs. You know who was involved in this situation. His wife has appeared publicly, has engaged
in public discourse. His wife previously was connected to Jeffrey Epstein in a very weird and bizarre incident that she has now apologized for, and all of that, And so I think that, you know, it's fair enough in this situation. Yeah, And while I do believe the Business Insider should have given him her more time to respond to the allegations, she did apologize. So she did admit that many of
the facts in the story have not been disputed. But that gets us, crystal to the media company of the owns Business Insider, who it now appears maybe censoring their own reporters for having the temerity to report about Bill Ackman's wife.
That's a whole other situation.
Yeah, So let me get to that one. In a minute.
First of all, Number one, you'll live by the sword. Yeah, diagree, sword right, this is the standard you set. And he has some nerve too, now you know, it was, oh, this is plagiarism, she must go. He was mad that she only got pushed out as president and did not also lose her teaching job.
He complained about that.
He said that she should be fired completely due to quote serious plagiarism issues, So not his real concern of you know, quote unquote anti Semitism. No, he decided to take what was available to him, this plagiarism quote unquote scandal, and to.
Use that to great effect.
And he was mad that she was not fired completely because of these serious plagiarism issues. Now when it's his wife, he is posting these lengthy diatribes on Twitter. I'm talking like freaking five thousand words that it's like what even is plagiarism really? And it's you know, five thousand words of nuance trolling about well, who's to say? And the world has changed, and I don't know, is Wikipedia is just like lifting passages from Wikipedia?
Can we even say? That's place? Who's to judge? And it's a whole new world now with Ai, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So now that it's his wife, it's like, what even is plagiarism really? But when it was Claudine Gay, it was bring out the acts. She needs to be gone, She needs to be gone forever, not even hold on to her teaching job, et cetera. So the double standard here is amazing. This is also a person who has complete double standard with regard to quote unquote free speech. Claims to be some free speech warrior until it's an issue that he cares deeply about and suddenly he wonts censorship.
This is classic.
This is what the overwhelming majority of elites, Democrats and Republicans have actually pushed in terms of a quote unquote free speech agenda. They don't want free speech, they want to be able to control what can be said and what cannot be said.
That is very clear here.
This is a man who thinks, because he is extremely wealthy and because he has given certain large gifts to these various institutions, he thinks he should be able to run the show. He should be able to dictate who can stay, who can go, who can say what on what campus, when, where, et cetera. He thinks he should be able to set the standards. And since he's setting the standards, he's got a little carunt exception for his wife.
So that's what's going on with Bill Ackman. So Sager to your point about the media reporting here, and by the way, this story I have Barrett like, I don't really care who the Harvard University president is, but it does say something important about these powerful elites which do have a lot of power and influence. And this comes out too in terms of this media reaction. So Business Insider does this report, it's obviously tremendously important, impactful, gets
a lot of traction, et cetera. They you know, maybe they should have given her more time to respond, but it's not like she's rebutting the allegation.
They didn't meant anything wrong. They did not get anything wrong.
So what is the reaction now of Axel Springer, which owns Business Insider, Well, they're they're concerned about this. This may be, this may have been anti semitic. Actually, what this journalism that unfolded here? Put this up on the screen from them, This is incredible, incredible. This is reported out by Semaphore, say bi's report and Naryosmen has caused division within the top ranks of its owner, Axl Springer.
Some actual leaders question.
Whether the article was newsworthy and are concerned the report could be seen as anti Semitic and anti Zionist. What what How in the world is pointing out accurate instances of plagiarism, anti Semitic or anti Zionists Complete insanity And by the way, part of the course for Axel Springer, which actually requires their employees, their big media conglomerate they own Political and Business Insider and a number of other media outlets, they actually require their employees. This is crazy
to me to sign a pro Israel pledge. It's on their website that one of their second like founding prints is a commitment to Israel and the right of Israel to exist. So this is, you know, sort of par for the course for them, but it's complete insanity. And it just shows you again the way that the billionaire class has so much control over what gets reported, how it gets reported, who gets apologized to, who can keep their job, who can't keep their job?
Total total insanity.
And the last thing I'll say soccer is there been allegations that the attacks on Claudine Gay were racist. She's a black woman. I didn't see because they went after everybody who didn't toe their line on canceling, you know, people who are advocating for Palestinian rights. So I didn't see that as having to do with her race. But if you're going to say this is anti Semitic, then I think it's totally fair game to say, Okay, well then it's racist that you went after a black woman.
I'm glad that you point that out, because you're right is that it was both not anti semitism and it was both not racism.
And that's what That's really why.
I wanted to weigh in because I was getting so inn is that many of the liberals who are trying to defend Claudine Gay were.
Like, this is an attack on a black woman. It's like, well, not always an attack on a black woman. It's about race. Okay, maybe sometimes in this case it.
Actually is all about Israel and about our free speech. And there's a genuine conversation I think to be had about DEI and all of that. But the real tell to me about this is that Acman does not seem to be annoyed that the person who has succeeded Claudine Gay is a pro Israel, pro Dei Jew and now all of a sudden he has nothing to say, yeah,
because he claims that is concern is about Dei. But the moment that you have somebody who's in charge now, who has given you your little Israel carve out on DEI, now we're good to go.
And that's what I've been trying to say here from day one. Folks.
If you want to make common cause with Bill Ackman and all that, you are signing up just for an Israel exception, for a Jewish exception on DEI. And guess what, I think the whole regime is bad. And so if you legitimately are concerned about all these things which I dam about race, quotas and all this other crap going on in American society, this is not somebody you want to be.
And also it's just so obvious too, this is about him. He doesn't care now, it's.
Just in.
Yeah, and he just wants control. He just wants control.
And so that's why you know, Christopher Ruffo is out there like gloating, Oh I got a scalp et cetera. It's like, congratulations, you got someone who's just going to sensor war. It's just going to sensor on more topics. I would give Waiting go this.
He would actually continue to he would continue to wage war against the new Harvard president.
Of the reason I don't believe he.
Did this was because she wasn't censorious enough. Like That's where this is so insane to me. It's like she actually gave the right answer in the congressional hearing and maybe could say she could word about or whatever, But I had zero issue with what she said. And by the way, I just always have to remind people, it's not like there is a single documented instance of college kids running around saying genocide the Jews. What they're talking about are protest chance from the river to the sea.
Palestine will be free, That's what they're talking about. And so for you to come in over the top and cancel this person, get her fired effectively for not censoring, for actually having a free speech position, I just don't know what we're talking here.
I don't disagree with any of the substance of what he said. The only reason I'm to defend Chris is Chris and Aaron have an acceleration of his view of this, where any scalp in higher education is a good scalp.
They will continue to go after him. They've been doing it on Yale Law School and all these other places. Aaron, I'm not so sure.
But Chris is working and has always been to go after Dei for him, but he wants.
To perch and Dei.
How is this going after DEI? What you're doing is you're saying we need another protected class.
Well, no, he doesn't believe it, but that's what you're enforcing. So that is what he's enforcing. He's willing to make common cause.
With Bill, which I think is the wrong decision.
Again, I'll say that one hundred percent, but he's not going to stop his war whether Bill stays with him or not. He's going to try and get the next guy fired. He'll continue to try and get Dei and all of that dismantled. This is not his goal. He was willing to work with him now in this one instance. I just think it's important to separate actual actors here. Acman and the pro Israel crowd are temporary allies, but there are genuine people here who have been working on
this for a long time. Now, where do I think that this was the right decision. I don't think it was the right decision. I think that they could have gone about it, and should have done it in a very different way. I would not have made this a whole I mean the plagiarism story. The thing is that
it is genuine on his face. It's just that the people were pushing it were doing it for one reason, and I think that for motivational Actually, you know what, we need to say this because there's there's a lot more to be said.
We can't we can't be hashing this out.
Yes, I mean, listen, I don't deny that she you know that she played ars. Obviously, if you're going to have that standard, have it across the port totally, including with neuroosmen.
There you go, let's leave it.
Then maybe I'll do a monologue or something about this later. I have too much to say.
All right, what are you looking about? Well today? On this one.
If you want a single example of why America is declining the way that it is today and how everything went wrong, you would be hard pressed to find a better for example than to simply trace the history of the Boeing Company, the iconic American aerospace company that pumped out nearly one hundred thousand planes for the use in Second World War and was a poster child for the might, the ingenuity, and the dominance of the United States in the post war era.
Boeing was America.
It employed tens of thousands of people, provided middle class wages. It was a pathway to upward mobility, helped us go to the Moon, pioneered stunning new aircraft to propel the US military, kept innovating and designing new planes, propelled the vast majority of the nearly one hundred million Americans today who set foot on a plane at least once a year. But underneath the goliath there has been a lot of
rot and rot now for quite some time. We got a reminder of this rot on January fifth, when stunning videos began to surface of the middle section of a brand new Boeing seven thirty seven Max nine that fell off in the middle of a flight that had just taken off from Portland, Oregon. Let's watch that if you haven't seen it yet. This war we're at the.
So there was no one's seated there, there.
Was no one's seated here in the window.
For those who are just listening, the video shows a section of the plane missing mid flight, blew out completely.
How the hell does this happen?
Naturally people might think, Oh, it's an old airplane, or it's a maintenance issue, but it is stunning to consider this aircraft was only delivered to Alaska Airlines on October thirty first, twenty twenty three, not even two months into its history, and a piece is falling out in the sky. The troubling part is that this is the latest brand new Boeing aircraft to have a safety issue that is
endangering passengers in just the last five years. Recall the span of just five months in late twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, two brand new Boeing seven thirty seven Max eight aircrafts crashed, killing a total of three hundred and forty six people and forcing the entire fleet to be grounded, launching a massive global investigation. The results of that investigation were stunning. They show how we got to this moment.
Boeing was forced to pay two point five billion dollars to the US government to stave off criminal charges against the company and its top pilot, who they alleged had conspired to hide software updates to its piloting system from
the FAA and other authorities. That update was later found to be culpable for two of the crashes, and the secrecy was all part of a major corporate plan to rush the product to market to beat out competitors, and indicated that the company was hard pressed to deliver big profits to a shareholders.
Shareholder pressure has ruled Boeing now for decades.
In fact, in the period between twenty fourteen and twenty nineteen, Boeing bought.
Back sixty sixty billion.
Dollars of its own stock, money that could and should have been used for research and development and product innovation and safety. Even after the crash, Boeing has still pumped tens of billions of dollars back into stock buybacks to stop the bleeding, and to this day has not fundamentally
altered their business MOO. In fact, stock buy that buybacks themselves were the cause of the company to have very little cash on hand when the coronavirus pandemic hit in twenty twenty, which meant Washington had to bail out Boeing to the tune of billions of dollars, So if you were tracking so far, it goes like this, the same arc for the whole country. Prior to the financialization era of the nineteen eighties, Boeing built brand ns aircrafts that
symbolized the might and progress of America. They traded though off the reputation a brand to prop up their share price, and it became the only thing that mattered to the executives. And when your top job is to pump out airplanes as a means of propping up your stock price instead of building great airplanes and hoping that the stock price follows the seven thirty seven Max eight and nine, is what happens. The absolute most insane thing is that they
were supposed to have their come up and already. If you read that twenty twenty one Department of Justice agreement with Boeing, it castigates the company for conspiring to hide important safety information from US regulators and says practices were put into place to ensure that something like this never happens again. Two years later, a brand new plane, the very latest iteration of that same aircraft, has a piece of side that blows off in the middle of the sky.
A pitily two point five billion dollar fine is not going to fix this, nor even is some fake statement of contrition or some fake investigation from the government. The entire system is responsible for creating this problem over decades, and thus the only solution is to burn down the system itself.
I am not naive. I know this is not.
Going to happen, which is why the future, in my opinion, is very grim. People too often have a recency bias and they're thinking about America. Yeah, things are bad, but if you look at our history, we always come out fine in the end. What they don't tell you is that in an interim period, millions of people die, billions of dollars are lost. The lessons that we eventually learned were usually eminently predictable and fixable. In the moment, It was
greed and corruption that usually stood in the way. The likely outcome is this, America is going to find itself.
In a genuine crisis.
We will need planes and we will find out we barely even know how to build them anymore. We will lose either battle lives or war, and people will ask how the hell could this happen? And in that moment, we're going to rewind the clock and we're going to look back at the Boeing company and you're going to see how clearly you could predict our future. I told you those are not going to matter so much to the people who suffer as a result of the folly that could be fixed right now.
So look, Chris, so we don't know yet the cost.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. So, guys, earlier we covered some of the political fallout that has stemmed in large part from Joe Biden's unconditional support for Israel in their assault on Gaza, and that has extended even to some major party donors. Put this report up on the screen. This is from Politico. They say, a
Biden donor calls it quits. This is with regards to Ahmed Khan, and they say, as con views that the Biden administration has dropped the ball. It's failed to meaningfully push Israel to minimize civilian casualties and has stood behind Israeli Primini Benjamin Nyahu even as his government has engaged in what Kan describes as ethnic cleansing on the way to genocide quote.
This is bullshit.
You make moral compromises being involved in politics and ethical shortcuts, but this is just a bridge too far. And Ahmed Khan, a philanthropist and political activist, joins us. Now, great to have you, sir, you're just user.
Thanks, thanks for having me on.
Yeah, of course, So what brought you to the place where you are making this break and pushed you to make those comments?
Well, I mean my background is I deliver humanitarian aid in war zones. This is what I do. I've done it in just about every war zone of our time. I started in my early twenties in Rwanda. I've worked in Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, you name it. So it's the thing that's most important to me. I spent most of the last two years in Ukraine and what I've seen in Gaza, in touch with maybe five
hundred families, maybe more so thousands of people. And I've been to the other side of the border, the Rafa border, multiple times. I've never seen anything like this. So this is the ultimate in human suffering. It just goes There're no where is to describe what's happening there.
What puts it on a scale that's different than you know, even what you've seen in places like Rwanda, in places like Ukraine and Yemen.
Well, in all the other places there were safe spaces. In Gaza, there is no place that's safe. There is no one that's safe. So you were talking about the entire population of two point two million people that have absolutely no place to go. You can't rent an apartment, you can go into any building who's no building is safe. When you go to a safe zone that's a camp. Let's say you have three hundred dollars and you buy a tent, you go to that camp, and that camp
is bombed. That level of desperation, not knowing if you're going to survive through the day, that is something that's unprecedented in our times and probably ever. The Israelis control all the borders, and I suppose that's because that's the way the US administration wants it to be. So in other war zones, you can deliver eight now. For example, in Ukraine, one of the hospitals said, ourcat machine was blown up. We need a new one. I purchased one
with a friend and we delivered it. That's impossible in GOSM and you've seen what's happened to the hospitals, and you're probably seeing what's happening today in a Locksha hospital in Central.
So how has the Biden team responded to this or have they even have they reached out to you and you've spoken you've been involved now in politics for quite some time. How many people share your beliefs but are not willing to come out as publicly to say that this is going to be a political problem for the president.
Well, I've had some people reach out to me off the record and say, you know, I admire what you're doing, without going to say that they agree with me. But I'm sure parenting you if people agree with me. But
you know, politics isn't really my thing. I'm involved just sort of like as a shared values type thing as a citizen, Like everybody should be involved in politics, but for me, this the level of humanitarian suffering that they are responsible for, you know, it's it's just something that is inexplicable.
What's your response to people who would say, Okay, yeah, what Biden is doing here with his support is horrible, it's indefensible, But what you're going to help elect Trump is he going to be any better. He also did whatever Israel wanted when he was president of the United States. So what's your response to that.
Well, I'm not you know, that's really not my concern. My concern are the eleven thousand dead children, probably another twenty thousand children who have catastrophic injuries that they'll never recover from, lost legs, lost arms, Maybe five hundred thousand children who are on the brink, if not on starvation. They're getting no food groups. Maybe the children under two are maybe getting some bread every day. You know, those are my concerns. So as a humanitarian, my greatest concerns
are these people who have no voice. You know, I will leave it to the rest of the three hundred and fifty million Americans or how many ever are there are a voting age to decide who's the next president. But I think I, as a humanitarian, should hold the people I've supported responsible. And you know it's my small effort. I'm not some gigantic mega don or. I mean what most of my philanthropy is doing stuff like this.
So, im and you've mentioned you've been doing a lot of work in Ukraine, obviously, been traveling the world trying to as well get aid and you said to deliver it. Do you think that this is undermined the US position in Ukraine? If you were just recently in Ukraine, how do they respond, you know, to what's going on there? How do they reconcile some of the ways that we've talked about Russian actions on Ukraine with what's going on in Israel.
Yeah, I was in Ukraine two weeks ago. I've been there for the majority of the last two years, mostly along the front lines, actually delivering aid to frontline villages
and alongside the Ukrainian army. Well, you know, they what can they say, because ultimately the US is their major sponsor, but of course they're the deliveries on all accounts with regards to civilians and the military have have have, I have come down, So of course they're very frustrated, but you know, they don't really have the ability to complain because who do you complain to?
Right?
What have you made of the comments from US officials that have been.
Unequivocal in support. We occasionally get.
These little like pearl clutching all they need to reduce civilian casualties. But there was a recent response from John Kirby, who was asked about South Africa Africa's application to the ICJ charging Israel with genocide, and this is how he responds to take a listen.
South Africa's filed this eighty four page lawsuit against Israel accusing them of genocide.
Israel said that this is blood libel.
Does Washington agree and where does this put Washington in preatory?
And fine?
This submission meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.
What do you make of responses like that?
It's nuts. I mean they're sourced right, their footnotes, there are sources, there's evidence there and you know time will tell, right, and unfortunately, they will be vindicated and everyone that supports them will be vindicated in the future, which is always the case when a sort of action like this is happening. But it's really it really matters what are we doing today.
I have no doubt that, you know, this will all come out, like every single one of these innocent civilians that's been murdered for no reason, it will all come out and hopefully we will all hold them accountable. But that doesn't really help people get through today. In terms of the Lift service about minimizing civility and casualties and increasing aid. That's just more nonsense. It's complete nonsense. So either they I don't even know if they believe what
they say. They're saying, you know, like it's it's actually really crazy. The deliveries of aid is meaningless, the numbers are incredibly low, and the civilian casualties have not been reduced. So if you're saying you're doing that, then either you're failing or you're lying. I don't know which one. It is.
Part of Israel's defense that they're floating to the ICA is that, oh, there have been hundreds of aid trucks that have been allowed in. We've been trying to you know, enable the provision of additional aid. You know, as someone who has been directly involved in these efforts, just give us a sense of what has led to this catastrophic breakdown and how their words are so disconnected from the reality that the people you're speaking to and cads are actually facing.
Well, I mean, there's a series of security checks and so when you drive to the Rafa border crossing, you will pass hundreds and hundreds of trucks, some of them have been there for three weeks, four weeks. Actually, I don't even know how the drivers remain like normal, just sitting in their trucks, and it's just a matter of each truck has to go through number of number of security checks and often the goods are rejected. So actually the most high value goods that are the most required
are rejected medical items, stuff for the hospitals. You're not allowed to bring in anything with power, even solar, you can't bring in even tense. I mean, they're literally warehouses full of stuff that's been rejected, and they're just sitting there and donated items, you know, and it's just very clear that it's you know, I'd love to hear what the answer to that is, but you know, as far as I can tell from everyone I've spoken to and being there, it's the the the level of the security checks.
And then even inside Gaza, the World Health Organization and U and OCHA will try to move stuff from south to central Gaza and they'll be rejected. I think there were four rejection yesterday alone.
Wow. Wow.
Finally, how do you think history will judge this president?
I just don't know how he disentangles himself from what these Raelis are doing. In Gaza. I mean, you know, it was very obvious to me on October eighth that the plan was to ethnically cleanse Gaza. There's just no other way you look at it. I've worked with the US Army, I've worked alongside the Ukrainian Army, I've worked alongside the Kurdish Pish murder. I've never seen this lack
of interest in protecting civilians. And you know, there's nobody who can tell me what a responsible army is because I've literally been with every army on the front line. So you know, nobody at their you know, spin class at Equinox is going to tell me what a responsible army is. And you know, there's no I just don't know. It was clear from the beginning, right, it was very clear what the purpose was. And they tell us what
the purpose is. They tell us what they're doing. No shortage of Kanescant members, no shortage of members of the Prime Minister's Cabinet have said this is what they want to do. And so for the US administration to then turn around and tell us, so, you know, that's that's irresponsible. We wish we didn't talk like that. It's sort of like the us is kind of like we don't really want them speaking out loud on what they're doing on the ground. And that's I mean, I don't even know
what the word for that is. It's not infuriating in some other word, but I don't know what it is.
AMD, thank you for your time today, and more importantly, thank you so much for the work that you do. I really deeply, deeply admire and respect you for it.
So thank you, Thanks Amin.
Thanks to the two of you, I appreciate absolutely.
It's our pleasure.
Okay, it's been great to be back, and we will see you all tomorrow.
Beca