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.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent.
Coverage that is possible.
If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show. Hello, everybody.
We had some major breaking news yesterday that we wanted to, of course react to. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has announced he is not running for reelection.
Let's take a listen to what he said.
I've made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for reelection to the United States Senate. But what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.
So there it is crystal. Lots of platitudes, but the top line, he's not running. He is, though, going to be quote, traveling the country trying to unite the men will he be running for president on the no labels candidacy. Maybe him and Mitt Romney can team up. You've got two unshackled gentlemen there not running for reelection. It sets up all kinds of interesting possibilities. What did you think?
Yeah?
Absolutely, I mean this is like a horror scenario for the Biden White House because as much as I mean, Mansion is a very conservative Democrat, the most conservative Democrat you know, made a point of rejecting Biden on any number of initiatives, even ones that were actually popular in the state of West Virginia, things like the child tax credit.
But he's still a Democrat, and you know, their view, the Biden White House, and I think this is accurate and born out by pulling, is that any candidate that would divide the anti Trump coalition is going to be very bad news for them. And you know, this is pretty evident when you look at theoretical centrist candidates who they take more away from, and most of the candidates who are running third party are considering running third party, with the exception of RFK Junior, tend to take more
away from from Biden than they do Trump. For the simple fact that Trump's support is way more solid and biden support is way more squishy. You also have a situation, of course, where perhaps the majority of the country is not too excited about either one of these gents running again. So it makes these potential third party candidacies that much more potent, and that's much more of a threat to you know, certainly to Biden, but possibly also to Trump.
With regard to the labels, no Labels doesn't have any sort of like grossroots constituency. This isn't like a grossroots movement. It is a movement funded by a bunch of very wealthy people who tend to have very sort of like conservative corporate economic politics and then sort of centristy on
social issues tends to be their vibe. So they certainly have the organization and the money to potentially get ballid access in all kinds of places across the country, and Mansion has been the dream candidate for them for some time. So we'll just have to see.
Yeah, I mean that's what people are like. Oh, but not that many people are.
Even in to a Joe Manchiney presidency.
I'm like, well, it doesn't matter, and you only need to shave like two or three percent, and that's still a huge thing. I also think he would get more, especially if it were someone if it were like a Romney Mansion type project, that the name idea on that alone would make it and it would just be undeniable in terms of the coverage. And clearly Mansion, you know, has a bone to pick, at least privately with Biden. He doesn't agree obviously with a lot of the things
that he's run on. You and I were talking about this previously, but you know, this may seem as if he was being like altruistic, but the main reason he's resigning is or not retiring, is he was going to lose. Like there's almost no question. You know the state better than I do. Maybe you can lay that out for people.
Yeah, so Mansion, I mean, first of all, to go into a little bit of the history, West Virginia for a long time was one of the most solidly democratic states in the entire country, and it was one of the later states to shift in the sort of Southern realignment. Appalachia, West Virginia and Kentucky in particular were the last to switch, and still at the local level in West Virginia, they elect a heck of a lot of Democrats. So Mansion
was the state's governor. He was very popular. Then he runs for Senate and you know, initially got reelected very easily, and just as politics have become more national, the last time he ran for reelection, actually his race was much tighter than the polls were showing, much tighter than anticipated. And that was right around the time that all the Kavanaugh stuff happened, and that's when you know, things really
shifted away from him. Now he manages to hold on, but this time it wasn't looking like he was going to be able to pull it off again at all. I'd already basically already written the seat off, whether he was going to resign or not. You've got another West Virginia governor, Jim Justice, who was originally in Democrats, which is parties to be a Republican, who is very likely the Republican nominee, and he's very popular in the state. He's a Republican, he's closely associated with Trump. This is
a very pro Trump state. So the writing was already kind of on the wall for Mansion in terms of his political prospects. You know, I also there's a couple other things to say about that. One is that because the Democratic Party in West Virginia is so sort of moribund, strift bear of resources, Mansion has really become the Democratic Party in the state of West Virginia. You know, the
whole party apparatus is basically designed around him. So it's also sort of a mortal blow to the entire Democratic Party architecture in the state of West Virginia. So there's that,
you know, which is interesting on a local level. The other thing to say is, you know, there was a lot of speculation about some of his less popular moves that he made politically, you know, especially with regard to democratic priorities, things like I mentioned, like the child tax garded that it's like, oh, well, he's just you know,
he's trying to appeal to West Virginia voters. And I always thought that that was a bit silly because a lot of the things that he would stand against were actually popular in the state, so it didn't really make sense for him electoral perspective. Now, on cultural issues, I think it's a very different thing. But West Virginia is actually pretty economically populist, which Jim Justice in certain ways
has governed that way. As governor as well. So in any case, I think this finally puts to bed the idea that was all just electoral positioning and we needed to leave him alone because he knew the state and he knew what he was doing. Because even with apparently his moves to buck the president and buck his party, it still wasn't nearly enough to overcome the electoral barrier now in a red state of West Virginia.
Yeah, and now the Senate math is particularly tough for Democrats.
So I've got it here in front of me. We can put it up there on the screen.
To hold the Senate in twenty twenty four, Democrats must now defend Montana, Ohio or Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Also the White House.
If they stumble in just one of those, they must replace one by a GOP held seat and unseat Tim Scott or Ted Cruz. Good luck, I think on both of those. What was the last time Jamie Harrison Mania Whenever everyone thought he might have a chance, he ended up losing by at points. So maybe they'll have the dream maybe alive once again. But regardless, Crystal, that's a tough map. But I mean you know, in a sense, his retirement is just indicative of how difficult of a
landscape they face. You've got an unpopular president. Politics is literally more national than ever. You know, you can govern in the most Joe Mansion way possible, and that's still in this day and age pretty much just not going to get you all that far. I was reading an interesting analysis today that twenty eighteen was one of the biggest retirements from Congress since the post World War two
era in all of history. And one of the reasons is that being a legislator today senator is a bit different, but we're just talking generally. Being a legislator today you have never had less impact as in the committee process is dead, So if you actually want to.
Legislate, you don't have any real input.
You can't add amendments, you have no ability to do anything in markup. There's very rarely hearings that are substantive at all. In terms of the bill, leadership controls almost everything. Everything is done through omnibuses, with the giant bills that pass through continuing resolutions that things just get tacked on at the last minute. It's just the White House and then the leadership in the House and the Senate, they're the only ones that get any input.
And then on top of that, your ability.
To run for office has very little to do with what you do all day. It just happens to do with who's at the top of the ticket, like Obama or Biden or Nancy Pelosi. So you could be the best dam legislature there is for West Virginia, but it's a Trump state, and Trump is like the Democrats of the Devil, And that's just how a lot of people are going to vote now. Of course, on the margins,
it matters a little bit. But part of the reason we're seeing a mass retirement really at this time is because a lot of these people just don't like the job anymore. They just they believe that they've never been less effective as legislators.
Well, especially at the federal level. There's just really no ability to be like, you know, a West Virginia Democrat exactly, at the end of the day, you're still a Democrat. You're still going to vote for Chuck Schumer, You're still behind Joe Biden, and so we don't really care. And I mean, frankly, I can't really blame voters for that
because especially especially now. You know, once upon a time it was like, okay, if you had all the seniority, you'd be able to really deliver you know, mansion has I'm sure put together all sorts of appropriations and quote unquote pork barrel which oftentimes really important community projects that actually help places out, and was able to deliver that for West Virginia. But that stuff, you know, is increasingly
rare and becomes less and less important over time. So that seniority and that you know me, I've been here, I'm looking out for you no longer matters. And what matters more to people is just like, all right, well, who are you going to vote for Majority leader? Who are you going to vote for House speaker? Who are you backing for President of the United States. That's when we talk about the nationalization of politics. What you see now.
On the other hand, we just had an example in Kentucky of a Democratic governor who has you know, been very popular in the state, who was you know, really tried to to the will of the people and focus on things like disaster relief, again being very present, things like labor issues. He brought a bunch of these new battery jobs into the state, and because it's state and it's not about who you're voting for House Speaker, majority leader or President of the United States, he was able
to overcome those trends. But I think in the House, in the Senate, it's just, you know, it's becoming increasingly impossible to separate yourself from whatever the partisan lean of your state is, you know, just to weigh in on the Senate map, obviously, it's very difficult. I do think Democrats have a chance to run the table here.
I don't think.
I don't think it's impossible. I haven't I saw a while ago some polling out of the state of Montana with John Tester. You know, he's probably the only Democrat who could win in that state, But I do think he has a chance at holding on there. In Ohio, the recent polls have shared Brown actually up by quite a bit. That's the other one that's really tough. And then they got to hang on in a bunch of
other swing states. So I don't think it's impossible, but it is very difficult for Democrats, And as I kind of alluded to before, in some ways this clarifies things and also means that they're not going to waste a bunch of money on a West Virginia seat that frankly was probably already gone. So they know exactly what they have to do now in order to hold on to the Senate. This seat was a foregone conclusion all but and that's exactly why Mansion has decided to step away.
I think it's I think you're you're right. And also there's a lot of people who are like, that's it, the Senate has gone. I'm like, really, I heard that before twenty twenty, and then guess what happened. Trump, you know, pulled as Shenanigans two special elections, and then they won both seats.
And you never know what's going to happen.
You could have a mini blue wave scenario where Biden barely ekes out reelection, but you know D, it's like D plus four on the national popular vote and you would absolutely win Michigan, Pennsylvania or any of those places.
So don't rule out anything.
You could also see it the other way, could be a total red wave and think Democrats could lose every single one of those seats, although I think that's probably unlikely. The whole point is that everything is up in the are the only thing is certain right now, Joe Manchin will not be in the U and I say Senate come twenty and twenty five. So there you go, everybody, and we will talk about Israel and Palestine next.
Hey, guys, we've got some important breaking news that we wanted to update you on coming out of Israel and Palestine. First, we wanted to start with a pretty wild threat to press freedom that gets thrown around a lot, but in this case, I don't know any other words to describe this, so put this up on the screen. It all started with this Israeli outlet that sort of covers tries to
cover media bias from a pro Israel perspective. They're called quote unquote Honest Reporting, which we'll get into how the name is a bit of a misnomer. But they effectively accused the photojournalists who were able to obtain, you know, photographs on that horrific day on October seventh, of potentially being infiltraders rather than journalists. And we're talking about you know, freelance conflict photojournalists who were submitting photographs to the AP,
to CNN, to the New York Times. And the response to this report from quote unquote honest reporting was quite something from the Israeli government. So put this up on the screen. You had Israeli government officials saying that they will eliminate these photojournalists. Let me just read the tweet here. They say, Israel's Internal Security Agency announced they will eliminate
all participants of the October seventh massacre. The photojournalists who took part in recording the assault will be added to that list, so that list for elimination. Again, these are coming out from official Israeli multiple government officials using very similar rhetoric here. So incredibly chilling, I mean terrifying. These are people who are just trying to do their job and bring to all of us evidence of what unfolded on that terrific day.
Yeah, so, Chris, Well, they have four specific people that they name here in the report. It's Hassan el Sayah, Yusef sued Ali Mahmoud, and hot tem Ali. Al Sayah has kind of been the poster child of this one. I will say it's a bit of a sketchy photo where he's getting kissed on the cheek by the founder of Hamas.
That said, I have no idea whether.
He has my Association.
Well yeah, but it's also it's an odd thing to be doing if you are, you know, a journalist that and he has now had ties cut with.
Him by two people. I am not saying this man.
Deserves to die in any way, let's be very clear about that. And he is a freelance reporter. I don't know if he has any inside knowledge of the attack. It appears that the other ones, Yusuf Mus, sued Ali, Mahmoud and hot tem Ali, at least in two cases of a journalists or the outlets that have worked with them in the past as freelancers, have said that they had absolutely no knowledge of the attack, that they it's
outrageous in order to accuse them of this. The real problem I think with this major report is instead of I think which is a legitimate story, is if you were to say, hey, this guy who works for CNN and the AP took a selfie, you know, getting kissed on the cheek by the founder of Hamas, they straight up insinuated, and not even insinuated. They said that they had advanced knowledge of the attack. And I do think that is outrageous because the Israeli government immediately came out
and said that they are now legitimate targets. So, for example, like with the New York Times, what you're talking about, we can put.
This statement here up on the screen.
They say, the accusation that anyone at the New York Times had advanced knowledge of the Hamas or accompanied Hamas harrister in the attacks is untrue and outrageous. It's reckless to make such accusations, putting our journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza at risk. What they then claim, though, after all of these denials from all of these reports, is one of the craziest things I've ever seen.
Let's put this up there.
They said they were just asking questions, which is as like or sorry, just raising questions.
That is like internet meme.
In terms of throwing out crazy, crazy accusations against people and then just being like, what, I'm just asking questions. And look, okay, it's fine to ask questions, as we said, but when you declare something, especially as an Israeli outlet, that then leads to a witch hunt within Israel and also within the United States.
Let's be honest, because it was shared.
Everywhere widely amongst a lot of pro Israeli supporters, in the US, they've basically greenlit these people from a governmental level and from a US like cover level in the media to say that they deserve to be killed.
So I strong I stand very very strongly against that.
I think it's you know, it's fine if you want to be like, hey, this guy took a selfie he got kissed on the cheek by the leader Hamas.
I agree.
I think that's weird, and I think that's why the two outlets that they don't want to work with the guy anymore. And I don't think that means you having partiality. But you know, it's also pretty crazy to suggest that they had advanced knowledge. Because Ryan Grimm was talking about this. You know, sometimes when you're a journalist, sketchy people contact you and they'll be like, hey, just be here at this time in this day.
You'll be like, yeah, okay, you know, you don't know what's going on.
You're just like whatever, and you show up and you're like, and if some shit is popping off, what do you do?
You're supposed to do your job.
I mean, this is like saying that people who you know accompany the US military. You know, we had many people who are there. You know, during the invasion of Iraq or whatever, had advanced knowledge of what was going to happen.
No, they don't know anything.
They're just told to sit and stay put, and then when stuff starts happening, they're like, Okay, now you can film and put it out there. So I don't think that. I think that, especially since they straight up and mid on the record that they have no evidence that these people had any advanced knowledge.
Yeah, and that their guilt.
By association, as you said, was pictures of these individuals doing their job in the midst of the attack and then green lighting them as targets.
That is outrageous and just.
To put a fine point on that. So this gentleman Gil Hoffman, who's the executive director of quote unquote Honest Reporting and a former reporter for the Jerusalem Post, he told the AP the group had no evidence to back up their suggestion. He said he was satisfied with subsequent explanations from several of these journalists that they did not know quote they were legitimate questions to be asked. And despite the name Honest Reporting, he said, we don't claim
to be a news organization. So I think that clears it up for everyone here. I mean the suggestion too, that they had advanced knowledge. You really think Hamas, which was trying to hide this operation from the world, their own political leadership, didn't know what was going on. You're their benefactors in Iran, you know. Intell US Intelligence says they were surprised and didn't know what was going on.
And you think that they notified in advance Western aligned journalists to their devious plot, like you have to be insane. Nt Yahoo claims they were completely caught off guard by it, And you think Western journalists got heads up that this was all gonna unfold, Like it's preposterous on its face, and you can't just you know, it's one they're asking a question. You can't just throw some stuff out there,
especially in such a volatile situation. And we haven't covered a lot of this because it's happening in Israel and not happening in the US. But the state crackdown on any sort of descent, any sort of you know, WhatsApp status post that could even be tangentially construed as pro mouss. People are getting arrested, people are getting protests, are getting beaten in the streets, like that is the level of paranoia.
Laws are being passed, you can try to criminalize even descent that is factually based, and you're gonna throw out these allegations that you acknowledge are completely baseless. And then the other thing that you know is just absolutely shocking is that these Israeli government officials immediately jump on it and again no evidence, say we will elimit, we will add them to the list of terrorists to be eliminated. Just just think about that. Like, you know, people, we
are in many ways considered journalists. Ryan is considered emily journalists. Like if you step the wrong way with the israel government, they're going to put you on a list for elimination. That's insane. And just so people understand too, you know, because I'm sure it can seem very uh morally fraught to be with Hamas while they're perpetrating attacks and it does raise quote, Okay, what's your responsibility. Well, this is laid out in the job description description in the Code
of Ethics for conflict journalists. Your duty is to not intervene and not involve yourself. You are there to be an observer, a witness to history, so that we and others can actually have a window into what unfolded, so you know this other like, oh, well they went along and they didn't intervene. That's their job so that we can all know about the horrors that unfolded on this day.
So just outrageously irresponsible. And the most significant part is it's one thing for some you know, random blog website, whatever the hell this thing is, calling itself honest reporting, then being like we're not a newsvalid don't don't get it twisted. It's another thing for a powerful developed state to use these baseless, evidence free allegations and say now you're on a list for elimination, and especially soccer at
a time when journalists are being massacred in Gaza. I mean the number of journalists that have been killed beyond any other conflict, like way beyond any other conflict, the most since they've started tracking such statistics, and their family members targeted. So you know this is not an idle threat, I guess, is what I should say.
No, I think the Israeli government is the worst actor in this, because you can't just be putting on people on kill lists based on a baseless allegation. It's also from a websit journalists in point of view, when the founder said he was quote satisfied with their explanation, I'm.
Like, well, why don't you reach out to them for comment? Man, you're going to put people that five.
People on blast and put their lives at risk before actually, you know, if we were going to do report, you know, just and we had an allegation or something like that. It is your responsibility to be able to give some especially in this case.
A reasonable amount of time to comment, to sift.
Through and then you're like, oh, okay, well then I'm not You get run it and you can put the explanation in there or not. You know. The important thing I didn't mention on the Reuters in on the AP part is that the time stamps on the photos actually show that they were taken two hours after Hamas had fired rockets and forty five minutes after Israel said gunman had crossed the border.
The AP the same thing.
Many of their photos were taken more than an hour after the attacks began.
AKA, these guys were around the border.
They're probably told like, some shit's going to go down. You don't know what's going to go down, and then they see it and they're like, oh, my god, let's go, and so they're like run in.
I know people who have reported in combat zones and they always talk about this.
It's a very difficult thing where you are not supposed to intervene. You know, at a humanitarian civilian level, you can like provide like some basic first aid and all these other things. But if you start getting in there, your life is in danger and you're going to get killed. And I totally understand why that is very difficult for people to wrap your heads around. But that's you're why you're not a combat journalist. That's why I'm not one either. I don't want it to be put in this situation.
My old point is just that it's it is a difficult situation for those people who are placed in that job. This outlet is outrageously irresponsible. The people who did not the people who put this out and just spread it with all these people without asking for comment or any of that. I think it's crazy. And look, I'll say this too.
Nobody hates some media more than me. All Right, I hate the media. I'm happy.
You know. I would put them on blast, you know, if I thought they actually had done something terrible. But I know enough people who work in this position where these are not you know, shitheads were posting about Russia Gate or something like that. If anything, they're doing the real stuff on the ground, that taking of what's happening and telling us, you know, what's happening.
Here and air strikes there and all of that.
And like, in my opinion, if you had people who were you know, on the ground and just just reporting the facts and all that more, we'd be better off.
So it's especially actually.
Important to make sure that we we uh, don't just jump to situations where we're green lighting this. And I also think the US government should absolutely protest any any type of action or honestly even statements like this if they're going to claim that there's some you know, the Biden administration is some paragon of protecting journalists even though we know it's all fake.
Yeah. That that is a great point too. I mean, where are there words condemning this putting you know, photo journalist names on a list for targeting by our great ally Israel. We had one other piece we wanted to update you guys on because this is significant. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So Israel has agreed to brief daily humanitarian pauses. Now, I'll tell you my thoughts on humanitarian pauses in a second, but this falls short of what even the Biden administration was pushing for.
They had wanted several days in order to try to facilitate negotiations on hostage release. We know actually that there was a potential deal on the table for hostages to be released, and then that was completely derailed by the ground invasion that went forward in Gaza. So these negotiations
have been ongoing, That's what the US was pushing for. Instead, Israel has agreed to put in place four hour daily humanitarian pauses in their assault in northern Gaza, the White House said Thursday, as President Joe Biden press Israelis for a multi day stoppage in the fighting in that bid
to negotiate the release of hostages. They go on to say that similar short term pauses have occurred over the past several days as tens of thousands of civilians have fled southward, but Thursday's announcements appeared to be an effort to formalize and expand the process. This as the US has pressed Israelis to take greater steps to protect civilians
in Gaza. And just as a reminder, you know, those of us who are pushing for a total cease fire to end the slaughter of civilians have been saying for a while. First of all, humanitarian pauses something liberals made up to make themselves feel better. It's not a real thing that I've ever heard of in any other conflict. This was like whiteboarded at the Center for American Progress here in DC. That's number one. Number two. Put this
from from ACTHEUS on the screen. Tony Blinken, when he was in Israel, directly told Netanyahu what they wanted these pauses for, and it had nothing to do with civilian relief. His message, according to one US and two Israeli officials, was quote, we don't want to stop you, but help us,
help you get more time. So they're trying to give Israel also some sort of a faith saving maneuver to try to lessen the pressure that is, you know, mounting and mounting and mounting on is real to end this, you know, instcriminate bombing that has so been so devastating to civilians and children and the siege, et cetera. And they're saying, hey, if you at least did this face
saving gesture of humanitarian pauses. Maybe that could buy you more time for your ground invasion and your bombing campaign.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's better than nothing. I think it's better than like not. I think it's been a fine outcome. It's four hours. You can actually get more civilians out of there if the broader conduct doesn't change. Though, it's not going to have a massive impact, but it's also not the worst thing to happen. We actually saw a series of quote unquote humanitarian ceasefires happen in Syria that I recall covering.
At the time.
They didn't have a particularly large strategic impact. Usually the defense of these things is, well, if you can agree to a humanitarian cease fire of four hours, then maybe a month from now you can agree to more of a hostage negotiation type scenario. That's usually what the defense is. This is like incrementalism to try to get to some sort of outcome. My interest is on what they're actually
doing at this point. Where are we actually shifting to the combat operation Because they keep saying we have encircled Gaza. You know we're doing this. The real fight has begun, but we haven't seen any actual ground like major ground combat offensive began yet, Crystal I was looking in the last twenty four hours. And so the question is with the Israelis and their military, like in a certain sense, like what are you waiting for in terms of the
bombing and in terms of the humanitarian area. But then are we moving to the next phase of the.
Operation or not? And I think that's where a lot of the reluctance is.
They're probably very torn at the higher command because that means that you are a you're going to take a ton more casualties in close quarters combat. Then at the same time you also have this hostage situation, and there's just such intense pressure, you know, and any any time you're starting to get that close to the enemy and all that, you're obviously going.
To put the hostages at a at a greater risk. So it is, Yeah, it's really tragic.
I do hope though, that at least some people could take advantage of a quote unquote humanitarian post to the extent that some civilians are able to escape from the area, because that's better than dying in this world.
Well, I mean, the question is really to like take advantage of the humanitarian pose to do what You've already had one point five million people displaced with their homes. You know, most people who have who were going to leave, have already left, and the siege is really taking a toll. I was just reading a horrifying report about you know, the most people are surviving on very limited brackish water that is, you know, causing them all sorts of illnesses
and disease. The medical supplies are running low, there's no food. You know, people are clustered in these hospitals or school that they think are safe. Some of them have received notice from the Israeli military that they may also come under attack. There is no safety. I mean, it's just absolutely horrifying conditions that people are living in, and you know, there's really nowhere for them to go that is safe.
So that's why, Okay, you know, having a few official hours break in the fighting on a daily basis, yeah, you're right, it's better than nothing, But it also is meant in service of just being able to prolong the conflict. That's what the goal is. It's not a humanitarian goal,
it's a goal. It's a pr goal to try to enable Israel to be able to sustain the bombing campaign longer, which is why I can't you know, I can't celebrate it as any sort of a real achievement because we already have Tony blink and explaining precisely what they actually want out of these humanitarian pauses, which is to allow the bombing campaign to go on indefinitely.
Yeah, that's a good point, all right.
We are out of time, so we will see everybody later on Monday. Thank you for Premium subscribers for enable this, and we'll see you then.