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Indeed, we do, as has been the case, a lot to get into this morning. We're of course going to give you all of the updates from the ground in Gaza plans as Israel moves into what they're describing as the second phase of the wars. That will bring you everything that we know there. We also have a terrifying a mob swarming an airplane and an airport in Dagistan looking for any Jews on a plane coming in from Israel. Absolutely horrifying scenes, so we'll bring you everything that we
know about that. We've also got a big panic over the way that young people are getting their news on TikTok some interesting numbers there that we want to share for you. We've also got some updates on how the new Speaker may be thinking about potential Ukraine AID. Sounding a little different now that he is Speaker of the House than he was previously on the issue of Ukraine,
so we've got some thoughts on that one. We've also got some good news UAW winning another tentative agreement, this time with Stalantis that leaves only GM of the Big three remaining out. Of course, these agreements have to go to the membership to be voted in, but them winning
some significant concessions from those auto companies. And also excited to be joined by Leifong, who's been looking at the religious connection between the way the right in American particular, but also parts of the Democratic base view the relationship with Israel and how that impacts my politives.
I've been doing some great work. I'm excited to talk to him about.
Yeah. Absolutely been trying to get Lee on the show for a while, so excited to have him in today. But let's go ahead and start with the very latest on the ground in Gaza. A lot of things to update you on here. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. We can take a look at some of the images that are coming out. These were actually released by the IDEA. If you can see these tanks massing as we brought you over the weekend, more significant incursions into Gaza that is part of that phase two.
Now we can see some of the rubble here and destruction. This is a child being pulled out from underneath some of this rubble. This building that was bombed and collapsed. Horrifying scenes there. You also have here a rescue worker who is just completely breaking down. A member of the civil defense team. Similar seeing here you have paramedics, one of whom is trying to comfort a baby as best he can. He also ends up breaking down. Here you
see some of the desperation. These are people who are masked outside of a bakery waiting in long lines just in an attempt to try to get any sort of food to feed themselves, to feed their families. Of course, this is going on multiple weeks now of a complete siege. Very little in terms of food, water, medical aid, anything being let in. I just saw a stat about the number of pregnant women who are drinking brackish water and children. It is a horrifying situation there. We also have an
update for you on the death toll. Let's put this up on the screen. We have same number out of Israel, roughly fourteen hundred who have been killed there. We now have over eight thousand in Gaza who have been killed as part of Israel's war on that enclave, and the majority of these women and children. So it is just a horrific, horrific situation. We can also show you some additional scenes of desperation in terms of food and just being able to secure any sort of sustenance. Let's put
this up on the screen. This is people taking flower out of a un warehouse. This is in Conunis. That's in the southern part of Gaza where people people were told to flee. Now they have still faced bombings even in this part. This is one individual explaining we have no flower, no aid, no water, not even toilets. Our houses were destroyed. No one cares about us. We appeal to the people of the world. He says, all international powers are against us. We needed aid and we wouldn't
have done this if we were not in need. So Saary, you can see the way that civil society. You know the level of desperation here. Things are just completely breaking down. I'll tell you one thing that I saw that completely broke me. There's a whole hospital wards full of pre term babies who were cut out of their dead mother's stomachs and who are now you know, have to be on ventilators in you know, the equivalent of a nic you and these hospitals are running out of fuel. They're
also under right of potential imminent bombing. So you just can't overstate what a humanitarian disaster this is.
Now.
It's full scoiled disaster going on. Doesn't sound on any signs of abating so far. These Raelies are calling this just the fourth day of a quote extended military operation. It does seem when we brought broke down the tactics for everybody last show around if you did miss it our Saturday update, the TLDR is basically tanks have now
been inside of Gaza for last four days. It seems what people the is military strategy is to use the tanks for taking very minimal casualties at this time to try and encircle all of Gaza City, which they're saying is like the nexus of the Hamas terror attack, but also really of the militant organization itself at the same time saying that the residents should leave.
There has been prior to that.
We talked about the cutoff of electricity, of water, but also of telecommunications. Now we're going to get into that a little bit. But on the military side itself, what I think people need to understand is that there is
a big war also over information. One of the things that we really wanted to highlight Crystal for everyone was after the cutoff of Internet and of tailcommunications, the IDF spokespeople came out with a message in English to the residents of Gaza, and we especially wanted to flag this because it just highlights something about the information war that is waging online. And we've told you before, if something's coming out in English from Hamas or from Israel, it's
because they want you to hear it. This is one of the most blant examples. Let's plan take a listen, we'll talk about it on the other side.
Attention, citizens of Gaza, listen carefully. This is an urgent military advisory from the Israel Defense Forces for your immediate safety. We urge all residents of Northern Gaza and Gaza City to temporarily relocate SEUs. Let me repeat, we urge all residents of Northern Gaza and Gaza City to relocate south immediately. This is a temporary measure. Moving back to northern Gaza will be possible once the intense hostilities end. Ramas puts your life in danger by placing weapons and forces within
civilians area in Gaza, including schools, masques, and hospitals. The impending idea for pervasion is set to neutralize these threats of Ramas with precision and intensity.
So, of course, people in Gaza, I mean, I'm sure some do speak English, but I guess the predominant language is Arabic. But also people in Gaza were not going to be able to hear that because the Internet literally was cut off at the time that all of that came out. That was a very clear message to the West about like, hey, because the Biden administration has been heavily pressuring them like you need to minimize the visual civilian casualties. There's been a big war behind the scenes
of the administration over restoring telecommunications access. But also, I think the key the most thing that struck out to me, I'm curious what you thought was you will be allowed to return. So they are making they are trying to hammer home. They're like, listen, this is not going to be a permanent occupation. You will be able to come back. They are trying to message to the Arab world, to the Western world. You're like, this is not going to be some colonization project.
Now listen. Obviously we have no idea what things will look like.
But I took it as a major note that this is in English, that this was broadcast immediately afterwards.
It was obviously not about Gaza. It would have been more honest.
They are like, listening, Western world, here are our intentions, or here is what we are at least saying that we're going to be doing here. But pretty significant in terms of releasing it in English at that time, especially, that's really when some of the major international condemnation on the Arab side started to roll in from the Kingdom of Jordan, from Egypt and from Turkey as well, which we're going to talk about.
Well to show you just how blatant and cynical this was. Even the Pods save Bros. Were not impressed with this English language messaging. I don't normally quote Tommy Veeder on this show, but I'm going to he reposted that message from that English language message for all of us from the IDF and said, an urgent message for the residents of Gaza telling them to relocate from north to south, delivered in English after Israel cutoff Gaza's telecoms and internet networks.
Just a completely cynical pr move for Western audiences. And I saw, you know, a lot of folks who were saying the same, like this was lost on no one. This was clearly for us and for the Biden administration to try to show them like, look, we're doing everything we can, and a humanitarian is basically cover your ass for a Biden administration is effectively what it is now.
At the same time, a very different language and rhetoric coming from bb Net Yahoo about what this is all about and Sager you were mentioning, they're trying to reassure oh, of course you're going to be allowed home, et cetera, et cetera. At the same time Netanyahoo likening this to what Israeli's call their war of independence, what Palestinians call the Nakba, the catastrophe in which they originally seven hundred
and fifty thousand lost their homes. So I doubt there's a single Palestinian who really truly trusts or believes that they're going to be allowed to come back home. Now, we don't know what the future holds, although we ca that in a moment there are some increasing signs of what the plans actually look like. But let's take a listen to what Yahoo was saying about this and the very existential and once again religious terms that he is framing this conflict, and take a listen.
You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that has started three thousand years ago, from Joshua Benon until the heroes of a nineteen forty eight, the Six Day War, the seventy three October War, and all other wars in this country.
Our hero troops, they have.
One supreme main goal to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country. We've always said never again, never again is now.
So I'm learning more about the Bible in this kind.
I also ask a Hebrew or a Jewish friend of mine to explain this.
Well, I asked Wikipedia to explain this to me. Here's what Wikipedia says, for what it's worth. They say because the reference to Amelek here in Judaism, three of the six hundred and thirteen Mits voter commandments involve Amelek, to remember what the Amelek Guites did to the Israelites, not to forget what they did to the Israelites, and to
destroy the Amelek utterly. The specific quote is, now, go and smite Amelek and utterly destroy all that they have, spare them, not but slay both man and woman, infant
and suckling ox and sheep, camel and ass. So when he's talking about Amelek here, which is like the you know, historic foe, like the quintessential enemy of the Jewish people, the specific language that they're referring to here talks about destroying not just them, but everything their ox and their sheep, their infants, their children, everything and everyone associated with it.
Yeah, that is why again it is very important to try and understand what The message in Hebrew is also in Antayahu. The coalition that he has to deal with the Altra Orthodox and the Orthodox Jews as well. That is a message that they directly or not only relate to. They probably were already thinking it. So to see him say it and to resonate with it is going to be powerful for the domestic constituency he's speaking to. Let's actually put this up there on the screen because we
want to dig into some of the maps. The economists actually did a pretty good job, and let's keep this up here, please, because it shows you the shaded area of the so called evacuation zone, but also the various tactics of the Israeli plans to try and to encircle Hamas. So we had an incursion that was up in the north for those who are watching, but also a simultaneous
one from the south. The plan, as I said, is to try and encircle Gaza City, which is right in the middle of all of that, and with the c blockade that they also have going on, it's to try and squeeze all of the militant elements into a single area, which obviously makes it easier for air strikes, but also concentrates your enemy, and that is where the majority in the bulk of the fighting will remain.
Now.
The IDF prior to the first day when they said they had only taken they had taken no casualties, they've taken some casualties. They're not releasing the official number, but the official number of IDF dead, you know, does remain in the hundreds now at this point, and every once in a while they're adding one or two or three to that. Now we don't know because they could also be killed in with military operations in the north against Hesbolah.
Prior to that about five had been killed previously.
They're not giving us all the details, but you know, once we do start to see casualties, that comes with some video which is beginning to come out of Gaza Crystal of there are ground troops that are there now. Again, they're not engaged in the heavy hand to hand combat yet that we do expect if there is some sort of like final matchup, but military operation.
Yeah.
Fine, it's difficult to always talk about this and without video game reference, I guess the point just being that everything right now is about encircling. There's a lot of use of tanks, preparing everything with air strikes, and the big big battle, if there is one to come, still remains quote months away according to the Israelis, and that
might be part of their battle plan. Again though that may not have never materialized simply because of international pressure, or you know, they may just want to say this is the actual quote unquote invasion, pull out and then deal with some diplomatics solution.
We don't know what the end stage of this is going to look like.
We certainly don't. We are getting more indications. We also have this which is reference in the economists piece laying out, you know, their best analysis of what the Israelis plans are at this point. You also had the former Prime Minister enough Tully Bennett with a long thread on Twitter. Now this is we have the Hebrew translated via Google, so you know this is their translation for what it's worth. But let's go and put this up on the Scare.
I'm not going to read all of this obviously because it's way too long, but just to give you a sense of what he claims is the guy as a siege plan, he says that they want to surprise and not go deep into the Gaza strip as Hamas expects us to do, but to impose a complete siege on the north of the Gaza Strip, dry up and suffocate the Hamas terrace in the tunnels until they are forced
to leave. So the idea being, all right, we're going to deny them any fuel that is going to make it so that you know, they're ventilators and lights in the tunnels, they are not able to sustain and they are sort of forced out of their holes. He also says they want to create a new security strip two kilometers deep into the territory of the Strip along our entire border, a permanent strip. This is through the use
of massive firepower and ground forces and engineering. Imagine bulldozers simply leveling that area number three continuously use firepower on Hamas all over the strip. Israel conducts a continuous series of targeted ground operations with enormous firepower to separate neighborhood from neighborhood from Hamas. There's no need to hunt down every hamasnik in whole and tonn for the residence of Gaza State in the southern half of the strip or
outside the strip. Outside the strip until the end of the war, when Hamas disarms you knowilaterally, and releases all the hostages, this of course, according to international law, to preserve their lives, Okay. And then the last piece here and again this was a lengthy thread. I'm only rating pieces of it, but I thought this part at the end was very noteworthy. A sustainable political line of defense.
In other words, this is what we're going to present to the world to try to avoid World War three and try to keep the American opprobrium at a minimum until the Israelis return home. Neither will the Gazans return home. Everyone is going home together Israeli hostages or returning home to Israel. Families from the Gaza enclave will return only with the disappearance of Hamas. Residents of Gaza will also be able to return because the war is over and
the danger to their lives has passed. So I mean effectively what he is out and not saying there is we are going to hold the citizens of Gaza hostage, we achieve our war aims and get our own hostages back.
Now.
Left un set, of course, is the fact that this you know, intense firepower that they're describing is going to kill some of their own hostages, put their own hostages at severe risk. And the other thing I would say, Cyber is just you know, to try to imagine as best we can an unimaginable situation to be in the place of the Palestinians and looking at all of this unfold, You've got the Israelis talking about the war of Independence, which again, as I said, you know, Palestinians think of
as the Nakba. You have them being forced already out of you know, more than a million displaced out of their homes in the North, and at the same time you have increased settler violence in the West Bank, murdering. There was a young olive farmer who was you know, out harvesting his olives, doing nothing wrong, who was murdered by settlers and increased efforts to push them off their
land as well. So if you're looking at all of this as a Palestinian and you're not thinking, oh, they're going to let me go back to my homes, you're thinking this is another knock. But that's what they have planned.
Well especially I mean, look, I don't know what they have.
Does enough Tilly benn In hold power, I don't know, you know, does he speak for the Israeli government.
Is he just a guy who's posting.
I mean, I find it a little hard to believe that the Foreign Prime Minister. I mean, imagine if the middle of a you know, a former president who was involved in American politics who put out a long policy statement, like obviously the rest of the world would be forced to take that seriously.
So that's the level that I would look at this.
I mean, if you look at this, you're basically talking about collective punishment. You're talking about the establishment of some sort of two kilometer zone. I actually do think this is where we're going to end up. Just the reality of the fighting. Where he talks about no need to
fight them in the tunnels or any of that. They are effectively talking about establishing like a massive DMZ, like some sort of North Korean style DMZ, with a fence where they currently are, but then a two kilometer like free fire zone, think of like the Berlin Wall or you know, West Berlin and East Berlin with some sort of gap in between that's like heavily militarized and land mind and that is it seems to me, you know, based upon this, that's what jumped out the most that
they're going to go in, they're going to clear they're going to have some sort of you know thing.
But in terms of destroying Hamas.
It's clear even in what he says, well, whenever he says there's no need for us to fight them, it's like, well, if that's true, then you're not going to destroy the organize.
It's not possible.
How are you really going to destroy this militant or like what you think they're just going to surrender, Like they're not going to surrender.
And look in terms of.
The population and all that, I don't know, and you know, everyone's like, oh, well, they could rise up at this point. You know, we from the video that we played, they're most the basic threes like the food, shelter, water, That's what they're worrying about. They're not thinking about the political you know, construction. At this point, there probably is no even real government in Gaza anymore. You know, Mamas is off fighting, the people are basically left to survive, and
everybody else is just trying to do their best. So this to me actually does read like what the real plan may be. And if that is, I mean the long term prospect of you know, of minimizing violence here, I mean, I just don't see a political sustainability to create some sort of massive DMZ which would require you know, raising all these towns and all this ground.
I don't.
I don't really see the Arab world just sitting by and taking that and the interim, you know, even while any of that is constructed, as they keep saying, it's going to take months and months and months. Every day that goes by is a loss of public confidence for a lot of people in Israel, especially again in the world, and also increases tensions in the likelihood of the United States is going to get involved, which is ultimately what I
honestly care about the most. So looking at this, I think that the explains also why the Biden administration is absolutely losing it behind the scenes, because they're like we They're like, we cannot co sign this. So like this is not fits in any way with the official US policy of a two state solution and of a political sustainability. They're like, this is not politically acceptable really to us
at all. But that's part of the problem is there is real there's no there is really no I think like there is no shared goal right now between the Biden administration and the Israeli government, and I don't see there being for a long time.
Yeah, but that may be true. But you also have the Biden administration stating very clearly publicly, we're not going to actually do anything. Yeah, So they're just like having you know, difficult conversations behind the scenes with net Nyaho,
et cetera. I mean, he's nen Yahoo is balancing the fact that his political ass is on the line, you know if and he's trying to push off as long as he can any inquiry into the failures that led to October seventh, including his own admitted bolstering of Hamas over the years, because you know, while we sort of never gave up on this fiction in the US that there was some sort of peace process ongoing and that we were building towards one day having a two state solution,
that has never been the policy of net Nya. I mean, this is this is not me like reading the tea lease. This is overtly what he says. He does not want a two state solution, He does not want peace. He wanted to be able to manage the boil and keep it at a low boil in terms of their occupation and their blockade and that was the idea of like, okay, well,
bolster Hamas because they're the radicals. You know, everyone will understand we can't possibly have a piece deal with them, and you know, to try to minimize and undercut the more moderate Palestinian authority. So you have that piece, You have the fact that you know he is trying to somewhat balance or at least give the US some sort of cover as he watches protests rise not only here but around the world. You also have his you know, extremist parts of his coalition and a significant part of
Israeli society by the way. That is, of course, they're all absolutely furious and there is this deep desire for vengeance. So he has to show enough of a tough response
and you know, enough brutality to satisfy that piece. But also you know, there's a real possibility that Israeli public opinion turns against a ground invasion if you're taking signific losses in terms of Israeli IDF forces, and you already have seen a huge public opinion shift out of concern for the hostages who are being held inside of Gaza. You've had a huge drop in support for a full
on ground invasion. So those are some of the political things that he is weigh and of course the lives of millions of Palestinians hang in the balance with all of this I just mentioned, you know, the rising protests around the world, including there's a big march plan for DC coming up this weekend. Well, there was a massive rally in Turkey led by Erdawan. Let's go and put this up on the screen. I mean some of these scenes. Look at that they're waving Turkish flags and Palestinian flags.
Huge rally and Erdawan, who is an Islamist, trying to to use the Palestinian cause in order to bolster his own previously rather precarious political position. But he's using extremely belicose rhetoric here. He says accurately that Israel is committing war crimes, but he also directly floats a possible war with Israel, something that this crowd seemed to be very
supportive of. He said, according to translations, quote, Israel has been openly committing war crimes for twenty two days, but the Western leaders cannot even call on Israel for a ceasefire, let alone react to it. We will tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal. We are making preparations for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal. And as I said, there were some direct sort of
beating of the drums of possibly getting involved here. Turkey has a very real, very sizable military, is obviously a NATO ally, which is also significant here as well, and Israel in response has withdrawn all of their diplematic personnel from the country.
Yeah.
I mean, the most important thing to understand about this with Erdowan is that prior to Erdowan's regime, the government in Turkey was much more secular. Airedowan of course awoke a lot of the Islamist elements inside of Turkey, and that is where his ruling coalition really comes from. So to this is such an emotional issue and strikes at the heart for a lot of Muslims all across the Arab world. A lot of leaders have used that to their advantage and used the Palestinians as ponds. But that's
like a second kind of piece of commentary there. In terms of this, Turkey, as you mentioned, of course has a very very world class military, but at the same time they're a NATO ally. So to have the fracture inside of NATO over an issue like this, and also pressure from them on the West. It also raises the question of whether they would use this issue as some sort of croux or like a wedge in future NATO negotiations. Airedwan certainly would not be above that He's done it
for his own domestic political purposes. So anyway, I'm looking at that, and I just see that as one of the most significant elements about the powers in the region. The Egyptians, of course, are going to go, you know, in whatever direction that CC wants. The Jordanians are basically boxed in to go on the Palestinian side.
Much of the Arab world itself, they.
Don't necessarily want to deal with this, but they know that their populations are very activated by it. Have the Turks, you know, come out so forcefully, and to see all those people out in the streets all across the country, that's a very very significant development.
Yeah, And of course, I mean the utter brutality of the images that are coming out are only going to inflame those tensions. And also, you know the language that we played you before from Natan Yahoo like overtly flit framing this as a sectarian religious conflict doesn't help, and you know we're already seeing like mob violence.
Yeah, get to that, right.
I mean I mentioned the what happened at the airport. We're going to show you those images. There were also far right Jewish extremists that were chanting death to Arabs and surrounding a college dorm inside of Israel that was housing some Arab students. I mean, when you frame things as this religious holy word sectarian violence, you know, these are the sorts of reactions that you get because then you're not separating out. These are the combatants. This is
a political dispute, this is how we're going to handle it. No, then anyone who is of that religion becomes your enemy. So it is an absolute horror. As we've been discussing, you know, I sort of get irritated. There's all these leaks, the Washing Posts, New York Times, whatever about us is so concerned by him in the scenes, and they're talking to that Yahoo and they're trying to pressure them please
turn the Internet back on, et cetera. Again, not willing to actually use any of the considerable power and leverage that we have in the situation. But you know they're going to ask some tough questions behind the scenes and leak it to the press. Here was John Kirby getting asked publicly, is the US setting any red lines for Israel? And he gives an unequivocal note, take a listen.
You've said you'd.
Asked them tough quessure.
But has a US set or discussed any possible red lines? Nop.
So there you go, no, no red lines whatsoever. You know, there's already, like with collective punishment, with the siege that's in place on the two point two million civilians. You cannot argue that there's not already collective punishment and international law being violated here. So you know, they're saying publicly, at least we're fine with this. And he also said something very similar to reporters indicating that you know they had not actually heart set any hard red lines for
Israel at this point. At the same time, we've got a meeting from a high level Saudi official that happens to coincide with this time here. Apparently this was already previously planned, but still very noteworthy that this is happening. God, and put this up on the screen. So you've heard of MBS. This is KBS Saudi Defense Minister Khalid Ben Solomon is expected to visit DC today for talks with
senior Biden administration officials. This is according to Axios. Why it matters The visit has long been scheduled, the sources said, but it will take place just days after Israel expanded its ground operation in Gaza and offensive ri Odd condemn and on Saturday. Also comes as the US and Saudi Arabia express concerns that the fighting between Israel and Himas could widen into a regional war. He's expected to meet with Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin, Tony Blincoln, and several senators.
According to this report, It's interesting I keep coming back to this news item about how the Saudi government told the propagandists. They're like, hey, They're like, we need to chill on any issues out coming from Palestine. All these images, all of the babies, the stuff that we're playing. A lot of people inside Saudi Arabia. If they are getting it, it's not at the encouragement of the government. And I think what people again need to understand is the populations there.
You know, they don't have a lot of power, but if they all coalesce around one thing and they decide that government's not doing enough, then the Saudi royal family is going to feel as if they are in trouble. They don't care about the quote unquote Islamist. They struck this deal. You can go and read about it, you know, if you're interested. Back in the nineteen seventies, they let the Islamist do whatever they want because they pay them.
But in exchange, you don't question it.
Whenever they get to party on yachts and drink champagne, and that's the deal.
That's how it's been.
For a long time with this this type of stuff though, anything with ethno religious tones, like specifically with the Palestinians, that is a major threat to their regime because they're gonna be viewed as weak by their own population and they could possibly, you know, have some sort of Ilmus takeover. So that is the main motivation for them. They don't care about the Palestinians at all, but when they're coming here, they're basically and this has been communicated you know, in
all the leaks that are happening behind the scenes. They're like, if you guys do not put pressure on these Raelis, we are going to be forced to do something. Now we don't know what that's something it looks like. And that's the main reason I think why we keep getting all these leaks crystal like this one we could put up there on the screen. We basically it's like we read this every day now. White House preps for broader war as concerns rise. And again it's just like the Ukrainians.
It's like, well, we wish they wouldn't use the missiles in Russia.
But what can you do.
I'm like, well, you could stop giving it to them, and they're like, oh no, that would be too crazy. They specifically cite the Saudi Defense minister coming on Monday. They also cite all of these calls going on behind the scenes between the Secretary of Defense and the Israeli Defense Minister about the Israeli Intelligence services quote which they say believe that Hezbolah will increase the intensity of its attacks against Israel on its northern border because of the
Israeli ground operation inside of Gaza. Israeli officials think hezbola will try to escalate without leading to an all out war that could easily get out of control. But I mean, just think about the gray line that that is it's like, oh, well, we're going to escalate right up.
To the line. Well, who knows.
We've already seen multiple instances of failures. We've seen, you know, Israeli bombs go off of target and kill a bunch of civilians. We saw the Israelis accidentally fire at the Egyptians. It only takes one you know, it takes one missile to go one wrong way and kill the wrong person. And now you're in a full blown war and you don't even know what the hell happened before that even occurred. So behind the scenes, it's very clear that the West
wing is freaking out. I mean, we brought you everybody the news on Saturday about the White House was like, hey, just call off the invasion.
They're like, don't do a full scale ground invasion.
Just do what we did in Iraq, like joint surgical operations, special forces. But what you guys are about to do, you know, we really don't want you to do it. But then they did it anyway, or at least the tanks are going in. You know, there's a lot of negotiations going on behind the scenes, and every statement now from the White House Crystal is basically like, you know, we need to respect humanitarian law, we need to respect civilians.
And even it's not about even at this point, like, of course they're not going to change anything in terms of actual policy, but the fact that they keep saying it over and over again is also just an indication of how worried they are about spiraling of escalation.
Absolutely, and it should be Yeah, they're worried about that. They're very worried about you know, public opinion here, which is already shifting, and you know the view of younger generations on this conflict is very different from older generations. And guess what, young people are a critical part of
the democratic coalition. So I wish I could say like, oh, they're really concerned about the babies on the incubators and the kids being pulled out into the rubble, But let's be honest, like the concern is political, and the concern also has to do if they're not fools, they know what war with a run would be and that it would be an utter catastrophe and complete nightmare. So you know,
that's why we keep getting these reports. Again this is more of the handwringing, like, oh, we're so worried about what they're doing. But you know, we're not going to draw any red lines or actually do anything. Have you
seen Sager? There's this video that came out that's been confirmed of a net Yahoo from It was from many years ago, like probably twenty years ago, when he thought that the mics and the cameras were off, and he gets asked about, you know, how to deal with the Palestinian issue, and he's talking about how you go and you hit them hard, and someone asked him like, well, aren't you worried about them? What the Americans are?
Oh I've seen this, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's like, oh, well, I understand how Americans.
America is easy.
He's yeah, it's basically like they're very easy to persuade and very easy to maneuver. So basically he's like, now they give us cart launch and they're always going to and you know what, he's been one hundred percent correct. Just to show you how serious this is and it's not just leaks to axios. Take a look at the military assets which you're moving. Put this up on the screen.
We've got this graphic here twenty four hours of US and Allied transport aircraft moving from the continental US to the Eastern Mediterranean scentcom including both US and the UK transports. So you can see a lot of activity here. And this person says as far from a complete list does not include tankers or other types of aircraft. So we already knew about the carrier groups that had moved to the region. This also shows you some of the air
assets that have moved to the region. Now, they would probably say, oh, this is part of deterrence, we're trying to avoid this wider conflict. But you know, there's also this fine line between deterrence and provocation. And you know, anytime you see this amount of military firepower moving to one region, you have to ask what is this leading towards?
And you one thing that really from this particular Axios report that we had up one line Zaga that really stuck with me is they had an official who said they continue to believe that diplomacy and Biden's experience can still help prevent worst case scenarios. However, they think that the most pessimistic outcome is the most likely outcome.
Oh, I absolutely I agree with that too.
I mean, I just I like to think of things in terms of systems, think about the American political system as it is current, not as we wish, as it is currently constructed. There is no scenario where Joe Biden is going to do anything to constrain Israeli military operations without freaking out the entire Democratic Republican establishment. He'd probably be censured by his own party, and it would be you know, it would be interesting if he were to do it, but he's.
Not going to do it. He doesn't have that kind of courage.
He's only displayed it one time in his life with Afghanistan took such a beating He's probably never going to do it again. And this is ten x more powerful in terms of that lobby. Then think about the Israeli
political system. How can anyone in the Israeli political system at this current moment, especially a guy named Bibe Nathaniel who the day the military operation stops, he is going to get destroyed for allowing this to happen and for splitting the country apart where already the security apparatus and everybody was allied against him. It's in his direct interest to keep this thing going as long as possible. And
then let's think about Hamasa's political interest. They didn't launch this attack because you know, they were afraid of retaliation.
They want They're like Bin Lauded.
They want Israel to come in and blow the shit out of Gaza because that helps increase the war. They want the war. The war is good for them. And so all three systems each one. There is no exerting pressure that can keep us away from that. And look, the most pessimistic outcome is the most likely. It's he should always and I wish it were different. We're gonna
sit here. We've given so many alternative viewpoints on this, but like we cannot pretend that these viewpoints have any power in Washington.
At the current moment.
The only good thing I guess you could say about crisis is things move very very quickly. So two weeks from that, who the hell knows what kind of world that we are living in. And sometimes discourse is much more relevant. But as things stand right now, I don't see a single off ramp on this entire thing.
I really don't.
Yeah, that is certainly what it looks like.
In just a sign that this conflict is having international implications. There are horrific scenes coming out of Dagistan in Russia. Let's go ahead and play some of this video that has come out. This is from an airport, as I said, in Dagistan. It's actually in southern Dagistan where a full fledged riot broke out after some leaked reports on telegram informed the population that some passengers may be arriving at the airport from Israel and so therefore might be Jewish.
A full fledged and I don't think you really.
Call it anything else, basically attempted pogrom broke out here. You have an instance where one of the individuals was pulled off of the plane and they're asking questions and they're like, you have to wait here until we make a decision. He's trying to tell these people, He's like, I'm not Jewish, I'm not from Israel.
I'm freaking Uzbek.
He's an Uzbekistani or was an Uzbek resident coming to Dagistan. For those who don't understand Dagistan, we were trying to talk about the way to contextualize it. Most Americans probably first heard of it after the Boston bombing. Those two brothers,
the Zarnaya brothers, were both Dagistani. You might have heard their citizens are very very good and the UFC, but Dagistan is a very interesting place, and even in saying it's Russia is like it kind of it's part of Russia, but it's kind of one of those areas with a very distinct ethnic history, long been part of the Russian Empire, but heavily Islamic population, very very fundamentalist, especially in recent times.
They kind of have a daytant piece with the Moscow government, but the governmental structure is very similar to like Chechhnia where they have like armed warlords and all of that, but they're allied with the Kremlin.
They get to do what they want.
Moscow only troubles them if they start embarrassing them or doing terrorism, you know, like this. I'm sure you can expect a full scale crackdown after this one. So currently twenty people, including police officers, were injured. I mean, the crazy part of it really is just that they completely stormed the airport. Security authorities were totally overwhelmed almost immediately. The Kremlin spokesperson said on Monday that this they blamed
quote outside interference for the riots. Crystal We have some information on that and they socided though no evidence to that. However, they are saying that this is quote Western attempts to use the events in the Middle East to sow discord in Russian society, but unfortunately it highlights one of the ugliest things about the Russian Empire for historically, which is it is the site of some of the worst pogroms
against Jews in all of history. If you meet Americans, especially Jewish Americans whose roots go back to the nineteen hundreds, nine out of ten times, including many good friends of mine, their families were fleeing pograms in Poland and Ukraine and Dagistan all across this.
You know, Dagistan in particular, they used to.
Have a pretty thriving Jewish population, gone just completely driven out. Israel actually has many Russians who came to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union just because they'd experienced such horrific anti Semitism. So this is a very very ugly thing that the world.
Is getting to view.
I mean, you know, from someone like me and many others like you read about these things, you know, the pograma of nineteen oh six or whatever. But it's like when you see something like this just break out, it's a horrible reminder of what ethnic straight up ethnic violence looks like and every time you do, it's just like the most hideous and ugly thing. You know, imagine searching passengers to see if they're Jewish, to try and kill them.
That's what they want. They wanted to lynch them.
It is I mean, there are no words for it. It's really just unbelievable to watch that mob mentality take hold and you know, searching through the airport and surrounding the plane and searching the passengers for passport and this was ongoing for hours, complete insanity. You're talking a little bit about Dagistan. I was trying to also get some context from our friend Yegor about this. I mean, basically, the idea is like, this is a relatively poor region.
It's actually very beautiful on the Casmian Z, but relatively poor and you know, poor in the context of Russia, which is much poorer than in the context of the United States, very religious and very conservative. So that's effectively you know, fundamentalists who are storming this plane and inciting these mobs and this riot. It's also worth noting that Dagistan was actually the only region in Russia that really
violently protested against conscription. To be involved in the Ukrainian War, and because of that, there were all of these sort of like information operations coming from the Ukrainian side to try to sew that discontent and make the most of it. And so when they're saying, oh, this was like Western influence, that's what they're talking about. And I'll read to you from the New York Times what they've been able to suss out about the origin of these calls, Because a
mom doesn't just appear out of nowhere. They were following directions and instructions and information about Hey, this plane from Israel's landing here and here's what you should go and do. So local authorities in Dagistan blamed extremist outlets administered by Russian enemies for inciting the unrest. Some of the protests were supported by a telegram channel linked to a former Russian lawmaker, Iliya Panamaryov, who had fled to Ukraine and
has become a staunchly anti Kremlin politician. He basically fled because he was under in trouble for corruption, etc. So goes to Ukraine has been helping out the Ukrainians with these efforts to sow discontent within Russia. Plans to catch the passengers of the incoming flight were shared on that telegram channel associated with that dude, along with screenshots of the flight schedule on Saturday and Sunday. Local religious figures
in the North Caucuses have condemned the clashes. But so that's the connection that they're pointing to, is that the guy who's an anti Kremlin dissident who works with the Ukrainian government, it was a telegram channel affiliated with him that basically like stoked and helped us spark this mob violence.
Wow inside Ukraine. Huh, what's that about? Interesting?
Just telling you what the New York Times is reporting.
Don't blame us for reporting that, but you know, look, it illustrates something which we were able to talk about eventually for in a mainstream conversation. There is a lot of Nazi affiliated anti Semitism inside of the former Soviet Union and they find themselves I guess, temporary allies, which straight up Islamic fundamentalists in places like Dagistan. And it's so deeply disturbing, and it highlights the absolute worst of
Russian history of state sponsored pograms of Jewish residents. So I know a lot of people, a lot of Jews were just absolutely shocked and I think really traumatized because and I saw many people saying, you know, my great great grandfather was killed in a pug ram in Ukraine or in what was at the time the Russian Empire, and this is you know, just gives me a flashback to what that is like.
And I honestly cannot imagine.
I just think it is so horrifying to watch the Russian authorities almost certainly going to crack that crackdown.
That is one thing we should talk about.
Everyone was interpreting this to like, oh, if this was an anti Ukraine protest or Ukraine war protests, they would have immediately done something. I'm like, I am not reading this as state sponsored, Like I'm reading this as the Dagastani's got out of control and now they've embarrassed the entire nation of Russia and they are about to have the wrath of the Kremlin and Moscow brought down upon them. Yeah, for humiliating them in the eyes of the world.
I don't really see an interest that serves the Russian government. I mean, listen, maybe somebody can make the case for me, but I don't see I know, the Russian interest that they would have.
They are antismatic, I mean mostly the very Greek Orthodox or the Russian Orthodox, and very Orthodox like in an exclusionary Jews in Russia have never been fully accepted as citizens despite their propaganda purposes. So it's one of those
where it's been simmering below the surface. But something like this is very, very ugly, and we also wanted to highlight, you know, some other ethnic tension and violence, which again, this really connects back to what we started our a bloc with, which is unfortunately, the more that this is framed as some sort of religious holy war, people in those religions are going to basically heed that call into.
Treat much like it's a freaking religious holy war.
And to give an example, let's put this one up there on the screen. This was happening outside of Netanya Natanya College, which is a dorm in Jerusalem that was housing Arab students and some very hard right you know Israeli citizens gathered outside and started chanting, you know, death to Arabs and the protesters. They claim that the Arab students had disrupted their prayers at a Hubbad synagogue by
hurling exit worshippers and playing loud Arab music. In the evening, they decided that they were going to take retaliation and say that they were going to gather around that the authorities had to break up all of this, and you know, allegations about eggs being thrown and all this. But you know, this is the simmering hatred that has been now in Jerusalem for quite some time, and then the war and the backdrop of that is making things so much worse.
I don't know, I just I really feel despair. You know, we've talked about last time around about the most pessimistic solution, the most pessimic outcome is the most likely, and this is a key part of that. It was one of the worst periods of the Iraq War. Was not just
watching American soldiers, you know, die for basically nothing. It's was really to watch the full scale outbreak of sectarian conflict, of Sunnis and Shida's like killing each other in the streets and some of the most savage and horrific waves possible. And now you know, you're watching this and you can only think, if this is really operation last months and then whatever the how the political fallout on all that is going to look like, how many more scenes are
we gonna we're going to see like this? You know, people deserve to be safe wherever they are, and it's just it's really horrible to watch.
I was struck by what we interviewed. The host of The Martyr made podcast, long podcast about the history of Zionism, the history of this conflict. You know, very in depth, very thoughtfully done, and I know a lot of you all appreciate that interview that we did, as I did. He wrote in response to what happened in Dagistan, this is disgusting. It is also an example of why Israel must find a way to make peace and resolve the
Palestinian conflict. Prior Israeli governments worked hard along with their Palestinian authority counterparts for peace. But Laku, that's net Nyahu's party, has shown no more interest in peace than Hamas net Nyahu stated openly, he prefers to keep the conflict at a low boil while settlers continue to occupy the West
Bank to make a two state solution impossible. This is not to say, because I know some are already typing this response, that Israel is to blame for incidents like this, But incidents like that will never stop unless there is a just peace with the Palestinians. The Israeli government has an obligation not only to its own citizens, but to Jews around the world to stop pursuing a policy that can only intensify hatred and conflict. There is no way to fix this with bullets. And you know, I think
that is very carefully worded and true. I mean, these sorts of horrors beget more horrors, and that's the unfortunate reality of human nature of world history. I mean, how many times we have to see this play out and what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza right now, Let's be honest, this is not going to make Israelis or Jewish people around the world safer, if anything, and not just if anything, very likely if not, you know,
totally one hundred percent reality. They are sowing the seeds of more radicalism, They are creating more terrorists, and Yaho, especially with his sectarian Holy War language, is making horrific mob scenes like this much more likely to unfold around the world. So this is the sort of stuff that we're that they're playing with here, and I think, you know, Daryl also did a great job of talking about the fact that at its core, this isn't a religious comp
it's a conflict over land. It's a political conflict over land. However, when you overlay it with religious justification, when you're talking about where the people of the light and they're the people of the darkness, the you know, direct quote from Netanyahu of how he's framing this conflict, think of what sort of things that justifies. And this is something we'll
talk to Lefong about today too. When you believe God is on your side, when you believe your actions must be righteous because they are coming out of your religious context, and you know, when you have a lot of fundamentalists on both sides of this, this is how these things can spiral completely out of control. And so when I see what happened at that airport, I think that is the tiniest glimpse of where we could ultimately end up with these things. Spirally.
Yeah, it's very important. And look know what he's saying.
It's like, oh, they do this, and this is you know, this is just no one's justifying anything.
But we live in reality.
We know that these types of things are only more likely to occur as the violence escalates, and you know that is a real uh that is really sobering as always, just to be reminded of what that looks like.
And I think it's it's really unfortunate. I think it's.
Horrible, and I really hope that we don't see any more of it, and yet stealing. I think we should all steal ourselves for the unfortunate reality that we'll probably see you.
Indeed, all right, let's turn to We've talked a lot about the like information landscape, which is a really important part of this war, and all wars put this up on the screen. This was interesting for a variety of reasons. Okay, so this guy Jeff Morris Junior, who I'd never heard of before, but he's apparently like a tech executive former Tender exactly. You want to like, is there any other context?
Oh no, Yeah, we're gonna say he's a he's a tech guy, used to work at Tender.
That's how I know him.
And he's very you know, israelly sympathetic here. So he started taking a look at the data on TikTok to see what was going on because he's observing like, oh, young people have very different view of this conflict than older generations, so they get their information, you know, largely on TikTok. What's going on here? So he says, I looked at the data, saw that Israel is losing the TikTok war by a long shot. As an example, the top hashtag is three billion views for Palestine versus two
hundred million views for Israel. If you look at the other hashtags, it is clear Israel has a distribution issue. Now, I would personally say Israel has probably some other issues than just distribution. But it was interesting the concern here that what was really to blame for the generational divide was the TikTok algorithm and the concern that I mean listen for a long time, for many years, just lockstep support for Israel, no matter what they did, was the
bipartisan standard in Washington. It was what you got out of every single American media outlet, certainly on cable news, et cetera. And so this is a bit of a panic around the fact that there are these other platforms and other ways that people are getting their information that don't line up with the way the ADL guy would say, like getting the story right as they see.
I think it's a generational in the sense that people did not come up in the same not even in the same information area. But I think that the biggest reality is at our age, you have never really known a time of war. The most you know, the thing the day I remember earliest from my youth is nine to eleven. So basically, like crystal memory on forward is just war, war, war, war.
War, war.
And when you have that, you were going to come at things from a very very different perspective than a lot of people who for them, nine to eleven was something that came in the context of they remember the Great Peace and winning the Cold War and all this other things that are foundational to their memory of like
America as is trying great power. They think of Israel probably much more in that context of the older times, and they may even think of it, you know, with the the Intafada and PLO and Arafat, and also just the way that you think about these things is very different as opposed to let's say someone you're my age, I mean Gaza and the Hamas situation going on for fifteen years. That's pretty much all I know. I don't really remember a time pre Hamas. Most people don't either,
who are right, especially younger. If you're really younger, say you're twenty one nineteen, that's quite literally the vast majority of your lifetime, and it's especially highlighted. Let's put this on the screen, you know, the CNN poll. This is going really viral, but it does show you, at sixty five years old and above, Israel's military response is fully justified. They say eighty one percent, fifty to sixty four, fifty six percent, thirty five to forty nine, forty four percent,
eighteen to thirty four is only twenty seven percent. And I really believe that that comes from a place of war wariness more than anything. I've seen a lot of people be like and you know, including and look, I don't know Jeff, well, you know, I talked to him maybe once or twice. I'm assuming like this is someone who supports Israel and then is like, well, what is
happening here? I would just really urge everyone for look with the TikTok algorithm, and you guys know, I would ban TikTok if I could, but it's not for reasons like this. It's for much bigger, like national security reasons about America owning this company. What does everybody tell you about the TikTok algorithm, what is it best at? It
serves you what you already want. It's not like it's being created out of thin air, so that these people are ingesting his content and are sharing it around and are finding it compelling, which is very counter narrative, And it's not because it's being forced in front of them. Now, maybe if you can find out a case for why that it is, I would absolutely be willing to, you know, to learn and listen to it. But I suspect that
that's really not the case here. I just think, based upon swimming in a very different media environment like our show, and just you know, in general, like keeping my finger on the pulse, I think we're living in.
Two separate worlds.
There are people who are on like establishment Twitter and on a cable and who are reading the papers, and then there.
Are people like us who are swimming in the Internet.
And if you're in the Internet, you have no choice but to engage with a lot of facts and video and elements and all these other things that you would never see if you were up there too.
That's very true. And it's also the case that I mean, we see this with our show as well. If there is some perspective that is not being served by mainstream, guess what people go to use. People go to TikTok. People go to Twitter to try to find war and find, you know, more viewpoints that reflect the way that they
are viewing the conflict. So there's certainly a generational divide here, and then there's also divide in terms of people who you know, people who are basically pro Israel and they think, you know, Israel's completely justified, et cetera, et cetera. They have all types of mainstream sources where they can go to see that viewpoint reflected. If your viewpoint diverges from that, you're more likely to be on TikTok. I also think,
you know, you talked about the war weariness. I think that's a really important point, and when I didn't necessarily think of I also think, you know that the change in media is definitely part of it. The fact that you can even go anywhere and get those different views didn't used to be the case, you know, a couple of decades ago. You also have generations that have never really you know, we didn't grow up in the Cold War.
So this just like it's there on our side to fight communism, and that's that they're the goodies, these are the baddies. Like that doesn't land for these generations the way that it does for you know, we have those numbers about eighty some percent of the oldest demographics, like, yes, one hundred percent, Israel is fully justified. You also have with this generation in terms of this conflict specifically, there hasn't been a time in our adult lives when peace was really on the table.
That's a good point too. We don't remember Oslo at all. I've only read about.
Us exactly, So I mean, even me being significantly older than you, I mean that's distant. I was like a kid like sort of vaguely aware of what was going on and not really like viscerally engaged with it whatso app So you know, we have never really we don't have all this legacy of imagining that a two state solution is still on the table.
Good point.
So I think that really changes the way we view this as well. And then something that we've talked about before and you've pointed out before too, sober is Thattan. Yahoo has also made this conflict much more explicitly partisan. By coming to DC, by giving the speech against Obama. This was in the context of the Iran nuclear deal. You know, by putting a sum on the scales. He tried smooth things over by saying yes, Biden won, etcetera, etceter and pissing off Trump. But you know, the reality
is he made this conflict much more explicitly partisan. So you have a variety of reasons why. You know, if you take your average eighty year old and you take your average twenty year old and you ask him about this conflict, you are going to get completely different views of what's going on. You know, the White House is apparently very concerned about the politics of how this is all going to work out for them. Put this up on the screen. They privately concede things have never been
worse since the eighty year old took office. Biden's dual horror shows threatened his reelection campaign. This is another Axios report. Some of the things that they cite here is look in the polls, he's tied or trailing Trump nationally. In swing states. He gets crushed on his handleing of immigration, crime, and inflation. They have a quote from one Biden official who says it's not death by one issue, by half a dozen hitting it once the load bearing wall breaks.
Many of Biden's own voters do not want him to run. His popularity with his own supporters hit a new low in a poll this past week, and that seems to have been directly related to his approach to Israel's war on Gaza. You saw an eleven point drop among Democrats in their support for Biden, most of that coming from young demographics who are very unhappy with his just lockstep
support for Israel and sending them whatever they want. You've got a quote here you say, the Middle East war gives the president a chance to protect stable leadership ahead of a general election, but the White House knows the war will likely widen. And so one last piece here in terms of showing the generational divide, You've got this. I thought it was kind of a weird question put this up on the screen, but they asked what should the US government say publicly in regards the Israel Hamas war.
This was by generation, so silent and greatest jen eighty six percent say they should support Israel. You go down to millennial and gen Z, so not even just gen Z, but millennials and gen Z and it's less than half
who say they should support Israel. So while Biden, you know, is satisfying one part of the Democratic base and certainly overwhelmingly the DC establishment, you know, in terms of young people, this is really becoming a litmus test issue and certainly for Arab Americans who've also been a key part of the Democratic coalition for them as well, and you can already see them paying the price in the polls. Now.
One of the things that they said, I think it was in this piece that was like, oh, they think they'll get over it by the time they action comes up.
I actually, I do kind of think that's right.
I think that with the specter of Trump and the fear around that that the boogeyman. Look, the boogeyman has always worked for Democrats.
That's what they're betting on.
That's what they're betting on.
I would never bet on that personally. You can ask Hillary help.
Yeah, But it's like, I guess it depends on how this all you know is this does this end in a week or are we still seeing you know, babies being pulled down a rubble and their incubators being shut off as we had into election day, which is real, you know, real possibility. So I think this represents a
more consequential break young people had already there. It's easy to forget, but at the beginning of the Biden administration, young people were his most fervent supporters, his largest by you know, by the approval rating, his largest supporters, most
fervent supporters, et cetera. That quickly fell off a cliff. Dude, I think some of his you know, economic handling, and now this represents for a lot of people, it's very emotional, it's very visceral, and a real break in terms of how they're seeing Biden where it's no longer like I kind of have affection for him, but you know, I don't love everything he's done. But whatever I was, not could have and vote Joe, especially when you've got other
options on the ballot. So I think this is a real problem for them, and they apparently aware of that as well.
Certainly possible.
Let's move on talking about the American political system a lot here. The Speaker of the House. Now, it's interesting we brought you the news before Speaker Mike Johnson. Prior to becoming the speaker, he was somebody who did not vote for Ukraine AID. Since May of twenty twenty two, had a very different tone, said that we needed to fund our border. He seemed very skeptical of the Neocon establishment.
Well in his.
Very first interview ever, things let's just say they changed pretty significantly in terms of how we started talking.
Let's take a listen.
Now.
We can't allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don't believe it would stop there, and it would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan. We have these concerns, We're not going to abandon them. We want to be cooperative. We need to work together on this, but we owe it to the people to know what the plan is, where the money is going to be spent, and we need some auditing for the dollars that we've already sent over there. These
are not tough questions, right. One thing that House Republicans are resolved on is that we must stand with our most important ally in the Middle East, and that's Israel. We will we certainly hope that it doesn't come to boots on the ground. If it comes to that, and we communicy this to the White House staff as well today that you know, we have the Article one power in the legislative branch of government, and they have Article two. They have very limited authority on what they can do
to respond without coming to Congress to seek consent. I mean they tell us when we're in Israel, and you've been there, and they say, the reason that we're able to sustain ourselves and survive is because everyone knows that our big ally is America. We know that Iran is directly tied to all this. These are Hamas and Hezbeal proxies of Iran, and they're tied in now with Russia and China. I mean, it is a new access of evil. That's how we see it, and so it has to be addressed.
State if Israel, with all the funding of terror and all these terror organizations, they within their right to fight back and course directly at Iran.
Of course, that was the first, as you noted, the first act of my speakership is that we passed that resolution to articulate that and make it very clear where we stand.
All right, So, as Michael Tracy summed it up, can't allow Putin to prevail in Ukraine, ties it to Taiwan, the most dishonest trick pulled by McConnell. Number two, boots on the ground may be required to stand with Israel. Number three supports Israel directly directly attacking Iran. Number four Russia, China and Iran are.
The new axis of evil.
Okay, so we are right back to where we started, arguably maybe even worse. However, there are at least some signs of hope if you do oppose more aid to Ukraine. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. New Speaker Johnson has now said, because of really pressure from within the Republican establishment that they want to split up Israel and Ukraine aid, which is setting up a
showdown with Biden and the Senate. So remember in the Senate, which is controlled by Chuck Schumer, Schumer is talking about linking the two of Israel and of Ukraine. This was presented from the Biden administration of a or seventy billion some package ten billion for Israel, sixty billion for Ukraine that is added within there. The Speaker of the House says, no, that's not how we're going to participate. One of the reasons why that's important is that in terms of procedure.
Remember this, the Senate cannot do anything where they have to where they basically can't spend money without making sure it's revenue neutral, Whereas the House can do whatever it wants.
It has the power of the purse.
So for the House, if they originate that position and they send it up to the Senate, the Senate and then Biden have to decide, well, okay, are we really going to veto Israel aid?
You know, because it's not tied to you. There's no way.
Now.
The other question though, is did Johnson strike a deal where he will bring Ukraine Aid to the floor where and give it an up or down vote? Because as we have always talked about Crystal, all the Democrats support Ukraine AID. Oh about half ish of Republicans in the House support Ukraine AID, so they have an outright majority. If it gets to the floor, the victory for the side would be just preventing it from getting into the floor in the first place. Where does Speaker Johnson fall
on that? I have no idea, but starting to get some insight.
Yeah, I mean, if it's brought to the floor, it passes, that's the bottom line. And so I don't know either I never heard of the sky until like a week ago, so I can't claim to have any like inside knowledge into the way that he might operate. But the fact that he immediately goes on Hannity and starts sounding just like one hundred percent ne yo kon even using the acts like dredging up that access of evil language, Oh my god, it's not a good sign. And I will
also say that it's very possible. He feels like by splitting the two Israel and Ukraine, splitting them apart, that's like his attempt to sort of appease, right the anti Ukraine peek part of his caucus. But you know, maintain like whatever deal he might have struck with Democrats or the White House or whatever. So I would guess that's the direction that things go in.
But we'll see, we will see. I ask some people who are in the know.
They said, it's not nearly as cut and dry as maybe we might think. That's very much still a possibility, but there is a lot of procedural effort to try and to deny it. There is, Yes, there is a majority of the Senate that does support a to Ukraine, but there are enough voices out there that there.
Basically, it all comes down to this.
It's going to be a death by a thousand cuts, a ton of procedural warfare. Split it apart, make sure it doesn't get to the vote. Even if it does pass, then hold it up. Make sure this doesn't happen at the same time. And this is the biggest problem. This is And you would think Israel is a number one priority, yes, but they already know it's passed. Ukraine is a very very close second. Like this is the clearest and dearest thing to Mitch McConnell's aging heart. It's like the last
thing that he's like, I must get this through. And in general I do not bet against that man whenever he wants to get his things through the Senate.
Very true.
There you go.
There are some other interesting conflicts unfolding on the Republic's line over the Israel issue. Another flare of between the Faik and Nikki Haley.
Oh yes, that's exactly right.
Let's move on, and I guess we have to peg and start with the news, which it was funny we were debating.
We're like, are we even going to cover this? Is breaking?
We're like, now we'll just put it in the show, because let's be honest, we all knew it was going to happen anyways. Mike Pence, Mike Pence, the former Vice president of the United States, is dropping out of the twenty fourty four race.
Let's take a list.
I'm traveling across the country over the past six months. I came here to say, it's become clear.
To me.
This is not my time.
So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president defective today.
Now I'm leaving this campaign, but let me promise.
You, I will never leave the fight for conservative values and I will never stop fighting to elect principled Republican leaders to every office.
In the land. So help me God. Wow. Okay, came sooner than expected, but still happened. Now.
The reason why it happened, Crystal, is because what he was slated to not make the third debate, and him and his team correctly were like, look, former vice president the United States not qualifying for a debate on the stage, while somebody like vike Ramaswami is especially after all the smack that we talked against all these people, we cannot have that reputational damage and so they decided to drop out.
By the way, I fully support that.
That said, it is one of those where it's deeply humorous just from the level of watching this man indulge in his own personal egotism while running but at the same time basically trying to run against any of the tides of moderate progress that have made in the Republican Party.
When we're talking about.
Populism, when we're talking about any questioning of the Ukraine consensus of Neocon foreign policy, to the limited extent it even exists, this man was the sworn enemy of that.
So I cannot help but rejoice it.
Also, though the same meeting, the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting in Las Vegas, highlighted the two sides of where the debate is here right now. You had vivike Ramaswami, who has I don't even know how to describe him. He's one of those people who at the first was really sounding more of like a Tucker Carlson voice of like, we need to avoid war with Iran, we need to make sure that Israel does not escalate this to a
situation which endangers America. Then you have people like Nikki Haley, who last I checked is now taking like an anti racism angle to anti Semitism. She's like, if you are not, She's like, she said, if you're anti Zionists, then you are anti Semitic. And she said she would even pass a law declaring that to an effect on should she be present.
That's used to a lot of Jews who are anti Zionist.
Yeah, that is like being That is like Ibrahem Kendy Department of Anti Racism level stupid. Well, that was fully on display here at the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting.
Let's take a lesson.
Would love nothing more than for the IDF to put the heads of the top one hundred hamas leaders on stakes and line them up on the Israel Gaza border as a sign that October seventh, twenty twenty three will never happen again, and then to use all of those saved resources to build the border defenses of the future. But that is Israel's decision to make, not ours. That is what David Ben Gurion would tell Israel to do. That is what George Washington would tell the United States to do.
The steaks couldn't be higher, and given those steaks, we cannot have four years of chaos, vendettas and drama.
We can't afford to.
Go down that road, not now.
Eight years ago, it was good to have a leader who broke things, but right now we need a leader who also knows how to put things back together.
Well well, well there you can see about Nikki Haley voicing that and Vivek. I mean, he's trying his best because he got it on the chin, even basically saying what I think a lot of people are thinking about, Well, maybe we should watch out here.
We definitely don't want to go to war with Iran.
He's changed his tune now to now He's like what now, He's like the most raw ra like cheering on Israel. He's like, no, no, no, they can do what they want to do, but that needs to be Israel's decision to make and they need to own the consequences.
Honestly, I do think it is a smart rhetorical play.
I think it is the only one that you can exist as a capital R Republican in the party at this point because the level of pushback to the very basic rate of concerns, it's not possible right now in the Republican Party or even in Republican media. I mean the oh my goodness, I have never seen these people come out, you know, with their knives for anything more than they did for Vivac at that time, just being like, hey, we should watch out a little bit here.
Who knows what's going to happen. That's too much for most of these people listen.
And he had to know that it was going to be provocative. Yeah, I would interest that he took. So if you're going to take a provocative stance, like, be ready to take the heat and defend it. But you can see the rhetorical approach that he's taking here of basically like, let me say the most bloodthirsty shit anyone's ever heard, and then use that as like a distraction from my like and we should kind of stay out of it maybe anyway back to the heads on the pikes,
am I right? Like clearly that's his approach now rather than really standing behind what he was articulating. And you even saw Trump, remember Trump, who has this personal now he's like mad at bb because Biebe said Biden won the election and so he's got this like personal grievance thing now with Netanyahu, and so he made some critical comments of him right after October seventh, which by the way puts him in line with like literally ninety percent of israelease. But here in the US there was this
whole friga, how dare you criticize Netanyaho? How could you say anything about that about Netanyahu at this moment, et cetera, et cetera. And so even he has like completely changed course, which for Trump, you know, he's normally the guy, he's the bull in the china shop. He'll say the stuff that you know, pisses everybody out off, and he'll just stand by it. But for him, even the pressure was
too intense and heat was too hot. And so in terms of the Republican Party, like any sort of divergent views they may have on Ukraine or you know, other foreign policy approaches Afghanistan at times they've said certain things, all of that is completely out the window when it comes to Israel. Yeah, completely out the window. They are completely lockstep. You know, there's so much belligerent talk with
regard to Iran. There was actually one Republican who did vote against the Israel resolution that had that belligerent language about Iran. That was Thomas Massey's like die in the wool libertarian. But that's it. That's as much as you get in terms of descent. So it does kind of expose that this idea that there was a different that there was a new direction towards paleo conservatism or a
different approach under MAGA towards foreign policy. Maybe when it comes to Ukraine, maybe when it comes to a couple other issues, but when it comes to Israel, not even a little bit.
I think it's fair to put it like every party has a coalitional interest, which exposes a lot, right, So like think like the Squad and we had Rocanna on the show.
He supports Ukraine to the hill.
Every single member of the Squad votes for Ukraine on Israel, they're allowed to dissent, you know, I would put it basically is.
That wouldn't say they're really allowed, huh, because they face a lot of political summer Lee and Jamal Bowman could very easily lose their seats over their support for Palestine.
Absolutely, but they at least feel enough or let's say, they feel convicted enough.
In order to speak. But they don't feel it Ukraine and it definitely didn't.
So I would just say, like every party has its own thing, which is going to expose a lot of hypocrisy on this one. And yeah, Israel is definitely the absolute third rail whenever it comes to whatever it comes to the Republican polity.
Yeah, and all their cancel culture, censorship, etc. That also out the window. DeSantis now trying to ban any like pro Palestine group on college campuses in Florida. Chris Christy saying the same thing like, I'm for free speech, he said, but this isn't free speech.
This is hate speech.
That's like the worst of the dumbest, like hall monitors who used to exist in the previous Twitter regime.
That's a whole other conversation.
We can talk about that, Yes, indeed, but it just exposes there are like three people who are actually committed to free speech.
Absolutely. Let's go to the next part.
Representative Dean Phillips launching a primary challenge to President Biden. So we now have another Democrat in the race here. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he has to say.
Are you running for president?
I am?
I have to.
I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country. But it's not about the past. This is an election about the future. I will not sit still. I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying that we're going to be facing an emergency next November. I think the time is now, because I think four years from now it might be too late.
We were saying before. It's a little reminiscent of the case that tyts jenke Yuger is making. He's basically saying, the guy. Don't think the guy can get elected. Sure he has done a good enough job, but this is at least something that someone should do. He's been teasing this now for a long time. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen the Washington Post. He said, quote, I am the long shot. Dean Phillips is embracing the undergodog role in a shaky debut against Biden.
The thing is, though, is that it's very smart because his very first thing he did is file to run in New Hampshire, where the press is mostly the one that showed up. But one of the reasons why he might have a leg up over everyone else is Biden's not on the ballot in New Hampshire. So it's a pretty good media story to come in and to win New Hampshire.
This was always the case.
I always thought that RFK Junior had He's like, man, if you can just win New Hampshire, Kennedy wins New Hampshire. I mean, what a story, right, Like it's a headline that nobody can look away from. So Phillips very much now trying to fill like a centrist Lane Biden alternative. People in New Hampshire already pissed off at Joe Biden for skipping the state, for removing their first in the nation status whenever it comes to the primary.
So I don't know.
I might see a case where mister Phillips does win the primary just from the sheer like lack or from sheer inertia, and then gets himself some headlines.
Do I think he's gonna win?
No?
But the other problem for me is he waited way too long.
Why are you announcing you know during Israel you're gonna get washed out? Like this main gunman story was that would have been the biggest story in the country if Israel had not been happening, But it basically went from hey, a bunch of people died to local story after the guy's found dead and by the way, of course, as with every time we found out he was known to law enforce when visited six weeks before.
Getting ahead of myself.
But my whole point is that the entire country be scrutinizing this thing to death. Yeah, well with Dean Phillips, he blew it. You know, in terms of the timing. Now that he waited really till Israel, he basically guaranteed doesn't mean the month's long, biggest story in the nation. And I mean rightfully so, because mistakes are existential.
Yeah, I mean, Dean barely made it into our show today. We feel like we should cover it, I guess, But you know, I'm not sure anyone really cares all that much. I tried to figure out where he is politically. You know, he's a he's a problem solvers caucus guy, frames himself as like a centrist or a moderate whatever. Whenever he critiques the Democratic Party, it's always from the right. But in terms of his voting record, he has voted with Biden one hundred percent of the time. Put this up
on the screen. I mean, he's been a chief Biden booster. So here this is just from you know, a couple of days ago. President Biden issue now standing speech this evening, making a strong case for why we want to support Ukraine, Israel and all who seeks self determination, security and peace. That's what America does. So you're not gonna hear like a single word of criticism of Joe Biden. It's just all about basically like he's old and he's gonna lose,
and so let's do something else. Do I think it's gonna work. I mean, to be honest with you. For a lot of the Democratic base, the majority of whom still would like an alternative to Biden, that is their concern. They aren't like you know now, you have a lot of dissent among young voters with regard to his approach to Israel. Not to say there aren't policy issues in there as well, but the biggest concern is just his age. And I'm worried is gonna lose. We're gonna get Trump again.
So I don't actually think it's that crazy of a strategy to be fawningly supportive of Biden and vote with him on literally everything and just be making a case about electability. But you know, you're Dean Phillips. No one's ever heard what before do people really think you're going to be the guy to beat Trump? Like, that's hard
to believe. I do think the fact that he's a member of Congress, you know, he's got his like credentials, mainstream credentials for the media to pay more attention to him than they would pay to like Jank or that they did pay to marry Anne. So if it wasn't happening right now, when there's wildworld news coverage about the you know, atrocities that are happening in Gaza right now, maybe he'd be able to build a little bit of a kernel of something. But don't see it.
No, I don't think you're right. I think you're right too. I mean I honestly and something you and I have just kept our head on. But well, you know, we want to make sure people are getting our political coverage as well. Is the polls coming out for RFK Junior. This man is in the position that no man has been in since Ross Pro. I mean, it's like shocking, like when you're clocking twenty something percent and you're going
to have that level of consternation. The interesting thing on Kennedy is if he wasn't as pro, if he tones down as pro Israel coverage where he has been in the past, and just really leans into being anti war, I could even scoop see him scooping up some of this young energy, you know that's surrounding Israel Palestine.
So it's too late on that front.
Well for the people who are on I'm talking about normal folks out there who had no idea what he said or whatever about Rabbi Schmooley and Israel and that stuff in the past. I'm saying, if he just talks about being anti war, which you can interpret anyway that you want, and just like the ad that.
We played here previously where he's.
Like, hey, you know, the American political system is bad, and my name is Bobby Kennedy and I have peace, Like that's a very potent message.
I think it's very if he hadn't gone. I mean, what he has said about Israel was so unequivocal. Yes, that's true, and I think it's genuinely ideological for him. I mean, he got pressed on this a lot and did not back away from his positions on it, and I think he lost, you know, a significant chunk of his like online based support definitely over this issue. Specifically.
So I think you're right. If he had not gone in that direction he had a dissenting view with regard to Israel, I think there would have been an even larger pool for him to scoop up. I mean, you
still have Cornell West down. There's a lot of questions at this point about his campaign and where he's even going to be on the ballot since he you know, went from People's Party, Green Party now he's running as an independent and his campaign manager just left, so a lot of questions about whether he'll even be on the ballot. But you know, that's another bail on option for people who are like disgusted with Biden on the issue of Israel Palestine and you know, want to register their protest
over that. They may have that option with regard to Cornell West, or they may just stay home.
Yeah, so well that's always the biggest one. Yeah, just staying home is a huge I think I've done it before.
Very possible. I think that's very possible. But Bobby Kennedy is continued. I mean, this is the story we're going to continue to take a look at, and I think has been wildly undercovered because yeah, if you have he's got a lot of money. He's a Kennedy, so people may not know that much about him specifically, but he's a Kennedy, so he's got a huge name recognition. He you know, may have the operation be able to get himself on the ballot. He's taking He is sounding outside
of put Israel Palestine aside. He is sounding these notes of just like I'm just disgusted. I'm disgusted with Biden, I'm discussed with Trump, I'm disgusted with the Democrats, IM discussed with the Republicans, which is a very mainstream, widespread sentiment. So he could really be the determining factor in how this all ultimately goes down. So we're going to keep our eye on our show.
All right.
We got big news that actually just broke while we were doing the show about the UAW, which is they now have a tentative agreement with all three of the Big Three. The latest one that just broke this morning is reading from Bloomberg here, General Motors Company GM reached his head ative agreement with the UAW to end a six week old strike with similar terms to the deal
signed by Ford Motor Company on October twenty fifth. That deal reached on Monday includes a twenty five percent hourly pay raise plus cost of living allowances over the more than four year contract. According to the person who was not authorized to speak publicly, so very few details here.
We don't have Sean Feine, the President of uaw's comments on this or breaking down you know some of the concessions they were able to gain, but it sounds like it's along similar lines to what they were able to achieve with Ford Motor Company. This comes on top of very recent news that they were also able to reach a deal with Stalantis. Let's take a listen to Sean Fain explaining some of the highlights of that tentative agreement.
Today, we reached a tentative agreement with Stillanis. Today is the forty fourth day of our stand up strike, forty four days. We called it the stand up strike as a tribute to the sit down strike which built our great union almost ninety years ago. Over the forty four days we were on strike, Stillanus more than doubled the total value of the proposals they had on the table
at Stillanis. We not always secured a record contract. We have begun to turn the tide on the war on the American working class, and we truly are saving the American dream.
So just to reiterate some of the details of this deal, let's put this up on the screen. They've got some of the high level concessions that they were able to achieve. So twenty five percent wage increase in twenty twenty three. This is again with Stilantis, but tracks pretty closely with Ford and the very basics that we know about this
new GM tentative deal. All wage increases from twenty one to twenty twenty two were twenty three percent, So in a single year they're going to bigger wage hike then they got over the course of two decades. That seems significant. Let's go and put the next piece up on the screen. Current Stalantis temps get a one hundred and sixty eight percent raise through twenty twenty three. This was a big sticking point in terms of the treatment of those tempts.
And another thing that came out of this Stalantis deal that was really significant to Soger is they actually secured the reopening of a plant, which that never happens, a thirteen hundred and fifty employee assembly plant in Belvedere, Illinois. Not only that, but they're also going to add an adjoining battery facility to that plant. So you know, again this all has to go to the members for approval.
See what they think about it. I talked to, you know, someone in Kentucky, they have a big truck plant there for a forward to get a sense of like, how are the members they're feeling about it, And so far, at least, the feedback is they are delighted. They think this was you know, this appears to be an extraordinary deal.
They're very excited about the gains that they were able to make here, and I think really validates the strategy that Sean Fain and the other leadership of the UAW put in place here with the stand up strike in order to secure these gains.
Yeah, no, the strike strategy.
Absolutely, this is a big Now, of course, look, the union's got to ratify all this, so we'll see, you know, we'll see how I mean, Look, it's a.
Pretty good deal.
Yes, I mean, I'm not in the union, but I mean I'm looking at it and I'm saying, listen, you can make like a pretty decent middle class wage now at the top, where we also get healthcare pension and some benefits.
That's a great deal.
It's a one that a lot of people in this country don't have, and if I were in that position, I would be very very happy, especially considering you haven't had a cost of living race since two thousand and nine and now you have some of that baked in. Overall, what I think it does validate is not only the strike strategy, but also just the place that we are
in the labor market. So it was just reading about how this is just really in line with how all American workers are finding themselves in a position of bargaining power. So right now, Americans currently have more time off than at any time in modern history in terms of more paid time off, with US private sector average weekly hours that are peaking because employers quote are offering that time in a stronger labor market, and employees are finding themselves
using it. They're finding themselves not ashamed to be taking advantage in these cases of their paid benefits. So I think that it fits very much in line with where the rest of the country is and kind of a new bargaining power that the worker has found themselves, And so I expect it not only to have political support, and I think most people when they found the details of this, find it entirely reasonable, and that's pretty much where we're going to end up.
That's part of the reason why they.
Had to cave too, because even let's say they went non union, for example, under the current deal, for what I was reading the UAW, the big three are going to have to pay like something like sixty something dollars per hour according to their own internal figure. Well, Tesla's paying fifty five and they're not even union, so you know,
to put it over like five dollars or whatever. Above just shows like with bargaining power and all that they're putting themselves and locking them in place for years to come to make sure that they don't get wiped out as they did in two thousand and nine.
Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot of tests the workers who are looking at these deals.
Definitely what they're able to secure.
I'm sure there's a lot of workers down in the South in those right to work states at foreign automakers who were checking out this deal and what they were able to achieve. I'm sure there's a lot of workers in other industries who are also looking at like wow, when they have a union, and they're able to do this collective bargaining process. They're actually able to release secure significant gains over the protests and the freak out, the panic attacks of the executives and certainly of CNBC and
Jim Kramer in particular. That was the one last note I wanted to make is remember the beginning of this, all this like, oh my god, it's going to tank the economy and this is a disaster and it's gonna destroy Biden's reelection bid. Biden's doing enough to destroy his own re election bid. But you know, none of that like, oh it's going to crash the economy. Stuff, and car prices are going to go through the roof, et cetera. Did any of that happen? Did any of it happen? No,
not at all. So just remember that the next time that we have a good postage.
And also, let's wait, I want to see what happens to the price of those cars. That's that's the real one, because that's what they kept saying was going to happen. I will call on them to release a better car, but that's a different that's a different thing. We've got Lefong standing by let's get to it.
Been talking a lot today about how a lot of political leaders are playing into the sectarian nature of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, played in some of the comments from Netanyahu earlier today. So we're excited to be joined by Lefong, who's long been covering the way the religious right views this particular conflict and how it impacts their political approach on the issue. Lee, great to see you see man. Yeah, and guys, check out. Lee
has a fantastic substack. It's just Lefung dot com where he does great work as an independent journalist there, So make sure you check that out. And the piece we wanted to have you on to talk about. Let's go and put this up on the screen. You've been tracking the way that televangelists have been talking about what is going on in Israel and their war on Gaza. Your headline here is televangelists invoke Holy war to push for
weapons for Israel strikes on Iran. Just talk to us a little bit about the significance of this lie and what you've been tracking.
Look, this is a very different conflict than other geopolitical issues China and Taiwan or Russia and Ukraine, and that religion is playing.
A huge role here.
You know, all three Abrahamic beliefs have a eschatology feature that you know, there are elements of each religion that are pushing for the end times that see this kind of messianic vision of war of control over Jerusalem as critical for bringing about Judgment day. Here in the US, we have something like ninety to one hundred million evangelicals.
A fraction of those.
Believers are people who subscribe to some of these end times beliefs. And you know, going back into the early nineteen eighties when Prime Minister Manocolm Began brought Jerry Folwell and his Moral Majority to Israel, Israel has worked proactively to cultivate these voters. You know, they're looking for a voting block that can pressure Congress and you know, various administrations to support pro Israel policies. It's a very concerted effort and we're seeing that being redded up again with
this war. Israeli government officials are reaching out to evangelical voters, encouraging them to help lobby lawmakers, to put pressure on the media to support this war effort. And you know there's a little bit of cynicism involved here, because if you look carefully at some of these Christian Zionists End Times theology, you know, it's kind of bleak even for
Jews and for Israel. And you know, if you look at this End Times theology, there is a final war over Jerusalem, that when Jesus comes back in the Second Coming, there will be a final event where non believers, including Jews, are all killed except for one hundred and forty four thousand Jews who are converted to Christianity that become evangelists for Christ, and that kind of ushers in the thousand year reign of Christ.
You know.
So this is not a you know, positive event for Jews or for many people in the world. But you know, in this kind of crisis, for Israel, they need as much political support as possible.
So there's a lot of outrage going on.
Yeah, we have one of the videos actually you posted of these really ambassador actually joining Pastor John Hagy at a meeting in Texas directly invoking some of this and asking for political support.
Let's take a listen, we'll get your reaction.
In the words of Isaiah, for Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet. We must stand together Jews and Christians in our holy mission for the truth.
And so Lee, how potent and is this politically because you did some interviews with some congressmen that I'd like you to touch on where they cite directly some of this biblical ties as to their direct governmental support for Israel.
Yeah, that's right.
You know, I've worked on this issue for a very long time. I helped out last year with a Norwegian documentary Praying for Armageddon, that explores the Christians eye in this issue. And you know, I talked to a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill just simply asking to explain the US Israel relationship and rather talking out this in US interests or even Palestinian or Israeli interest Many of these lawmakers quickly pivoted and said, look, their.
Support for Israel comes from.
The divine that they believe that we should give weapons, money, more US support to Israel because of what's what's written in the Bible. And you know, you look at the Christian Zionist theology, it's a hodgepodge of versus. There's some stuff from Isaiah and the Old Testament a lot from revelations, but this has become a very consistent ideology. You know, they're very powerful televangelists and Christian groups, Christians United for
Israel's one. There are several groups in Israel. They cultivate this belief system and that takes this theology and harnesses it, harnesses it for a political block on Capital Hill. So these same groups lobby very directly, They reach out to lawmakers, they mobile them. It's a true fusion of religion and politics.
Yeah, and you know, I mean this is I even said earlier, the religious right. But the truth is there are plenty of evangelicals who hold these beliefs who are also Democrats. We actually had one in the focus group that we did of democratic based voters when we ask questions about Israel and Palestine. I mean, she said forthright that her views on the issue came directly from her religion and what she believed about it. And listen, people
can believe whatever they want to believe. It's a free country. But the reason why it seems important that you highlight this issue is because if you have a view of this conflict that is based on you know, your view of whose side God is on, and this end times philosophy and this holy war that you think was prophesied, it's not going to make you very likely to be
able to compromise on the issue. And also, by the way, when you believe one side has God on their side, it's also going to lead you to justify a lot of actions that may otherwise be wholly unjustifiable.
I mean, there's not many other conflicts where you have a large voting block, you know, a large number of elected officials praying for salvation through war. You know, you can't apply that to many other conflicts going on today. But that's the case here. And you know, I don't I don't want to single out only Christians here, and that's a dominant force and a lot of these Republican Party primaries in some Republican party politics here in the US.
There are certainly some Democrats as well. But you know, this is this is also a major feature of politics within the Islamic world. There's you know, Islamic eschatology that references you know, the end times and just and there are political groups that harness and exploit that for encouraging
conflict with Israel. You know, ISIS and al Qaeda. You know, they reference, they clearly reference the discussion around you know, the hidden Mahdi, the final Islamic leader, coming with black flags, appearing with black flags, and.
That's why they use black flags.
And some of their propagames to Hamas, and their charter discusses Judgment Day and war at Israel again, kind of referencing and times. And some of these new and newly resurgent religious right groups that are part of Netanyahu's governing coalition. These are groups that openly discuss UH blowing up the Temple mount of the Dome of the Rock to build the Third Temple. That's the kind of Messianic Jewish vision of bringing out, bringing about the kind of final epoch
of Jewish you know, theology. So you know, they're extremists on all sides. I want to be clear about that. Yes, the Christian Zionist influence, however, it's just a more dominant force here in the US. You know, it's it's a very well oiled lobbying machine. We're seeing calls for action every day. People are pressuring their lawmakers to support Israel and support UH Israel for more conflict, hoping to bring about apocalyptic war because of their religious beliefs.
Yeah, this is something if you could dig into a little bit here with these congressmen, is it? And now we actually have a speaker honestly who I wouldn't say he falls directly into this, but he is certainly even evangelic Christian with some past ties to the groups which very much seem aligned with this in terms of their
political power. As you said, is it bottom up in terms of their constituents, But then how much of it is it also their own personal beliefs in the case of some of these representatives.
Look, I mean, it's hard to say what people truly believe. You have to kind of go on what they say. But I do kind of assume that there's a little bit of pandering going on. I think some lawmakers might kind of signal to these beliefs, perhaps just for votes or for campaign donations, but some are more pragmatic.
It's hard to say.
If you look at some of these large televangelist leaders. There are many, but you know the biggest is John Hagey. Does he truly believe this? You know, he claimed back in the day that Y two K would bring about the end Times, the lunar eclips.
You know Harry Potter.
You know he finds pretty much any kind of conflict.
Of the news and says the end Times is happening.
Does he truly believe that every single one is a sign of the end Times? I don't know, But what I do know is that he mobilizes tens of thousands of his supporters to get on buses and go to Capitol Hill and lobby multiple times a year to call their members of Congress and demand more military support and political support for Israel. We know that they are very active in this current conflict, so they're making an impact.
So what John Hagy actually believes in his heart when he's asking for donations and selling these books that are constantly prophesizing around the end Times, I don't know, But we do know that he's having an impact, that he has dozens of members of Congress at his beck and call that wrote that go to his congregation and participate in this in this political operation.
Yeah, And just to give people a sense of a little bit of the rhetoric here, you have Hagy's son who says the sectuary state is not going to get us out of this one God has a hook in the jaws of these nations and he's drawing them.
Here.
God to Ezekiel exactly how he's going to defend Israel. He speaks about raining down fire and hail in brimstone. That's a heavenly air assault. So talking about the air strikes, describing them as heavenly, and you know, this is exactly what God told Ezekiel was coming. So just so people get a sense of some of the rhetoric that's being
used here. Lastly, Lee, I was wondering if you could weigh in a bit on some of the rhetoric that we've been highlighting here directly from the Prime Minister of Israel Netnyahu, really framing this in terms of like religious holy war terms, you know, feeding the flames of the sectarian nature of this conflict, even though at bottom it really is a political conflict in a land dispute we played today. You know, him invoking Amelek, he talked previously
about they're going to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. You know, what do you make of that sort of framing of this conflict.
Well, I think it's very dangerous because, as you say, this is at heart a geopolitical conflict. They are valid security concerns on both sides. There are many issues that can be discussed, but when you invoke religion in this way, and it appears to be an organized talking point, because it's not just Netahu, many of his ambassadors and consulate officials here in the US are now repeatedly invoking the same Old Testament versus from Isaiah that are very popular
among these kind of end times Christian Zionists. So this is a concerted effort. But the issue here is that they're using religion to obscure the bigger picture, to dehumanize the enemy, to say that, hey, these are non believers, these are people that need to be wiped out based on religion. And it's the same kind of political trick that we see really across the board throughout history. You know, many on the left, you know, in my opinion, use
identity politics in a similar way. When you kind of divide people based on skin color, ethnicity, it's very easy to not see the common humanity. On the other side, the same thing is happening, i think on the right here with the religion to say, hey, these are the believers versus non believers. It's hard to see that. Again,
we're all humans. A Palestinian life is just as precious as an Israeli life, and the invocation of religion is an attempt to divide and mobilize political support for this war.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
I'm glad that you highlighted it too, that this is a feature of a lot of these Abrahamic fates. I mean, one of the reasons that the Palestinian cause is weaponized by a lot of people in the Arab world is they talk about the Alaksa Mosque exactly as you said, the temple mound, that's like the main source of continuing some of this, and then the people themselves often is used as pond same as you said, in terms of a lot of the extremism that we've seen from some of the Israeli far right as well.
So I just I've always appreciated your work. Lee.
You've got a great substack. We encourage everybody to go and subscribe to it. We'll have a link down in the description, and we appreciate you joining us.
Thank you, thanks, thank you so much for having me.
Anytime, my friend, anytime, and thank you all so much for watching. We appreciate your support. It's a hell of a lot of work doing these shows and I guess standing through it right, Crystal, But we do it because we love all of you, and it's more, it's the most stifying at crisis times like this. We appreciate all of your support and we will see you all tomorrow.