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We also want to just take a quick look at how Kamala Harris is bearing with a group that really could be pivotal, especially in the state of Michigan, which
is Arab American voters. There was recently a focus group that was convened and wasn't great for Kamala Harris because every single panelist said they will not vote for Kamala Harris and that at this point, given her support for Joe Biden's policies Visavi Israel's Jonasid in the Gaza strip, there is nothing she could do at this point that would win them back.
Let's take a listen to how that went.
Who was voting for Donald Trump and four it's possible, It's possible.
Yeah, it's definitely not by Harris, that's for sure.
Who's voting for Kamala Harris here? Absolutely no, No, not possible.
There's nothing she can do or say for us to change our mind.
Who's voting third party in twenty twenty four, good chance, so Jill Stein slightly.
It's also possible to this less, we'll just abstain from voting altogether. But we do know that that's not the best political strategy.
You know, why are you voting for Donald Trump? Because my main goal is to get someone who is actively funding a genocide out of office. Is your vote for Donald Trump a vote endorsing Donald Trump? Or is it a vote against Kamala Harris?
Against Kamala Harris.
Donald Trump has said he will reinstate the Muslim ban, so that last time he's said that he wants Natagnell who to finish the Jobnald Trump said a lot of things his first time around that terrified me. The campaign that the Democrats ran was that Donald Trump pays us. I felt safe well in the country when Trump was in office. I don't feel safe right now with Kamala in office. So I mean that to me speaks more.
He's donning and We've seen polling among Arab Americans in Michigan and other swing states that suggests a majority of them may in fact vote for Ji Jill Stein. And you've seen the Democrats actually launch their first ever ad campaign specifically against Jill Stein. So you know, it's not surprising necessarily to hear these voters say, yeah, there's nothing she could do, like it's too much, it's too long, She's she had a chance to separate herself from this policy,
and at every opportunity she's done the opposite. At every opportunity she's chosen a signal no, I will do exactly what Joe Biden did. So, you know, if Democrats lose Michigan because of this voting block, they have no one but themselves to blame, Like, don't blame Jill Stein, don't blame third parties, don't blame Donald Trump even you know, you have yourselves to blame for number one, backing and absolutely immoral policy, and number two.
You know, just completely.
Ignoring what was a massive movement against this policy in including you know, huge numbers of activists on the ground, including a massive amount of energy, including if you just look at the polls, like overwhelming majority of people want certainly a ceasefire, but also to withhold weapons from Israel to to you know, to end this core that we've
all seen in our social media feeds every day. So I'm glad that they talk to these voters, and I'm glad Democrats will have to look at that on their favorite network and understand that you don't get to lecture these people about who they're going to.
But in reality, what happens, They're just going to run ads about how Jill Stein is bad. I mean, the Stein campaign or the anti Stein campaign might be the most vicious that I've ever seen it. There's a New York Times hit piece out this morning. There's the Democratic ads. They've got Democratic activists now actively trying to smear her every single day on the timeline and this is exactly why. But as you said, it's actually on Kamala. If you look at the way that she even talks about the issue.
Here she is being asked in Detroit about Israel, Palestine, about Gaza, about message to Muslim voters.
Take a listen, how risky is it that you could lose the election?
Well, it is undeniable that it is something that everyone is aware of what is happening there. I speak publicly all the time about the fact that there are so many tragic stories coming from Gaza, and of course, the first in this phase of everything that has happened, the first most tragic story is October seventh and what happened
that day, and then what has happened since. And I think what's critically important as we look at this moment is one acknowledging the tragedy of what has happened in Gaza in terms of the extraordinary number of innocent Palestinians have been killed, and taking that seriously and speaking truth
about that. In addition, of course to what I said about what happened on October seven, in terms of twelve hundred innocent Israelis being slaughtered, women being horribly raped, and then fast forwarding to today with the killing of Sinoar, this creates an opening that I believe we must take full advantage of to dedicate ourselves to ending this war and bringing the hostages home.
I don't know if you caught that everybody else, but what did she say? The first and most tragic thing that happened was October seventh. If you're a Muslim, voter you're hearing that in Detroit, Like, what are you exactly if Gaza's your number one issue?
Like what exactly are supposed to take away from that?
I mean, we're talking about a significant number of voters who literally have family.
Members who are in Detroit yet.
Directly impacted, you know, who may have literally lost family members. And you know, I maybe I shouldn't harb on this, but it just really displays to me the outrageous double standard that she has never, to my knowledge, that anything about the proven, documented systematic use of rape by the IDF against Palestinian detainees, for which there is vastly more
evidence than that of systematic rape on October seventh. And I know these are uncomfortable things to say, but that's just the fact and the reality.
And you know that.
Narrative has been used over and over again by her and so many others to justify everything that has come after. That I think is important, even as it is uncomfortable to call it out once again and to point out on the other side, actually there is multiple even the Israelis themselves at least attempted to arrest some IDF members for their rape of a Palestinian detainee. We have multiple
independent reports suggesting this is not a one off. This was a systematic policy of abuse within this effectively concentration camp that they have set up. And you know, so I know a lot of listen. I think the voters who said there's nothing she could do at this point, like, I believe them, and I think that that's perfectly understandable position to take. And you know, I can or others can say till we're blue in the face, like Trump
would be worse, and I think that's true. Miriam Maddison is one of his top donors, roughly one hundred million dollars. She wants to just completely annex the West Bank. So you were pointing out Israeli is very clear on who they would rather have as president of the United States, as like sixty eight percent say they would prefer Donald Trump. Bib and at Yaho very clear that he would prefer Donald Trump on the off chance that Kamala Harris actually
done something different than Joe Biden. But you know, I think all of that amounts to not a lot when you're talking to people who really care about this, you've been watching this, or may even have a direct personal steak in the real check.
That woman who she was like, look, I'm just voting against that person, and i want to punish them.
So that's what I'm going to do.
I mean, that's a perfectly understandable position, you know, like you just say, you can say to you like for till you're blue in the face, as you said, like, well if it's different, except but that's you know, it's a different way of thinking, especially if you've got personal steaks. So she's got real issues. We did mention this about Elon. Let's put this up on the screen. This is currently
going around. A funded pack by Musk is currently micro targeting Muslim people in Michigan and Jewish people in Pennsylvania with opposite messaging about Kamala Harris using zip code targeting. One on the left says Kamala Harris stands with Israel. That's too Muslim voters in Michigan to Jewish voters in Pennsylvania saying two face, Kamala Harris stands with palesigine, not our ally Israel that has crossed out, and we're true.
Be a little more to face. Comm let's see it.
Yeah, I mean, it's obviously like obviously a deeply cynical strategy, but it also reveals it also reveals that they that Elon musk At leaves his pack believes this is you know, an effective, an effective direction and an important fisher within the Democratic coalition and are doing what they can to try to exploit it.
Yeah, I don't think that it's funny because it's actually probably more resonant on the Muslim part. But all the data that we have right now is that, you know, American Jews are overwhelmingly Democrats. I voted for like sixty or so, almost seventy percent for Joe Biden last time Aroundeah, I have not seen a single scrap of like large scale sample data that outside of like Bill Ackman and like rich Jews work in finance, that there's been any sort of grand realigning it.
Well, it's Trump thinks of Jews in the stereotypical way that like Democrats are twenty sixteen, we're thinking about Latinos in life voters of like, oh your brown immigration must be your number one issue, or oh you're black, like criminal justice reform must be the only thing that you
care about. He thinks the only thing Jewish voter should care about is Israel, right, And that's I mean, it is anti semitic to think, first of all, to associate every Jew with this out of control genocidal state is in my opinion, anti semitic. And number two, just to collapse any large demographic group down to like a single issue like oh, you're one of those people, this is what you care about is gross and you know, and racist, I think in my opinion.
So you know, which I also said.
When it came to Democrats stereotyping the same way. So yeah, he's of course wrong. And when you look at the polls, majority of American Jews want to cease fire quite a large number. Also, you know hate bb NA Naho. By the way, the greatest supporters of bb Nan Yahoo by religious group in this country are not American Jews. They are American evangelicals who who support Baby Nanaou And whatever he wants to do, it must give part blanche.
Yeah.
So you know this is part of what Donald Trump's coalition is very aligned on the issue of Israel. They're very pro Israel pretty much across the board. There's a very marginal dissent, and you know, their critique is that Kamala and Joe Biden have not done enough, have not given bib enough of a blank check.
That's their position.
But yeah, since there is somewhat of a fracture in the Democratic base, especially between Democratic elites and base voters, Republicans are you know, trying to exploit that understandably as best that they can. And you know, ultimately, again it's it comes down to the actual policy and Kamala's complete unwillingness to break from Joe Biden on an area.
And again for people who don't.
Really care about this issue, which is a majority of Americans who don't who aren't going to be voting on it, you know, she could have done herself some favors too, just by actually breaking with Biden on an issue, since that's been something she's really struggled with as well, just creating some space.
And showing she's her own person.
So, you know, it's just it's a moral and political failure on every level, is basically all you can say about it at this point. All right, let's go ahead and move on to Israel. So last week we brought you the news that Israel had assassinated yeah Yah Sinoar that of course an extraordinary development. He was the you know, he was the leader of Hamas, especially after the assassination previously of Ismail Haniah, who had been the head of
the political branch of Hamas. He also was the architect in large part of October seventh, so incredibly significant develops their developments there. In the wake of that news, MSNBC shockingly, one of my old friends, Amanroyle Dean there brought on our friend dropsite co founder Jeremy Scahill to talk about the significance of these events, and he really called out MSNBC on there our own airwaves.
Let's take a listen to that.
I just want to begin by saying that as we're speaking tonight, the Israelis are waging an extermination campaign in the north of Gaza. For the past two weeks, they've surrounded the area and they've intensified it after the killing of Jakhas Sinoir. No food or medicine of any kind has reached most parts of the north. I'm in direct touch. I'm in with medical officials in the north and with
journalists a colleagues. I understand that at least eighty people have been killed tonight in a horrifying set of attacks on half a dozen residential buildings. I've just gotten done seeing images from the ground where children are being shredded
like meat in a butcher's shop. I don't understand how any of us, whether we're journalists or not, this isn't about objectivity, how any of us can watch this genocide unfolded real time and watch the pontificating of the politicians running for president and not just cry out this has to stop. I mean, this has to stop. We've looked at this. I mean, I know you've id it on
the ground from Gaza. I mean, we're watching a genocide in real time, and I'm sorry, but on this network also there are people who have promoted propaganda from Israel. There are people cheerleading for those running for office who are lying to the American people about concern for the Palestinians. And yes, we should talk about Yaha Sinhar, but Yahka Sinwar is also in many ways the story of Gaza.
You know, yes, this was a violent man, but his violence was rooted in the fact that he was born in a refugee camp and Israel, throughout his entire life waged a war of annihilation against the Palestinians. I'm not here to defend Yakha Sinwar. I'm here to say that we can't talk about who yah Ja Sinhwar was or what Hamas is without talking about seventy six years of colonialism, of apartheid, of mass killing, of mowing the lawn, of controlling the calories.
No lines detected there.
Let me just say, Aiman is such a real one for bringing Jeremy on.
I in trouble for that one.
Yeah, and Jeremy, I'm quite sure where that was the last time're going to se Jeremy on smbc's airways for quite a while. You know, he used to be And if you guys go and listen to the interview that Ryan and Emily did with Jeremy. He used to be a fixture on MSNBC. Rachel Mattow have him on all the time back in the era when it was the Bush era, and you know, they were all aligned and going after George W. Bush and you know, exposing torture and all the abuses of that era.
They love to have him on. And then the moment that it.
Was the Obama era and Jeremy was still doing this thing and say, hey, he's you know, increased the drone
ward like pointing out the failures there. Suddenly that was it, he was asked, and he's never heard from Rachel Matdow since because he did I think something similar of calling out MSNBC on her program, and she expressed to him in real time like you can't do that, this is a problem, and then that was it for his So I don't know, this was his first return to MSNBC since that era, which would have been you know, quite
a while ago. But I again don't expect we'll see him back there for another maybe two decades.
Yeah, exactly. I mean his story like he told with I mean Ryan too. Ryan was an MSNBC contributor. You guys were on there and then you know, at a certain point they made a decision. They're like, this is the direction.
We're going in.
Obviously, look at it has worked, right. They are the number two cable news network. Yes, they have the oldest audience and all of cable news, seventy two years old boomer white liberals. These are mostly people who love the network, but for them like this is genuinely shocking to see something like this. Anybody who watches our show or frankly, he's even on the Internet. You could be a pro Israel person on the Internet and you would still not
be shocked by something Jeremy has to say. But the thing is is that on that network and him calling them out directly on their face, I do think it has some power, you know, to hear hear it stated that because it's so foreign, it's such a foreign even way of thinking.
That's right.
Yeah, That's why Tony E. C.
Coats and his book and his interview rounds have been so significant too, is that, you know, that perspective is just mostly almost completely absent from elite media airwaves, whether it's MSNBC, New York Times, I'm, CNN, Fox News, et cetera. So so anyway, it was quite quite striking to see that perspective offered there.
I really suspect.
Aiman will get in trouble for all Jeremy on because he already has been under quite a bit of fire, remember after October seventh, Yeah, they took him off the air for a while. Obviously, medi got fired for probably for his approach to that conflict, and especially the aggressive way that he would question people about the conflict is probably specifically what got him canned, possibly by the ADL. People are very influential there, so we'll keep an eye
on that. At the same time, I referenced earlier that Israel for some reason decided to actually put out the video of Yeah, I guess and More's final moments. We can put this up on the screen so we can take a look at some of this. You know, this was after he had already been part of a battle with a tank and the idea have to not find him. You can see him sitting in that chair and it looks like his arm is you know, like potentially severed.
Uh yeah, the photo did show.
Yeah, it appears to look like it's partially severed. So he's basically as one arm. He uses that one arm you'll see here at a moment this is a drone that's surveilling him. He uses that one arm to throw a stick at the drone camera. And so, you know, this video kind of dispelled some of the Israeli mythology about him. You know, they had portrayed him really as
like a rat hiding in tunnels. They also portrayed themselves as knowing exactly where he was located and saying he was surrounded by hostages and some underground bunker, and here he is actually you know, fighting to the bitter end, throwing a stick at the drone that's sent into to assassinate him. And you know, I think that part saga I'm interested for your reaction here, you know, part is the Israelis for their domestic audience just seeing him finished.
And in this, you know, in this state where he's surrounded by rubble and all the level of devis station like for an Israeli domestic audience, this plays well. And I think that's probably bebing Aa who's primary concern thought. But in terms of the global impression, and even especially among Palestinians, many of whom, according to Poles, had.
Really turned on sinewa Orse. They blame him because they blame.
Him in part for you know, I think they blame Israel too, but they're like, you brought this upon us, and they bought into this idea that you're you know, living this more luxurious life and you're hiding, well, we're being bombed. This has increased a large amount of sympathy for him within the Palistinian population and bestowed on him a sort of like valor that is really propaganda had effectively robbed.
Him up proof.
I'm just struck by the difference between the US and between Israel. Here, let's put this up on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal. It says in depth hamas leader may have won wider support than when he was alive. And there's just so many differences. If you look at the way that the US operated against
Osamb and Laden. For example, there's a photo allegedly of Bin Laden's face like split it half, like a and cake or something that when he was shot by those Navy seals and steal Team six, and that was never released to the public. They made great effort to make sure that he could never be seen as a martyr or to give Isis, which was big at that time, any propaganda or al Qaeda, and they may buried his body at sea, you know, make sure that there was
never any grave that people could flock to. It was just a very different reaction. And I mean, what I would point out is people celebrated here. I was there at the White House to night that Bin Laden was killed. It's one of the craziest, honestly moments of my life just remembering what that was like. You know, for the country and for everything. It's not like people didn't celebrate and Obama didn't get the political bump that he needed, I guess, you know, if we're going to talk in
crafts terms. But there was also a lot of thought about, hey, if we're going to do this, then we shouldn't release video. We should make sure that this doesn't become like a major thing in the Arab world or for people who are radical Islamists to be able to flock around. And this was like the opposite reaction that Israel decided to pursue.
You know.
I would say even with that, I believe the bag Daddy video was never released, you know, by Trump. So it's not like Trump, I mean, obviously very different person than Obama and the way that he thought about things, even he never did that, you know, whenever Bagdaddy was killed. So that's just the major difference in the way that
our countries look at these things. And I think probably because we have more experience with a twenty year g WAT you know, blowback campaign of what happened when we did try to have all these celebratory actions during the Iraq War and we found out hard in two thousand and five and two thousand and six, what that looks like.
I think there's also just.
Such as a gulf, massive gulf between how the Israeli domestic audience consumes these things versus how the global audience consumes these things. You know, when you look at the polling and you have you know, the preponderance of opinions saying we weren't tough enough in Gaza and we haven't
you know, been brutal enough in Gaza. That's why we from the beginning had this question like why are they why aren't they taking the phones of the idea of soldiers so they can stop recording their war crimes, you know, And the answer is because they actually, from a domestic political standpoint, they liked the recording of the death, destruction,
extermination for crimes. They liked it. Those soldiers that were posting these things became like, you know, heroes who were fed it at these various way let's resettle Gaza conferences. So the victory that's on offer to the Israeli people
is one of utter annihilation. And so the more that those images of annihilation are shown to the Israeli domestic audience, the you know, the better BB does in the polls, and the more he's able to hold on to power, because that's that is the real victory that he is promising them. So I think that's part of why I saw some people theorizing that maybe the idea of hate phoebe and so they leaked this to like undermine what
he'd been saying. But I don't buy that. I think they this is to feed the Israeli domestic audience who loves to see him there in the rubble in his final moments. And you know, the Wall Street Journal again to cite a very mainstream publication here and their analysis, they interviewed a number of individuals. One one, Gosen, said that once they saw the footage, it changed his mind about Sinwar. He said it showed he was fighting until
the very end. Another analyst said it makes a difference to people in the Arab world that he was above ground, that he didn't escape, that he was fighting. How and where he died also refutes the Israeli narrative of Sinwar
abandoning the people of Gaza. Many people feel Israel can't pretend this is a big achievement because his killing wasn't planned or done through using intelligence, so you know, pretty I think it's pretty revelatory their decision to release this video on what it says about Bibe's mindset and Israeli societies. At the same time, you know, there was let's put this up on the screen. Apparently Bibe's own house came under attack. Israel's government said that a drone Hesbaled drone
targeted Prime Minister Benjamin netna Who's house on Saturday. There were no casualties, but you know, an attempted assassination here on bbnatnah who.
Certainly.
Israel's military said dozens of projectiles were launched from lebanon, day after HESBLAD announced a new phase in fighting. Netnahu's office said that drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of I don't know how to say this, Cesaria. Maybe yeah, neither he nor his wife was there. Wasn't clear if the house was hit, and of course we know from the military sensors. He will not allow you
to report whether the house was hit or not. That's something they're very sensitive about showing any damage from attacks from Iran or from HESBLA. We can also put this up on the screen. Israel taking a significant hit in terms of one of their top IDF commanders. This is Colonel Asan Doxa. It says lieutenant colonel, but it was actually a full colonel Asan Dosa, commander of Israel's foreign our first brigade, killed today in what this individual describes
as a precise ambush by Palestinian fighters in Jabalia. This colonel very significant saga because he was really in charge of that assault on Jabalia refugee camp. So that's why it's quite noteworthy that he was killed by Hamas or other Aligne fighters there.
Well, also a little bit of a preview, what does it look like that's a you have got the army to come in refugee camp.
He was killed by an IED.
So they're learning exactly the same problems that the US forces learned in Iraq.
We were.
Some of the initial reporting said that some of the IED was actually assembled with unexploded ordinance that the israe Israel had dropped onto the Hongaza, which again same thing that people learned in Afghanistan. That is a classic play out of Afghanistan in Iraq. You can ask anybody who
served over there, like these things are very deadly. And the more that they operate there and in Lebanon against Hesbola much more competent you know, enemy, which has already proven the ability to strike at them effectively, even hit Beebe's house. I mean, already they have accomplished more like better tactics against the IDF and their ability to penetrate Israeli defenses than anybody in Hamas ever could have dreamed of.
You know, in the war. I'm just talking about, you know, post October seventh.
So clearly they've got a big problem ahead of them, and the Israelis are really getting a taste of what this looks like.
Yeah.
And finally, when I want to lose sight of the continued assault on Gaza, this is one of the deadliest strikes that we've had in quite a while.
Let's put this up on the screen.
At least eighty people killed in Israeli missile strikes on a school compound in Gaza City. Six thousand displaced people were sheltering there. It was hit as they prepared for the morning prayers, reportedly once again caused a fire. Video from the scene, according to The Guardian, showed horrific loss of life, with body parts, rubble and destroyed furniture scattered
across blood soaked mattresses. So you know, here we are obviously more than a year after October seventh, and yes, Amas is able to you know, to kill this colonel who was quite significant. So they have not been defeated. I don't think they're probably anywhere close. I don't have always thought that it's probably not really possible to thoroughly
defeat Hamas. But Israel right back in Gaza City, Northern Gaza, and you know, continuing this campaign of devastation annihilation, also telling people once again to relocate, but in some instances shooting them as they try to flee, floating this idea of starving the population. There was a pr ploy effectively last week where the US seemed to pressure Israel to let them aid into northern Gaza. None had come in
since the beginning of October. There was a photo op with fifty eight trucks, but all of the reports on the ground suggested that none of that actually went to northern Gaza.
So that's where we are.
Yeah, all right, we got kin clip is Steen standing by. Let's just get to it.
Very happy to be joined this morning.
By journalist Ken Clippenstein, who may have just gotten himself in trouble with the FBI yet again.
Ken, Welcome to the show.
Good just see you man. Hey, guys, good to be back.
So effectively, Ken, you decided to publish some leaked US intelligence documents which we're assessing Israel's likely response to Iran, which we're still waiting to see what they have in store, and there's been a big public debate about that.
First talk to us.
Here's the piece that you posted on substack Israel props for strike on Iran, top secret leak reveals.
Read the US intelligence reports the media won't publish.
So there's a lot about this that is quite significant, including what is actually in the documents themselves. But just talk to us a little bit about your decision to go ahead and publish these documents, which is a move that other mainstream outlets have not taken.
Yeah. So I got a copy of this from my friend early on Thursday, and I thought to myself, oh, well, this is already circulatding on social media. This would be up in a matter of time. And by Friday morning I realized not only have the documents not been published in any major media outlet. The media had even talked about it then, and it wasn't until that afternoon. This was like more than twenty four hours after I'd been circulating that Axios had the first story on it. Barackravid
reporter is very close to the White House. And what's interesting is in his report they just describe they're just call it, I call it, you know, trust us journalism, Like here's what it says. You don't have to see it. They didn't publish underlying intelligence reports. Subsequent to that, virtually every major media outlet has now reported on it became impossible to ignore after the Axios story, and I published a few minutes after Axios. None of the other outlets,
not one has published the underlying intelligence report. And the reason that that matters is because you're forced to sort of rely on the media's paraphrase, not just the accuracy of it, but even assuming that you know they have the best of intentions and they're not too close to the White House like I think Revid Barackravid is, but just that they would understand what the general public is interested in, and you know, just by pure accident, maybe
they don't. And I think the reporting on. This shows that they don't know because they're getting key facts about it wrong. So, for example, the intelligence reports come from what's called the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which deals with satellite imagery and analysis. It's been reported in both CNN and Reuters. I'm not making this up. You can go look it up that this was from the end. They mentioned this coming from the NSA, which is factually untrue.
Total it shows you the problem with not giving people the underlying records. Media ends up reporting, repeating each other, and it becomes an echo chamber and they're not they're not able to check their underlying facts because nobody has the source material. Get to the source material, then, Ken, what can we learn from it?
Exactly as just saw the rite up around what the potential sites and all that could look like, and you lay that out.
For the audience. Yeah, what this shows is that despite all the happy talk about our ironclad relationship with Israel and how we have total trust, so on and so forth, we are spying on each other aggressively. And it's not just the satellite intelligence. It is human intelligence, you know, spies, it is cyber intelligence, it's all sorts of different things to paint a mosaic picture of what Israel is up to because we can't take them at their word. We
don't take any nation state at its word. But in the context of the conflict that you guys were just describing in the previous segment, the stakes are really high, and so it becomes important to look at not just what are the officials saying and what are they saying to us in private, but to look at their military exercises.
They were doing mid air refuel exercises, which is what you would need to do if you were going to strike your on because the distance from Tel Aviv from Israel is far enough that they couldn't make it in with one fuel tanker. And so you're looking at a
bunch of different characteristics, military readiness, special operations. This stuff is really complicated, and so it shows that we, the US intelligence community, the Pentagon is looking at every one of these domains that might be indicative of an Israeli move. And I think what this should show you is this stuff is complex and it's not as straightforward as perhaps Biden suggested. When they asked him, I said, do you
know about what Israel's going to do? He goes yes, and yes, there are all kinds of different factors you have to look at to try to make that judgment, and that puts us in a dangerous position because it's not a straightforward question about if we know what they're going to do or not.
The news outlets, all of them who chose not to publish these documents, have they given any rationale for that decision? And what do you think that their rationale would be? Do you think part of it is just like when I look at these documents, you know, they require some understanding of underlying lingo, etc. To really makes sense of them, So you have to be somewhat of an expert to
really glean much from them. Do you think that maybe they just have the sense like, oh, the general public isn't really going to understand these documents anyway, so we need to encapsulate for them what it is and what it means.
Yeah. I don't have a problem explaining what the significance is because, as you say, these are very technical documents. They have all kinds of notations and markings on them that are not something that you know, the naked eye is that an ordinary person is going to know what it means. But the problem is they're getting it wrong. I mean, I just looked at the Times right up. You could see a number of factual errors in it.
And as with science, the best thing for discourse is to have it openly so that we can check each other's errors. Nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. I make mistakes. But when you don't put that underlying record out there, then that conversation becomes difficult to have because people are going off of something that not everyone can see. So
to answer your question, what was their rationale? In two cases there were admirably frank mentions in I think it was the CNN's article and ABC News' article where they say, we are not publishing the underlying documents, and in both cases they want to have further they said, we are not even going to quote directly from them. What that says to me is that they're saying, oh, look how responsible we are. And that's an unhealthy place for the media to be, to see itself as an adjunct of
the national security state. I don't think it means I don't care about the country that I'm publishing these things. My own view is it's already out there, guys. I mean anyone can see it on Twitter. It's like we're engaged in this theater of acting like, oh, by withholding this somehow we're helping the secrecy. We're helping the task
of the US military, which is just absurd. So I think that all of this is an outgrowth of what I talked about last time I was on the show about the Jdvans DOTSA and the media's perception that it is deputized into some kind of national security responsibility on the part of the federal government, which I think is really unhealthy for the media to see itself.
As Yeah, I remember, you know, so when we had the disc club, the discord leaks that that was another thing is you were getting to a very much way you talked about. We settled on quoting from them because I think, like you said, that's very important. At that time, there was still like some consternation around whether that would have actually like endangered troops because I wasn't as public
as the one you're talking about. But as you said, if it's actually one hundred percent out there, it's out there and it's not just media outlets that have it, then you're not doing anybody any favors by just towing the line for the national security state.
That's what I think is really important. Yeah, I completely agree, and you can tell the media they just don't want to talk about this. I more than twenty four more than twenty four hours after this thing was already circulating, that we know, before they even had the first report just vaguely mentioning it. You know, my editor and I were able to verify the authenticity of it based on the source of the intelligence community within about several hours.
And you know, I hope I don't have better sources than the New York Times in the Washington Posts, because we're in real trouble if those guys just don't have anybody. So I'm guessing they could have done this all more quickly, But it seems like there was only any motion after my story in Axios's story came out and it sort
of became untenable to pretend it wasn't happening anymore. But this view that the media is separate from the rest of the public and seeing this stuff unfold on social media is just indicative of this, you know, very unhealthy self image that I think that the press has.
Yeah, let's talk about a little bit about where these documents came from, and could put F two up on the screen us apparently investigating the leak of these documents. And you know, I also think that this reveals a little bit too, because it's obviously not that the New York Times on wash and posts never publish leaks out of the National security state. It's just usually those leaks are authorized leak of things that those groups want out to the public.
But because you have.
This as an unauthorized leak, something that these agencies, you know, find to be embarrassing to put out there, because you know, it reveals what we think of these planes. Also reveals, as you said, that even with this close ally, we're still having to spy on them to figure out what
the heck that they're up to. Just speak a little bit to that in the response here where they're launching this investigation and try to figure out who leaked these documents and if you have any insight into how high level the individual would have to be to have gained access to these documents.
My understanding is that I don't think this has been reported yet, is that the sense of the investigators is that this must have been a relatively low level individual similar to Jack Tshierra, the US Airmen that was responsible for the Discord leaks. That's kind of the preliminary assessment right now, but certainly the view that this was an insider within the US intelligence community. I've seen a lot of speculation about, you know, where this going to come from.
I mentioned before some of the errors in reporting I've seen again and again it asserted that the possibility that this was from an Iranian hack, which is absurd because these are top secret documents which live on a server call on a system called JWIX, the US Military intelligence system, which is air gapped, so by definition, it couldn't have been hacked. It's not connected to the Internet, and that's
something you can tell at a glance. Anyone who understands how the top secret system works knows that these things are put in skiffs, you know, secure compartmented information facilities that are not in any way connected to the Internet that you have to physically go into a you know, vault to look at. That's that's you know, cordoned off
from the rest of the world. So the fact that the media is getting these very basic facts wrong is both embarrassing and a reminder of how important it is to be vetting the records that their claims are based on, because this is elementary stuff. I'm not trying to just ding them on. You know, the errors that invariably occur when you're reporting on something in real time, that's unavoidable.
But to but to to say this is an iraniant hack just misunderstands the very basis of how the US intelligence system even works.
Well said, Ken, thank you so much for sharing with us you're reporting. Tell people how they can follow you in and support your work.
We run a substock and that's at Ken Klippenstein dot substack dot com.
Always great to see you, my friends.
Good luck with that next visit from the FBI and that second Yeah you got that guy, are going to be buddies.
Yeah, I'll put out some coffee for you. You got to record it. You got to record it. That's I got to get a ring camera this time. So just memorize, lawyer.
I have nothing to say, listen, I just have to say, you have some balls, my friend, and I really respect the hell out of you for it.
All right, take care, can We'll see you soon, bio.
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