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But we do have quite a bit to get into today.
We're going to start with the US military warning about multiple possible attacks on the United States. In addition to already realized attacks in the air, we also have a hostage situation which is developing in which two have been released from Hamas so far. These are actual Israeli citizens, possible future ones that will happen as well. Fears though also of what the ground invasion will look like warnings even coming from Tucker Carlson, which is kind of interesting
the speaker fight. Ryan, You're gonna use your extensive congressional knowledge in order to update us on what the hell is going on.
Tell you the next nine guys who are next speaker.
Nine guys who will not be a speaker, Well said Trump, also making a hilarious comment on the situation. We've got some confirmation about Nordstream pipeline and a so called unnamed group called the CIA and its involvement there in the bombing, as well as a little bit of an update on what's going on in that war. We can't take our eye off that. Also, a story I've been totally obsessed with is that there was an attempt at hijacking here
in the United States by an off duty pilot. I mean, I don't even know if hijacking is a right word, but he's an off duty pilot. He was inside of the cockpit. He tried to shut the engines down and bring the plane down. Ryan, It's an absolutely insane story and shock that it's not getting enough media attention.
In this Sager story, ever, we're gonna have some audio from the cockpit.
Audio from the cockpit of which we'll be able to play. And then finally we will be doing a discussion. We have to bring some fun back to the show. Killers of the Flower Moon.
Is it good? Is it not good? As well as some.
Update nineteenth century genocide rather than twenty first century.
So starting off hot, all right, let's start in terms of the US military as we gave you guys and update.
So what is happening.
There was an attack on American forces by drones across the Middle East yesterday. Let's put this up there on the screen. This comes after a spate of further attacks. This one was inside of Syria at the Altana base, where US military has had well it's an unknown number
of forces now for quite some time. It also happens after the drone attack the Al Assad air base by this great map that our team is put together and includes of course that incident with the USS Carney off of the coast of Yemen in which they shot down multiple Iranian drones and missiles that they say were headed towards Israel. So this is just the latest attack on American forces. Luckily, so far, Ryan, we don't know that
anybody was killed in the incident. Recall that one American contractor actually died of a heart attack in the last attack actually on the base inside of Iraq, and it just highlights how vulnerable American forces are. It also comes at a time with some very bellicos and troubling rhetoric from the Pentagon where they say we expect significant escalation against US troops.
Let's take a listen.
What we're seeing is the prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region, and because of that, we're going to do what's necessary to make sure that our troops are in the right good position.
We saw the USS Carney take down those three Houthy missiles hooth these again that's an Iranian backed group in Yemen, and also several drones. Was that takedown defending our ships in the region or was it defending Israel?
Jonathan, When you have Cruz missiles heading towards one of our DDGs, one of our destroyers, that vessel is going to do what it needs to do to protect itself.
So he says that missile will do what protect itself.
Ryan, last thing I'll say before I get your reaction is just late last night, senior US defense official telling reporters here in Washington, they are preparing quote for a much more significant escalation against US forces and personnel in the Middle East.
Quote.
Let's be clear about it, the road leads back to Iran. So we brought everybody to the news yesterday about missile defenses. We've now had multiple, i believe four separate instances of attacks on American service members in the region. These are just warning shots if they wanted to kill them. Unfortunately, they wouldn't certainly have the capability. And then the most significant is the USS Carney's involvement so far.
What do you think?
And so Yonatan Tuval, who's an Israeli analyst, yesterday broke some news related to what you're talking about, the delaying
the ground invasions to prepare for this escalation. His gloss on it was he was saying that a US official confirms to me key reason for the IDF ground invasion delay is a US request to complete preparations for a broader conflict, which is similar to the way that you're hearing it framed in the United States, but not quite Yes, And I think his read is a little bit more accurate so the US expects that the Israeli ground invasion into Gaza is then going to launch a broader regional war.
The US has been saying, we'd like to use to delay this ground invasion so that we can get humanitarian relief into Gaza at hostages and the hostages out. This suggests that no, that's not what's going on. That they fear that this ground invasion is going to cause this bigger regional war, and so they want to get their assets in place. But what getting assets in place does. What does it do? It triples quadruples, quin couples the number of targets that Iranian backed militias and elements and
fighters around the region have to target. That great math that we had earlier. That's the consequence of our last twenty thirty years of policy in the Middle East. We have troops in northern Iraq, we have troops and western Iraq, we have troops in Syria. We've got assets now in the around Yemen and around the Mediterranean. Each one of those becomes then a leverage point for Iran and its allies.
They don't need to conquer us, what they need to do is cause us damage, which then causes us to respond.
That's a very well good way of putting it.
And you know, unfortunately that map didn't even have all the assets that we play. Actually, I think we put one up yesterday that showed everybody just the sheer number of thousands of American service members, and not to even mention all the citizens who live in the region, which are all soft targets. At the same time, the United States is now sending even more active duty US troops in addition to the two thousand Marines, in addition to
the two carrier strike groups. Here is the Presidential aid John Kirby giving an update.
Let's take a listen.
We have said from the very beginning, we don't want to see any actor try to take advantage of the situation to widen or deepen the conflict, and that certainly includes his BLUA, And that's why the President has added additional military forces to the region and more forces will be coming in days and weeks ahead to try to deter any actor from widening or deeping this conflict.
So with more troops, more forces, and even more on top of that, I mean, what is the number they're not even telling us, Ryan, We've got thousands in Iraq and Syria as far as we know, the official number is classified. Also, they get around it because as we found out when that contract died, half these guys, maybe even more, are contractors.
So it means you don't have to disclose it.
Are they are they there for the military though, Yeah, so they to me, might as well they can.
So what does that mean?
So we've got thousands of guys in Iraq and Syriam, We've got thousands of guys in Bahrain, We've got thousands of guys in naval assets now, carrier strike group, everybody sitting off the coast. None of this even factors in the base that we have in Doha. In Tatar who knows how many people there are. I mean, yeah, it was thousands whenever I live there, probably, I think it's
probably doubled ever since then. So you put all these together, and I'm looking at target, target, target target, where you don't need a medium range ballistic missile to kill these people. All you need is a slightly more SICI rocket and launch it from any Iraqi or Shia militia that Iran has been now been controlling for twenty years.
I mean, this is a total nightmare.
And if you don't, you know, believe us, just ask the five hundred or so American soldiers who were killed by Iranian backed technology when we were in Iraq.
The Iranian government didn't have to do anything.
All they had to do was give like a particularly sophisticated ied to their proxies, and hundreds of our servicemens were killed who untold thousands were wounded and untold tens of thousands suffering PTSD as a result of that.
And there's a fundamental irrationality behind what Kirby is saying there, and just a lack of thought or belief that the
United States has any agency in this situation. It's it's such a strange thing to watch unfold because here he is saying, listen, if you're out there, we want you to know, if you're an actor, you better not take advantage of this situation, just kind of hoping that Iran and its allies in the region, you don't undermine what the United States and Israel want to do in Gozen in the Middle East, without thinking, well, what could the United States do to stave off what they say they
don't want to happen? Because I think we should take the US at its word in the sense that there actually is no broader interest that the US has as in having a regional war in the Middle East right now, Like you can say, Okay, there are elements of northern Virginia that will benefit because they'll be able to sell
more weapons. Fine, but the US geopolitical interest is not currently served when they have the problems in Taiwan they've got, they still have a war that they're supporting in Ukraine against Russia, and so opening up a front there is not in their interest. So therefore what are they Why are they allowing it to happen? And this idea that they're going to deter Iran by sending more targets is absurd because they don't they're not recognizing that these are targets.
They're seeing them as assets that are going to intimidate Iran rather than oh, one one more way, one more thing, one little, one little tiny torpedo now or a drone that we can hit this battleship.
Yeah, and as we all saw, I mean the IDF.
You know, it's very signifant, probably one of the most advanced militaries in the world. If they accidentally just shot at the Egyptians as right, And this is just this is not to say like that, this is not even to blame them. It's just more to say it happens in war. I mean, terrible things things go off. As we all solve the hospital, it can take hours in order to figure out what the hell is true and
what the hell is not true. And in the interim you've got protests that go all over the world, and you've got at that point, now you're responding to a real world event which was a reaction possibly to a fake event.
You're never gonna know.
And as the more troops that we have in the region, the more targets that we have.
I tweeted this yesterday, Roun, I'm curious for what you think. I just said.
The entire US political system seems resigned to a broader war in the Middle East, with the implicit assumption it is somehow worth it.
It's actually not worth it at all. The reason that they are.
Quiet is because when it does happen, they will pretend that there was nothing that we could do to avoid it. And I really believe that now watching all of these forces being sent, watching the secret reports about no we don't really care. It's not about hostages. We just need the time to prepare for the forthcoming attacks. I'm like, well, hold on a second, maybe we just stopped the forthcoming attack.
We try and at least come to some sort of solution, talk with the Israelis, talk with Hamas, and just be like, look, what can we actually do here in order to make this happen. A serious effort would be to make sure that the forthcoming backlash does not occur. How do you do that. I'm not going to say that it's the easiest thing in the world. You have to minimize civilian casualties as much as humanly possible. Right now, the IDF is, you know, using an air campaign, which, by as.
We played you the audio.
From Jocko Willing command, who is by no means a liberal and who has extensive experience, he was like, I don't think that these air strikes are accomplishing the military objective that you really want. And we're going to talk soon about what this invasion is gearing up to.
Look like, this is an urban nightmare.
So I'm not even talking about the humanitarian I'm talking about the fight itself. We've got fifty to sixty thousand dug In fighters. That is almost what, five times the number of ISIS fighters that they had in Mosl. I just looked up the civilian casualties yesterday. The official number in Mosl was one to one, one civilian.
For every ISIS fighter.
Okay, well, let's play that out in Gaza, where it's probably going to be higher.
It's even more densely popular. Two to one.
What that's one hundred thousand people. Now, even if you think that is justified, do you think that the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Turks, you know, all the entire era world is going to sit back and take that. Not to mention the Iranians. It's just simply impossible to imagine ryan a world where that happens.
It's I think it's useful to go back to the metaphor that Israel has used for its Gaza operations in the past. They say they call it mowing the lawn, yes, which is kind of a cynical and chilling term. But they every couple of years there'd be a you know, a couple of weeks of air strikes, and they would say that they're talking about just shrinking Hamasa's capacity. Just a little bit underneath that cynical and chilling metaphor is the reality that there is a grassroots there that is
just going to continue to grow. So let's say you even do kill one hundred thousand civilians, you kill fifty thousand Hamas fighters, you somehow clear out this what five hundred kilometers of tunnels that they have underneath guys, whatever the number is just the biggest tunnel network in world history. Let's say you actually managed to clear that out, You're still left with hundreds of thousands of fourteen and fifteen
year olds. Iran can't resupply people over the next couple of years, and now you have them remembering one of the most gruesome massacres of Palestinians in it may be the last one hundred years.
Let's hold this because it gets to something else that we want to talk about, which is that the US military is now actively helping these reelies plan for this campaign. John Kirby discussing some of that yesterday.
Let's take a listen, so I can tell you, as Secretary of Austin made clear yesterday, we have been an active discussion with Israeli officials since the beginning of this conflict, to make sure we had a good understanding of their intentions, their plans, where they were trying to take things, to see if we could better understand how they've answered the very tough questions that any military needs to ask themselves before they commit to a large scale operation of any kind.
We want to make sure we have an understanding of how they are comeing to those solutions and those answers, And of course we've made it clear that we'll be willing to help in any way.
That we can.
But it is important to remember that the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, they make their own decisions. They decide what they're going to do and when they're going to do it. And again, all we're trying to do is make sure that they know we're here as a resource, certainly for information and context. We've had a lot of experience in this kind of thing, but also from a security assistance perspective.
So there he is, he confirms US military is actively involved, and just to underscore that, let's put this on the screen.
This was just a report yesterday.
Marine Corps three star general is now advising the Israeli military on the Gaza ground operation.
So this is Lieutenant General James Glynn.
According to a senior Israeli officials, he has been on the ground now in Tel Aviv for some time and he is now helping the operational plan for the IDF for how it is going to conduct itself in Gaza. And Lieutenant General Glenn was probably one of the people to know, let's go and put this up there on the screen in terms of his past experience, but just to also underscore what this fight is going to look like.
He was the deputy commander of some of the Special Operations Joint Task Force in Iraq in twenty seventeen and eighteen that was in the aftermath of the Battle of Mosl. More relevant to Gaza, he was the battalion commander of the two four Marines during the two thousand and six to seventh Battle of Ramadi, which at the time was compared to a miniature Staliningrod. So I don't think I need to tell everybody about how Stalin Grod went and the untold millions that were killed or wounded in that
conf but it underscores two things. First, his direct operational experience in the Ramadi campaign. But really and probably most relevant is the Moses campaign, because if that's what they're looking for. In Ramadi and in Mosl, it was the similar you know, political objective elimination of the terrorist group al Qaeda in Iraq or in that case isis, which
it eventually morphed into. In both cases it required thousands of casualties, even with air superiority, superior weapons, superior training, and that did not even have the civilian support that Hamas has inside of Gaza. That's that's actually what I think is the is the you know, the real X factor in all of this.
People in Mosl hated isis.
They hated They wanted to kill in many kids, they did kill them if they had the chance. Even al Qaeda in Iraq and in Ramadi, yeah they had some sunny support and all that, but it was not even close Humas, And let's all be real about this.
This is what some people need to also admit they have a ton of support. I'm not going to say have one hundred support, but you know, it wouldn't shock me if it was majority.
And it doesn't mean that particular people support everything that they do. But it's like they what what palsings and what a lot of palasings and got of Gaza. Want is a militant organization that is going to fight Israel.
Right, And I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm saying, well, this is the basic reality. And whenever you have fifty maybe sixty percent of the population which is supporting you, especially when you've got an invading force not coming against you, what do you do? You give us people food, you give them water, you let them hide out in your house.
I mean, that's a whole other scenario. When the Iraqi security forces were retaking Mosul, the civilians in most cases were like, they're over there, go get them, you know, please be my guests. They're in my house. You can take whatever you want. They were supporting the people that were reclaiming the territory. It's going to be a complete opposite, much more akin to the US experience in Iraq, especially in the most like hardcore elements, where the vast majority
of the population actually was supporting those groups. And we found out, you know, in two thousand and six and in two thousand and seven, that just simply going in and killing those people, you know, sending Navy seals in at night and killing.
The leaders of the terrorist group. It didn't work.
It turned out what we had to do was pursue a massive counterinsurgency campaign basically occupy the neighborhoods, try to bring democracy and police forcing and all that. And we took so many American casualties in that and it didn't even work in the long run because we had to pull out because it cost too much and the political support wasn't there.
So that's the nightmare scenario of what you're facing.
And the other two distinctions there are time and the tunnels. So with Ramadi, you know we invaded in two thousand and three. This battle is going on at Aditha as well, where Glenn was. We're talking two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, so they had just a couple of
years to prepare. Gaza has this as we talk about early, this tunnel network that makes clearing an area door to door so much more difficult because if you can if you can move underground, and you can move underground underground,
and to understand the sophistication of this tunnel network. It appears that some Hamas fighters emerged in the Israel on October seventh after going underneath an underground wall that Israel built so deep that they believed that Hamas would no longer be able to tunnel out, because that's what Hamas was doing. They were tunneling underneath the fence, underneath the wall, and then coming in and launching raids. They went even further than they than Israel understood that they were capable
of doing. There are you know, tunnels that go into Egypt, tunnels and tunnels that go all over the place. And so if you clear an area and people have left by tunnel, and now you move out and you're trying to control other areas, people can tunnel right back in and come behind. And so there was a briefing of this weekend that the Pentagon gave to the House Armed Services Committee, and Ken Klippenstein and I have been reporting
on this. New York Times seems to have some kind of related reporting recently that the Pentagon is extremely pessimistic about Israel's capacity to have any type of success in this ground invasion beyond just leveling buildings. Yes, like that they can accomplish, but beyond that, can they hold those Can they even hold piles of rubble? Is an open question.
This is an excellent I mean Let's think about when's the last time the United States military had to face an extensive tunnel network in urban combat or even just in combat jungle con situation.
It was Vietnam. And you know, some of.
The most horrific stories of American service members in Vietnam are the tunnels or you know, we often overlook the Pacific Campaign, but think about the battles on Okinawa and ewo Jima. If you've ever seen Letter to E Wojima, it's a great film. I highly recommend it. You know, what are they They rely on their extensive dug in fortifications, which if you're willing to fight to the last man, well, you know, the last time I checked, that's a pretty
core tenant of Islamic extremist ideology. You can inflict a ton of damage, yes you can't, you will lose in the long run. But with the US at that time had total political commitment to the complete elimination of Japanese forces. I mean, we lost like twenty five thousand guys in some of these battles, and that was not an a
densely packed urban combat situation. It's like overlaying the worst experiences of the Americans in jungle warfare and Vietnam and against the Japanese and the island chains on top of some of the worst American experiences in Iraq. And you know, we really have never seen anything even like this, and that's why they're correct to be pessimistic. And this I think the reason I'm trying to talk this way is you can support at this action. You can be one of those people's like, no, we got to do it.
I just want you to know what you're signing up for. I want you to understand, like what that is going to look like for years and years, the political support that that is going to require from the Israeli population and from the American population, not to mention the political backlash from the Arab world. Like you, this is the most predictable scenario on Earth. Now, are you going to choose it? And if you are, you should know exactly what you are buying whenever.
And one more point that might seem trivial at this point, but if you, if you, I'm sure you know a lot of people who were first responders, journalists, Wall Street people types who were on you know, who were at Ground zero.
I've heard the stories.
Yeah, so many of them did not live ten years later because of the cancers that they got from all of the the buildings that collapse put out so much poison in the air that it has caused John Stewart's lobbying campaign to take care of those first responders. Every single person in Gaza is facing that right now. In every Israeli troop who goes in there and spends a week huffing in that air is looking at you know, you know, potentially fatal health implication.
Yeah, I had not thought about that, but you're totally right. But just the amount of particulates that are going to be up in the air. We got all this fire going on, all this other horrible stuff, I mean, war's health. They say it for a reason, and you know, at that time it takes you need to we need to be very aware of what we're doing. And it's clear that the US now is deeply militarily involved, you know, in planning with the IDF.
Here.
The IDF has got to have its eyes completely wide open. And it's not just them, all of you if you're supporting this action, like you also need to understand, you know, what exactly is going to happen and what this is going to look like, let's move to the hostages, because this has been a key part of this entire story. To Israeli hostages. Two elderly women were actually released by
Hamas just yesterday. But before we get to that, President Biden was actually asked about even more hostages being released. It seems to be his single political objective, at least publicly, that he's been talking about.
Let's take a listen, hostages for fire deal?
Why did you help?
You should have? Should have no reason.
If you had any difficulty hearing that. The direct question was is the US supporting a hostages for ceasefire deal? He says, not a ceasefire. We should have a hostages release and then we can talk. So, as I mentioned too, Israeli hostages were released by Hamas.
Le's go and put this up there and play this on the screen.
These poor elderly women who were released there by Hamas militants, by all accounts, that are at least recovering right now, you know, in this terrible stage position. This was video directly released by Hamas, Hamas saying that they were released due to their age. But what it does just highlight is that with the release of these two hostages. There are still dozens more hostages, both will dual citizenship and with just pure Israeli citizenship that remain inside. Let's put
this up there please on the screen. CBS News has this report these in terms of who these hostages were, they were actually abducted from their homes in a kibbutz, the smaller area near the Gaza community that came under attack on October seventh, So aged seventy nine and aged eighty five, two of these women. But it does just highlight Ryan, you know, just the sheer number of people that still remain in captivity.
We don't know what that exact number is.
Twenty of the hostages taken to Gaza, according to the IDF, were under the age of eighteen and between ten to twenty were actually over.
The age of eighty. So these are just two of those elderly hostages. There are still dozens left.
Yeah, And a couple interesting points about these particular ladies. They were peace activists, anti occupation folks who would often go into Gaza and help transport people from Gaza to hospitals in Israel, because getting out of getting out of Gaza to an Israeli hospital requires a pass. Well obviously right now that's not happening, but in normal times, abnormal times, you need to get basically a travel pass from Israel,
and those are life or death passes. If you have a complication that can be treated in a hospital and you can't get that pass, you die. If if you
get the pass, you can live. And there were there Israeli Israelis who on humanitarian grounds would kind of volunteer their time to help shepherd people through and they were among these a lot of these kibbutzes down in southern Israel, populated by left leaning Israelis, which is a kind of a cruel irony, not that anybody does any civilian reserves to be.
These particular I'm glad that you're saying that I didn't even know that, you know, heroic. Why don't you explain to people what a kibbutz is or people probably don't know.
Is it a commune? Like you know, you know there the you know, the early early Zionism was you know, entangled with socialism in a in a romantic way, and the way that expressed itself was through these kibbutz is, which are similar to communes, which everybody would chip in everybody.
You know, there are a lot of eating together, working together, celebrating together, a real family social atmosphere, and a ton of the people in the South are kind of descendants of that tradition, and in fact, they are massive critics
of this right wing Israeli government. And when the Israeli government moved military resources out of the South to the West Bank to support these kind of rampaging programs that the settlers were carrying out in the West Bank because they were creating so much chaosity extra resources, it was understood in Israel that one reason they pulled those resources out of the South was as an fu to their
political enemies down in the South. And it's also why in Israel you see a lot of right wing elements attacking the families of hostages like here in the United States. Excuse me, they're doing what right now while while their
kin are being held by hamas, you're attacking them. It's because these families are calling for a ceasefire, and the Israeli writers calling them traders, lost their mind on these two women because one of them, it's not in the not in that video, but you can find it says shalom to the hostage taker on the way out and reaches back and shakes his hand.
Wow.
Israeli right, is livid at her for doing that.
Wow.
I don't think we should be policing the behavior of any old ladies, especially those who were let do it.
That's just my you know, my very controversial take. I guess to what you said.
We have some video from some of the family of hostages that were released the American citizens.
Here's what they had to say.
They are physically well.
We were very happy to learn that. Mentally, how are they doing?
You know, it's going to be along along road for them and for the rest of the family to heal from this.
Would you prefer that Israel delays its ground invasion until every avenue has been attempted to bring the hostages back.
We demand.
They need to do everything to get the hostages back, to get our family back and two hundred more families loved ones back before anything is even on the table. The hostages, they are civilians. This is the basic contract between the country and us. The civilians come first.
The reason I'm glad that we highlighted that is this is something I've been trying to emphasize here Ryan hostages in Israel have a very different political connotation and salience than they probably do in the United States. And the reason why is everybody's already been forced to serve in the IDF. People feel the security situation extremely acutely. Hostage
families have extraordinary amounts of sympathy. People know that it's absolutely not especially it's two old ladies, you know, everything like that, or these Americans. And the reason, as you said, why they're right in some cases even attacking some of these families is because they have very very different political objectives, and we know that they have a tremendous amount of salience these hostage families. These are politically almost untouchable, you know,
inside of Israel. It also comes at a time when diplomacy could be working here. I want to say, could we do not know one hundred percent for sure because these two ladies were released. But there's also talk of a deal right now. Ryan hasn't materialized yet. The Red Cross is in talks to receive some fifty hostages with dual citizenship. That was actually a news report out of Israel. Again, it's just a report. It has not yet actually occurred.
But you know, fifty hostages would be pretty significant if that would happen.
And let me read you a line from the Times of Israel that underscores everything that you just said. The line goes, the army is concerned that further hostage releases by Hamas could lead the political leadership to delay a ground incursion interesting or even halted right way, so the IDF the army is concerned that Hamas might release hostages. Like people need just to sit with that to understand
the politics that are going on here. How could you possibly be concerned that Hamas might release hostages because the only possible way is that your agenda is not the recovery of those hostages. It's the execution of this ground invasion for whatever you think the end goal of that is, which isn't even entirely clear.
Yeah, you know, and you're right. It's something we talked about previously.
Even the rejecutar yesterday we brought everybody report it might have even been these two women.
We tried to confirm it.
We weren't one hundred percent able to about Israel actually rejecting two hostages that were being offered to them. It might have actually been these women just because it fits the characteristic of they didn't want to care for them. The reason they really release them is because they're old and they don't want to be responsible with them dying.
In their care.
And I bet a lot of people in Gaza knew them.
Yeah, yeah, it's good point. Are the ladies who.
They took me to get my kids?
I had thought of him, that's a great point. Yeah, exactly why would you even want to But listen, no, all of these people are innocent. There's no reason taking even hostage. All of them need to be released, you know, no questions, no ifans or butts. The question, though, is about the politics of it and the release. And this is honestly a diabolical strategy by Hamas. We all really
thought so from the beginning. It's like, yeah, if you have ducked little kids, most people, including their families, will do anything just to make sure that they don't get killed. And yeah, if there is a full blown ground invasion, then you're effectively sentencing a lot of those kids to death. I mean, if Hamas does either carry that out or maybe you know, they're holding them in an area next to their closest commanders, and.
Then we're specifically to invite it, and.
Then we're left just debating who's responsible for their death rather than helping them to live.
Yeah, and I will listen. We hope that that can happen.
As we said, there is some reporting right now around what exactly a hostage deal would look like with those dual citizens. But don't forget that's just the dual citizens. We're not talking about Israeli citizens. And it's just because somebody has to happens to have a French passport or an American passport in addition to the Israeli one, doesn't mean that they're better than the other person.
We got to try and get all of these people out of there.
And at the same time, there is a growing discussion here in the United States about this invasion and what it's going to look like. We gave you a preview a little bit of this in our commentary in the US Military Block. But the point here is just to
highlight the domestic political conversation around all of US. I found it especially interesting, actually to see Tucker Carlson plant his flag against some of the conventional wisdom on the right and really in the establishment right now basically, which is let Israel do whatever it wants. He's asking the critical question, what about us? What is going to happen to us if we allow all of us to happen. Let's take a listen.
What is the objective of the IDF and of B.
Lincoln of the United States and Israel in this short term? Destroy Hamas?
But what does that mean?
Well, to destroy Hamas in the minds I think of Paul Makers in Washington as well as in Israel, is to systematically root them out and kill them in Gaza. Now, let's be frank. When you go into an urban environment, you can't pick or choose your targets very easily. First of all, no matter how well trained you are, you're moving into an area that is rubbled. They're ruins. It's very difficult to negotiate in that. When I say negotiat, I mean negotiate the terrain through the rubble. You're going
to where the enemy is going to pop up. Once you destroy all these buildings, he can be anywhere. So you're going to take losses going in. But more important, once you start going in there, you're going to end up killing whatever you find because the soldier, the Israeli soldier the American soldier very much the same. They want to live. They want to survive when in doubt pull
the trigger. They're not going to stop and say, now, wait a minute before I shoot, I really need to think about this because that may be a civilian or there may be a family there.
That's not going to happen.
You can't expect that. So the notion that this is a kind of warfare that is so precise that it avoids so called collateral damage is just nonsense. We can't expect miracles that we will assist and support the Israelis in freeing those hostages. Again, the problem is, how do you get the hostages out when you're fighting in this extraordinarily dirty and complex environment. What's to prevent the hostages from simply being executed as soon as you move in
force into Gaza. I think the Israelis know that. I think our leadership in Washington knows it. They may have even decided that if that happens, that's tragic. But the ultimate goal of destroying Hamas demands.
This pretty interesting, I think to come from Tucker Carlson on a show. It's part of a longer clip. I encourage everybody to go watch. It's like thirty minutes where him and Douglas McGregor just go back and forth like, Okay, it.
Looks like we're going to war with Iran. What does that mean? Is it worse?
What about the actual military objective here? Again, just emphasize something that you mentioned previously. Let's put this up there on the screen. From the Times of Israel itself. It says IDF believes it is ready for the ground invasion and that it should start soon. The army wants to carry out an incursion even at the cost of heavy losses, fears that the political echelon may never give the order
despite a high level of readiness. Israel saying it's war against Hamas destroying the Iranian BacT infrastructure and has vowed
to dismantle the organization. However, the Times of Israel has learned after sixteen days of air strikes, the IDF has told the government it is fully prepared for a ground defensive in Gaza and believes that it can achieve the goals set out for it, even at the risk of heavy casualties to the soldiers and amid ongoing attacks by Hezbollah in the North, but the military is fearing the
government may not give it. As you mentioned, Ryan, the hostage situation is just such a political football inside of Israel. But if I had to guess, and really, what I think that this does show you is this is the most what right wing government in the history of Israel. If even they have pause about going in before giving the green light of going into Gaza, it I think just tells you what the stakes are to any political
decision maker. These people are not stupid. They know exactly what is going to happen, in some cases doing their best. In some cases are trying to Middle Road America knows what's going to happen. Pretty much everybody does. It's just in a wait and see period, and it's coming down to the question of like are you really going to push the button, Like are you going to say green light, go in? What does that look like? What does the next day look like, What does the next year look like?
What does the the next decade look like? After you make that incredibly consequential decision. So I find it very interesting that even Netsanyahu in is government, you know, one of the most right wing governments in the history of is even they are taking a tremendous amount of pause right now. Sure they're doing the air strikes, but that's just simply not the same thing as going in and suffering heavy casualties.
And I think the more people and when it comes from the United States military, it's that much more powerful to Israel, who were asking the question, why, what is your objective and what's your plan here? The harder it gets for them to carry out this military incursion. If you think back to the way that the US kind of war gamed out the Ukrainian counter offensives, they have a very sophisticated war game effort where they sit around and they say, all right, you're playing Hamas. You know,
you're playing Islami Chad, you're playing Iran. You know, you're playing the Syrian proxies, you're the Iraqi proxies. And they game it out and every counter offensive that they kind of gamed out was a failure, and then they ran it. Anyway, the counter offensive that was a success. They had gained that one out and they had figured out, you know, through that sophisticated strategizing, you know, how they were going to punch through. So they're doing that now as we
talked about in that previous block. The top marine general, who you know, who has the most experienced in this type of combat, is with them. That means his entire staff, all his analysts are are gaming this out. And you know, we don't have all the access to all the information that they do, but we can see the same thing that every different move that you make has eight different counters.
And then at the end of it, even if you counter all those, you ask, well, then what, okay, you have eliminated Hamas, the organization that that it's it's leaders. Qatar has even turned the most turn turned over the people that are in Doha to the Israelis. They're all locked up or dead. An organization similar to Hamas is going to be produced by a population that wants to
resist Israel. So then what And so you have some in Israel who are saying, well, this is the kind of third expulsion that we're going to do with Palestinians, like we're going to we're going to solve that the most faction, most right wing faction, like we're going to solve this once andverall. Like and if there's a broader regional war that gives us a chaotic cover. So after we level northern Gaza, we're pushing down in the southern Guasa.
We're leveling that and Egypt can figure it out or whatever. It's not a completely thought out strategy, but it's being articulated like people who like, there is no solution here. The solution here is to just clear out Gaza, and so other than that, nobody's actually putting forward an endgame that results in anything that resembles what people talk about with a two state solution and two nations living next to each other.
This is this is why, you know, we have to then think about what the cost of this is going to be. So let's put this up there on the screen. This is the number of casualties that have been reported. Again, let's take the extreme caveat of these are the numbers according to the quote unquote officials inside both of these places and the United Nations. Fourteen hundred in Israel, five
eighty seven in Gaza. That's according to Hamas. So look, who knows how much of it is true, have no clue, cannot verify that number yet, though it is probably directionally true, it's definitely in the thousands, right, So how high obviously we're also in the fog of war and what does that look like? And I think what's definitely also true is the scenes inside of Gaza that are getting passed around again the entire Arab world. These people are looking
at this stuff on WhatsApp every day. If you think America has a Twitter problem, you've never been to Qatar or Saudi Arabia. All these people are on Twitter. I think I remember seeing at one point it was like seventy something percent of the population in Saudi Arabia gets their news on Twitter. This is a Twitter obsessed culture and their Twitter does not have community notes, just so everybody.
Yeah, a side note on that, when all of these journalists were fleeing Twitter for threads, it just reminded me how little they care about the rest of the world and foreign policy. Yeah, I couldn't do my job in reporting on Pakersan or the Middle East or Ukraine anywhere else without Twitter, Hate Olivia whatever. Everybody is on there. And then they have what'sapp, you know, the channels that they're pushing all of these videos too.
So WhatsApp, Telegram and Twitter, like the lifeblood for information sources, has nothing to do with official news or any of that. Maybe most of these countries are far ahead of us in terms of their walk, right, they don't share what the New York Times media exactly and these are the
scenes that they're seeing. Let's put these up there. These are the ones that we've been able to gather that just show you what some of the rubble looks like in terms of the footage that has been coming out that's at least been verified by some of the journalists that are there on the ground, so you can see here like what exactly it is. I mean, we've got a decent percentage of the housing stock in Gaza that
has now been destroyed. It does look and is reminiscent very much of Aleppo or some of the other scenes that used to come out of Syria. Some of these you know in the cases like you were talking about the particulates. But I just think people need to understand, like you know, the entire world are watching videos like this, and we're watching these videos Ryan before we have actually
seen combat. Now let's take I mean, look, I'm one of those guys where I'm not proud of it, but I was on LiveLeak from a very early age, rip to Lively. You can watch probably still around a lot of the combat footage that came out of the war in Isis.
It was right there if you wanted to go look for it. I'm talking about guys with.
Go pros to their chests were getting shot, killed, blown up right there, and it was all being live stream for the entire world to see.
It will be like that times, who knows how.
Much, not just exactly, not just confined to Lively and guys who want to look like, you know what it looks like when people fire.
I forget what those missiles, No, it was, it was something else.
Anyway, there were these videos were everywhere at the time, but it was just for like, you know, weirdos like me who were covering the conflict and others who were obsessed with watching what was happeny on the ground. This is the entire world basically getting a exposed to that.
I mean that scene that we just showed you. Now imagine that an Israeli platoon is trying to assault it and there is IEDs everywhere, and people are getting blown up, and there are fighters there in the background, and there's RPGs raining down and then there's a re jet comes through and tries to take out of this is a single tactical thing that I'm just describing, and then multiply it by one hundred or two hundred or whatever. That happens,
and it happens day after day after day. It's like having that situation is just so it's so foreign, I think, to anything that we've experienced in the modern media environment, and it's just something that we really can't look away from. It's impossible because the rest of the world is going to be paying so much attention, and it just highlights if that is this case, there is just no scenario where a broader war cannot be avoided. It's impossible if
that is going to occur. So it's a catch twenty two for the Israelis, but really it's a big catch twenty two for US and the American political system. And speaking of the US political system, the speaker fight. Trump, the current leader of the Republican Party at least until we technically do have a speaker, has weighed in on the fight.
Here's who he thinks could get elected.
Only one person that can do it all the way. You know who that is, Jesus Christ.
Jesus came down said I want to be speaker, he.
Would do it.
Other than that, I haven't seen.
I haven't seen anybody that can guarantee it.
But at some point I think we're gonna have somebody pretty soon.
So only Jesus could do it. But at some point we'll have somebody pretty soon. Okay, all right, that the man has weighed in. My personal favorite addendum to this is something our producer pointed out. Put us up there on the screen truthing out this photo of himself next to I have fictionalized Jesus Republic of on court the issue Ryan. As you both pointed out, I'm no biblical scholar myself, but I don't believe the trial worked out
so well for Jesus. We can have the biblical people away, and maybe there's an Old and the New Testament thing.
No, actually, no, right, because Jesus is not an Old Testament. See that's how much I know about all of this.
My point, though, is to actually just rely on you, because you cover so much of Congress. Tell us a little bit about these gentlemen. Who's running. We've got nine speakers. Also, we have a vote today just laid out for right.
Well, so last night nine dudes presented their case for why they should be a speaker privately to the House Republican Conference. One of them dropped out after the end of his speech.
Dan got It.
He was a problem solvers guy. That's that's the like the Republicans and Josh Gotnheimer who get together and pretend that they're going to solve problems. So they're they're down to eight. The only one you really need to know
about is at this point is probably Tom Emmer. He was he's the whip, he's the currently the whip, and so he's the last number three, right, the last man standing of the kind of Republican leadership of nless unless you count mcchenry, but of McCarthy's Scalise and Emmer, and to Emily's Elisiasinski's credit, she's been pointing to Emmer as a kind of a dark horse candidate from the very beginning because he has really good relationships kind of with
a lot of Freedom Caucus members Republican Study Group, which is the kind of right wing but less right wing than the Freedom Caucus Group. However, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, that whole world, Matt Gates, they like they've been on a Matt Gase has been organizing through Steve Bannon and Trump. They've been on a campaign against Tom Emmer. Like they're
calling Emmer a never Trump candidate. Interesting, They're saying that if we have that, if you have McConnell in the Senate and Emma in the House, what even is the point of Trump winning the presidency. So they're meeting at nine am this morning. They're going to have then kind of a secret vote, and if one of them gets more than a majority, they become the speaker designate. Emmer
is going to likely get a majority. Then the question is does he go to the floor, And if he goes to the floor, does he get the two seventeen he needs. He's the whip, so he should know the vote count. People like Gates are implacably kind of opposed to Emmer or so the thinking among the kind of bannoned world that has organized this pusch believes that they have at least five, maybe ten to fifteen hard nose against Emmer, whose they're really trying hard to frame as
never Trump. Emmer himself is trying to do everything he can to say that no, no, no, no, I love Trump. The main knock against him is that he voted to certify the election.
So we have some of the votes on that, actually the vote wrecords some of these gentlemen. Yeah, we could see here for the main ones. Tom Emmer certifying the election. Yes, same sex marriage, yes, Ukraine Aid Yes, fiscal responsibility yes, forty seven day funding bill. Yes, that's about establishment as I guess it gets for the Republican Party some of the other candidates there. You have multiple no's and other
things across the board. But one thing that I'm seeing floated right now, Ryan, is the idea that Democrats would not attend, They would basically sit out the vote to give Emmer a majority. Can you just explain how that would work procedurally?
What does that?
What they call it on Capitol Hill is taking a walk? Okay, what do I need to do to get you to take a walk. And so when you take a walk, you literally take a walk, like you walk out of the walk, out of the chamber, you go in on the steps, you enjoy the sun, and they'll say the clerk will read out mister Gottheimer, and you're just not there, mister Gottheimer, mister Goththeimer and then so then there's no
vote recorded for mister Gottheimer. That lowers the threshold. If six people, if six Democrats take a walk, the threshold comes down by three. So then instead of two seventeen, you need two fourteen take a If ten take a walk, comes down by five. Now, just now, Dean Phillips, who he's the dude who is Minnesota Congress and a Democrat who keeps pretending like he's going to run. Maybe he is running running for president against Beyen, so it's kind
of a wild card. He's willing to do whatever. He's also one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel and the Democratic Caucus. So he writes on Twitter, this is just now. The dysfunction in the House is a national and global security issue. I would sit out the speaker vote if Tom Emmer. So now he's going to start negotiating.
If Tom Emmer will fund our government at negotiated levels, bring Ukraine and Israel aid bills to the floor, and commit to rules changes to make Congress work for the people. So people like Gotttheimer, Henrique are Phillips, there are enough people that could, with Jeffrey's permission or not, could say look here are the things. If you commit to these things, then we'll take a walk and you then only need
two hundred and ten. So Gates, Gates and his eight or the crazy eight says, as McCarthy calls them, can vote no and you still have a majority with two ten.
Yeah, that fits with some reporting now here in Washington they say somehows Democrats tell us they find Emmer the least objectionable GOP candidate. They would be open to helping him by sitting the vote out if they get private assurances he will fund the government at levels, negotiating the debt limit deal and put Ukraine plus Israel Aid bill on the floor, Which is how.
Private are those That's all they want?
Right?
How private assurance?
Yeah?
Well, that private are those assurances?
That's the big question, I think, because in terms of Tom Emmer, it's like, can you even govern effectively your caucus if you get elevated based upon democratic votes? I mean already, just as just a perusal of the timeline here, it seems as if Tom Emmer is absolutely not getting the support that he needs. For example, Trump has actually quote re truth two attacks on Tom Emmer, calling him
the uniparty spic pick for Speaker of the House. He previously served as a national popular voter initiative funded by George Soros all this other stuff. Previously, though Trump had been neutral after he said he had a good phone call.
I believe with Trump up, the certifying.
Election thing is just going to be the death now for him, I think, for at least for a bunch for a lot of mags, a lot of them. I'm not saying that doesn't mean he could win a very much easily could win. It's not like the majority of Republicans you know, even support that. But you've got a pretty powerful faction here. And more importantly, if you do get elevated and you don't change the rules on motion to vacate, what's the point, you know, they're just going to keep taking you out.
Like, so, what Democrats could do if they really did want to strike a deal, Jefferies could have the entire caucus walk okay, And so that means.
That he just needs sweat was slight two thirds?
Just a majority majority?
Wow?
Just so basically every if he wins in the closed room today, that means he has a majority of Republican support. Is there a majority of the Republican conference that's willing to go to the House floor and vote against Trump and say, you, I know, Tom Emmer, he's not a never Trumper, he's not an anti insurrectionist. He you know, whatever whatever argument they want to make is, and I think that there is. But then it's so embarrassing for them to have to do that. Yes, the spectacle of
them working with Democrats. So the other other possibility that people are kicking around is that they do this for McCarthy, which a lot of people would like, a lot of Republicans would like to do, because it would be seen then as a humiliation for Gates, and so they can personally get back at Gates.
I had not thought about that. But I don't even know if he's running.
I mean he's not. He's not. But if it looked like he could come in at the last minute, they'd.
Be like, all right, how many how much longer do you anticipate this going?
This fund funding runs out November seventeenth, ok So they have to they have to figure something, yeah, at some point, or they just keep saying, you know what, Okay. McHenry continues to justody. Nobody seems to think like the idea of mckenry being speaker.
For including him.
I'm interesting.
Okay, all right, well that's a good run. So what time is the vote today?
It starts at nine am, but you've got all right, everybody's going to give speeches, so it'll be a while. We should know by nine thirty, ten o'clock we should Well, you guys.
Can update everybody on counterpoints tomorrow and give everyone.
The skinny inside dope, no doubt.
Yeah, okay, good, I want to hear it. I'll be I'll be waiting and I'll be anticipating that eagerly. Let's move on to Ukraine. Obviously, can't take our eye off the ball of what's going on. But it's just amazing to me that these confirmations and these stories, things that everybody knows is probably true but not officially true, comes in just years later and you get some of the most shocking news, and shocking in that it's not surprising, but if you had known this at the time, you
would have just been absolutely stunned. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from the Washington Post, a new deep dive into the CIA and its backing of Ukrainian intelligence services, It says quote the missions that have evolved, elite teams of Ukrainian operatives drawn from directorates were formed, trained, and equipped in close partnership with the CIA.
According to current and former Ukrainian and US officials, since twenty fifteen, CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine's Soviet form services into potent allies against Moscow.
The agency has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine as well as in the United States, built them a new headquarters for departments in Ukraine's military intelligence agency shared intelligence on a scale that would have been unimaginable before Russia illegally annexed Crimea and then fomented a separatist war in eastern Ukraine. The CIA
maintains a significant presence in Kiev. Officials said this is an official confirmation, basically Ryan that the Ukrainian kill squads behind the assassinations in Moscow, including of Jugina, the daughter of a political How do you even describe him like a supporter, like a Russian political supporter of the war in Ukraine, as well as the architecture go with that.
I don't know.
Let's know that, all right, and then that then also the team that was very likely behind the bombing of the nord Stream pipeline were formed, training and equipped by CEI.
Now, on the one hand, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
As we all remember the New York Times, you know, famous story, they're like Ukrainian group behind this Nordstream pipeline bombing, and you're like, oh, really, you're like this group that just so happened to get like special training and patriots and oh where do their money come from?
Amazing?
Right, It's only a couple of intelligence services in the whole world are capable of this, and one of them certainly ain't Ukraine, So I wonder where they got that from. They were like, we believe that outside groups, you know, helped advise them, and everyone. The literal meme on the Internet at the time was outside group equals CIA. Now it's just out there. It's just a direct confirmation. And I think what's shocking to me is not just the
direct operational involvement bringing these people over, training them. It just shows me once again people do not comprehend the Ukrainian War is a US war. We are paying all their bills, we are giving them all of their weapons. They are doing the fighting, We are doing the planning, the paying, all of the things that like real nation
states do. And on the intelligence side, you know, sure, you know, maybe they're the ones who are technically pressing the button to kill some of these dissidents and all that, But every single one of their bills, all of their training, all of their software, all of their equipment, it's all coming from us. It's like the extent to which America is directly backstopping this entire thing is shocking still to me,
and I know it to be true. The average person on the street, even people who are like I support Ukraine, they have no clue.
You know.
One of the things that came out to me in those documents, the leaked Pentagon documents that we got from the Discord leak. We never published them just for operational we didn't want to be accused of like helping the enemy or whatever. But one of the things that was crazy to me, it's not all the stuff that we just reported. It was all these official battle damage assessments. I still have them here, you know, in the files which show you the US using satellites and all this stuff.
We are running all the most basic levels of operations at a military tactical level for the entire Ukrainian military.
I didn't sign up, nobody signed up for that. We don't even know that it is happening. This is just another example of it.
It reminds me of a quote from a senior Israeli defense official recently who was pressed on you know, why haven't you launched this ground in vasion yet? You might have seen this quote too, where he said, look, the United States asked us not to write, and he said, they are funding and equipping the entire thing. What do you want me to do? Say no?
At least he was honest about that.
Yes, And it's the same situation in Ukraine. We're funding and equipping and guiding and directing the entire thing. It is Ukrainian lives that are being put on the line, and so that puts them in a place of what do you want me to do?
Say no?
Right like this, this is our These are our choices if you and choices are in quotes.
Well, unfortunately we actually give them choices. We don't tell them what to do. In my opinion, we should tell them what to do. And one of the most important things that is really coming through is the assessment now of the one hundred something billion dollars that we've given these people.
How is it going?
How is your counter offensive going? I came across this chart, which I am still shocked by. I knew that their counter offensive was not going well. I knew it was bad, but I did not realize that when you compare it to similar combined arms offensives from the last one hundred years, it is historically awful. Let's put this up there on the screen. This from CSIS, it's one of them. And by the way, this is one of the most establishment friendly think takes in the whole world. And they put
together this graphic. This graphic is the rates of advance for selected combined arms offensives with no air power. Let me underscore that with no air power, which is why you have to go back over one hundred years.
To World War One.
Even in World War One, the rates of advance for troops in that war were better than the Ukrainians. The current advance per day meters per day for the Ukrainians in this counteroffensive is ninety meters. The last time so little progress was made by an attacking army in the offensive with no air power was nineteen fourteen, nineteen sixteen in the Battle of the Somme, where they advanced a
similar amount of meters per day. So let that sink in that previous you know, previous offensive by Austria Hungary or sorry, by Russi against Austro Hungarian troops. We're getting fifteen hundred meters per day. Previous offensives by the Italians against Austro Hunger getting five.
Hundred bellow wood.
Which reminds is you know, I believe that's where the term devil dog came from. For the US Marine Corps. It's remembered as a nightmare. They were advancing four hundred meters. Even Leningrad, which we remember in history, is like this horrific stalled operation. They were going a thousand today where we are right now. Just look at that graphic ninety meters the Battle of the Somme. I'll tell you, I've been to the Battle to the Somme.
I've seen the amount of graveyards there.
Fifteen year old's you know, a graveyard who was I'm telling you is one of the saddest things you just drive it in some of the most picturesque places that you've ever been on Earth, and then right on the side of the road is a graveyard erected by the widows of you know, whatever shire or something, where they're like, oh, all of our men from our English village were all killed in this one spot, and here's all the gravestones, and you know, erected in nineteen twenty three or whatever
something like that, and it's heartbreaking. It's just like every mile that you go, Oh, a thousand Canadians or whatever, here's their graves.
Bunch of Australians, here's their graves. And it's like that everywhere you go.
And I'm not even talking about the Germans who were killed a two million or whatever that were killed. It's when you comprehend like what that type of attritional warfare looks like. It is nightmarish. And there's a reason that those people after that war happened were so anxious to never get into a war again, and why it was such a massive blow to the Psyche and what the
fallout was. If you could play a role, as America could in making sure that doesn't happen, why would you not want to do that, and I think that's where we're at right now.
Yeah, those offensives that you put up and produced each of them generations of PTSD yes for the people lucky enough to survive them, which was not a big amount. And you're right, it reshaped kind of in entire cultural attitudes towards towards war, towards life itself. Right, and to have encouraged, armed, equipped, trained, and directed this with all of the forecasts that this is precisely what would happen.
And if you look at Kharkiv on on that graphic, that was one where they caught the Russians off guard, made huge advances. They knew that the Russians would be fortified for this next one. Yes, and the fortifications with the drones and the trenches and the mortar like are clearly impenetrable at this point. And that was when the US was shipping all of its weapons right there. Now we're shipping half of them somewhere else.
Well, that's a very good point because even when they were asked about it, the White House is now admitting we are low on the weapons we need if we ever need to defend the US.
And now they're still closing, Oh, well.
I don't even think we would make it past Warez currently with the rate of way amount of weapons that we even have in stockpiles. Consider this when you've got John Kirby, it asked directly in an interview admitting outright, we're running very low and they still want seventy billion dollars to send to Israel into Ukraine.
Let's take a listen.
My question is the state of those stockpiles right now? The state of where US weapons stockpiles stand, with two wars sending now two different types of shipments on a regular basis towards two US allies, how big is the concern that the US is dangerously low on what it should have for its own defense right now?
Well, of course it's a concern.
That's why we asked for that extra supplemental funding from Congress. Without getting into classified information, I can assure you in the American people that the United States military can continue to defend our national security interests all around the world.
So we need a supplemental to revamp all of the stockpiles. By that, he admits we don't have very much in our stockpile.
And then he's like, we're good, don't worry.
Israel is a perfect example.
We had a massive AMMO dump in Israel waiting just in case we ever went to war or if they needed it, and then a couple of months ago we're like, you know what, Ukraine needs it more and so we should.
If you're pro Israel, you should be furious at that.
And yeah, that you should be, because and the Israelis themselves the amount that they were lectured by the international community, and Zelenski, hey, you got to sell this these weapons. You don't need them as much as we do, all of us, and they were like, listen, we're a country which is perpetual at war. We have no idea when we might need it. They're right, there were one hundred percent right. They're totally vindicated. Well, now what if that
happens to us. This is the problem and has been from the very beginning on this conflict, with this sheer amount of weaponry that we've been sending to Ukraine and now that we're sending to Israel. Interestingly, actually, there was a quote unquote Twitter space yesterday. I never know how much any of this stuff moves the needle. But when you have a man as famous as Elon Musk who was speaking in terms like this, I think we should all just take notice.
Here's what he had to say yesterday.
So it's obviously absurd to have at the smaller army charged the larger arms. Me when the larger army has massive defenses and will inflict casualties at a rate there's probably three to one, or maybe worse. It's a hopeless situation. You might as well put you put your hand in a meat grinder. So so I, so I, and and and and every week that passes there are more Ukraine boys that die, more Russian. And I think we'd have some some ympathy too for the Russian boys that are
dying in those trenches as well. Do they want to be there? Of course not so. Uh So that from from from a humanitarian standpoint we should find I think some we should push for a for a cease fire and push for for peace in that region. And I think then from a civilization or risk standpoint, we should restore normal relations, uh with Russia. You know, this seems like logical path.
It was interesting to me that that was also conducted in the case of an Israel Hamas discussion with vig Ramaswami, who also has been very sounding a note of caution I think on Israel Hamas and what it would lead
to for the US. So I will just say this, as much as the hysteria and all the nightmarish you know, rhetoric and all that reminds me of post nine to eleven and all of that, we at least have the benefit of having too many people who all of us know, who were affected by the madness of those wars, and of recent enough history where we can literally watch it on YouTube if we want to go back to say, if we could do it all over again, we definitely
wouldn't do this. So, you know, the rhetoric, as bad as it Israean, it's still better than it was.
In two thousand and one.
And because people like you and I remember that the strategic victor out of nine to eleven was Oslomon Law. That's correct, Like he could not end the Iranians. Neither of them could have asked for a better outcome, never from you know, states to go into currently who runs Afghanistan, Taliban,
who runs a raq basically around Ron. Yeah, and that's at the cost of you know, trillions of dollars thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and it took al Qaeda, which was kind of a little fringe group to a place of you know, isis running an entire caliphate for a little while, like all because of choices that we made in response to the attack
on us. Like, we have agency in how we decide to respond to these attacks, and our response can either bring about more pain and bloodshed to us or less. And it seems like we are just hell bent on producing another Hell on Earth.
Well, I think that is very well said, and it is just another reminder about why, you know, discussions and shows like this are important at this time. Let's move on to the two stories, one which is very important,
one which is not important. The first one, though, is one that I just personally, you know, people know I have a lot of interest in air travel, and so when I saw the details of this and I realized that it wasn't getting nearly the amount of tension it deserved, I was like, we have to cover this on the show, just to make people aware and to keep an eye on this to see if there was anything deeper than
what appears right now on the surface. Let's put this up there on the screen just for the details themselves. In off duty Alaskan Airlines pilot tried to shut off the engines on Everett flight. According to the airline, while he was taking a ride on Sunday and in the jump seat inside of the cockpit, so let that sink in. This off duty pilot was riding as kind of a shotgun, right, and he was like, hey, can I hate your ride? The team was like, absolutely sure. The guy ord he
works for the airline because he's a pilot. They seed him inside of the cockpit, which means he was screened. I mean, has gone through security testing and theoretically, I'm assuming this man is actually a flown real passengers. Well, according to the authorities, while they were mid air, this pilot, Joseph Emerson, tried to shut off the engines in flight, had to be subdued by the crew, and in one case even tried to deploy the fire suppression to stop the engines from reigniting.
We don't know the exact details.
Passengers who were on the plane, by the way, they say they had no idea any of this is happening, which I'm not sure that I actually am comforted by any of that. But here is the actual audio from air traffic Control where they described this incident as they're requesting landing for an emergency in Portland.
Let's take a listen.
Okay, this give you a heads up.
We've got the guy that tried to shut the.
Engines down out of the cockpit.
And he doesn't sound like he's causing an issue in the back right now.
I think he used to dude.
Other than that, yeah, were one long person.
Since we get on the ground in park.
Very calm.
I love him that at sixty two degrees and Portland, Yeah expected this afternoon.
Passengers were like, we had no clue. I had no idea that it was going on. They just came on. They're like, hey, we got a land in Portland. They're like, okay, whatever. I mean, you're not.
Happy about it, but you had no idea that someone tried to crash the plane while we were there. Since then, this man, Joseph Emerson, has been charged. Now let's put this up there on the screen with eighty three counts of attempted.
Murder for allegedly trying to shut off the engines on this flight.
And again, we don't know very much about Joseph Emerson except that he was charged now with eighty three counts of attempted murder, eighty three counts of reckless endangerment misdemeanor, and one felon account of endangering in aircraft. I mean, this was you know, what's really I think crazy to me? Ryan is one of the reasons that he was en route from Everett to San Francisco is he was scheduled to actually be on the flight crew of A seven thirty seven. So that's the big question. I mean, was
this a moment of crisis? Is this a mental health event? You know that happened that manifested? Is this I mean, I hate to even spec it. This is like a terrorist attack, Like what is happening here? Why did he try to do it while he was off duty and not whenever he was the actual pilot?
I mean, what is the backstory to all of this?
I will say one quote that they have is quote he was heard in the moments prior saying something similar to quote I'm not right. That's a federal official telling ABC News again he was sitting in the flight deck on the jump seat, and he unsuccessfully tried to disrupt it. Presumably there's a recorder inside of there, so we should be able to get the audio of everything that was happening. Yeah, I mean, it just seems like a really crazy situation.
It We're extremely lucky that he tried to do it as a copilot and that the pilot somehow managed to fend him off. And the announcement to the passengers just absolute classic American pilot, just a heads up that the man who was trying to kill us all is no longer in the cockpit, and the pilot who wants to keep the engines on remains in the pilot. Local time is two thirty seven, and we're going to have a little turbulence at thirty thousand feet for the next thirty minutes,
so we're going to leave the seat belt signs on. Yeah. So just as like absolutely incredible to hear to hear that, because I'm sure half the passengers weren't actually listening. Oh dea, and then you kind of and then you halfway here, like wait, hold on, did he just say, right, well, so I tried to turn the engines plane passengers.
I think that was on air traffic control all again.
I'm not one hundred percent sure, because they also said that they did come over on the passenger audio and just be like, hey, we're making a landing.
We're going to be fine, We're going to get you off there.
Everything's good.
They some people were I think people were just confused. They thought it was a serious medical emergency. Anyway, Look, I mean he got eighty three souls. I think there was even a lap infant, you know, on the plane. What's scary thing is this man has been flying for quite a long time. He's a forty four year old man. They have photos of him posted in the flight career
uniform going back to twenty sixteen. I mean, I've flown on an Alaskan Airlines flight from San Francisco, so it's you know, it's one of the most common routes direct flights from Washington from to Portland to San Francisco too, I think to Los Angeles as well.
So I mean people I know take that plane probably every day.
So this is one of those that definitely just hits for all of us, and it's a terrifying situation.
The big question just remains, what was the motive here?
And you know, we can't forget, you know, there was that terrible I think it was a German Airlines flight, a Luftanza affiliate, in which the pilot committed suicide or the co pilot committed suicide while the pilot was in the bathroom. And then obviously there's still good jullion questions around Malaysian. The Malaysian flight that disappeared and the flight simulator and the pilot themselves still remains a mystery, pilot
suicide being most likely explanation. So look, I guess the only consolation that we have here is that he tried it whenever he was off duty and in the jumpsuit a jump seat, was not while he was in the actual pilot's seat, which he was literally on route to do. So he's been arrested, presumably will be put on trial, and we'll get to the bottom of this. I certainly hope that we do so, but did want to give
everybody an update on that situation. Last thing, this is a little at least the little bit of amount of fun I think they were allowed to have after more than two weeks now reporting on this horrific tragedy. The release of Killers of the Flower Moon, and I actually the inspiration for this ryan is that it is one of the biggest search terms amongst our audience. Really, yeah, that's what I was shocked by as to the level
of yeah, not even just about that. It was like Killers of the flower Moon, breaking points review or something like that. Give the people what they were said, Okay, all right, we will give the people what they want. So I would have the privilege to being able to see the movie on Thursday, the day before and career it is.
Yeah, I guess I can. It is very long.
It's long, So before I get to the actual review, let's give some of the details. That was a still from there. This movie is getting a significant amount of demand. We could put this up there on the screen. It's earned forty four million dollars at the global box office over the weekend, actually topping the Taylor Swift Eras tour, which I also did see.
I can give you a separate review of that one.
Impressively, if they say forty six percent of the opening night audience for Flower Moon was under the age of thirty five, one of the reasons I think that's really interesting is, and I do see this actually a willingness for people who are younger, people like myself to actually try and fulfill the legacy of what Scorsese wants, you know, to get back to the pictures, to indulge in the yard, to really understand the message that he was going for.
This movie is three hours and thirty something minutes long, and I will say it's long. It's a long movie, and it's not a bad way. It's just it's a very long one. Our producer, Griffin is a big film guy. He was like, man, they really need to bring back intermissions. I could not agree more. Bollywood movies if you ever have to watch them, have intermissions and they're great. You know, you get to go to the bathroom. If somethod's gonna be four hour long, you don't want to be sitting
in the chair with previews. It was about a four hour experience and I went at seven pm, so you can do the math.
Stayed up well pass my bedtime for that one.
In terms of the movie itself, the way I've been describing to everybody, I think the movie is a masterpiece.
I think it's absolutely worth seeing.
It is multiple movies and stories within one, and I think that's one of the genius of Scorsese. It is both this horrific tragedy of these o Sage Indians, the way that they were treated there at the time. There's some of the richest people in the world, and yet they have very little agency over their lives.
They're being attacked, you.
Know, they're being murdered in this case, you know, for their money. They're viewed as completely as second class citizens. But it's also a true crime story within that, the story the solving of the spate of murders and who
was behind it, and then it's a human story. It's a romantic story in some cases where you have this dichotomy of like this man who appears to love his wife but at the same time is you know, embroiled in this plot, but by the way spoiler alert, embroiled in this plot in order to murder her and all of her relatives. It's excruciating, honestly, and I mean that in the best of terms for a movie where you
just feel so physically uncomfortable. When people have been asking me about how what it's like, I've been saying, it's like watching Shindler's List, where the first time you watch it, you know that you are watching a masterpiece.
You are very upset. How many times are you really going to watch it in your life? Probably not many, maybe three, maybe.
Four, Right, every time you guys need a reminder of just how horrible the Holocaust was, or you know, you're it's very rare that the stars aligned that you want to sit and you want to watch that movie and go through it again.
That's a lot what it was like for me. It was just so brutal and difficult to sit there.
And the thing is about the runtime of the movie is he's got enough time where you're in it, you know, you're feeling like the imagery of the osh people and how they're just being brutalized by the people around them and their senses of grief. You're in the lead actress
Lily Glass, and she's incredible. I mean, we're watching this woman agonize and get on the verge of death as she both is in love with her husband but then doesn't understand that she's being slowly murdered by him, and then the sheer evil of all the people around who are taking advantage of the situation. So just sitting and dwelling in that man, it is really uncomfortable. And look, that's the mark of a great filmmaker. But that's my
overall take. I think it's a great movie. I encourage everybody to go see it, and I really encourage people to read the book. It was one of the most popular books in the United States in the last decade. Everybody I know has read it, from people who usually only read fiction to people like me who read tons of books a year, and it's a great story.
The author, David Grant, is one of my favorites. He wrote Last City of Z, one of my favorite books.
Incredible.
He's a New Yorker staff writer heat man. That man knows storytelling more than anyone else I know. So anyway, that's my take for the YouTube search algorithm.
You now have my review. I want to hear the well and let's give him a little history too that no you do it. This is And I haven't seen the movie yet. I can't wait to see it. I've been like eagerly anticipating the moment. We're all have four hours and I don't know when that's going to be,
but I hope it's before it leaves the theater. But basically you had, so the situation you had is that the osage wind up on this massive reservation in Oklahoma, and then after that, so late eighteen nineties is when oil is discovered there, and the oil economy really starts blowing up in the late nineteenth century early twentieth century, and like the tech economy, it converts anybody who's in the right place at the right time into you know,
contemporary billionaires the equivalent of billionaires. And everywhere that you had oil discovered, particularly around Native American reservations, you'd see massive violence to try to displace them from their rights over that oil. Or if if it were let's say, poor white settlers, like in some ways it almost easier because at least the kind of osage had legal, kind of tribal uh, you know, contractual claims that courts and
Congress were willing to uphold. So that's why so much violence was needed, because you couldn't kind of go through the courts or buy them out or trick them so that in so it wasn't just the OSA, just so many other places you had to They just were then killed just to move them out of the way. And so, uh, it's kind of represented It's an amazing story in its own right, but it's representative of a bigger trend that we saw unfolding at that.
Oh, absolutely yeah.
And I think Scorsese takes immense length to how he even puts himself in the movie its plot twist.
Near the end in order to just try.
I think the key thing, based upon everything that I've read, is in the beginning, the script was a lot like the book.
The book is the story of the solving of these murders.
But the more that they went through it, they realized in this small scene between the husband and the wife was they were like, no, that's the core of the story is a love story. And through that love story in this screwed up way where this man loves his wife, but he's also exploiting his wife and he's trying to steal her money, he's trying to murder, he's complicit in the murders of her entire family.
Is the humanity and the inhumanity of that.
Is the story itself, and then you build the crime on top of it. And what he tried to do is he tried to show the humanity of the Osage Indians and at every turn the way that they were discriminated against and even in their riches that they were,
you know, humiliated. They were treated to second class by the government, by the law authorities, by all the men around them who were managing their money on their behalf, and basically just bloodsucking leeches that viewed them as viewed them as an avenue to get riches and not as fellow human beings. And I think he dwells and he spends a lot of time in that for good reason because by doing that, you know, the true crime part of it, it's great, it's a good it's a fun
detective story. I think Jesse Plemmons does a great job doing in that role. But I didn't even see him ttil two hours in, you know, and I'm I spent two hour I've spent a whole movie just sitting there and being like, oh my god, like this is horrible, and just watching this over and over again. And Leo, you know, Leo does his best when he's like likable playing dumb but also a real companion to evil. De Niro is like absolutely top tier in He's like ten
out of ten in his performance in this. I can't think of a single bad performance. It was a lot of interesting cameos. Jason isbel Is in there like he's the country singer makes a role. He does a pretty good job.
Actually.
I enjoyed his performance over over and over again. It just highlights this consistent theme of the oce age getting taken advantage of. And I think you did a good job of memorializing the story and just highlighting the immense injustice done to them as a people, not just you know, the story of this family is the story of the people,
and that's a great part of the book too. And it actually ends kind of it ends highlighting their plight what happened to them, but then their resilience through the last hundred years as well, holding onto their identity.
You buried the lead here. What about the aerostour, Oh, the Aras tours.
It's honestly the a I saw.
That with my bunch of neighborhood folks, brought a bunch of kids to.
I enjoyed it for that reason for people like your daughters, is that it was just really fun to watch these like eight year love Its just lose in mind.
I was like, you know what, this is adorable. I'm like, these kids are having so much fun.
I went because my fiance is like a massive Taylor swift fan, and so I was like, okay, you know, well we'll go and we'll check it out.
We didn't.
We didn't go to the concert, and so I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. I will say I thought it was too long. You know, it's too and it's funny because it was only it's an hour shorter than Killers of the Flower Moon. But the thing is is that if you're not one of those little girls who's getting up and who's dancing the entire time, you're just sitting watching a concert for two hours or forty five minutes and.
You're not participating in the concert.
And you know, I think if you were there, some of the parts of the show which dragged would have been fine.
I'm not a big ever more guy. Or what's the other one?
Folklore is that the album okay, there you go, see my music listening basically stopped like twenty sixteen.
So for me it was fun.
You know, you get to sing you Belong with Me and all the other ones that are like key parts of your child Field twenty two, all these of the songs from your young adulthood. But after a while, when you get to the songs that you don't necessarily know as well. You're not even participating in the crowd. You're just sitting in a movie theater. So for me, that's where really dragged. I never felt like Killers dragged at all, but I felt like a good portion of the Tailor Show dragged for me.
What did you think?
May I go forty five minutes?
I got up and danced because otherwise I wouldn't made it. Yeah, all right, that was Yeah, that was That's the way to get to get through it. And that made it like a deeply enjoyable experience. You're right, it's infectious to see the kids just having so much fun.
Even just sitting there watching these kids have fun, I had a good time. I mean just you know, these kids are like running back and forth and screams, waving around there, waving there and saying, you know these It was amazing to watch, and I think it did make me wish that I had gone to the concert, because again, you know, I'm like a casual fan when you put me up against some of these like swifty girls. But that doesn't mean, though that just being in that environment
isn't deeply infectious. So if you have kids, specifically little girls and they liked that swift. Definitely go go do it. It's it's totally worth your time.
My son, my son like twenty minutes and he's like, yeah, get me out of here, man, really, so you gotta dance, and he danced. Thing got into it all right.
I saw I think I saw two boys dancing. So yeah, there's something for everybody there if you want. All right, that was a good way on the show. It was actually fun to talk about something lighthearted for once. You guys are gonna have counterpoints tomorrow.
I want to have another plug Oh November twenty seventh, Crystal and I will be at Politics and Pros in DC, oh for my book The Squad, which is okay coming out around that time. So Crystal is gonna like do the Q and A thing that you do with the book talk.
So wow, big Politics and Pros Ryot's truly made it right in Washington. That is the mark of a true member of the establishment. We'll do a far more official announcement in promotion my friends, so don't worry, but people will put that on their calendars. It was always great to co host a show with you, Ryan, and we will see you all later.