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Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
We have a great show for everybody today.
What do we have?
Indeed, we do big news both domestically and abroad. We now have received official word President Biden is going to be traveling to Israel and visiting with the leaders of some other countries while he is there, so we'll talk about that as well as the continued risks of the spread into a wider war. One of the things he is likely to be discussing is trying to open some sort of humanitarian corridor. There have been a lot of negotiations about that already, so we'll get into.
All of that.
We also have some additional results for you from that exclusive focus group that we conducted along with Jail partners down in Georgia, in and around Atlanta.
That's where the residents came from.
Democratic based voters talking about how they feel about President Biden and his age, their concerns, and you know, whether they would be open to other candids.
So we'll talk about that. We also have.
Big domestic news, as I mentioned, speaker vote happening today. Jim Jordan seems to have swayed some but maybe not enough, so we'll see how that goes and talk about what it means. We also have some additional examples of censorship happening here, some wild back and forth between Jiji Hadid and the State of.
Israel that we want to bring you.
We also have a little bit of a hypocrisy we want to expose with regard to how people feel about Ukraine and Russia versus Israel and Gaza. And I had a little bit of an adventure last night over on News Nation. Saga actually hasn't seen this clip yet, so we're gonna talk a little bit about this.
This is why don't do cable news anymore.
Bottom line, that's right. I told you privately, why are you wasting your time with this? We'll find out. We'll find out why you don't waste your time with this. Thanks to everybody for supportingus. Some on the focus group. We'll have more to say on that, but let's actually get to the news here. Late last night, Secretary Blincoln, after a marathon nearly eight hour meeting privately with Prime
Minister Netanya, who made a major announcement. President Biden on Wednesday, will be arriving in Israel.
Here's what he had to.
Say on Wednesday. President Biden was at Israel.
He's coming here at a critical moment for Israel, for the region, and for the world.
And he's coming here to do the follow up.
First, the President will reaffirm the United States solidarity with Israel and our ironclad commitment to its security. President Biden will again make clear, as he's done unequivocally since amas is slaughter of more than fourteen hundred people.
Including at least thirty Americans, that.
Israel has the right and indeed the duty, to defend its people from Hamas and other terrorists and to prevent future attacks. President will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people as we continue to work with Congress to meet those needs. Second, President Biden will underscore our crystal clear message to any actor, state or non state trying to take advantage of this crisis to attack Israel, don't.
To that end, he's.
Deployed two aircraft carrier groups and other military assets to the region. Third, the President will continue to coordinate closely with our Israeli partners to the secure of the release of hostages taken by Amas, including men, women, small children, Holocaust survivors, and American citizens, as an indispensable humanitarian effort. Fourth, President Biden will receive a comprehensive brief on Israel's war
aims and strategy. Fifth, the President will hear from Israel how it will conduct its operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas.
To that end, today, and at our request, the United States and Israel have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza and them alone, including the possibility of creating areas to help keep civilians out of harm's way.
Obviously, that's a major piece of news there. President Biden arriving. Now, we don't yet know what the circumstances of the arrival are for. Is it a show of solidarity as the Israelis wanted him to make, or is it to solve a diplomatic knot also breaking last night. Israel will be the first place that he does visit, but on the same trip we'll be traveling to Aman in Jordan, where he will meet with the Palestinian authority, the Egyptians, and the King of Jordan, so Christal. What that does show
us is that this is a major diplomatic visit. In tradition, the US president when he does visit Israel, is supposed to visit Egypt. Kind of interesting that he is going over to Jordan, where he will of course still be meeting with President CCI. But it comes at a time of absolutely massive questions about US involvement and some terrifying stuff that began happening last night. Let's put this up
there on the screen. The IDF announced publicly that it was currently striking quote Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon their words in terms of what they're saying. The reason why that that is so significant is it was the first time that they have publicly come out and said that they're making strikes not only in Lebanon, but targeting and
naming Hezbola. By doing that, we know that this is entering the dangerous territory of a possible proxy war between Iran and Israel, and not even proxy, it could escalate much further, which will of course draw the United States in it. Also, these air strikes came just hours after a very ominous statement by the Iranian Foreign minister.
Let's go ahead and play some of this.
I'm going to read a translation of what he said which has everybody so worried. He says, quote, there will be potential preemptive action by Iran and its allies in the coming hours in the region to counter Israel's attacks. Here is exactly what he says. Resistance leaders will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action it wants in Gaza and then leave Gaza and go to other
resistance spheres. He also invokes Israel's use of white phosphorus in Gaza and says that there will make a case to the Iranian public for preemptive military action direct quote today if we do not defend Gaza tomorrow we will have to face these bombs in children's hospitals in.
Our own city.
This is a very blunt warning of war, according to the official translation, and the final quote was quote eyeing for political solutions is running out. The possibility of expanding war is approaching inevitability. He also directly calls out the United States and says that they have asked for restraint and that they have been replied that they do not seek to expand the war. But the restraint is not
one sided, and specifically on Hesbola. You cannot tell Hesbola to restrain and then tell Natanyahu to do whatever crime that he wants. So he specifically is calling out both Israel and the United States, threatening to use Hesbola and open a two front war. Again, the reason why it's significant is the reason we have these two carrier strike groups in the Eastern Mediterranean is an attempt to try and deter Iranian action. Hesbola is several multitudes more deadly
to Israelis and to the IDF. It presents an actually significant military challenge and crystal it is the most likely avenue that the United States gets involved in this war.
That is the lens of which I am viewing the Biden visit.
I think that is one hundred percent correct.
The primary reason likely for his visit is to try to show solidarity with israelis to try to deter Hezbola from getting fully involved in this conflict, which looks more likely every day. I mean, that's the reason for the carrier strike group, that's the reason for us we're about to talk about the call up to be ready to go of some several thousand marines to the region. That is the reason why I believe he is visiting to try to keep this from escalating into.
A broader war. Will it work or not is a bigger question.
And you know what we've seen from the Biden administration is typical Israel. We stand with you no matter what. You have our support one hundred percent. You know they're trying to rush aid through that obviously, Tony Blincoln being there and his words of I'm here as a Jew and I.
Completely support you.
All.
All of that is, you know, the primary actions that they're taking and basically giving Israel carte blanche to do what they want to do in Gaza. But you are starting to see some concern about how this is all going to unfold concern similar to what I raised yesterday about, Okay, you take out Hamas, what then who is going to govern?
You heard Biden.
Saying in that sixty minutes interview that reoccupation of Gaza would be a quote big mistake. You also see Tony Blincoln and others at least privately concerned that after the horror that the world saw of the you know, Hamas terrorist attack, and the incredible sympathy for the state of Israel, that that could fade very quickly seeing these you know, horrific pictures of Palestinians and children being killed in Gaza,
that sympathies could shift very very quickly. So that's why when Tony Blinkin is announcing this visit, you know, he leads with, uh, we want to make it clear Israel and the right to defend herselve et cetera, et cetera. But then also on the list is hey, we want to see about opening up this humanitarian order. We want
to see about trying to minimize civilian casualties. Now, they have been very clear they're not willing to condition Aid on any of this, So in a lot of ways, it's just empty talk that has amounted thus far to lutely nothing in terms of humanitarian conditions. But I do think part of why there has been this big delay in the ground invasion is exactly for this concern about trying to avoid a direct hot war with Iran, or at least with hesbel.
I really believe this is a Gordian knot which is unsolvable. The Israelis have a way of doing war and they're not going to change it. The US political system is absolutely not going to condition eight or any of that. It does basically doesn't allow any option but the one that you presently see for every US lawmaker, which is basically the Overton window, is support Israel rhetorically call for a two state solution all the way up to bomb Iran.
There's nothing on the table which would constrain the number of options, and within that framework that we have right now, there is just simply no way I've been saying this from the beginning that Hesbola is going to sit by and just stand while a full blown war and actual shooting, you know, urban conflict evolves right in Gaza.
Not going to happen.
Already, one journalist who I deeply trust, let's put this up there on the screen. Shashankoshi. He's the defense editor at the Economist. He has had the best reporting that I've seen on Ukraine. I mean, he has some of
the best sources in British intelligence and elsewhere. He says, quote, Iran has been pushing Hesbolah to join the war, according to at least one informed account that I have heard, And I mean I take that with very seriously, because there has been two different ways that we can view it.
Hesbola itself could view its role as having to insert itself, or Iran also could be the one trying to constrain it to have the primary backer of the group allegedly or at this case reportedly wanting them to join the conflict. That's a whole other level of insertion. You have the leader of Hezbolah. They put out a statement yesterday that the time is nearing about some major attack. The Iranian Foreign Minister's language was very ominous, saying, you know, preemptive
strike may need to occur. And then when we couple that crystal with the air strike itself, air strikes by the Israelis did not happen as a result of a rocket attack. It was directly after this Iranian foreign minister, meaning that it was at least quote preemptive in the view of the Israelis trying to take out infrastructure. Now, you don't preemptively bomb something unless you think it's about to be used against you.
So maybe the Israelis themselves have intelligence.
All of this on the backdrop is America and its carrier strike groups. As I mentioned, we can put this up there on the screen. Increasing reporting. Also here in Washington, the US and Israel are focusing on Hezbola's next move after the Hamas attack. Quote, American officials said they believe the deployment of aircraft carrier strike groups has at least for now, deterred Hesbola from opening a new front in
the war. Now, maybe you should be comforted by that if you're Israeli, if you're America, what you should read there is that our firepower is the only thing standing in the way of a two front war and apossible global conflagration. And also it's not even doing a particularly good job of it, because we still could be.
In it right now.
How can you not read that as the US military is effectively trying to backstafe this and that we are almost one hundred percent going to get involved. And the best way to always look at it is do we have troops there or not? And already just last night,
let's put this up there on the screen. We have two thousand US Marines and sailors that will quote join a growing number of US warships and will converge on Israel as the US seeks to send a message quote of deterrens to Iran and prevent the war in Gaza. Once you actually see a US Marine rapid response force, which is what they are designed for, and they are designed to fight and to kill, then we know exactly
what the trend is for policy making options. Already, Crystal, I've seen some reports inside the Pentagon they are drawing up plans for what a war of defense of Israel would look like, of what a US military invasion would look like, what a US military incursion against Lebanon, and then of course broader war plans with the Iran iman sitting around inside the Pentagon for a long time. And this is what the this is what the war or the drums of war sound like right now, Yah, when you can see all.
Of this, not to mention, I mean On the one hand, Okay,
Biden is going to try to deter Iran. But if you have the American president, they're standing next to Netanyaho, who is by the way, completely lost the trust of his own people, but effectively backstopping him and his extraordinarily extreme government as they are already committing what the UN and others are describing as war crimes, including this medieval siege, including the absolute bombing civilian infrastructure, including the force relocation
of a million people, evacuation of a million people from northern Gaza. You have the American President standing there, standing next to netnah who while all of this is happening. So as much as they may say, oh, we want the humanitarian cord, we want to allow aid through, we're going to talk to Israel about all of this, the
bottom line is they're never going to condition aid. They're not going to use any of the carrots and the sticks that they have at their disposal to try to make sure that the Palestinian people are protected in the rules of international engagement.
And war are followed.
So that specter in and of itself is rather extraordinary in what what I.
Would say is a very bad way.
The other thing I would say about this New York Times report, which is all based on what intel ghules are.
Saying, etc. Etc.
I don't know why we have any confidence in them when apparently they didn't say any of this coming to start with.
That's number one, So I wouldn't really put.
A lot of faith in their analysis of the situation at this point. And the other thing is they have this quote here that says, listen. This is from a former senior Pentagon official and CIA officer. He says, if Hamas looks like it will be destroyed, Hesbela will have incredible pressure to get directly involved and open a northern front. The more civilians killed, the more outrage will come from people in the region. This will put more pressure on Hezbollah to join the fight or lose credibility.
So if you have the.
American president, we've already had American secretary's date there, you have the American president there as well. If you have carrier strike groups in the region while this thing is escalating, you tell me what that's going to look like for us and for our involvement.
Exactly right, And this actually fits with some broader reporting outside and inside Israel actually about the United States and what some of those discussions look like behind the scenes. So let's put this up there please on the screen. This is a report actually from the Times of Israel themselves,
clearly coming from Israeli sources. They say that the Biden administration has privately been pressing Israel to flush out what is its strategy for the days after it completes its stated goal of eradicating Hamas in the ongoing Gaza War. The US and Israeli official have told The Times of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his inner circle have indicated Israel has not yet come up with such a strategy and instead are more focused on the immediate goal of removing
Hamas from power in Gaza. The US official cautions against this approach, saying, devoid of a strategy for who will control the strip if and when Hamas is removed, IDF is more likely to get bogged down in Gaza indefinitely. Despite Israel insisting it does not want to, you reoccupy
the enclave. In Israeli official tales the Times of Israel than the National Unity chair of Benny Ganz and fellow faction member Gotti eisen Kott demanded the creation of a Gaza exit strategy upon their entry into the government, and they have tasked the committee with drawing one up.
A committee is on it.
We spend a lot of time on this. I have a question when you okay, So it's not like Iraq. We decided to invade I Rock somewhere around two thousand and two. We invaded about a year later, two thousand and three. I'm not going to forgive them for coming up not coming up with an extra strategy, because they definitely should have, but it's not like it was one
that you always needed under the shelf. If you are Israel and you've been dealing with the terrorist government of Hamas for the last what seventeen years, how do you not have a war plan that goes into this exact scenario? Was this totally unforeseeable a major terrorist attack on your soil?
If so, then you're an idiot. And if not, well, I don't even know what to say about the IDF and it's supposed, I mean, I can't tell you how their reputation the entire Zerli security state on this and look, well withhold because they still have an engaged in major conflict. That said, they had one of the most professional reputations
in the world. Everybody knew this. It was like, wow, these are these are you know, these people don't screw around like they are very good at what they do, and they don't.
Have a strategy for Gaza. I mean what, you.
Just envisioned this, this situation to just sit there for all time. Everybody knew it was untenable, and even they probably knew it was untenable. They just wanted to keep it going for as long as humanly possible. The fact that they don't have a strategy speaks to the exact problems of what the US had post nine to eleven, which is something you and I have been focusing on here a long time. Look Aqi al Qaeda in Iraq, we killed that leader in two thousand and six. Zarkawi
did it end isis for all time? No made it worse, right, So what's the point of that. You can to capitate leadership? Great, You got to make sure that you know more rats don't come up from the belly of the ship. You got to make make sure not only I'm not even talking about the meme of like root causes at a baseline level, you have to ensure that you do not need to fully military occupy this region without leading to
the exact same outcome. Currently, I don't see a scenario that they have laid out, even to American war planners privately or publicly, for what that is. It just seems like they want to do what America did after nine to eleven, which was feel good about themselves and go in. But you know, after the Battle of Tora Bora bin Laden escapes, America is rootless.
We don't know what to do.
They could even succeed technically in their mission of going in and killing Hamas, but they have said not only that they want to kill Hamas leadership a militants, which I think is totally legitimate, justified, and they should do, but how do you make sure that it doesn't happen again? And that's where the political solution comes into play. That's also where you know, major diplomatic efforts have to be
made here. So look, we're in a better situation right now that clearly the Biden administration, the international community and others have made it clear like just going in right now is going to get into a wider conflict. But I personally fear that the Biden. People are not going to press enough that there's too much either domestic political pressure on Netanyahu to go in and to do something about this that we don't think about the next day. And that is how you get into Iraq two point zero.
We already saw this story in the twenty first century. People are not learning from these mistakes.
Think about the frickin' mission accomplished banner. Yes, the easiest part from our perspective was going into a rock and blowing a bunch of shit up and declaring mission accomplished.
That's the easy part. Then what comes next?
The fact that they are admitting that they have no idea is stunning to me. I just look at this, and I'm like Jesus Christ. The world learn nothing from nine to eleven. Learn nothing from the disastrous nature of our response, which made us all less safe and not to mention, slaughtered so many Iraqi civilians, cost us so many lives in terms of our soldiers, our men and women, our treasure, sent that whole region into chaos, increased the
amount of terrorism. And so when you you know, have this and the other context heresager that I think is really important to keep in mind is now who can read a poll. He was already under massive fire domestically before this incredible, horrific failure of his own government, which is not me, that's not my opinion, that's like ninety six percent of Israelis who feel that way. So he
feels very weak in terms of his political position. This is a man who has always been willing to do whatever it takes in order to hold on to.
Or obtain power.
And so if the you know, reaction within the Israeli public is just we're out for blood, which I think that is the overwhelming reaction with Israeli public, that's what he's going to deliver because he feels that's what he has to do to.
Keep his grip on power.
So it should be terrifying to everyone that they have no plan for the day after, and you know, thinking longer down the road. And this is the point that I have made previously, but think of the children who are growing up now with this experience. Do you think that they're going to be de radicalized by what is going on now with this you know, collective punishment that's being inflicted on all of Gaza. Do you think that's more likely to lead to peace or do you think
it's more likely to go in the other direction. Just as our actions in Iraq and in the Middle East helped to form and provide fuel.
To ISIS, do you think it's more likely to go in.
The other direction of creating additional terror, additional radicalization among this population.
Yeah.
And actually we have a lot of lessons about what ended up working, you know, and they're very uncomfortable lessons. You know what ended up working in Syria to eradicate ISIS, Well, it took a massim lots of checks from us.
It also took Asad winning the war.
That's really difficult to say for a man who's probably responsible for at a minimum of what three hundred thousand people dead. Well, it's kind of a Saddama same lesson. Yeah, he wasn't a good guy. He massacred a lot of his own people. It turned out we were better off with him than we were without him. The same thing in Iraq today, in the government where it is, which
is already like complete mess, Well, same thing. It took us writing massive checks, lots of weapons to go in and blow the hell out of the city of Mosul, and to then prop up a government which still did some very uncomfortable and difficult things that we don't necessarily want to acknowledge to make sure that Isis didn't come to power. Same with Egypt. When we think about what's going on over there. I'm not saying I support it necessarily.
I'm just like, stability comes at a huge cost. It can also lead to big, bubbling problems, as we all found out in twenty eleven. So this is a complicated thing, but it does then represent that a political solution to all of this is absolutely necessary, and also from a
military level. The failure of our invasion of Iraq was to completely misunderstand Iraqi society, the depathification policy, the way that we tried to cobble together a fake coalition, Our window dressing both in Iraq and really with the Karzai government in Afghanistan as well, actually made problems bubble up later on in the surface and ensured that we ended up staying in those countries even longer than we absolutely should have.
So lots of lessons for the Israelis. And you know, if you go to Israel, they love to talk a big game.
They're like, oh, you guys don't know what you're doing. You guys, you know failed this, you failed that. And I look at this and I'm like, well, what happened to these big talk guys. It's like, where's the you know, the brilliance. You guys always claim your geniuses about balancing these powers and you know, playing Iran against each other and Saudi and you know, they really believed that they were like they cracked the code in terms of all that.
I think that's taken some of that off. Also a very abstute observer, Olivier Knox, He's a foreign correspondent here in Washington.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
I've always trusted the what he has to say is a great reporter, and he points out astuteley, the language of caution creeps into Biden's messages to Israel, and he points specifically from original October seventh quote, Israel has a duty, pure unadulterated evil to aircraft carrier. And then in recent days, all of a sudden, it's a big mistake to occupy Gaza. Even if amhas is a necessary requirement, Yes, we still
need a priest process. Meeting with the PA president mahmurabas whenever he's in Aman, showing that after the bellicos rhetoric of the first couple of days.
Which is understandable.
You know the world has nothing but sympathy for what happened to Israel, or at least any sane person for a terrorist attack. Then though immediately understanding the stakes of the conflict, the geopolitical ramification, and that is where the Biden administration is right now, and unfortunately from them, I have zero trust for President Biden and for his foreign policy team after especially what happened in Ukraine.
They're bumbling ass policy. Oh we'll give you this. No, no, I'm not going to give you this. Oh we want.
Regime change in Russia. No, we don't want regime change in Russia. This is the same JV squad that's running Israel Palestine. If you thought Russia Ukraine was complicated, is ten.
Times one emotionally fraud Yeah, and.
More likely for us to get into hot work because at least the other side doesn't have nucrow weapons.
Yes, that is very true. There was a quote also on this like oh their sounding notes of caution. IDEA Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had some commentary on lessons from nine to eleven. He said one of the things we learned is you have to really think through next steps. You have to be very thoughtful about that because they will have long term implications. Don't operate on reflex activity.
Think through what you're going to do, what implications is going to have for the country, for the region and beyond. But it really does remind me of the empty talk from the administration about you know, when they would go and say like, oh, Ukraine Zelenski, don't use our weapons on Russian territory, Please don't do that.
We don't want you to do that.
But it was completely empty and hollow because it wasn't conditioned. It's not like they were threatening their future aid going forward or actually applying any sort of pressure to affect the outcome that they theoretically wanted.
And so I see this in the same light. It's just empty words.
Israel is going to do whatever Israel wants to do, and Netanyahu, you know, who's in a fight for his life. And Israeli society that you know, feels the way we did after nine to eleven, and you know, many people there just want to see retaliation, They want to see Hamas punished. They really don't care that much about the toll that is taking on the civilian population, and they're really not thinking too much about down the road. They're dealing in the here and now. And listen, Israeli society
is not a monel. It's just as we weren't either. But you know, the empty words from our administration ultimately mean absolutely nothing if you're not willing to back them up with the force of some sort of carrot or stick to encourage them and force them to comply. So you know, I wouldn't read too much into this little bit of a shift in tone of like humanitarian quarter good to U crane all over again.
It's like, no, no, no, we want regime change. No, we don't want regime change. Well you said you want regime change, okay, right, so you already went with the Maximus one, and then all your policy goes to that level. But then every once in a while you throw a lip service on background to the Washington Post. But actually the Ukrainians are a little bit out of control.
It doesn't it's all fake.
That's exactly right.
That's a good transition because one of the areas where the US has been like kind of talking a big game and failing to actually deliver is on trying to establish any sort of humanitarian quarter, you know, along the
Gaza border into Egypt in particular. And also remember we've got American hostages that are held by Hamas right now, Tony blink and acknowledge that that might be the first time that we've actually had official acknowledgment that there are American citizens being held as hostages by Hamas right now. We also have hundreds of American citizens who are in Gaza.
Now.
The American citizens who are in Israel, the Biden administration has been working aggressively to charter flights to get them out if they want to leave. Not so much success or interest in terms of getting the hundreds of Americans who are in Gaza right now out of there. Let me give you a few updates from on the ground.
Because this issue of the hostages that Hamas has taken, which is you know, brutal and horrific what they are doing here, this is going to continue to be a huge issue for the American public and also very much for the Israeli public. We had the first hostage video released from HAMAS. Let's take a look at that, so you can see here this is actually a French Israeli woman. They're showing her here, you know, receiving treatment from whatever horrific injuries she suffered.
You can see her.
They also in the video, which you know, obviously this is all like compelled speech, so keep that in mind as I'm reading the words. But she says here, I'm a prisoner in Gaza. They treated me and performed a surgery on me that took three hours, and everything is fine. I only asked that you were turned me home as soon as possible, return me to my family. Please get us out of here as soon as possible. She is
twenty one years old. Her family reportedly obviously very relieved to see that she is at least alive, but in grave danger and in grave peril and saga. There are hundreds we now know at least two hundred hostages being held, innocent civilians who are being held by Hamas in Gaza and who are very much at risk at this point.
You know, some of the most vehement protests within Israel at Ntnyahuo's government and their handling of this crisis have been from people who have family members who are being held right now, or close loved ones who are being held right now as hostages. So this continues to be a horrific and emotional issue bubbling here under the surface, especially as Israel, you know, shells bombs the hell out
of Gaza on these hostages are also at risk. Of course, the blame lies primarily with Hamas for taking them in the first place. Let's go ahead and put the latest death toll that we have up on the screen here, both in terms of Israelis and in terms of Palestinians. In Israel we have fourteen hundred confirmed killed, thirty four hundred injured.
As of yesterday.
In Gaza we had twenty seven hundred and seventy eight killed, more than a thousand of those, by the way, children, which makes sense because the population of Gaza is so young and close to ten thousand injured.
This is what is confirmed.
This also, as we mentioned yesterday, the main hospital which is in Gaza City, which is in the evacuation zone, already struggling, already overwhelmed with trying to deal with patients. Only the most critical patients are being treated at the hospital. Already they are saying there is no way we can evacuate there. It is just a complete impossibility. So incredibly
dire situation there. At the same time, you know, speaking about American words versus action, We've had this whole game of telephone basically about whether or not there's going to be some sort of opening at the Gaza.
Border with Egypt.
American officials indicating that we're working on it. It's going to happen back and forth between Egypt and Israel. Egypt saying that Israel would not commit to not bombing AID convoys coming in at that border, and that's why they've held back. We have New York Times actually spoke to an American family that, hearing that there might be a possibility that they could exit through Egypt, has showed up at the border along with scores and scores of other people.
Let's take a listen to what that mother had to say about her experience.
So you can see.
These are images of the Rafa crossing point that is from Gaza into Egypt. As it says here, up to six hundred Americans are in Gaza, and you can see this one family, a young mother and her young children. She's saying, I'm an American citizen, my husband is an American citizen. We were both born there I'm a mother to three children who also have American passports and were born there.
Can see the children there.
They've never visited Gaza in their lives, and if you can imagine the first time they visit, this war happens. The people who are still alive, those who haven't been bombed or lost their houses, have to hold on and keep going with less food, water, and fuel, and you
can see the situation is very, very dangerous. You see little kids with giant suitcases waiting at this border crossing, and you have another Jordanian citizen here hoping her children will be able to cross into Egypt, asking what have these children done? Why can't they go safely to their country? Why are they still in Jordan? Why are they still in Gaza? Jordan is responsible for them. We are facing the possibility of death every second. Our situation is awful.
So this is the experience of people who have been waiting at this border. There were conflicting messages about whether or not it would be open, and now it seems very much less likely because let's go and show this. Israeli warplanes have just bombed again this Gaza rapa crossing that leads as I said, into Egypt. Israel attacked that crossing again yesterday, and.
You know, the roads have been completely blown up.
The idea of being able to pass any sort of humanitarian aid trucks into this area, you know, virtual impossibility because of the damage to the roadways here. And you know, at this point they've struck this crossing multiple times, so very difficult to say. One of the goals of Biden and Blincoln in the region is to try to come up with some solution for civilians and at least to try to get some American citizens out of there if nothing else, and seems like a virtual impossibility at these points.
Yeah, it really does. If we can throw the next one up there on the screen. I mean, they say the US seeks Gaza aid and safe zones as Israeli invasion looms, And the thing is that where is the deconfliction, where is the diplomacy. Israel is like, well, we're bombing it because Hamas is using it, or there's a tunnel network underneath.
I mean, maybe that's true.
I don't know about bringing Hama's weapons and all that, And even if it is true, it's like, well, why don't we negotiate an actual time period where these people can get across. It also demonstrates once again the intransigence of all of the parties that are involved here, and frankly, the outright disrespect to the United States. I just want to say again, we have given Egypt eighty billion dollars.
Their regime does not survive without America.
And we come to them, We're like, hey, can we get our citizens out of there? They're like, nah, You're not getting them out there, not unless you do a quid pro quo with Israel. And then our freaking Secretary of State is in Israel for eight hours and he
can't properly negotiate aboard. What are we doing here? We have you know, I was just telling you while that clip was playing, I was like, you know, I heard a lot from all these people about oh, American citizens left behind in Afghanistan and all this other stuff.
Where are you now? You know these people are our citizens.
It's like they have some protection from their government, and
you know we have. The Safe Zone has failed already in South Gaza, not only in terms of not only in terms of like the water infrastructure allegedly being turned on or any of other stuff, not even in terms of the airstrike, but most importantly, just from a purer national perspective, I consider myself a nationals Our citizens are not being afforded safe passage by both parties, who we have both paid billions of dollars, and our secretary of State is in the region. That's a failure already.
And he was made to look like a fool after Blincoln met with Egypt's President c s.
He said it will be open. He said, Rafa will be open.
That's why so many people showed up at this border and are clamoring to try to get out. And he's made a fool of now in this situation. And obviously, you know, in my view, American lives are not any more precious than the lives of the Palestinians who are suffering here. But in terms of you know, this idea, oh, there's a different note being sounded. The US is putting prash and Biden's going to go and try to work
out this Gordian not et cetera, et cetera. I mean, how is this working out even on the most minimal of ass of Hey, we kind of like our own citizens to be able to cross here. He's made a complete fool of.
Yeah, I'm not saying they're no more.
Nobody is precious, okay, but I'd say the government has a responsibility first and foremost to its own citizens. And so where is that we got our people out of Israel? We are you know, flying people out of aircraft carriers. I mean, I just can't believe that it has come to this and that we again are being made fools of in this diplomatic situation. I mean, Henry Kissinger should be rolling He's not actually his great, but it should be rolling around.
If he was in his great it would be rolling around. Yeah, I guess he would be rolling around watching this.
You know, from his ability at that time during the Amkipour War, and again you can have a lot of criticisms, but he was an exceptional diplomat at that time in terms of keeping actual negotiating power with both of the parties, bringing the end to the conflict, and making sure that it didn't escalate to a full nuclear war, which was absolutely on the table. The current diplomacy from the White House is so disjointed and foolish that it is making the prospect of broader war more likely.
Even more so Crystal.
Something we talked about is they said they were going to do a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza, not for American citizens.
Out of God Cheryl.
Yeah, let's put this on the screen just to show you. Now that's over. Blincoln now quote publicly opposes mass relocating Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt Sinai Peninsula. He says, I have heard directly from the PA Authority, President of Boston, from virtually every other leader I've talked to in the region.
The idea is a novel.
Well, this is this is.
A very emotional issue for Palestinians. It's being seen as you know, a second Knappa basically of you know, Okay, now we're being forced down of our homes again, this little strip of territory that we've been allowed to hold.
So I think that was what it was expressed.
I understand this.
It's a very emotional option that.
You I understand that from their point of view, and that is why we have to give an assurance for the most powerful nation on earth that that is not going to happen.
Negotiated to by a.
Point of view, we want you listen, We want people to live, We want children to live. We want to make sure that this doesn't escalate into some full blown disaster.
We've had enough war already this year.
We don't need another Bachmudd times fifteen, you know, in terms of what we're going to see.
So and this is what you know, we got to say this about the Palestinians too.
It's like, listen, I get it, you should be skeptical, but don't choose death for no reason. I mean, there's just no reason to be to voluntarily be like I refuse to leave out of some sort of pride in you're there, leaders, you know, Hamas and President of Boss.
They're basically saying this is a total non starter. Like we have to at least come to some situation where people can agree that a military operation needs to take place in Gaza and Hamas needs to pay, and that some sort of mass civilian death does not need to occur. The Arab States are complete hypocrites. Just just today this morning, I woke up, King of Dulla says we will not take one Palestinian out of Gaza. And you know, I
mean from their perspective, I get it. There, you know what seventy something some of the population is Palestinian I've been to Jordan, you know, barely feels like Jordan. According to the actual Jordanians, they're like, our country's been totally changed, we've all stuffered. But the Egyptians, I mean, you know, the Sinai Peninsula is massive. We've had un presence there for a long time. There's even American service members in the region. We can make something happen if we want
to to walk this all back. The Arab States themselves have not offered to do anything really except calling for a ceasefire, like at a humanitarian level.
Once again, I think, and this is the most frustrating part.
The Palestinians are ponds, and that's just that's the most frustrating, the difficult part.
I mean, people shouldn't be forced down of their homes and the descript nature. I mean, you have, you know, evacuation orders for over a million people, many of whom can't go, have nowhere to go, you know, goaz. It's this very small territory, you know, that's been said many times.
And also only certain parts of it are developed. So the parts that are developed are incredibly densely packed, and the rest of it is just basically like open in farm or agricultural land with no sort of infrastructure, no sort of facilities. So you know that in a sense makes the populated or places you can go in Gaza even less. And you know, Israel has made life in Gaza so miserable already that people feel like they have
very little to lose. And I think that's part of the you know, part of the mental calculation that's going on here, not to mention the like generational nightmare of the original Nakba and being terrified that that's exactly what they're facing once again, when you already have thousands of not only apart in buildings, but single family homes that have been blown up in this in this in this operation. So there was one other piece with regard to Egypt. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.
I mean again, it's just sort of like meaningless words. Egyptians, Egyptian Presidency, LCC and Biden agreed the current situation in Gauza is extremely dangerous, needs to be de escalating, no shit, to avoid widening the crisis in the region. They agreed priority should be given to protect of civilians and the entry of humanitarian aid to guzza. Well, Israel just blew up the rough a crossing, So how is that going to work?
Well, they bombed, they didn't blow up the whole thing, not a defense. They bombed nearby, which part of the issue.
Yeah, So no progress here basically in terms of any sort of humanitarian solution, protection of civilians, end of the siege, any of that.
No real progress.
And again this is before the ground invasion even begins. If there is to be a ground invasion, which I guess at this point is a bit of an open question given the delay on that.
We don't know. Yeah, there's some indication.
I don't see any scenario where Israeli troops do not at least you enter for some period of time, especially after all the talk that's happened. Also given the attack, I just don't think they could restrict themselves solely to ground or to air operations. Yes, doesn't seem politically tenable.
Yeah, look, I don't know.
At the same time, there was a really interesting exchange we wanted to highlight and analyze for you all over on Sky News where Israeli ambassador got into quite a hot clash over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Let's sakelesn't have that unfolded.
What's the view on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza this morning?
Well, there is no humanitarian crisis because there is no Israel Is in charge of the safety of the Israelies, Hamas is in charge of the safety of the Palestinians. We've been showing pictures this morning that would illustrate that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Can ask you something, are your mother? Yes, what would you think if your children would have been executed in front of your eyes?
Would you expect your government to think about those Nazis committing those crimes and to say, wait a second, First of all, we need to protect the enemy, and then to protect my children. Your children come as priority to your prime minister. So do you know that we have been showing images this morning that illustrate that there is a humanity sharing crisis and council So blame Tramas and ask Tramas why they've started those atrocities. Acknowledge that there
is a humanitarian crisis. I'm saying there is no Israeli is working.
So what do you think is happening?
What is happening? There is a war in Gaza, a war that Tramas started by committing a horrible massacre on innocent Israelis. The world have seen that civilians just don't want to say and give a little bit of a context. Those people created crimes that are worse than Isis. When the Americans started this fight of Isis together with the coalition forces, over one hundred thousand civilians got caught in a crossfire. Israel is trying to prevent that. Israel is
better than any other army in the world. We are alerting, We're giving them the opportunity to have a shelter. We're doing things that no other Western army did in the past.
There is no humanitarian crisis this in uh you know in Gaza where there is like literally no water left. The hospital workers are being forced to drink IV bags because of the limited.
Waters that they They really do themselves no favor in these interviews.
Yeah, it's like, I.
Mean, denying reality that's unfolding in front of all of our eyes.
The thing is that she actually let slip to what I'm not gonna say. It's a defensible position, but from their perspective, I get it. They're like, listen, we're targeting Hamas. Hamas is the one who's responsible for Gaza. They're the ones who are, you know, should be administering this. They're the ones who are holding civilians and telling them not to leave their houses. They're the governing authority. We are striking them. We're doing quote unquote our best. I'm not
defending them, but you know that's actually real. That's really the only quasi defensible and like honest position from them is they're like, yes, we are bombing Hamas as a response to this terrorist attack.
It's their fault that they attacked us.
We're trying our best, you know, within whatever to try to make sure that we protect some sort of civilian life. We don't intentionally target them. However, collateral damage does happened in war. I just gave you an honest answer. But it's like, I don't understand why they can't even say that.
They're like, no, it's not happening at.
All, because they certainly can't say that with a straight face given the fact that they shut off water, food, fuel, electricity to the entire enclave.
That's true.
So when you do that, like it's no longer we can no longer get into these little like, oh, well, that's human shields and we're doing our best and we warn them in advance. It's like, even though a bunch of that is just pr and bullshit, and they've dropped more bombs on Gaza than we drop in Afghanistan, all of that there, you might be able to have a little exchange and have something to work with, But it's clear there's collective punishment here, I mean literal like it's undeniable.
So she's left with the only thing she can say is just to pretend like it's not happening. Now, there's no humanitarian crisis, and if there was, it's all Hamas's fault. Well, listen, Hamas bears a lot of the blame, do not. No
one is denying that. But her logic is effectively the same as those Harvard students who were saying Israel is one hundred percent to blame for the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, where you're denying any sort of agency to the murderous terrorists who actually like paraglided into a music
festival and massacred people. In that same respect, she's trying to deny any agency of her own government and the approach that they've taken, including this complete siege situation, including the indiscriminate bombing, including the force evacuation over a million people like you have no agency in that. That's not
your responsibility whatsoever. And if that's the case, then that's just means that they have intellectually embraced this idea of complete carte blanche and anything we do is justified because ultimately it's all the fault of from us. That is not I mean, that is not They like to talk about the difference between the civilized world and these barbarous
acts and barbarians, et cetera. I mean that is not the act of a civilized nation to completely absolve themselves of any responsibility for the civilians who are there on the ground, and many of home are children.
I think that they should be honest and that they would actually be better off about it there. I just saw a report their fears, how the country, how they're feeling. They say that this view in the whole the foundation of the state of Israel is never again. The brutal killings, you know, all harkened back to the War of Independence in nineteen forty eight.
This is a complete existential threat.
We fight whenever it's an existential threat, the way that the Western Allied powers fought in World War Two against Nazism and against the Japanese Empire, which is, we do whatever it takes in order to win. Just say it then, you know, because the problem, and this is always a thing with Israel, is they're always trying to flirt between you know, like complying with international law, for example, like nuclear weapons. Everybody knows these people have a nuclear weapon.
They don't acknowledge it because then they don't have to declare it to the Nuclear NPT, the IAEA and all the other things that every other declared nuclear power wants to do. And yet it's one of those unspoken truths. If they truly believe that that's how they want to operate, then that's what they should do. The problem is that
they are not alone. There have of this giant thing that is backing them, effectively guaranteeing their security the United States, and that would put us in a very awkward position if that's what happened, And so it just seems untenable. Where everything is fake in terms of words, we all know what the truth is, and even the people who defend Israel, like the people who are Israel defenders, they would all say what I just said, And I find by the way, I think what I said is a
defensible position from their point of view. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think it is defensible. You're like, we're fighting for our lives, We're doing our best, but it is what it is. That's war.
Deal with it.
Unfortunately, the position of their government is not to acknowledge that reality, which leads to like a two speak double face in interviews and situations like that, where everyone is talking past each other and and not just fully being honest about what's happening on the ground.
Yeah, I think that is right.
And then you know, obviously, as we said before, the fact that there seems to be no plan for what comes after I think really under scores the nature of this is just, you know, the definition of reactionary responding to the domestic reaction, who desperately trying to cling to his job. I mean, this was what immediately when we saw them Las attacks, we knew Nan Yaho is going to have to just like come in in the most
brutal possible way. And that's the way he reads the situation as well, So in some ways a little bit of a hard turn, but it actually connects because Biden's headed the going to lease, headed to Israel. You know, his age and how he'll be able to comport himself with a level of vigor and vitality certainly very relevant
to the whole conversation. And we're really lucky to have new results from our focus group that was down in Georgia with a bunch of Democratic base voters, and so I'm going to show you what they had to say about his age and how they feel about him.
But before that, just wanted to say a.
Little bit of a thank you to people who have already signed up as premium subscribers, and we're doing a discount as a thank you right now on the annual membership. You get ten percent off of yearly memberships right now. Soyer, do they have to do anything special, They just go to breakpoints.
The reason why is obviously we want to do more of these. We're upping the production value this time around. We had to send an audio guide to make sure that they weren't passing around Mike. So obviously it's very expensive, you know, in order to fund these, and I know one of the ones that you guys want also is we've had Republicans, now we've had Democrats. Now let's do some independence. So we're in the phase where we're doing
that right now. I think that would be really appealing for our show specifically and a lot of our audience to hear what independent voters have to say. So if you can help us out, you know, to fund more of these types of projects, We've got that discount going on right now. I know so many of you it means a lot in order to see your money employed people sending like for example, our producer to the protest, to things like this where we have to send everybody
down to Atlanta pay for the group. You know, people also compensate for their time all of that. So thank you again, and with that, let's take a listen.
Joy Biden.
When I think to jow Bio on me, he's experienced. Is he the best candidate to represent the Democratic Party, that's kind of questionable for me.
Still competent, not outstanding, sufficiently capable and knowledgeable about how the political system works.
For the Democrats, he's a safe pick, and I like that he's always willing to take the smart the best opinion in the room, even if it's not so.
I think he's a fair president. I think he's loyal, and I think he's caring and compassionate.
Not a knee jerk politician, and no ego.
He is a huge step from what we have. Some of you are super enthusiastic. Is that fair to say?
I agree with all of those.
I think he's safe, but I don't think he's outstanding.
I agree with wherever said safe.
I mean, he's he's the faith in the sense of democratic party, right, So thank god, he's not the only Democratic representative, you know, so we have our Congressmans and our senators and everything else.
So well, I want to know why? Why? Thank god? Why is that why? You please? He's not the only one. I mean, what worries you?
What worries me?
I think it's statements that he made years ago.
What kind of thing you're gonna make me say?
I know that he said some things in regards to you know, just African Americans, you know, in the US at that time, so that always, you know, just maybe you know, question him as a person in a sense.
Even though I think he's a wonderful human being and he's done great stuff. I think he needs to step aside because his age does.
Concern Yeah, his age concerns me. And I hate to say that, but.
I think sometimes getting a little older, it's time to step aside and let somebody with younger come in. And maybe he's a little softer because I think that you get.
Old and you get a little softer.
So he's yeah, and not taking him seriously because of that.
You know, he's not doing this by himself. No, he got a whole lot of people helping him.
So I think long as he got good bag up, he gonna be a great president.
Is Jay Biden too old to run again? Or is Jay Biden the right age? It doesn't matter.
It's fine for him to run again.
I don't think age should be, you know, the determined back up for him to run or not to.
Him, I would prefer that he not run again, not because I think he's incompetent, but when you get to be eighty, you don't know what's going to happen with your health. You know, you could have a stroke, something else like that could happen. My concern is primarily physical health and less mental health and competence.
I don't think it really matters. As long as he wants to run, he's going to be the favorite for president.
He's too old.
He should go sit down somewhere, gonna tous.
I think at this point you're kind of out of touch, you know, people getting my age. We're thinking about, you know, sitting down, playing with our grandkids, things like that. There's some things that need to happen that you don't have the ability to do. Let some of these young bright stars that we see day after day in Congress do
what they do. And while I'm thinking about it, there should be term limits immediately for everybody, so that we don't have people sitting in Congress for forty years grabbing a paycheck on a gravy chart.
He can run again, But why when you get to a certain age getting dementia, you can get a all time. It's just things that's out there can affect you being making your decisions. And do you really want somebody in office where sometimes they don't believe that they have those problems, and you might not even see that they have those problems until they have what a debate and he can't catch his words or he can't remember, I just feel like they look at that as a sign of weakness.
Maybe it's time for him to step down.
It doesn't matter to me right now now, because I put you know, he doesn't have limited mental capabilities.
He has not shown that yet.
That would be absolutely horrible if he was in office and did.
But right now it doesn't bother.
So come the next selection, he'll be eighty two.
If he completes his second term, he'll be eighty six in his last year.
How do we react to that?
Well, I know some very competent eighty eight year old. My mother's ninety four and she's sharp as attack. You just never know.
I think nobody knows his health and his desire to work for more years than Joe Biden does. And I think if he didn't think he had the ability to do it for four more.
Years, he wouldn't do it.
And so I feel like him wanting to run is a sign that he's helping enough to run.
Should someone challenge Biden for the nomination to.
Make it their yes, to make it fair.
Yes, I wish that Biden would just anoint the successor. That doesn't have to be a challenge.
I think that's a bad signal weakns of the weakness of the Democratic Party, and it could cause of the vibe. I think at an advantage you have when you are the return candidate is you don't have to have a primary where the six or ten candidates will tear each other down and then have to pretend that they wanted each other.
I think it'll be an invitation for the Republican Party to pounce and try to divide us more.
And that's despite you saying Biden to young have a lie down.
Well, yeah he does.
He's too old.
But yeah, I don't want anybody to challenge him because of that reason.
So he's the president.
He's going to be the president until he can't be the president anymore, and that's at the end of his second term.
It's not inviting point. It's more important to you than the Yeah, it's more important.
Okay, So if he ran again, and I would vote for him because I don't know anybody else that I would think can challenge him and would win.
I'm scared about dividing the Democratic Party as well.
It'd be nice to have another option, But it ain't true.
I like where he's at and like where we're at. I mean there's a lot to gamble on.
Man.
Very interesting, very interesting.
So a lot of concern about age, a lot of like, I mean, this is what we see him polls all the time. Right, he's safe, he's not outstanding, he seems nice. I'm not sure he's kind of competent.
You know.
It's this very sort of like warm affection towards him as a human being.
I think you get in this group a lot of worries about whether he's going to be able to, you know, really finish out the term, his health, his age. He doesn't seem like he's super outstanding. Republicans could seize on this as a sign of weakness. But then when the question is okay, so you want somebody to childs him, they're like, eh, I can't divide the party.
You gotta beat Trump.
And so ultimately it's like Trump hangs over this whole conversation and really shapes the views and they continue to have, you know, the view and the belief, which is what a lot of the media promoted, especially in twenty twenty, that like, you can't have dissent.
Every's got to be united. This is the guy. You got to stick by the guy.
No matter what because you know, Trump is at the door, and we can't not possibly allow any sort of you know, open process, because that could that could allow Trump to get us foot in the door.
Of course, you know what goes on.
Here's the fact that Democrats are a major risk of losing the presidency with Joe Biden because he's viewed so poorly among the American public.
It struck me a couple of things. Their level of trust in politicians is fascinating to me. That one guy, I'm effectually going to call him Ryan Reynolds because he looks like he was like, well, I think that nobody knows him better than him, and if he didn't think he was up to it, then he wouldn't run. And I was like, wow, I can't really imagine trusting any politician you know that much. That said, it does reflect a lot of institutionalism, trust in their ability to govern.
You also heard over and over again the competence, and I think it does actually accurately reflect the polling. They all think he's too old, or they're like yeah, or they're uncomfortable with it. When it comes down to it, they're going to vote for him. So Biden in many respects is making the correct calculus. And also, you know the real failure too is I didn't like that one word the woman said, anoint the successor. Yeah, we don't live in a monarch. That's just the personal quibble.
But that's I mean, that's what has been sold to the democratic base from you know, MSBC and Santa and a lot of like liberal leaning mainstream outlets, is like, we can't afford to have democracy. Stakes are too high. Sorry, you can't have a choice. You gotta fall in line behind whoever we tell you. And so it doesn't surprise me that those words are used of like.
He needs to just anoint a successor.
I think a lot of them that would be their ideal scenario because you had, you know, you had the one gentleman who said it's time to step aside, another one who said he's too old, he should go and sit down somewhere. But then when asked about like, okay, do you want to see a challenger, is like, no, we can't have that. So I think for a lot of them, their ideal scenario would be that he decides to step aside, and then you know, puts forward who he thinks would be the right candidate in the one
lady's words anoints his successor. But I think that would be the ideal scenario for a number of them because they are so concerned about Trump getting back into the White House that they're basically willing to curtail this like messy democratic process because they believe that will help ensure that a Democrat can hold onto the White House. Now, I think that that is a historical I don't think that that's accurate.
I think Biden does himself no.
Favors by not engaging in the rough and tumble of a primary and a debate. I think that would help sharpen his skills. I think that would potentially prove the American people that this is someone that they want to see as a leader, or it won't and we'll end up with another option that people view as superior and more up to the task. We've seen plenty of twenty sixteen was a very rough and tumble primary on the Republican side with Trump.
Guess what he ended up winning.
The Hillary Clinton Barack Obama primary was very rough and tumble. It didn't lead to Barack Obama losing. It actually made him a better candidate. And made it so that Democrats were much more likely to succeed in the fall. So I think that's a historical but understand why they believe that's the case and feel like it's too risky to allow any of this messy democratic choice into the equation.
I have some numbers for the group. Let's put this
up on the screen. I know there's a lot going on right now, but the latest ABC News survey, here's what we have, President Biden, issue by issue, twenty six percent approval on immigration minus forty four net approval rating twenty nine percent, approval on inflation minus forty, thirty two percent, approval on guns minus thirty three, thirty three percent, approval on crime minus thirty one, thirty three percent, approval on Iran minus twenty nine, thirty three, six percent, approval on
economy minus twenty five, thirty nine percent, approval on climate change minus eighteen, thirty nine percent, approval on abortion minus nineteen, forty one percent, approval on Ukraine minus fifteen and forty one percent approval on Israel hamas so underwater basically on every.
Not basically issue, literally on.
Evil physic in case they didn't pull something, I don't know what exactly would be.
Positive on, but for everyone that they asked about, hees out a minus. You know, historically, something Jank has been talking about in terms of his quixotic run. He's like, look, you know, nobody has ever won with these types of numbers. He is full blown Jimmy Carter level now in the thirties on the economy when you're running for reelection.
Good luck to you, sir, but luck.
But the best thing he's got going full trump is Donald J.
Trump.
That's the one thing that he has going for him. And you know, it could work out. Like I'm not going to put off the table, but I would not go so far as to say, like, you know, he's a dead.
Man wire, there's no way he can win reelection, etc.
Sorre.
You have a huge advantage if you're an incumbent president.
He's going up against an opponent who is also historically unpopular and underwater on many many issues and facing criminal charges and all of those sorts of things. So that's really that's really what he's betting on, is that the American people are more disgusted with Donald Trump than they are with him.
So yeah, I mean that's why it's fifty to fifty chance still believe it.
Let's move onto the speakership.
Also reflects a lot of domestic consternation here in Washington.
Extraordinary day.
There will be a vote for the speaker later today on Tuesday counterpoints. We'll be able to break down all the actual results of that. The drama is very high here in Washington. Let's put this up there on the screen. Recall Jim Jordan, the current speaker designate in terms of the Republican Coalition, who is still yet to get all of the House of Representatives to vote for him. Is currently has the quote majority of the votes in the Conference,
but that doesn't mean anything. He needs to lock down all but five votes in the Republican Conference. Opposition, though to Jim Jordan, stood in the thirties and forties as of yesterday, until extraordinary things began to happen, Members like Mike Rogers and others who had put out an wagner. In particular, one representative who put out a letter saying hell no, literally hell no, I will never vote for Jim Jordan came out and we're like, all right, fine,
I'll vote for j Jordan. And it's like Okay, why did you say Hell, no one in the first place, Lady, nobody asked you to do that. What's really come through is they're sick of it. They feel like they've gone grone down. At this point, Steve Scalise had to withdraw the McCarthy drama.
They can't do anything.
They basically just feel like, rhetorically, as long as Jordan gives them, you know, something that they can hang their hat on, they can vote for him. One area of concern for us here on this show is about an alleged secret deal that's been made. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from Julie Grace Buffby, a old friend of mine. She says that GOP lawmakers say that Jordan gave assurances on Israel Ukraine aid specifically that he would allow the tying of the two together.
He was asked about this with Morning Crystal. He made a comment where he didn't outright deny it. He just said, quote, let's see, he just said, we need to take care of Israel. That's basically what it boils down to. What exactly that means. Nobody has any idea. The point is is that a lot of deals are being made behind the scenes. Nothing is in writing. Four people are claiming
he made the deal. His spokespeople are denying it. They say, no, we just talked about the prospect of getting Israel AID through. But none of this does mean that he actually still has the votes. As of right now when we are filming this segment, he has ten votes against him. Yeah, and he's got to win back five.
Yeah.
So it's possible.
He certainly could do it, and he's got you know, about six seven hours from when we're speaking right now in order to do it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't know if this Israel Ukraine AID thing is solid. I feel like he may have told people what they wanted to hear, but without like fully saying or committed committing to it.
How seriously do they take that?
I think you're right soager that many people are just finding trying to find a way to get to yes. The other thing is, like, for the Matt Gates of the world, if this deal is real and there really is some you know, commitment to put Israel and Ukraine AID together on the floor, like, what was this all about.
Matt Gates? What do you get actually getting out of this situation.
But in terms of who who this is, per Anny Gray or CNN. Right now, we've got five firm nos, Don Bacon, Mike Lawler, Mike Kelly, Carlos Menez, Mario Diaz, Billart Leaning, No, We've got an additional four, and then we've got four more who are undecided or not saying. So, you know, based on that, he does not have the votes to get there on the first runch. What happens after that? What kind of deals are cut? Do people
stay with him? Does another cannon emerge? Who knows? I mean on a meta level, like I sort of feel like Jim Jordan makes perfect sense for this Republican caucus at this time. I agree, because he has never passed any legislation since he's been there, and this is a caucus that, you know, not particularly interested in government.
Who cares.
He's got the right vibes this, Like, you know, Hugilistic has tied himself very closely to Trump and gone along, you know, Trump's greatest defender with regard to stop the steal and with regard to January. So he was all in on that, and that is certainly the character overwhelmingly of the Republican Caucus at this point. He is a veteran of the you know, using shutdowns as blackmail and hostage taking to extract various ideological ends from the United States government.
So and I also would say, you.
Know, there's another piece of this I've been trying to articulate, like he also is a perfect embodiment of the distance between the original twenty sixteen Trump promise of like I'm going to govern differently and there are these populist elements that I'm genuinely going to embody in office and what it is now collapse to, which is mostly just like
the you know, an asshole vibes. And Jim Jordan this is a guy who takes lots of money from like the big Republican you know, donor networks, the Coke Network, et cetera.
He talks a big talk on big tech, but.
He's one of their biggest defenders when it comes to avoiding any sort of anti trust scourtiny, et cetera.
So for all those reasons.
I sort of feel like he's the perfect guy to represent the Republican Caucus at this point.
Jim Jordan is basically a libertarian. That's the best way to understand it. He has his roots and we want to talk about this. Yeah, let's put this on the screen just for people who want to know about what to actually know about Jim Jordan in case you don't know who he is. He's been a fixture of Washington since he came here, especially a heightened during the Tea Party wave. He was one of the original people who
would vote against Bayner. He was a thorn in the side of Paul Ryan, frequently wanted to shut down the government. He also, though with the really way he became a star was not on fiscal issues, Crystal, but it's through his investigations. So like Benghazi Committee, frequently appearing on Fox, always wanting to investigate Hillary. He was one of the main people behind a lot of Hillary investigations. He was
one of the main defenders of Trump on Russiagate. Since then, he's become one of the main investigators on the Hunter Biden Committee.
So he is the perfect person because.
For me, and I mean people can go roll to take the Dave McCarthy left, I was like, I think Jim Jordan, I think he's a dark horse. And the reason why is, you know, he's got the credibility with the Freedom Caucus base. They also have been ground down all of their opponents and the quote unquote moderates because they're sick of it. They just want to get to work. The Freedom Caucus is happy to hold out as long as they want to go.
Definitionally a bunch of species. They don't stand up for anything, the.
Don't believe what so Jim Jordan, Yeah, I mean I think he's the perfect candidate really for this caucus. Also, he's got the backing of Trump, so he's got person with the base on his side. He's got the full scale Trump endorsement now at this point, although do remember that they initially voted for Steve Scalice, which was still pretty embarrassing for Trump, even if he does end up getting there. It's like, it's pretty it's pretty bad that the majority of the caucus was not willing to follow
your rules. But you know, Trump, the Trump endorsement I can't hurt at this point. Also, what I have heard, Crystal is that there is now going to mount a campaign against people who do stand up against him. One of the few holdouts in terms of primary money. Calls are being made. They're like, we need to wrap this up. And if you stand up and you vote against Jim somebody, like if you know, mount some if you mount some Nancy Mace type thing against him, You're going to pay
a price. And the reason why I think that's significant is because Jordan has the affection of the bass in a way that McCarthy never had. They always had like a very middling view of him, And same with Scalise. To be honest, like he has been a fixture of these people's televisions for over a decade. You can't underestimate how powerful that is.
He has understood from the beginning the power of theater. He's very good at it, you know, the like theatrical partisan posturing favorite of Fox News, as evidenced by this, actually really is something. So one of the people who apparently has been trying to whip votes in his direction is John Hannity.
Put this up on the screen.
Apparently emails went out to some holdowns, at least one from a producer at the Hannity Show.
Let me read you this whole thing in full.
Hello Stephanie from the Hannity Show with Fox News your horses, tell Hannity that representative redacted is not supporting Jim Jordan for Speaker. Can you please let me know if this is accurate and if true, Hannity would like to know why during a war breaking out between Israel and hamas with the war in Ukraine, with the wide open borders, with a budget that's unfit finished, why would this representative be against Jim Jordan for Speaker.
Please let us.
Know when Representative Ax plans on opening the People's House so work can be done. Lastly, there are there any conditions Representative Acts will choose to work with Democrats on the process of electing a new speaker. The deadline for comment is eleven am Eastern tomorrow.
Thank you. So pressure being applied.
Directly from Sean Hannity and his producer over at the Fox News network. And you know, I mean they have some sway too. Fox News is not what they used to be, but a lot of these low level members of Congress whatever like they're desperate to get their cable news hits. It's important for them for their clout, for their fundraising.
Et cetera. And so when you have one of the.
Highest rated primetime hosts coming for you and implying all kinds of pressure demanding answers on why you're not supporting Jim Jordan for speaker.
That's really something.
Yep, you're exactly right. It is absolutely shocking, really see that, but not still telling I think in terms of how the base is now, in terms of expectations, Let's be clear, I don't know if he's going to win. I have absolutely zero idea whether he'll be able to get the votes because the margin is so so thin you only need five people to hold out. Democrats certainly aren't going to save Jim Jordan. They can't stand him. So where things are, I don't know. It could go to multiple
ballots like they did with Speaker McCarthy. This will be the seventeenth speaker vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is pretty crazy. Yeah, you know, it hasn't happened in more than a century here in Washington. So stay tuned. Counterpoints will have a full coverage on.
What about O Way.
I'm actually filling in for Ryan tomorrow.
Oh I forgot about that. Yeah, okay, me.
And I'm Luis. We'll break it all down for you.
There you go.
We're following a very all right, So we wanted to keep our eye on some of the state and big tech efforts to censor dissident views on Israel and Palestine, and.
An important report about.
What meta slash Facebook, slash Instagram, slash WhatsApp is doing in this regard.
Put this up on the screen. This from the New York Times.
They say social media users accuse Facebook and Instagram of suppressing pro Palestinian post Thousands Ofstinian supporters say their posts have been suppressed or removed from Facebook and Instagram, even if the messages don't break the platform's rules meta They are claiming, oh that this was all because of some accidental bug in the company system, In particular messages of support for Palestinian civilians who have been displaced, injured, or
killed by Israeli airstrikes. Those were being hidden from the platforms,
according to users. Some people have reported Facebook suppressed accounts that called for peaceful protests and cities around the US, including planned sit ins in the San Francisco Bay area over the weekend, and The New York Times confirmed that one hashtag Zionist Stagram, which was attached to post critical of instagram suppression of pro Palestinian content, appeared to be temporarily quashed over the weekend, so when you search for
that hashtag, according to the Times, no results were returned whatsoever. Users were so frustrated by this that they took to like replying in the comment section of like Beyonce posts about this going back and forth because their posts that they were trying to put on the platform were getting
quashed and pulled down and suppressed, et cetera. So you couple this with the report we brought you yesterday about the fact that Meta you know who who's worked with the Israeli government in the past, took down a Palestinian news network off of their platforms entirely. And I think it is not hard to believe that there has been significant suppression of any sort of pro Palaestinine post on the platform.
And that's why, first of all, I mean, in some ways I wish we'd nuke all policy on Instagrams because it's so annoying. I don't believe that, I don't believe in that, So we're going to have to allow it. You know, even the brother in law's get comments on some of these things. And if we're going to have that, then you can't be put in your finger. You know on the scale in terms of in terms of sharing content. And the real issue I had with this was it
wasn't people being like pro Hamas. It's just people who are pro Palestinian statehood, right, and so that is.
There for peaceful protest.
You cannot conflate the two. And also, we live in the United States of America. People are allowed to say whatever they want, or at least they should be. And so with this, you know, with the suppression, especially behind the scenes, it highlights the most pernicious form of censorship, which is the shadow banning, the suppression, the things where you have to rely on reports which are obvious but which cannot be proven. And look, we all know what's going on behind the scenes. You and I see it
every day here on YouTube. In terms of what we have to operate with. We've designed our business in such a way. But forordinary citizens, they have no idea and they just think like, oh, I guess that one didn't resonate or something like that, until a critical mass of them come together and they're like, no, actually, something actually super weird.
Is going on here.
Yeah.
But you know, then you feel like a crazy person because you'll never be able to prove it.
Yeah for sure.
And you know, just to make the broader meta point like zooming out from how you feel about this issue, which very emotional issue. Number one, free speech only matters when it is tense and when it is contract yeah's true. So that's number one. Number two, this is the reason why, wherever you are in the political spectrum, why you should care about these issues.
I mean, you should care about the principle.
Regardless, but you know, anytime you are challenging predominant you held by very powerful people, you are likely to have big tech companies. And also we covered overt state censorship like completely banning protests in France and Germany, which is absolutely insane, but you are, you know, very likely to
see that. And if we don't take a stand against it, even when it's on an issue that you disagree with, if it ends up just being partisan and we're only picking and choosing which censorship we care about.
We are never going to make any progress on this issue.
So that's one piece there was we also wanted to bring you this was kind of extraordinary. So there were hundreds of American Jews who protested in front of the White House yesterday in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza, and fifty of them were arrested. Actually they were blocking some areas, is what the police were saying. We sent our own producer Mac down to this protest. He was able to get some footage. He also ended up being I don't know what is shoved by the police, kind of.
Got shoved by proxy, treated badly by the police, treated service specifically.
Yes, indeed, but let's take a look at He was able to interview one of the participants about why he's there.
Let's take a look at that.
He goes Elvis Rock and I'm a member of if not Now And so what motivated you guys to come out here today to do this protest? Speaking for myself, personally motivated me was a real feeling of urgency that given what's happening in the Middle East, that.
There's a real need to.
Prevent the mass killing in goz And and a real desire to see safety for Jews in Palsenians, the return of hostages being helped une from us.
That's the most important thing.
So what do you think that Israel's response after the Hamas attack should be in the best world?
You know, I'm not here to speak on policy, but what I can say is that from a personal point of view, as someone who has friends and family living in Israel, I deeply want a future of Jewish safety, and I believe that demands peace and security with Palacinians, not for their bloodshed and planted botans. Is there any any other last message you'd like to give the President Biden?
That the urgency of this movement is immense, that the stakes of this movement, as I am sure he's all knows, are enormous, and that as Jews and as Americans, for our shafety, we want to need to cease fire implemented right now, and that he ensures the shape for tournaments.
Really so you can see the message that they're trying to bring there in front of the White House.
Fairly significant show of support here in d C.
Mac was also able to get some footage of the protesters, and he also was recording like a champ as he gets shoved by this cop out of the way.
We have that on video. Let's take a look at this.
See fire now fire now fire now fire now fire now fire now.
That's what you call it, true pro somebody shoved into you aggressively for literally no reason. I mean, you don't say make a sound, you don't protest, you pick up the camera and you keep recording.
So props to him. Really, that takes a lot of composure for anyone who's situation.
Absolutely, that's incredibly terrible. Yeah, incredibly intense and stressful, and you can just see it's very fraud I mean, I think that's what really comes out here. And you know, as I said, there were about fifty protesters who were arrested as part of that action.
Yesterday.
We brought you some of the protests that have been mounted around the world in Europe, here in the US, and also of course across the Middle East, which I think is also a really significant part of this.
I mean, for that protest and will look once again, like let's be clear, I'm not saying it reflects the majority of public opinion. It doesn't even necessarily reflect Jewish opinion. But the only point is to show you not everything is monolith. There are different voices out there, and there were a lot of people out there last night yesterday, and a lot of them were Jewish, and I think that was one of the main reasons why it was
genuinely significant. That area that they were blocking is the staff and press entrance for people who work in the White House, and so you know, it definitely was.
It was hurt I think by the people.
There, and that's at least something, And it's different than a lot of what people are going to tell you about how people feel, which is why we wanted.
To cover it.
Yeah, and mac is all he's.
Good, by the way, We immediate for the first thing. We didn't care about the fog. I was like, okay, like telling what's going on? Sentence that all right? Like in terms of that once again, absolute professional, Thank you guys for helping us pay him.
By the way, yes, indeed, all right, we also had I wanted to bring you this is really wild. The official israel government account, pushing back on Jiji Hadid for sharing a very mild post, by the way, that was somewhat critical of the Israeli government, got and put this up on the screen.
This is pretty wild.
So what she posted is there is nothing Jewish about the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians. Condemning the Israeli government is not antisemitic, and supporting Palestinians is not supporting Humas, So the State of Israel official Instagram account replied, Hi, Gigi, this next story is for you.
Have you been sleeping the past week? Are you just.
Fine turning a blind eye to Jewish babies being butchered in their homes? Your silence has been very clear about where you stand. We see you if you don't condemn this, and it's a horrific picture of you know, a blood splattered floor in a child's bedroom. This your words mean nothing. And by the way, she did very clearly condemn the Hamas attacks and you know, was outraged by it. But it is wild to see the government of Israel coming at Gadeed or any random celebrity.
I don't care what said, all right, and it doesn't matter. Why are we clapping back as a government account on Instagram? This is insanity. It's like why we're posting stories now? Like what is this makeup tutorial drama? I mean, like literally, this is how children act.
On I'll tell you why.
Because they don't want anyone with prominence to you know, paint a different picture than what they want painted. And you know, it really is emotional blackmail. I mean, one atrocity does not justify another. And that's the bottom line here. So she could condemn Hamas all day long, but if she says anything about hey, Palestinian civilians, then suddenly, oh, you're a terror sympathizer and you don't care about the dad jois face a social blackmail.
It appears to be now a policy by the Israeli government one. By the way, I would certainly advise against where they are sending government ministers to call out celebrities for their silence.
Let's take a listen and hug and all these women organizations that are staying silent right now.
By the way, I've never saw.
So many feminists being silent at the same time. The only time they are so silent is when a Jewish woman or Israeli woman is being raped or murdered. But I guess antisemitism is much more hard than feminism in this time.
But those celebrities like I saw Oprah Winfrey for for formatters that sat Jennifer anistone, all these, all these celebrities that stay silent and always talk about women's rights, where are you when women's rights are being brutally, brutally, brutally attacked in a democracy? This is not just a fight for Israel. This is a fight for the rest.
Of the Jewish around question, may let me ask your question.
Let me ask your question.
So that is May Golan.
She's the Minister for the Advancement of the Status of Women in Israel. Okay, commender. I guess for her job. But why Here's the thing, at least I guess in the g GI case she said something and then criticizing it. This one is you have not posted anything. Why is a foreign government demanding Oprah speak out?
And Jennifer and Jennifer Hanerson.
Also considering Oprah's response to Maui, you don't want Oprah to be on her side?
Let me just say that.
Yeah, Jennifer gives a.
Ship with Jeffer answer to that.
Who hasn't said you want them to say? It's like Michael Tracy.
I have to quote him.
He said, Israeli government minister bitterly attacks feminist organizations and celebrities like Oprah and Jennifer Aniston for their silence on muss. If only these random American celebrities supported Israeli military operations more vociferously, the problem would be solved.
I was also wondering on Jennifer Aniston. I'm like, is she Jewish? But I mean, from based on what I can tell, yeah, it doesn't look like she.
I have no idea what.
All this was noted that she hadn't said whatever they wanted her.
Maybe this is part of it. Apparently this is what you love through Google. I was like, Jennifer Anderston and Jewish. Apparently she liked an Instagram post by Jamie Fox that some people called anti semitic from a while ago, where he posted a message about Jesus being killed hashtag fake friends, hashtag fake love. I have no idea what that is, but that appears to me the extent to which Jennifer Andison they're throwing a like on this freaking face.
I personally would like for Americans celebrities to stay silenced on far more issues. I mean, we had both Justin Bieber and Jamie Lee Kurtiz sharing things that they thought were Israel and we're really Palestine, and I mean, just making an absolute mess of this. Amy Schumer is a whole other story with all of this. So I don't know why we need to look to these people for world leadership and guidance on any issue.
Jiji Hadid.
She's Palestinian, right, Okay, she could speak is a gal Gado. I think wonder Woman, same thing, She's Israeli fine, whatever. Now I think Natalie Portman too. I think she's just really fine. You know, these people, they're literally citizens of the country. Say whatever you want. I totally understand it. But yeah, Oprah, we need Oprah to weigh in here, we need Je Prasston to weigh in here. It's like, what are we doing? And it just makes him look ridiculous to be honest. Yeah.
Yeah.
And also just in terms of the arrogance, which is always your me nuts about this, It's like, you do not tell us what to say. We will say whatever we want in this country, at least for now. It's like, where do you have the goal to be going one on television, also on British television and then demanding.
The America as a celebrity.
Who's a good British celebrity like Tom Huddleson or whatever.
Yeah, have him speak out, Okay, like at least grant you, Grant, I do love you.
And Colin Firth. You know my heart, my heart belongs to Colin.
He's a great guy. But anyway, yeah, just completely ridiculous and just you know, show further the insanity of where we are. I feel like we're right back to canceling Russian tennis players for playing in Wimbledon or oh there's been some.
Of that too, of like canceling Palestinian poets or whatever different events around the world. It's just outright xenophobic. And we said the same thing when this was happening with Russia, and by the way, it continues to happen with Russia. I think the tennis players are now allowed to play again, but they don't have their flags next to them, and it's just like it's just nonsense virtue signaling that doesn't solve any problem.
I told you yesterday about the Russian Uzbek restaurant, which literally took the name Russian out of it.
It's Russian cuisine. It's not about Russia, it's about the actual food.
It's like, what's the whole point of going there? Also, Uzbek food no offense, doesn't sound as enticing Russian newsback Now, I'm.
Interested right separate the people from their governments, please, I mean no one should have more interest in that than Americans who have had their government do all kinds of things in our name that we haven't necessarily.
Actually, that's a great point.
How many times have you been abroad and some arrogant, annoying European makes a comment about the Iraq War and you're like, hey, dude, I didn't support the Iraq War.
You know, it's like, well, you want to talk.
About French or Portuguese like slave trade. No, because we're not all reflections of what our governments do. All right, let's move on to Ukraine. Lots going on. We brought you the news previously that President Zelenski wanted to visit Israel in a quote show of support. Some might interpret it that way. Others might interpret it as a way to keep his name in the headlines and to make sure that the world doesn't forget about him. Well, it turns out in Israel they read it the latter way.
Let's put this up there on the screen. Israel has turned down Zelenski's request to make a quote solidarity visit.
It's just not the right time.
Ukraine's leader was interested in joining Anthony Blincoln on his Israel last visit last week. I once again the arrogance to think that Ukraine a nation which has no industry of its own at this point, which has no money of its own, no weapons, no ammunition, should accompany the United States Secretary of State to Israel to try and broker peace. That is outrate. What do you have to say about what's going on in Israel? What are your relations or whatever whatever it comes to the Egyptians or
the Jordan or any of this. This is not a role for a nation who is allegedly, you know, in the fight of its life for an existential threat.
Why don't you bother yourself with that?
But the reason why he's bothering himself or even trying to insert himself in all of this is specifically because he understands that Israel has directly now drawn international attention, but most importantly Western attention, from what is going on
inside of Ukraine. And I'm actually been thinking a lot about this, and I don't want this to sound too nasty, but a lot of liberals over the last two years have been trying to make the case that the fight for Ukraine is about democracy, The fight for Ukraine is bigger than us. It's like the most important thing going on in the world. And look how quickly crystal they have completely switched over to becoming Israel Palestine experts, how
quickly or their attention has turned. And here's the truth that I think people in Ukraine should understand. They never really cared about you. It was all part of a bizarre psychodrama that they were happening in their own heads, play acting war online by putting Ukraine flag in their bio and taking a revenge on Vladimir Putin for Russia Gate, and the moment that their attention goes away, it's fickle. People have found out many times how fickle the interests
of upper middle class liberals are. And I think it's actually unfortunate those of our people like me who oppose Ukraine Aid. From the beginning. At least I was honest about what I thought about the conflict. We were honest about the stakes. We were honest that we could feel bad for you, but we used to prioritize our own interests. We at least did not deceive you that you were the most important things. And you know, it's probably very hard to digest for people inside Kiev because they have
been you know, are Keiev. I apologize for people they've been led to believe that Americans and many you know, the government and all those truly you know, thought this was the most important thing. When the truth was is it was just you know, the current thing of the time. I think that's probably very painful, but let's be honest here what's going on.
I mean, I have a much more charitable take in terms of the people themselves and their care and concern for Ukrainians because it's to me, it's much more about the groups that the media and the government choose to provide humanity, to choose to center in their suffering. You know, unfortunately, there is a lot of suffering going on around the world. We always talked about this with regard to the warren Yemen. Yes, you know that suffering, which was the worst humanitarian crisis
on the entire planet. You know, you didn't see people with Yemen flags, not because they you know, hate Yemen or don't care.
It wasn't put on the news.
Yeah, they don't know anything about it.
You didn't see those people.
They were invisibilized intentionally, so because it was inconvenient for us with regard to our relationship with our big ally Saudi Arabia, and so the Ukrainians were given, you know, allowed to be have their suffering centered and their humanity featured. And you know, Americans felt an outpouring of you know, desire to help them, and that was that was genuine.
And you see the same thing with Israel, where you know, the Israelis who suffered truly this horrific atrocity which has shaken their you know, sense of safety and stability and their view of the world, and you know, the conflict in their own region has shaken to the core, and this horrific loss of human life. And you know that humanity is featured and centered, and people care greatly about it,
really genuinely care deeply about it. But the lives of the Palestinians over many years have been you know, really invisiblized.
Now we're seeing a few images coming out as you see this, you know, the siege taking place, the indiscriminate bombing, you have a little bit of reporting on that, but it pales in comparison to the way that the suffering of the Israelis is treated and has been completely invisible over many years, as they've been you know, dealing with violence, violence from Jewish settlers, you know, the occupation of their land, the illegal settlements, the blockade that has turned Gaza into
you know, just a truly you know, miserable place where fifty percent of people are unemployed and most overwhelmingly live on poverty and rely on international aid and all of that. So, you know, it's this is actually a point I have to say, Vivek has been making about which tragedies the media convinces us to care about.
The perfect examples is of Afghanistan.
Yes, at times we're told we care about it, the women and girls and you and finds withdrawing and we're so worried about their future, and then once we're gone, it's just over. And as the American government has denied, you know, Afghanistan, this isn't the whole of the problem, but denied them some of their own money to help deal with a horrific you know, collapsing economy, et cetera. Well, now we don't care about that suffering anymore. It's invisible.
So that's why these things, these things are a real choice in terms of the coverage and whose humanity is featured and who is allowed to receive sympathy of the American.
But that's why I'm not as charitable crystal, because I saw it with Afghanistan, and we see it with the Krant and this is the other thing. What's more cruel to convince somebody that you truly support them and then immediately just turn your back on them and just pretend that all the last things that you never said, or to look them straight in the face even when it's uncomfortable with me, like listen, I'm sorry, we.
Have lived in the real world.
I mean, there's a great line from Moneyball, would you rather have a bullet to the chest or five to the sorry, bullet to the head or five to the chest and bleed out? And that, to me is just a really gross and sick way of like heroizing them and thinking them that you're gonna be there of them forever, when A that's not politically tenable and not realistic, but B you're just gonna switch immediately.
All of Washington has completely looked away.
I mean, Russia could I don't even know what they could do right now in Ukraine, and let's be honest, Congress and all these other people with Ukraine flags and lapel pins and all this stuff, they're not gonna do anything because they're focused on Israel. I just think that that's more disgusting, like you said about women and girls. Yes, look, I'm it's abhorrent what the Taliban does to women and girls in Afghanistan. My position from the day one is
that's Afghanistan's problem. As much as I and mesags and makes me sad, was never gonna bs the Afghan women or the Afghan NGOs or any of that that we're willing to send American troops to fight and die in order to secure their place in school.
Sorry, it's not worth it.
Well, but here's the other thing, is like we made things so much worse for the women and girls over ore, like Middle Eastern adventures and attempts at completely failed hubristic attempts at democracy building. So there also needs to be a lot of humility about what we're actually able to accomplish and what works and what is a complete dramatic failure. There's also been just you know, incredible, in your face hypocrisy with regard to how Russian war crimes are viewed
versus how Israeli war crimes are viewed. These are so blatant that even Jake Tapper over at CNN took note and was pressing National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on but take a listen to how Tony Blinken was talking about Russia when they were messing with the energy, messing with the electricity.
Take a listen he water electricity, for children, for the elderly, for the sick.
These are President Putin's new targets. He's hitting them hard.
This brutalization of Ukraine's people is barbaric.
Id have really heard that when it comes to Israel turning off the electricity and weaponizing it and collective punishment, etc. He wasn't the only one put this up on the screen. This is from Ursula Vanderline is the head of the EU. She says, Russia's attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity.
Are war crimes.
Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming, these are acts of pure terror, and we have to call it as such.
Again.
Suddenly, when it's Israel and it's America's ally, we don't hear quite the same language with this regret.
Yeah, and that's why it just annoyed me the entire time. Autocracy, democracy, you know this, and then high ideals. America is a conation like any others. We should look out for our interests. Sometimes that requires dealing with horrible people well sometimes better off than the alternative. See my past comments about Saddam Hussein or other stable regimes. You can either choose to operate that way, or you can operate purely from a
realm of international humanitarian rights. You know, international human rights, and you know of the laws of war and all this other. Personally, I just think that's stupid. I don't
think that that's realistic. It's too idealistic. It's not possible, and so we should just forget, you know, trying to operate this way and instead, though, we try to have it both ways, where we're best friends with Saudi Arabia and you know, we'll sit by and we'll will co sign some of what's going on here, but then use it as a rhetorical weapon against people who are our
alleged enemies. And then, by the way, you know, you think they don't know this in Moscow, you know, I used to talk crystal with some people who would have bilateral meetings with the North Koreans, and they'd be like, hey, just give.
Up the nukes.
We're not you know, it's all good and they would just look at us and be like, that's what you told Gadafi?
Why should we believe you? Can you blame them?
Yeah?
Can you?
How can you blame them?
Or?
For example, sometimes I knew a guy once who would sit across from very very high level Chinese diplomats, and every time he would try and bring up Taiwan or the rules based order or any of that, they would smirk at him and they would just say, how did
that work out for Iraq? The same thing happened there was a bilateral meeting with President Bush I believe, and Putin in Moscow or it was somewhere in the world, and Bush was bringing up, you know, democracies, like you should have more democracy in your country, and Putin laughed at him and he said, we don't want the type of democracy that you have given as a gift to Iraq.
It's like, we can have it two way.
We can have it one way, or we can have it the other way, but otherwise we just look like complete and totally totals.
Why bothers me so much that.
We continue to use this when it's convenient and then we forget it whenever it's not.
And it's so hypocritical when we try.
You've got this whole genre of very highly paid and famous journalists in DC who do the whole international rules based order dance when it suits them on Ukraine, and now suddenly they don't have much to say about the international rules based order when it comes to Israel and
what they're doing in Gaza right now. So yeah, like, either actually be consistent and actually hold even your friends and your allies to a certain standard, actually believe in the international rules based order, actually poled it yourself in your own actions abroad, which we have really never done.
Or be honest about your interests, what you're doing, why you're doing it.
But spare me this bs about you care so much about that Afghan women and girls, You cared that Ukraine is a fight for democracy in the civilized world, et cetera, et cetera. That's not why you're doing what you're doing, So cut the bullshit.
Probably a good segue to a bizarre experience some other bullshit, all right.
Also, let me give you a little bit of a setup.
Soccer hasn't watched this yet, so we're gonna get the reactctionally. So, someone I've known for a long time works over at News Nation hows me to come on Leland Vittert's show, and I just know him as like he was like one of the reasonable people at Fox who basically got fired for not being willing to go along with Trump's I don't know if he got fired, but he left whatever, he's out because my impression is because of that.
So I was like, all right, that could be fine.
It's close to you know, it's not inconvenient at the time, works, let's do it. So I get the topics are very straightforward. It's like Biden's age and Jim Jordan as a potential speaker. Okay, easy political topics, no big deal, Let's go for it. So I get to the studio and I see.
On the sheet that the guests before me is John Bolton.
Oh god, I'm all right, that's awkward that we're going to go from John Bolton doing whatever John Bolton is doing to me on like Jim Jordan and these like, you know.
Surface level political topics.
But then they did like a bait and switch and come into the segment rather than talking about is rather than talking about Jim Jordan and Biden's age or whatever, going into Iranian policy in the Middle East, which, to be honest with you, after I heard the setup and how just like blood thirsty it was, and how much John Bolden was pushing directly for war with Iran, I was actually kind of relieved because I wanted the chance
to push back on that. So anyway, I don't think it went the way that they expected, didn't go the way I expected. But here's what happened. The trip to Israel is a massive risk, given that our huge ally that he has said unequivocally that he stands behind and has a right to defend themselves, and they're trying to rush aid to et cetera, et cetera, is in the midst of committing what the UN describes as war crimes,
including a medieval siege. I think that the war that you and Ambassador Bolton seem very anxious to get us into in Iran would be obviously a political catastrophe for the.
President or anybody interested in a war.
John Bolton seems very interested in war with Iran, and not to mention, has always been interested in war with Iran. They're getting us directly into World War three. So I don't know about his policy on Iran. But I see the view of the Middle East very different from where I sit.
Okay, So what do you make of what Jake Sullivan, the President's advisor, said, what is it now eighteen days ago or so about how they viewed the Middle East?
To take a listen, the war.
In Yemen is in it's nineteen month of truce for now. The Iranian attacks against US forces have stopped. Our presence in Iraq is stable. I emphasize for now, because all of that can change, and the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.
Well, I'll tell you what mistake he made, which is also the same mistake that Biden made, which is also the same mistake that Trump made, was to try to pretend like the Palestinian quote unquote issue didn't exist, that you didn't have millions of people in Gaza seething under a multi year blockade, that you didn't have illegal settlements and occupation in the West Bank, that you did not have to deal with these millions here who are under
an illegal apartheid system. And so you had the Trump administration that move forward with the Abraham Accords, again ignoring that situation. You had the Biden administration moving ahead with attempted normalization of Saudi and Israeli relations, all pretending that this problem with the Palestidians did not exist. I think the fact that the war I hear, I got that that was unfolding is part of the problem here.
My question would be whose fault is that problem though, because you seem to want to blame it on Israel and you want to seem to take away Israel's right to self defense.
No, I don't.
I don't use the way their rights to self defense. What I do want to take away is their right to have an apartheid state.
Which they don't.
Which, come on, so you know that you.
Know Leland right now, right now, hold on, let me just let me just say what Hammas did terrorists.
That's really horrendous.
Huge of you to be able to civilians should not be targeted, whether they are innocent Israeli civilians or innocent.
Pavilions, no issue with No.
I have a huge issue with it.
The fact of matter is I have lived there for four years. I reported on I realize there's an enormous difference in moral clarity between Hamas that targets civilians, which you agree they do in the Israelis, they go out of their way not to target civilians.
There is an enormous retur.
Is it to the parents of the one thousand plus children in the in Gaza right now who are dead that Israel theoretically maybe has.
Less barbaric taxing?
So let me just already care of more in Gaza attacks.
Who one autrosity does not said another?
At whose responsibility is the fact that those civilians are still there? Is the responsibility of the Israelis? Or is the responsibility of Hamas that's setting up checkpoints to keep civilians as human shields? Or is it the responsibility of the Egyptians that won't let them get through Rafa? Or is the responsibility of the rest of the Arab world that will not take a single Palestinian refugee to allow them to escape a murderous regime in Hamas.
There is plenty of blame to go around. What I will tell you, though, is are you aware that met and yat Yahoo as a policy to try to short circuit any efforts at peace and the establishment of a Palestinian Stadian state, intentionally propped up Hamas because he saw them as a useful foil. These are not my words,
these are his words. That is why the Israeli people overwhelmingly want him to be out of the job because of that failure, because of the intelligence failure, because of the military failure.
And now we're stand by.
We're going to stand by and say you're fine for them to drop white phosphorus on civility. They haven't, yes, according to Human Rights Watch.
So there you go your thoughts.
That's why we want to cable news.
That's tough to watch Crystal. To be honest, that's everything that we stand against in terms of I mean, that's why you got a bullshit time limit right about five minutes, you got fake commercial, We've got like totally loaded questions. The guy doesn't even listen. You know, everybody's trying to make their point across. It's just like and so, yeah, the ambush thing, to be honest, really pissed me off.
I would be furious about that. That has never happened, you know, anytime it usually as you know, we were talking about this before, sometimes they'll be like, hey, you know, news happened.
Can you talk about this? You know, they at least give you a five minute head.
Yeah, like, okay, sure. You know, like one time I was on the way to Fox and RBG died.
I'm like, holy shit, you know, I got to think.
About what I'm going to say all of this, Like you can go pull the tape because they're on five the millions of people watching.
You're like, this is crazy.
I don't know what I'm going to say about this, but you know, at least then you have a little bit of time. But they had the segment planned to toss to the Jake Sullivan thing.
Yeah.
Also, yeah, wondering why that one took so long.
He did this whole build up to the first question about like Biden's like Carter and he's appeasing run and blah blah blah. It's his whole like intro and he's like it's Biden shifting course. I'm like, shifting course on what what are we even talking about right now? And so anyway, like I said, I was actually glad that the topic was shifted because I was sitting there listening to what he was saying and what Bolton was saying, and just like in my mind, like this is so
detached from reality and it's so bloodthirstay. I mean Bolton was really like pushing you won't be surprised, was really pushing like it's all Iran's fault and we can't a piece of Ran and we need to go after Iran. I'm just thinking, like, this is insane that you would be cheering for that at this point. So I was literally glad to have the chance to, you know, say my piece on all of these issues.
But you know what I take.
Away from it is when you're in that cable news format where you're used to having an echo chamber, you're used to just having people who share exactly the same few of you, You're used to not having to say anything more than like just the most surface level slogans.
I mean, we spend a lot of time. It makes me realize, like it really made me appreciate our show because we spend so much time digging into the details and really trying to think about it and trying to be nuanced and think of different perspectives and you know, all that's going on and what does.
It mean from geopolitics, et cetera.
And so it makes it so that in a situation like that, you're just way more equipped to handle whatever's coming at you. Because you're not just dealing in the world of like slogans and talking.
It would just I mean, I have always just found situations like that just so overwhelmingly frustrating because it's again just wants to come back to it. It's like, okay, dude, it's like you want to do this, fine, you know we can, but like, why why are you setting us up this way?
I say this too. Look, Leland is a nice guy.
Hung out with him once in the past, has always been nothing but nice. But I don't think that that is a professional way to conduct yourself. A bushing some I'm not going to say that anything he said was out of line or any of that. I'm more you know, what I really wish is why why didn't they have time time to actually talk.
Five minutes exactly?
The whole thing was five minutes.
Thatttle Middle Eastern piece and Iran and whatever in five minutes.
Now you're moving on.
I'm like, dude, we've only got five minutes. You get to speak for two and a half.
It's like, oh we're now we're talking about Israeli politics. It's like, what are you more relevant?
What does Raley's think about this whole situation seems kind of important anyway, very I don't.
Think I'll be invited.
So I solved a problem, which is I will no longer have to turn them down.
Because I don't think I will be invited back. So there you go.
That's why I say no to ninety nine percent of this.
Yeah, they want to rig the ground, and then they want to limit the time, and then they want to try and ambush you about something that you.
Know, you might have said, what am I doing whatever? Exactly. It's like, why waste your time?
You know. It's like anyway, there's there's a lot of different reasons. So whatever, we wish them the best news nation does do good work on UFOs.
Let's give them that.
Yeah, they're just chasing, so let's.
Give them at least that, and we'll all just go our separate ways. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Counterpoints will be on tomorrow, Crystal. You're filling in for Ryan, so you guys wire breaking down the speakership. I believe actually when you go on the air, President Biden will actually be in Israel, so you're gonna have a lot in order to cover tomorrow.
Make sure you guys tune in. Thanks to everybody who has been taking advantage of our focus group special We will see you guys later.
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