Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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All right, good morning, Well on the counterpoints, how you guys doing. How you doing, Emily, I'm doing great.
We unfortunately can't get a response from the audience right now as to how they're doing. But I've also been doing whys and they're doing well, unless, of course, they are in North Carolina.
And they also don't hold back on their opinions, and they have multiple different ways to deliver them. That's true, just not directly through the camera.
Yes, a multitude of avenues to let us know how you're doing. But in all seriousness, we're going to start with the Hurricane Milton, following up on Hurricane Helen. Obviously, Tampa is right in the bullseye of that storm, which could have all kinds of implications for people's lives, for supply chains, for the economy. So we're going to start with that story, Ryan, and we're going to go and move on to a much more fun topic, which is Kamala Harris's surprise media tour.
I don't well, both of us are sort of Our staff was browbeaten into getting her in front of the press, and the staff was correct and we were wrong. You know, the media tour was a mistake. We'll play some of that.
Not a mistake from our perspective, though, because you really do get just a great glimpse into, yeah, the mind of Kamala Harris. Donald Trump was on Ben Shapiro's somebody.
Else who should not do media appearances.
It's a bench Shapier's podcast yesterday talking about Israel policy. Ryan, you guys over at drop site got a fantastic scoop. Tell us a little bit about what people going to tease it a little.
If we were the first interview ever with the survivors of the brutal If you remember the August twenty twenty one dronest which the US Army instantly said they had just attacked an isis k operative and within moments learned that actually they had attacked an Afghan who was working with the United States and was being greeted at his
car by many of his children and his family. And so the survivors of that drone strike are actually now have been relocated to the United States, are now living in Kansas City, and they gave their first interview to DROP site and so we'll be playing that later today.
Fantastic, And we're actually going to discuss as well, this effort by seventeen porn actors to put some money into ads and swing States about Project twenty twenty five. There's a ForWord written by Kevin Roberts talking about how he would like to see port and regulated, so we'll get to that as well.
We're going to try to do the entire segment without any double entenders, right.
I don't think it's not worth even trying. It'll be a good one, yeah, not worth it. And we do have a Friday show this week.
We do. We're going to have Jeremy Skahill, my co founder of DROPS. I knew he was going to be here to talk about the kind of the ark of his career that brought him to this place, talk about obviously is his coverage of the Warren Godz and the rest of the and in the rest of the region as well. You know, he's done some fascinating interviews lately with a deputy commander at Palestinian Islamic Jahad, top mass officials,
like talking about how does that work? Yeah, yeah, behind the scenes, behind the scenes.
Yeah, it would be super interesting. I'm really excited about that.
All right, let's start with Let's start in Florida, where Hurricane Milton is expected to hit tonight. It is expected to be the first major hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area since nineteen twenty one. Some experts have said nobody in the area has ever survived a storm as strong as this. Expecting ten to fifteen foot surges eighteen inches of rain to fall on Florida overnight. Astraphic predictions for what could happen to Tampa. Let's start with this.
SOT officials are telling residents that they need to evacuate. Here's a one official telling them what could happen if they don't evacuate.
It's the same message we're hearing for people from leaders across the state. If you stay, they cannot get you. They were able to do some water rescues and helene. That will not happen with Milton. Once the winds, which are forecasted to start here at tropical storm forest gust, once they start tomorrow at around eight am, he expects that by noon they're not going to be able. They're going to have to evacuate the island themselves. So starting at noon tomorrow, if you're here, there will not be
help coming for you. You are on your own, and he's made that very clear. It's that same message we're hearing from officials. Write your name, write your number, write someone else's number, your date of birth on you, because when they come looking for you, they want to know who to contac because you decided to stay.
All right, let's actually roll also this flood simulation to the If you're watching this, you can just get a visual of what Tampa could look like very soon.
I can use this simulation to show you what it will actually look like in Tampa. At three feet above normally dry ground water is already life threatening. It's too late to evacuate. Whatter this high can knock you off your feet, make cars float and driving impossible. The first floor of homes and businesses are flooded. Unfortunately, the water is expected to rise even higher at six feet above the height of most people.
Vehicles get carried away.
Structure starts to fail.
Just look at this.
Anything could be in this water, sharp.
Glass, debris, chemicals as well. The scary part is some areas could see surge values at ten to fifteen feet and this takes us up to nine.
And look what it does at this level.
The first floors of structures are completely flooded and there are a few places that it is safe when the water rises this high. We want everyone to know their evacuations, listen to local officials and evacuate when ordered to do so.
That visual ryan is stunning, and we can play this actual satellite footage as well.
This is a three Is this from the NASA, dudes.
The one we're rolling out, Yeah, yeah, yeah, take a look at this. And again, if you're listening to this, what you just what you're seeing now is just the sheer size of Hurricane Milton, which is just.
One hundred and forty miles from the center, which you can which if you're watching this, you can see it just expands as far as I can see from a spaceship right.
Yes, it's just incredible that visual.
I think also Ryan of the meteorologists that we just rolled, where you see the water levels going up higher than her head and then I mean, this is within the next twenty four hours, unfortunately, just shocking. Let's play also here a four this is going to be just the evacuation alerts you can get a feel for what's.
Happening on the ground, have been ordered for your area.
It's so obviously the government has no easy task ahead of them asking people to get out, because well, I'm sure many people are eager and have.
The means to get out. It's really not that easy for everyone, and I think that's an important point. Also, people get told all of the time.
It does depending on you know, if you live in Florida, it's easy to understand how people get sort of numb to.
Yeah, and natural disasters are a way of reminding us that money is kind of an imaginary thing and it's actually not that useful sometimes. So yes, it helps to have means if you left several days ago, if you're trying to leave in the last twenty four hours, you
can't transform money into gasoline. If there's no gasoline at the gas station, and you can't transform money into a path out if the roads are all blocked, if you get a flat tire and let's say your elderly and don't know how to change it, or like anything minor goes wrong, there's the breakdown of our side and our systems means that that's it, Like there's nobody to call.
You're on your own. And so it's really heartbreaking to see these pictures, which in your mind become kind of before pictures, even though they are still present day pictures. We know that we're actually looking at as a picture that we'll soon have a line on the top of it says before it's a slow motion train cras.
Yeah, so let's take a listen to one man who is refusing to evacuate.
This is a five all right, jay, they're saying, twenty foot storm surge.
It could be honored ony. It doesn't matter to both float.
That's the whole thing.
You can water on the outside of the boat and the boat will go up with the war down.
That's what we want to do.
Can we please get you into a hotel? No, everybody's been asking man, we got to get you off this day.
The only way I'm going to go to a motel room if a woman invites made you, GUYU say.
The only way I'm going.
So it is the true run to the point that you were just making.
I think it's you know, I've never lived in a hurricane like vulnerable area, but I do Always when I'm watching people say get out, get out, it's like, I don't know if you are persuading the people who are trying not to, who are considering staying, by just saying get out, You're dumb if you don't get out.
It's actually pretty hard. It's not that easy for everybody to get out.
I thought that the mayor's line was pretty good, where yesterday she said you know, if you stay, you're going to die. Yeah, because at least that kind of shocks the conscience and shocks the listeners. Oh, that's not the usual kind of rhetoric we hear from from politicians. Now, maybe that lieutenant got dan guy there, Maybe he'll be okay. I don't think so. But you know, one hundred and forty mile in our winds and that little boat, I don't see it.
Yeah, it doesn't seem like math that works out here. Let's put a six on the screen. This is I thought, a really helpful take from our friend Matthew Stoler who wrote on his substack, big what happens if a hurricane smashes Tampa. It was just a really important, I think glimpse at how vulnerable you were just making this point, right, and how vulnerable the.
Economy is the supply chain is.
It's a real thing, right, And Matt's asking, did we learn any of the lessons of COVID about the fragility of the supply chains? They are all kinds of important industries like Tampa is a very very important part, and it seems as though we just saw this with the courts.
That was used in or that is used in the course of the season semi characters.
Yeah, in North Carolina completely upended the semiconductor supply chain that we're pouring billions of dollars right now into domestically boosting, so Tampa as a critical port in the country. I mean, we could see tons of disruption from this because it appears we didn't learn a lot of lessons of COVID.
Yeah. It' and also be a real shame if the sent com base there in Tampa gets wiped out and you can put up this next element. People may recall most of the drone strikes around the world, you know, get which, to Biden, to his credit, is actually almost
completely eliminated. We now do them by proxy are carried out out of what McDill for McDill out and down in Tampa and during I talked to yesterday about Hurricane Michael back in twenty eighteen that wiped out an air Force base in a Panhandle and they have permanently moved a huge air fleet out of there. You can imagine that as it dawns on our military planners that hurricanes
are a thing and continue to be a thing. That an air Force base in Tampa, while it might be convenient closest to the Middle East, so they do a lot of flights, you know, the takeoff from their head over there back and also to Central and South America, also has some problems with it, which you know, I say it's a shame because you know, the US military not only you know, built the post World War two era that produced the greenhouse gases that we're now living with,
but the Pentagon itself is a non trivial contributor to that total. Like maybe the biggest contributor.
So on that point, Actually, there's Tampa is the biggest exporter of fertilizer in America according to Stoler, and it's also the biggest importer, he writes, of gasoline and jet fuel that is used in Florida. So Matt says, that means we can expect significant supply shocks and probably environmental damage, which is another out on consequence.
Yeah, the environmental damage from mixing all of the different toxins that are that are held in different bays and in Florida could be extraordinary. But yes, exactly, the Florida is like, is the bread basket of our fertilizer and there aren't a whole lot of places for it. Seeing that disrupt is going to be ugly.
Yes, and it's this was another thing that happened with Helene is ivy Fluid, a manufacturer of iv fluid was hit that supply chain got disrupted. Well, another major manufacturer of ivy fluid is in Tampa, so can expect some serious problems there.
And also a lot of the recovery efforts in Helene are ongoing, very very much ongoing, and so rebuilding Tampa, you can imagine you know this is this.
Is there is a limited supply of all of these recent versus. So depending on how devastating the storm is when it hits tonight and into tomorrow, there could be some seriously stretched resources for both the people of Appalasia, Western North Carolina and Florida. Let's move on to Kamala Harris's media tour, which is interesting in some ways and entirely predictable in others.
Obviously, she went on Call Her Daddy.
She has just yesterday did the View, she did the Colbert Report, she did sixty minutes. It has been a hell of a week for Kamala Harris, right.
Yeah, in sixty minutes. They've just been rolling the interviews out and we'll talk in a moment. People noticed that the interview that they aired on sixty minutes on the television program for the folks is different than how it actually unfolded. There was truncated in a key moment.
Yes, of course they always do that.
We'll get to that in a second. She also went on Howard Stern, which we have a clip from. But let's just start with this exciting mash up of Kamala Harris on the View yesterday where right. It is going to be so funny if the women of the view are the people who get that sound bite that ultimately ticks down Kamala Harris, let's see roll the club.
What do you think would be the biggest specific difference between your presidency and a Biden see a Biden presidency. Well, we're obviously two different people, and we have a lot of shared life experiences, for example, the way we feel about our family and our parents and so on. But we're also different people, and I will bring those sensibilities to how I lead by part. Listen, I plan on having a Republican in my cabinet.
You got a list?
Yeah right.
You asked me, what's the difference between Joe Biden and me? Well, that will be one of the differences.
I'm going to have a Republican in my cabinet because I don't I don't feel burdened by letting pride get in the way of a good idea.
Yeah right, stuff.
The problem with that answer, Okay, fine, she's doing she's going after Republicans is that Biden's brand is that he loves Republicans and loves to work with Republicans.
So good point.
People are like well, that's actually not a you're saying, it's a thing that's different. And I guess he did he technically not have a Republican in the cabinet. I guess not.
No, But she actually had one of the most parties in voting records when she was in the Senate, so which was a selling point for her, as you'll remember in the twenty twenty primary that her voting record I think had been intentionally.
It was also she was elected into the Trump presidency, and you just weren't if anything was associated with Trump as a Democrat, you were voting against it. So her entire Senate career was just Trump right right.
Although the Kamala Harris of let's say twenty eighteen and the liszt Cheney of twenty eighteen would not have been especially friendly like they were last week It's rippin Wisconsin when Cheney endorsed her. This view segment was is so brutal that even CNN went in on Kamala Harris after it.
This is Molly ball reacting. We can roll this clip.
I'm surprised, frankly that she doesn't have more to say about this, given that she and her campaign know that this is one of the main questions the voters have about her, and one of the main things she's been trying to establish as part of her candidacy is the idea that she would represent a break from the past four years and to not be able to come up
with something to say in that moment. She continues to not be particularly nimble on her feet in a lot of these interviews, and this is a very obvious question that gave her an opportunity.
Frankly, yes, she is not very nimble on her feet. That's a good way to put it, I suppose.
Yeah, So what could she say? The things that people don't like about the Biden administration, according to Pauling, is one is handling of Israel, Palestine, Kaza lebanon all of that, and also his border policy. She and he have broken with his original border policy, so they've already done that, so that kind of leaves Israel, and she has decided, for whatever reason, that she'd rather just go down with a ship inflation break with him on that.
I mean, people like if you if you look at polling, people are not pleased with.
The state of the economy.
Yeah, she could say, I'll have lower egg prices and I'm gonna I'm gonna fight inflation more than I wouldn't bind it. But then it's like, well Biden said he fought inflation all the time, Like it's tough.
It's you know, she can just stick with the answer.
She said, I'm gonna fire Lena Khan.
She couldn't do that.
She'd be like I talked to Mark Cuban way more than Joe Biden. I'm much better friends with three Hawks.
Sort of what she means by I'm going to have a Republican in the cabinet.
Well, depending on when she puts Jade Fans in the cabinet, you might keep Lena Khan. So she also talked about her healthcare plan on the view Let's roll this uh B three.
What I am proposing is that basically what we will do is allow Medicare to cover in home healthcare st and because we're talking about these kinds of things where it's just about helping an aging parent or person, you know, prepare a meal, you know, put their sweater on, and it's about dignity for that individual. It's about independence for that individual. Yes, I mean what people are declining skills to some extent, but their dignity has their pride has
not declined. They want to they want to stay in their home. They don't want to go somewhere else. Plus for the family to send them to a residential care facility to hire somebody is so expensive.
And I'll just say what.
But here's the other thing about it is, you know, people say, well, how.
Are you going to pay for it?
Here, here's the thing, here's how we pay for Part of what I also intend to do is allow Medicare to continue to negotiate drug prices against these big pharmaceutical companies, which means we are going to save Medicare the money because we're not going to be paying these high prices.
What do you make of that? Run?
That's great stuff. That's that's the Democratic Party I'd love to see out out there more often. We are going to take money from these giant corporations that are ripping us off, and we're going to give it to people to make their lives better. Look wonderful. Let's do that. And you know that the Medicare paying for at home care is you know something I've been hoping Democrats would do. You know, as soon as I became you know, understood
what it even meant. And because she's right, it does save money and saves a lot of pride and dignity to keep people out of these residential care facilities as long as possible. It's the last place anybody wants to be. And also the children, well grown, the grown children who were performing these this service for their their parents, they're doing it out of a sense of you know, filial obligation and love. But it's also taking it's also very hard.
It's taking away from what they could be doing else they taking care of their kids, so they might have to hire somebody to be with their kids at the time. It's there is time you can't take shifts at work. It's time that you can't just you know, relax and recharge on your own. So, and it's not something that people do forever. Obviously, it's some it's it's something that
many people do for some months or years. But while they're doing it's very it's very difficult, even though it is rewarding and it is the thing that you're doing out of love. And so for the state to step in and say we're going to try to soften this blow for you a little bit by taking some of the billions in profits that the pharmaceutical industry is taking from you. Good, great, good for her, just keep saying that the whole time.
Well, that's what I was also going to ask you.
I mean, I can imagine a decent number of people voting for just for that on the on the wing, in a prayer that could ever become law.
Yeah, yes, completely agree with that. She went on Howard Stern as.
Well, and JD. Vance said something similar to this or no, I mean, not exactly smart if he did. He's on the childcare side, like he's he's been supportive of helping to financially support family members who perform childcare for relatives, right, yeah, which this is similar.
Similar, although it's such a I mean, any conversations that smack of greater state involvement in healthcare is like a hard red line for Republicans still, even though I mean, we've talked about this before, their lack of replacement plan for Obamacare, their lack of any plan.
If we called trump Care trump care.
You called trump care, then we're all good. He actually probably doesn't have hardened ideological opinions on what to do with the healthcare system. From what we can tell, so who knows, but she also, I mean, but my final point on that would be that I think we're increasingly waking up to the horrors of those facilities and we'll look back on it, like fifty years from now as a real cruel experiment that we went along with for way too long.
Yeah. My mother worked in a nursing home the whole time I was growing up. Yeah, miserable plant I I would have walked there after school and sitting there and just hanging out there. Absolutely miserable places. Wonderful people at the nursing home. Yeah, until she was off, probably learned a lot. Yeah, yeah, play some dominoes. Well, she was. She did the she was the activity cordnerator, so she was one doing the bingo and the arts and crafts and.
So do some of that.
So Howard Stern interviewed Kamala Harris yesterday as well. So if you're going through kind of the checklist here, she's sort of mirroring the podcast playbook that Donald Trump rolled out starting a couple of months ago, which is interesting and you kind of do have to do it. That's one of the things Trump said to a Lex Friedman he seemed that he'd maybe learned that from his experience with Elon Muskin Spaces and maybe a little bit of Baron's touch in there as well.
It's just it. It's true, like this is where the audiences are.
She did a Colinghurston a basketball podcast last week that didn't get a ton of attention, but here she is on Howard Stern. Easiest decision in the world would be for her campaign to do Howard Stern because he has become an absolute shill that might as well get paid by the DNC.
Here's how that went.
I think that's some of the most important work that anyone can do, which is to require that we have a society that does not allow, in particular for violence and that kind of behavior to go without consequence, serious consequence.
It's really weird too, because to me, you're the law and order candidate, and yet they try to paint you like here's some leftist I don't know who wants to have people running through the streets committing crimes. You were a prosecutor. I have put a lot of people in jail.
I have personally prosecuted everything from you know, child said actual assault to homicide.
I have put a lot of people in jail.
So true, But also she like, I like how Howard Stern is they try to paint you as being soft on She was telling people that contribute to the twenty twenty bail fund for Minneapolis protesters, which you and I will disagree on.
But she did do there you go believing that she believed that.
Well, yeah, but like he's saying, they try to paint you this way, it's like she did that.
She did do that.
That was her I was like, she posted a tweeter.
Did she do it if she didn't even mean it.
That's a great question that goes a little deeper than we're prepared to address today. So yeah, I mean, Howard Stern is kind of open about being a shelt this way, He's not like ashamed of it. But he really really laid into her on that one, just really gave it the business. Yes, okay, So speaking of she also went on Colbert by the way and addressed kind of the same question as the view. He asked, basically, what in
what ways will you be different than Joe Biden. She said, again, I'm not Joe Biden, and I love the American people, and to paraphrase, Mollyball was not very nimble on her feet.
We watched that before we started taping. It was cringe.
So she gave the same answer twice to the question of how would you be different from Joe Biden, which is, well, I'm not Joe Biden, which either she came up with that on her own or they actually did prep for this question. You would assume that this question, it's the number one question that voters are asking. It's you know, the consultants are saying, this is a change election. How do you show that you're the change candidate? And that seems to be what they've come up with so far.
I mean, I get that it's difficult because you're the vice president, and so then the obvious follow up is why didn't you do it? And the obvious answer is while the vice president doesn't do anything and we all know that. But that's not a very you know, self satisfying answer, pointing to your own impotence.
While we're on the subject, I don't begrudge either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for doing fairly friendly podcast interviews.
And I don't begrudge.
Yeah, it's gonna say, I don't begrudge Howard Stern, who is now an open partisan Democrat, for doing those interviews and doing it from his honest perspective. Same thing with Alex Cooper or Ben Shapiro talking to Trump, whoever it is. I mean, you're not going to suddenly cosplay as Walter Cronkite. It'd just be weird, wouldn't make sense. You're probably not
equipped to do it if you're Alex Cooper anyway. But to see Howard Stern, Howard Stern just kind of marvel at the toughness of this, or the fake toughness of this, like manufactured robot girl Boss cop. It is just against everything that Howard Stern ever stood for, and that may have been and I'm not saying Howard Stern stood for anything good, but man, was that a great glimpse into the transition.
No.
I've never been a big Howard Stern fan, to be honest, but it does show just the dramatic change that he's taken in his life.
Yeah, and he wrote a memoir about that like a year ago or.
So, say five years ago?
Was it that long ago?
While ago?
Yeah, basically I think he just feels extremely guilty, Yes, for all of the raunchy stuff he did for twenty.
Years, the sexism in particular thing.
Yeah, and so he's now atoning for that for the rest of his life.
And you know, it's just not funny. It's just not funny. Let's move on to something that is, I guess funny.
In some ways, people caught CBS because usually when you do a sit down interview with sixty minutes or whatever, you'll tape maybe an hour and they truncate it to thirty minutes something like that. So stuff always gets left in the cutting room floor. The drop of the editors is to make sure what is cut up is true
to what was actually said. But in this case, when you look at the full foot from CBS, they released that often on their six minutes YouTube, which is great, what they actually aired on sixty minutes, it seems like was not exactly true to the answer here on Netanyahu.
So let's take a listen.
But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyah who is not listening.
Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.
But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyah, who is not listening.
We're not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for.
This war to end.
So what you heard first there is how Kamalhirst actually answered the question without editing, And what you heard afterwards was how CBS edited the question so Ryan, they made it and a lot smoother, a lot more vigorous, cleaned up some of her like just uncomfortable pauses and hesitancy.
What did you make of the edit there?
Well, yeah, it's like, oh, you ordered this without the word salad our fault and they just they just dump it in the trash and just get to the middle of the answer. Yeah. I can sympathize with the editors who are like, Okay, we need we need to clip here. And none of this made sense. Now if you go back and re listen to it. What she's trying to say, and that first answer is well, we actually have put pressure on him, and some of the things that have
happened have been a result of that pressure. But it's it's a deeply unsatisfying answer because you're like, well, what pressure and what things like this didn't actually tell us anything. And then eventually she gets to the thing where she said there in print journalism, it's funny, well, we'll have a three hundred word answer from somebody and we will grab the two sentences that make their point that we need,
and sometimes then we'll paraphrase in and out. But when you're doing a televised interview with a potential president of the United States, you got to be a little bit more kind of sacred with the words, because the voters want to know how this person's mind works more than they want just a crisp, clean answer to this question, which, if you notice, because they cut it the way they did, the answer doesn't really even flow from the question. It's like,
what what have you done? Why isn't he listening? And she just in the edited answer, just says, well, we're going to continue pushing.
It was a super tough interview, by the way, on it I think it was. You can hear that question on Netanyau is actually pretty tough in it itself.
It looks like he's not listening. He's a great valid question, super tough on the border.
It was a really I think it was the hardest interview that she's done so far, and her answers were going viral for all the wrong reasons on social media the last couple of days, for exactly the reasons that people were worried about Kamala Harris being the candidate in the first place.
You know, Joe Biden stepped down.
She was their apparent, and this is how she sounds in interviews, So it seems like that's exactly what happened over the last few days and sixty minutes was a really, really rough go for her and.
What's wild And I'm curious if you noticed this. I was listening to the Hugh Hewett and Dan Senor on a podcast the other day. They talked about this interview. They were livid at CBS for they they said, aunty is real questions and at Harris for not answering it by saying, well, the real problem and the real reason we all have a ceasefire is because of Hamas, because
Amas won't do a ceasefire. So like from the right, she's getting blasted for that answer, saying it's too sympathetic to Hamas and letting Hamas off the hook and CBS because CBS is not asking all about Hamas, I guess like that, and then from the left, the left looks at that as her and it's like, that's this is absurd and ridiculous, and you're facilitating a genocide, and the people in the middle are like, I can't even make sense of any of this. Right, So it's like zero for three.
I mean, ultimately, if your ideology on that question is power, then your answers won't make sense. You can't please anybody, because if your ideology is pro Israel, then you can sense that she's not entirely pro Israel, not.
Locks depth, although in practice she is right, but ideologically not well, who knows. Again, you're assuming she has an ideology, right, that's what.
Yeah, her ideology is questionable assumption.
I'm going to need a citation for that.
I think your ideology is not having a strong ideology.
That's what she's means that, therefore, she's not actually an ideologically supportive Zionist.
Yah yah right, Like she's exactly, she's not an ideological Zionist.
She might be pro power and pro American.
Power, and she's surrounded her ideologues.
Right, and if your ideology is power, then you enable right. So anyway, that's what I made up. And actually speaking of that, that's a great opportunity to bring up V six. This is Mark Cuban saying that he doesn't believe Kamala Harris should keep Lena Kahan as FTC chair.
Cuban said, if it were me, I wouldn't.
This is what he told Seima for by trying to break up the biggest tech companies, you risk our ability to be the best in artificial intelligence. And Cuban has obviously been all over the place stumping for Kamala Harris. So add him to the list of very powerful billionaires telling Kamala Harris giving her money and saying we don't want Lena Khan.
Yeah, and I had a story a couple days ago at Dropsite on this same theme that I could put down the notes there where Cuban says the same thing where he except he goes even a little further. He says about Gary Gensler and Lena Khan. He says, quote, she's been very clear, Missus Harris. She's been very clear that she's against regulation via litigation. She said it She's
had me say it for them. Then Andrew Ross Sorkin on c NBC aske him, is that a veiled way of saying that Gary Gensler is legislating through lawsuits, and he says, I don't think it's very veiled at all. I think it is what it did. I think it
is what it is. Litigation. Regulation by litigation is another word for enforcement, Like you put laws in the books, and then if people don't, if corporations will follow the laws, you sue them and you find them or you or you go after them criminally if they if they really break the law. Like that's how it works. If you just put the laws on the books and you can't do any litigation, what good are the good are the laws in the books? And so Cuban, it's fastining to
hear him say, she said it. She's had me say it for them, She's had me say it. So he is a surrogate, he's an official Kamala Harris surrogate. And so he's saying, like what I am saying about Lena Kon and Gary Gensler, I am saying at the direction of Kamala Harris specifically.
Had me say it for them.
Yeah, this is sort of a remarkable which is what a starrogate is by definition. But he's being very clear, I am not on my I'm not out on a limb.
Here, kind of unintentionally transparent. I think is one of the remarkable things about the post Trump era is that he's trying.
To He's trying. He's trying to scream at Wall Street, she's with you.
Yes, that's it.
Yeah, And he wishes he could do that clearly, He's probably doing it in texts and everything like that. But it is a remarkable moment of transparency that you don't often get from surrogates who are on their talking points, like nobody's business.
It's when you have a billionaire surrogate, they probably feel a little freer. What are you going to do to them?
It's it's the truck.
It's similar to Trump, right, like he'll say, I know the system, I alone can fix it.
I'm part of the system. They don't talk like politicians.
So anyway, I don't know that Mark Cuban meant for that to be super transparent, but it was, and that is actually what happens. They do give surrogates actual talking points to go out there and use moral of the story. Though I think Grin is Kamala Harris predictably having a lot of trouble in the harsh spotlight of the one month mark, you know, the final stretch, hump stretch, one month until election day.
Not as joyful as it was in August.
But as she says, it's still her against Trump.
That's right, that's right, and that's what matters at the end of the day, for sure.
Speaking of Donald Trump, he was on Ben Shapiro's podcast yesterday.
We can show he was at an event. This is c one.
You can see he was at an event with Donald Trump earlier this week. That was on the anniversary of October seventh. So Trump went to this was did you catch this in New York?
And here he says, do you want me to sign this?
Right? Yes?
Yes, And you can see him with Ben Shapiro there, and he was at basically he was at the grave of Rabbi Schneerson in New York.
That's a you know more about this than I did.
But that was the Lupavicher prominent, like a big deal with Donald Trump went there, which is why Ben Shapiro obviously came up for it on the anniversary of October seventh. You can see Trump is wearing Yamaka there. In the next day he went on Shapiro's show. So we have some thoughts from this, We have some clips from this, some highlights from this. Let's take a listen.
It's really an honored to introduce you to the family of an American citizen currently being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza strip. That citizen's name is e Doon Alexander. I want to thank you for that. The family was very grateful to you, obviously for taking the time to meet with them, and you know, it was really a meaningful experience. Wonder if you wanted to say something about the situation for that family and the other families like them.
I thought, from a religious standpoint, it was so beautiful. I had not been that aware. As you know, I'm not Jewish, but I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood to plays mildly with my father being a Brooklyn builder, I knew lots of Jewish people, almost almost exclusively, if you want to know the truth. But I thought it was a beautiful you know, He's explained the whole thing and how it worked and it was very actually it was very beautiful ceremonial, and I got to meet the
family and they were great. The young brother is very close to his brother who's hopefully somewhere right now. I mean, they really don't know. It must be almost harder when they just don't know. They're not sure whether or not he's alive or not alive. They think he is, but you know, being alive over there now is rough stuff. And before it was rough, but now it's probably even rougher.
And some people, even on our side, seem to suggest that you're some sort of total isolationists want to slash the military. You and Senator Vance have said that your foreign policy is peace through strength. Can you describe what your second term foreign policy will look like.
Yeah, Number one, he wouldn't have taken Key because you wouldn't have had a war, and you would have had the country just the way it is. Our policy is very simple, peace through strength. We had no wars, and I'm not an isolationist. I helped a lot of countries. I kept countries out of war. We had two countries, smaller countries. I can explain it later, and I can
explain who they are when we're together. But they were fighting, and they've been fighting for a thousand years, and they'd go back and forth and they were going to fight again and kill tens of thousands of people. And I said, look, you do that was going to be no trade. There's going to be tariffs for on your head. There'll be no trade. And that's for both of them, et cetera, et cetera. Two days later they called me up that they've made peace. I do these things. Nobody ever even
heard of it. Iran was broke when we had no terrorism, we had no attacks, we had no harmas problems, no hasput problems. We had nothing because Iran didn't have the money to give to them, because I put sanctions on and I dealt directly. And you know what I was asking for, ben one very simple thing. I don't want them to have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. Everything else, you know, I want them to have a great life.
I want them to be rich. I want to but I just didn't want them to have a nuclear weapon. I would have been able to do that very easily. But when the Kamala and these people say about Kiev, and people call it Kiev, and they call it Kiev. I've always called it Kiev, and it depends on what part of the world you come from, is what I figured finally figured out.
Okay, So Ben, if you were listening to that, was laughing the last Betton had a big, mused looked on his face for a couple of the other moments as well. Ravi Schneerson passed away in nineteen ninety four is obviously very big for the Kabad movement.
So that's where Trump and Shapiro were in there. You're right, Ryan, he.
Did seem like he asked to sign a prayer book, and it looks like the rabbi said no.
But the next day he goes on the Shapiro Show.
Shapiro, by the way, it should be noted, is not pretending to be like an objective guy here. He's fundraised for Donald Trump. He held the fundraiser for him back in the spring, I think. So he's pretty openly much like Howard Stern is openly pro Kamala Harrison, pro Democratic Party establishment. Shapiro's Trump in this case, what did you make of how Trump responded to those questions?
And as a producer, Mac points out background on eaton Alexander he's now twenty. He was born in Tel Aviv, grew up in New Jersey, graduated high school in New Jersey, then moved to Israel, joined the IDF and was stationed outside of Gaza and was captured on October seventh. You know, Trump doing his best, I guess to care about any of this stuff, and you know, we all know exactly what he's going to say every time it comes up that he has no he has no real solution for anything.
He's just going to say, if I was president, none of this would have happened and just kind of leave it at that.
Yeah, that's his favorite line.
Yeah, and you know he doesn't expound on it, like Kamala Harris tries to expound on this line about what's different between her and Joe Biden. She really could just say I'm not Joe Biden and let everyone's doing the awkward silence and move on.
That's what Trump does.
He's like, if I was president, none of this would have ever happened, and you can kind of get away with it because it's impossible to deny that it is true she is not Joe Biden, and it is true that if he was president, we don't.
Know what would have happened.
We don't know, can't prove wrong.
Oh, I actually think there's a decent argument for that in Ukraine, but we don't need to open up that particular can of work Ukraine.
Ukraine's possible, for sure. It galls me when he does that on October seventh, though, because October seventh had so much ado with the Abraham Accords. They've been explicit that the Abraham Accords cutting Palestinians out of normalization in the Middle East incentivized them and drove them huge two to violently put themselves back into the conversation like that is what they have said. It also is exactly what people predicted would happen if you'd tried to do Middle East
piece without the Palestinians. And so he kind of put all the kindling out there, threw a match and it walked away, and then when it starts burning, he's like, if I was still around here, wouldn't happen. It's like, no, I'm sorry, Ukraine. Maybe quite plausible, who knows, you guys seem tight, but this one, no, this is this is on you.
Well in Ukraine.
I mean Trump actually armed Ukraine and Republicans were very happy about that at the time. So anyway, it's all this is in the context of a huge reporting from Bob Woodward, which I honestly don't believe a word of.
And we might disagree on that.
But I don't believe a word of what he wrote on Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
Frankly, you usually have direct sources and tapes, and.
Yeah, some people do.
Yeah, Bob Woodward is listing people talk. It's just the rule of Washington.
So right, Yeah, the big reporting is that he claims a Trump aide says that maybe Trump and Putin spoke about seven times, maybe as many as seven time times since Donald Trump left the White House of former place, just kind of kinds of things.
To talk about.
But and Putin like actually speaks English to him, Like he drops the whole I don't speak English thing?
Is that what?
I didn't see that?
But yeah, so the book is I don't know, I'm I'm just joking.
Oh, I thought you were saying that was actually in the report, and I was like, that would be quite a good detail. It's possible, but I think the book
comes out on October fifteenth. Well, the reason that sounded somewhat plausible to me is that some of the reporting is about how Putin was given like abbot COVID tests by Trump and told Trump not to be public about it, allegedly because it would reflect poorly on Trump, like Putin was concerned about Trump according to Bob Woodward's reporting, which
is also somewhat strange to me. But anyway, that's why I think in the context of all of that, this is I think that's especially interesting, in the context of all the Ukraine conversation is especially interesting.
In the context of all of that.
It also said that MBS has a burner phone labeled Trump and a burner phone labeled Jake Sullivan. According to one of Bob woodwards sources, that.
That's definitely possible. I reported years ago that there was a WhatsApp group that Jared Kushner and Yahoo, MBZ and NBS, and I think that all of their intelligence, their various intelligence services, were like, yeah, what are you doing get yourself a burner.
Yeah, you're not gonna want to be doing that on your iPhone. But anyway, so that was Donald Trump on Ben Shapiro's show, but both of them clearly both Trump and Kamala Harris clearly making the rounds of kind of their partisan media or their ideological media friends. I don't know if that really changed any minds. I doubt that changed any minds pretty much. Everarnie's listening to Shapiro is already with Donald Trump and probably isn't making up their minds based on this in particular anyone.
So yeah, I doubt it. Or actually, there might be a bunch who are like wondering whether to vote, because whenever you're talking to a large enough crowd at the points, you're talking to many, many people who are on the fence about voting.
That's a good point.
Ben definitely does have like never Trump people in his audience, but people who are just like sort of regular probably educated, middle upper middle class suburban voters who might be a lot of people take for granted that the Abraham Accords were a period of calm and stability, Like that's taken as fact that you know, the Abraham Accords actually were solving the problem in the Middle East, as helping to further it potentially, You're right, So, like the Republican line
is that listen, contrast the era of the Abraham Accords with the era of October seventh, Like this is big.
So Biden like picked up the Abraham Accords and forward.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jake Sullivan was writing about it like week before October seventh.
Yeah, so anyway, all the architects still in power. Yeah, and Jared Koshner with a two billion dollar private equity fund.
And Howard Stern when he was courting Hillary Clinton to go on his show, was saying, specifically to the campaign. He writes about this in his memoirs, specifically saying to the campaign, we have truckers persuadable people who might be thinking about voting for Donald Trump. But if you talk to Yeah, if you talk to them and you make your case to them on my show, it might actually
swing some votes. So you can see where Kamala Harris would come into that and say, eh, but I don't know how many of those undecided otters are actually still listening to Stern.
Honestly, I think I think a lot of them are, because he still has a talent for speaking. Yeah, people need shows that are hours long if they have a lot of window time they got to get through in the day.
Especially live stuff.
Yeah, all right, Ryan, let's move on to this incredible scoop that you guys got over at drop site. A really really spectacular story, fascinating story. I don't say spectacular in a good way, so spectacular in a way that it is profound.
So tell us what we're about to watch.
On August twenty nine, twenty twenty one, an American hell fire missile fired by a drone killed seven children and three adults outside of Carli, outside of Cabble. My colleague armand Gassine filed this report for US about it.
I heard a very true well sound, and I see that the sky is at black the smoke, and I think that maybe the accident up and at then the High Court, but unfortunately my wife.
Call it me. The US military has confirmed in the last few minutes that it's carried out a drone strike.
Drone strike against an isis K vehicle.
The Pentagon confirmed they hit a vehicle which had suicide bombers in it.
The procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.
When I came in and I saw everyone's borned, everyone was killed, and the pace of the body was around that you are around the roof, everywhere, the pace of the body, and just I see that I'm not able to see my daughter, my niph for my niece, I didn't see them Againe.
I offer my profound condolences to the family and friends of those who were killed.
I'm not angry with you as since they are announced that they do mistake, tragic mistake, and they apologize for us and we forgave America because nothing can bring back our family now. But I expect for the US government that they got away for has it was so expensive and California, we have to decide to move for Califronia to Kansas City because here is cheaper.
So I followed up with the State Department at the press briefing yesterday, asked Matt Miller if there have been any advancement on the negotiations with this family about potential compensation or whatever the word they use for compensation was like a gratuity payment or something bizarre. He said he had nothing to add yet, but he would get back to us when he did. So, you know, it's many years ago at this point that this happened. But I found it interesting that the survivors were able to say,
you know, mistakes happened. I don't harbor any anger at the United States.
I thought that was fascinating, and they said they forgive the United States. And if you were listening to this, the video ends with text a graphic that says the usas negotiations are ongoing, but that any payment would be out of good will, not out of any admission of
guilt or legal liability. And what's interesting about that is earlier we watched the clip in the video of the US officials saying we apologize to the family, and you hear that jexapposed with Mark Milly saying, quote, it was a righteous strike.
So on the one hand, to complete walk back.
Of the initial position of the US government obviously, on the other hand, still no admission of legal liability forthcoming as far as the US government is concerned. And that's sort of an interesting square to.
Try and circle.
Yeah, and it's also a reminder that it is good that we left Afghanistan because if this type of killing ten incent people does not you know, can't is a tragic mistake, but isn't the kind of thing that causes like a policy change, like we're going to review our policies here and see how this happened. Say, well, you know,
it was mistake. Mistakes happened, and we're just going to keep going forward, like you're going to continue to kill innocent people if the policies okay, because you're you know, you've got somebody in Tampa properly, ye, who's looking through a camera at a grainy video and they see somebody walking to the trunk of a car with some object and filling something and they're like, well, it could be
a bomb. Well, sure, anybody carrying any like anybody who comes home from the grocery store or anybody who's going to a game and is loading things into the trunk like is in a grainy footage potentially a terrorist loading a bomb in there. And it's just it's a hard way to think of the world, to think of yourself. You're loading up your trunk for softball practice and you might just get a hell fire shot at you. Because nineteen year old in Tampa figures better safe than sorry.
It's almost worse than that, because it's not it's not just a nineteen year old in Tampa. It's this like bureaucratic chain.
Right and this one, yeah, this one, this one probably went up a ways, right, But you know, you have to do it quickly, right, although they can follow the car for a while. So I mean, hopefully the family gets what they considered to be justice. We'll see, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
But amazing that they were able to say that they don't harbor any anger, that they forgive the United States, and like you said, hopefully they get some symbolance.
Of justice here.
And not surprising the California was too expensive and then never moved to Kansas City.
Not surprising at all.
And this is happening in the context of just yesterday, I think it was the FBI announced that they had thwarted a plot by an Afghan who was here in a special immigrant visa to this was in Oklahoma City to have some type of ISIS terrorist attack against America. And what's frustrating about is our inability to do any bureaucratic vetting correctly at all, Like you blow up the family of an AID worker who wanted to come to the US and be a part of the US, but
this falls through the crack. So I mean, it's just weird incompetent or completely incompetent that the family that should have been here contributing is burned.
And that happens here. Yes, indeed, all right, well, let's move on to this.
Isn't quite just about Project twenty twenty five. It says Project twenty twenty five on the banner at the bottom of the screen, but it's sort of about the porn industry getting involved on behalf of Kamala Harris in the twenty twenty four election. This is a wild story and not an entirely unpredictable story, but we can put e one up on the screen and tear sheet from the New York Times about how the porn industry is jumping into the presidential campaign, targeting Project twenty twenty five.
That is the New York Times headline.
What's happening, essentially is that seventeen porn actors got together, cobbled together one hundred thousand dollars and are planning in swing states to run on Project twenty twenty five or to talk about Project twenty twenty five in political ads on those porn sites, so basically in swing states saying
don't vote for Donald Trump. Obviously, it's an effort to aid Kamala Harris's campaign, and it is based on Project twenty twenty five, which ran I have pulled up the part of Project twenty five that actually deals with pornography and Ezra Klein, who's schedule in the show next week programming note, I have to go to Rome, have to I will be in Rome for work next week, but
Ezra client is scheduled to come around the show. But Ezra asked me about this part of the Project twenty twenty five mandate book because I had spoken about pornography at porn Regulation at a conference Earler this summer. And this is what Kevin Roberts wrote in the Mandate for
Leadership from Project twenty twenty five. Pornography Manta fested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian, not in extricably binding up desparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare, which is something you hear in libertarian circles a lot. It is no claim to First Amendment protection. It's purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.
Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders, and telecommunications and tech firms that
facilitate its spread should be shuttered. So much farther than I would go on porn regulation, and I feel like I'm pretty hawkish on peorn regulation, Ryan, but you can see where the porn industry would find that to be enormously threatening and politically beneficial because.
It is so hardcore you should all be in jail.
Yeah, it makes for a very easy political ad on behalf of the hairscape. And obviously, in order to do this, you have to tie Trump to Project twenty twenty five, which Trump is trying very hard to distance himself from Trump.
I think they've already done that successfully.
They have.
I mean, my super quick take on it is that Trump had nothing to do, literally nothing to do with the writing and drafting Project twenty twenty five. He likely had no idea what it was, and it angered him when he heard out about it. But in his administration there would definitely be lots of influence from the.
People who created Project twenty five. They're going to be front and center in front of the line for jobs.
Two things are gonna be true.
Yeah, Trump had nothing to do with it, and two he would definitely use it in his administration just out of necessity, right.
And if Trump doesn't care about policy for the most part, then he's going to delegate that to the people who do care. And if he hires the people that wrote Project twenty twenty five, then these porn folks are right to be nervous.
Yeah, yeah, And it's politically and there is and there are.
State level of assaults on the porn industry, right, like, yes, yeah, where there are wheres there Republican control.
Yeah, you can't go to Pornhub in certain states anymore.
Basically, Pornhub just they said it was too hard to operate in certain states because there'd been a lot of this I think comes down to the age verification laws, that that was such an owner's burden, which I think conservatives are right to say. That kind of tells you a little something about how these websites are being run. But it was such an owner's burden.
That they just don't operate in certain states anymore because it's really hard to verify the age of people who are using those platforms in a way that complies with those laws that were passed, because there you know, and there are there are privacy concerns.
I understand that the age verification laws require people to like upload their driver's license or something. Yeah, I think it varies, but that's I can imagine why that would be, Yeah, what he might not want to do.
You can imagine why that would have an effect on people's voting decisions.
So one hundred thousand dollars not a lot of money.
Though, So if you know, they always come up with these different names for voters, soccer moms, whatever, porn dad.
Because here so in the New York Times article, they say between eighteen to twenty nine year olds, forty four percent say that they've watched porn in the last month, and between thirty to forty nine year olds that number goes up to fifty seven percent in the last month. So you have your soccer mom.
It's a huge electorate, yeah, the key demographic.
But you can imagine where that would actually be pretty powerful. I'm surprised it's only one hundred thousand dollars because like, that's the privacy that stuff is psychologically, that would have a huge I would imagine that would have a huge and powerful effect on people's decisions when they're actually going to the ballot box and it's seven swing states, one hundred thousand dollars.
You spread that out seven swing states, It's really just.
Not that much money, right, it's the it's more the arn media and the New York Times and the breaking points and kund of points that is worth. It's going to explant I actually boost that.
You're welcome.
Yeah, So if you're getting a targeted ad, they know something about you, well, I.
Think it is just on That's the other reason it might only be one hundred thousand dollars. They might actually have cooperation from the site, so like subsidize the ads and all of that.
You would, Yeah, if they were smart, they would use their massive audience and advertise to them.
And it's kind of funny, by the way, because Donald Trump is like the president the only president to my knowledge that has ever been on the cover of Playboy and post for the cover of Playboy.
So it's Trump. This is a bit Trump.
I'm sure he personally doesn't want any part of that. He doesn't care.
Stormy Daniels, of course, likely likely had some type of relationship with Stormy Daniels.
And this probably also blends together in people's minds with overturning Roe v. Wade, and because in the same states where they would be shutting down porn Hub, they're also pushing, you know, significan abortion restrictions in the wake of overturning Roe v. Wade, and so it probably all gets blended together in people's minds as Republicans just creeping into your bedroom in multiple different ways.
Yeah, I think that's true. I think that's true.
The Kevin Roberts quote that I read earlier, even I was surprised by that, but you.
Know what, you're like that this can't be right, Like, oh wow, I.
Don't doubt that it was right, but it is.
I will say that there is a there's a moral consistency to that that is superior to the kind of mealy mouth approached you see sometimes.
So at least he's being morally consistent, he's going for it.
Yeah.
I think that's actually probably going to increase on the right, just given like the porn industry saying it's good that fifty seven percent of thirty to forty nine year olds are watching porn once a month.
That doesn't appeal the most.
How did they how did they lump trans people into that? What was the quote again?
There is So I'll pull up the quote here, but I will say that is to.
Read ten dollars words at the front end of that quote for me to be able to follow it.
It is a common Now, correlation does not equal causation, is what I would say to that. But it is a common thing when you talk to kids who have like de transitioned or even they didn't do a full medical transition, but they end up regretting different types of therapy or whatever.
It is a thing that a lot of porn addiction along the way. Yeah, comorbidity type situation. Right, Yeah, I mean basically, yes, that's what he's trying to say.
That's what he's trying to say.
Okay, So the quote here, Ryan, because I know you wanted to hear it very very badly. Is pornography manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political gordion, not inextricably binding up desperate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare.
So that's the part of.
Its junior in college writing, writing a paper and with no self awareness.
But that is where it and the propagation of quote trensgender ideology and again like that there is I understand why it's invoked there, because that's a common point. If you see, if you're somebody who sees the stories of de transitioners as representative of something that's troubling, as I do you do that does just it comes up a lot, So I get where it comes from.
That quote went harder than I would have expected.
And just for people watching, if you are I want to be a writer, if you want to express your ideas, don't write like that. It's bad, bad writing.
Maybe we can get Kevin Roberts on the show.
You guys get out. If you ever find yourself writing Gordian, not stop and go back and rewrite the.
Sentence Gordian that is, it's never what you really needed.
To cliche as crutches, they're intellectual crutches.
All right, Let's move on to our guest, who is actually has a pretty unique perspective.
Tell Jewish Iranian American anti war activist here with the National Iranian American Council at the intersection of all the worst things going on. So stick around. We'll be talking about Benjamin Netanyahoo urging the Lebanese people to quote free themselves of a huge portion of the Lebanese population and what that means for regional stability going forwards. Stick around
for that. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin netnah who released an unusual English language video directed at the Lebanese people, urging them to free themselves from a significant portion of the Lebanese population through the organization Hezbola. Let's roll a little bit of that.
This is a message to the people of Lebanon. Do you remember when your country was called the pearl of the Middle East?
I do so.
What happened to Lebanon? A gang of tyrants and terrorists destroyed it. That's what happened. Lebanon was known for its tolerance, for its beauty. Today it's a place of chaos, a place of war. Israel withdrew from Lebanon twenty five years ago, but the country that actually conquered Lebanon is not Israel, It's irang You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that would lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.
It doesn't have to be that way, all right. So we're joined now by Eton Mubarak, who is an analyst at the National Iranian American Council. Eton, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program.
Thank you so much, Brian and Emily Grace too great to be here.
Just a quick note, I'll be speaking today in my personal capacity as a Jewish Iranian American advocate, not on behalf of my organization, the National Iranian American Council, but i will discuss the organization's work and.
Positions excellent, and we actually prefer that because then people can speak a little bit more freely than if they're speaking on behalf of a large institution. So Eton, then Yahoo goes on in that clip to say that the Lebanese people basically have a choice that they have to quote free themselves from Hesbola or he's going to turn Lebanon into Gaza. He's going to do to Lebanon what he did to Gaza. And so separating themselves those two
things out. First of all, what would it look like for Lebanon to quote unquote free itself of Hesbola.
Well Ran, I think it would look a lot like we're seeing in Gaza, and if recent events are any indication, it's like likely to look like a lot of what we've already seen.
But the bottom line is, you know, the United States and.
Activists are demanding that the United States should not be helping that Tiannahu pursue a campaign of regional war with Iran or regime change in Lebanon while he continues to fail to achieve his strategic goals in Gaza. You know, instead of preventing a war with Iran and throughout the region, US policy is actively fanning the flames of this conflict,
and we need to change course. The fighting in the Middle East, broadly over the last year in Yemen, in Syria, in Jordan, where we lost three US service members, and most recently centering Lebanon, Iran, and of course Israel and Palestine, has flown directly in the face of Biden's stated goals
of avoiding a regional war. And that's Yahoo continues to cross red lines in in Gaza, in in Rafa as he as he inflames tensions and seeks this this regional war and and and Hesla has came has also carried out heanous attacks on civilians, but they've also stated repeatedly that their attacks will end with a ceasefire in Gaza. And we should be wary of this campaign to to distract from the failures of achieving strategic.
Goals there and a quick follow upon that and Emily get in if we can put up F two. Nayak has helped to organize a coalition against war with Iran. And I've noticed in the reporting over the last few days that the US is not only coordinating with Israel when it comes to Israel's response to Iran's response the back and forth air strikes that we're seeing, which would implicate the War Powers active because it introduces the United
States into hostilities. But there are there's even reporting from the New York Times and elsewhere that the United States is considering its own direct air strikes on Iran, which would obviously be a flavored violation of the War Powers Act and the Constitution itself. What's your understanding of the of the current situation and whether or not the laws on the books have anything just you know, are are at all an obstacle in what the United States is considering here.
Yes Ronan, Yeah, yesterday NBC claimed that US officials discussed joining Israel in offensive strikes against Iran, you know, passing them off as defensive after the fact. And we and your right to point out that we need to keep in mind Congress has not declared war on Iran, and and that outcome would be disastrous for the region, and
it'd be exactly what Netanyahu wants. And some extremist Israeli and US Iran haawk camps are suggesting that this is some kind of generational opportunity to take out Iran, you know, the head of the snake, the eye of the octopus, and what have you. And these calls again are meant to distract from from the need for a ceasefire. But but in that letter that you that you mentioned that.
That Nayak led you signed along with eighty you.
Know, over eighty civil rights human rights organizations, we're demanding again that the us UH not pass any new laws, but just adhere to our basic laws on the books, that we condition weapons, condition offensive weapons in line with the Laky laws.
And there's going to be a historic.
Vote on a on a on a on a joint resolution of disapprovals of disapproval to condition weapons coming up. Senator Sanders is expected to force a vote in mid November after Congress returns from recess, and that will be the first straightforward Senate vote on Israel arms sales since January. A crucial opportunity to to to you know, enforce whether or not to see whether or not the US can enforce its own laws, relatives of the Lahy Law and National Security Memorandum twenty And at the.
Crux of the efforts from those generational calls of people, especially hawkish on this is the idea that Aaron wants to wipe Israel off the map, as they often say. So, I'm curious for your perspective on how the that that central as somebody who's both Jewish and Iranian, how the characterization of Iran's ultimate goal towards Israel. What do you make of that as especially as it is used to justify potentially extreme responses.
Uh, that that could be very, very escalatory.
So, I mean, let me just make it clear, as a as a Jewish Iranian American, my family left Iran, they live, they came to the United States, and many of them live in Israel now. And I have friends and family in Israel who are horrified by this conflict, who are exhausted by the mental toll and the strain of this, you know, aside from the Palestinian humanitarian issue.
But I think the bottom line for American Jews and the big the bigger picture around Iran and the regimes calls to annihilate Israel is that, you know, the US. I'm I'm an American citizen. I can only control what the United States government does, and activists around the country have been focused, laser focused on us doing better, and the US needs to do a better job of stopping
this chaotic cycle where Israel has Bola. Iran proxy parties keep trying to out maneuver each other and one up each other, each unwilling to see as to be seen as the one who backs down. This kind of constant cycle of tactical wins in a war that is a
strategic loss for everyone involved, for all civilians involved. And we've seen how military solutions play out to solving political problems, and you know, with I also want to make it clear I absolutely condemned the Islamic Republic regimes, human rights abuses, and I stand with the Iranian people's movement for self determination. The regime has been brutal in its treatment of women,
journalists and dissonance of all kinds. And at Naiak we publish a human rights tracker every single week covering the human rights activists and abuse stories coming.
Out of Iran.
But when we analyze these policies and we advocate for policies, we have to acknowledge facts. And the fact is that our policies of maximum pressure, broad economic sanctions and general isolation and just eliminating of diplomatic off ramps have undermined US and regional security interests and human rights in the region. Human rights are a disaster all across the region, including
in Iran and and and obviously in Palestine. So so our policies they need to be attached to advancing clear goals and you know that that needs I think that needs to be the framing with regards to Iran, you know, And and that doesn't mean that I, you know, in a vacuum conversation, I don't want to see the Iranian regime gone and see a you know, a better government
that serves the Iranian people. But I don't think the United States and bb METS and Yahoo are the the the are the careful executioners of a regime changing in especially given the US legacy of supporting efforts to install and regium change in Iran in fifty three.
So I'll leave it at that, and there's more to talk.
Also, there's a template, sorry to example, but there's a template for how we can solve this in terms of goals, like the Iranian Nuclear Deal, even though it wasn't perfect, it was working to contain Iran's nuclear program, and Iran's current president, as Eshkion, supports it and put together a cabinet, whatever you think of you put together a cabinet of former JSQA negotiators again in support of a deal that was containing Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief
to the Iranian people. And the Trump administration withdrew from it while Iran was complying. It destroyed goodwill and trust. But there is still a world. I believe that there is still a world where we can re engage with Iran even in this moment and de escalate the regional conflicts and deal with the nuclear issue.
But it's not going to come if the US continues to be will.
You know, unwillingly or be dragged along into a five front regional war at Netsanya?
Who's best?
One other thing I wanted to ask you about, By the way, I forgot to mention that I would bring this up. But I don't know. Did you notice that Netanyahu yesterday or the Israeli government yesterday put out basically an infographic with a bunch of targets of people that it intended to assassinate at some point going forward and on.
That was Ali al Sistani, one of the most revered figure, maybe the most revered you know, cleric or religious figure on the U of the Shi of the Shia faith, somebody who met the Pope fairly recently, a political spiritual leader. Uh and a lot of people were shocked to see his face with the target on it, along with like Hesbula commanders and I'm and like, I think the Ia
stin war or something was on there. I don't know if you saw that, but uh, is that is that rippling through the Shia community at all?
Do? I can't speak to it. I haven't seen it.
That's different, different, different, different area over there. So Anyway, I also wanted to ask you about the UH the Irish if you have any sense of where this situation with the Irish speaking in my own sec the Irish Lebanon UH, the I d F has kind of ordered these Irish peacekeepers you know, to basically get out of their way, and the Irish are saying, we can put up F three by the way. This this is a v O of the of some id F soldiers raising
a flag in in southern Lebanon. Rather provocative act and certainly you know, not beating the charges of a planned occupation of southern Elebinon by doing that. This and so you know, the the Irish troops have said that they have not been directly threatened by the I d F. Hesbula has said that they will not fire at I d F troops who are anywhere near the Irish because
they don't want to catch the Irish. What do you make of the kind of this this U N peacekeeping role of the of the Irish kind of refusing to back down? What and what what's your sense of how things are going broadly in Israel's ground invasion.
Well, I know that the Irish Prime Minister on the on the on the global stage, has been one of the one of the most outspoken proponents of Palestinian human rights and critics of of work of the you know, alleged war crimes committed by the idea. Within this, I'm glad to see h you know, UH peacekeeping forces involved and trying to stand in solidarity.
Amidst uh you know, with with with the Lebanese people.
You know, we've seen with the ground invasion so far, what two thousand Lebanese folks killed, a million displaced.
It's it's uh.
And and while the I d F and Israelis you know, maintain a strategic advantage in terms of air strikes the ground invasion, there are there are questions, especially considering the recent operation that saw eight I d F soldiers killed. I mean, the fact is, I think more broadly, this is one of the darkest periods in the region, uh, in the region's history. But it doesn't it still doesn't
have to be like this, uh. And we need to call out as Jews, as as Americans, you know, obviously, we need to call out the call and and and and call anti stemitism and escalation from from the one side calling to destroy Israel but we also need to call out and condemn this greater Israel expansion dream along with ethnic lens and occupation in Lebanon and in the West Bank ongoing.
Uh.
You know, no side, despite these calls to eliminate the Israelis from from you know, the one side, and and calls to expand Israel into these states on the other, no side is going anywhere. In my opinion, despite the regime change fantasies, no side is going away, and we we need to just embrace the sustainable path, you know, through diplomacy and negotiations. This I I don't see the ground invasion in Lebanon, uh, you know, eliminating Hesbal they
may have degraded them, they may significantly. You know that certainly some decapitation UH strategy has has has worked uh in that sense, but there's a lot of and international relations scholars that have questioned the efficacy of, yeah, of decapitation tactics.
Ahead, we wanted to get your reaction to a fairly viral confrontation that Liam Cosgrove of Grey Zone had with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller yesterday. Ryan was there for it, so he'll have probably some color to add to the conversation. But this is Liam questioning Matt Miller on escalation. Essentially, we couldn't roll this clib.
We often hear in response to these concerns that, well, putin Kamani, you know their war criminals, they're terrorists, as if they're too inherently evil or a moral for us to negotiate with. But meanwhile, this administration has financed a genocide in Gaza for the last year, and every day you're up there denying accountability for it. So, I mean, what gives you the right to lecture other countries on there more? If you have a policy question for me,
I'm happy to take it. If you want to give a speech, but I think spa places in Washington where you can give a speech. Yeah, but people are sick of the bullshitting here.
I mean, it is a genocide.
Mean, you are betting on another question, and you are risking nuclear war and you crazy places give a speech.
So the question I guess was what gives you the right?
What are you?
Yeah?
What does give the United States right? So we if you have a response, that go for it. We just wanted to kind of make sure that we had that as a chaser to the program.
Yeah, what do you make of any.
Look, I share the frustration, you know, in the in the question and Frankly, you know, I'm an I'm an organizer.
We we work you know as a at Nayak.
We were you know, we have fourteen volunteer chapters and
thousands of members and allies around the country. And we've been organizing meetings every you know, at every chance we can for the last year, with members of Congress and their staff trying to call for no war with Iran, cease fire, no weapons for war crimes, unrough funding by the way, another huge issue, and UH and diplomacy first, and in these meetings people are get extremely emotional and Democrats have failed, frank to UH, in my opinion, properly
engaged with with Middle Eastern Arab Muslim communities on this and with with progressives generally. They've you know, there was a moment of hope when Kona replaced Biden and when Possession got elected.
But right now we were not.
I I don't have so much faith in in the administra, in the administration right now, certainly before the election, UH to make any significant departures from from what has been,
and and and and again. You know the clip aside, I would just love to reiterate some of the things that activists have been calling for again with with the war powers, with diplomacy with Iran, was rejecting this war, the great statements from some members of Congress, folks like Represented mcgoverned, Jayapaul, the Congression Progressive Caucus, Center Van Holland, et cetera. And the under a Restoration Act was was just introduced, which is a huge, huge potential issue in
addressing the humanitarian crisis. So but but I feel for that reporter. It's I'm glad I'm not I don't have to be in those rooms because I might, I might lose its fit. Your meetings are are are much better.
Yeah, that was. Yeah, It's like there was a question there where do you get off basically, where do you get the right to say the things you say?
Right?
Uh?
Etom O Brock, thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate it.
All right, Well that does it for us today? Like I said, quick programming note, we uh, well, soccer will be here in my.
Stead extra show on Wednesday.
Yeah, I have a fellowship in Roma.
As a result, Triple bro Show, Triple Bro Show.
Oh my gosh, that's going to be too much.
That's still not a lot of tea, right, I mean that's that's three low tea dudes.
Right, don't tell soccer that soccer for you?
This I was bringing the taste.
Someone cut this, yeah, actually, don't leave it. And it's more fun that way.
But anyway, that's the schedule for next week. I'm looking forward to watching. I wish it could be there. Ezra is such an interesting guy, and you guys go way back.
Yeah, I mean we've been came up in this field together twenty years ago or something at this point, Lord, so that'll be exciting. I remember when he was a young man compared to me, compared to you. Now we're both old.
Yeah.
Well, I look forward to watching that and watching a Bro show with you and Sager. Soarker doesn't often get to subn on counterpoints, so that'll be extra fun.
He's on your tour. Oh no, I always move for crystals, so he should move.
I actually prefer this side, so I'm going to try to move over to this side.
All right, Stay tuned to figure out which side of the desk Ryan ends up on, and after that, We have what two three weeks till the election.
So stick around for Counterpoints Friday. Come back on Friday for It. We're going to have Jeremy sk Hill, my co founder over it drops O new is in, my former colleague back at our last organization as well.
Very exciting. All right, stay tuned. We'll be back with more on Friday or Thursday night. If you're a premium subscriber, Breakingpoints dot com to get the show early.
Toe you later,