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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Indeed, we do lots of big stories this week, So Saga and I will break down how Scotus is going to play a key role in twenty twenty four after Colorado, of course, attempting to kick Trump off of the ballots. That we'll get into all of that, and we have some polling about how people's initially how people are initially reacting to that move by Colorado. We also have some dramatic developments in the Middle East, you know, things escalating between the US and the Huthies out of Yemen, so
we'll tell you what's going on there. We also had to pull some of the most insane comments that are coming out of Israel. There were so many of them it was hard to choose, and we felt we needed to devote an entire segment just to showcasing a few of them for you. So we'll bring you that as well. Also, the Democratic Party once again trying to cancel democracy in order to quote unquote save democracy. We'll give you the
latest developments there. Sager's taking a look at the ib leagues and we've got a little bit of like attempted holiday cheer for you here at the end. We've done some year end superlatives that will all be good reveal. Yeah, the minute that you go negative on these this year, it will get immediately very dark. So we're trying to look at silver linings. We're looking at the best moments of the year, what we're looking forward to, those sorts of things, all the kay things off.
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love you all so much. One last thing, Crystal, can I just say is that we discovered, as we had pointed out before, the number one way that our show grew by basically double this year on podcasts was you guys sharing it. So if you can't afford it or any of that, if you could just do us a favor and text the show to a friend of yours, send an episode or any of that that you think would be helpful to them, it really does help us out.
Or talk us up at the dinner table. That's one thing you could do for us maybe this holiday season. But let's go ahead and start with us cotus. As we were talking about, there has been a lot of stuff going on in the last two days, Colorado's Supreme Court ruling four to three to block Trump of availability on a Republican ballot, this setting up a major Supreme Court challenge. The basis of this being alleging that he has committed quote in insurrection and has violated the cause
of the fourteenth Amendment equal protection cost. So what does all of that mean and does President Biden agree? He wighed in yesterday on the tarmac at Air Force One. Here's what he had to say.
Well, I think you start shurtening yourself. Evident he saw it all on whether the fourteenth nine of the five. I let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported any insurrection, no question about it, none, zero. And he seems to be doubling down on about everything anyway.
President Biden saying that there's no question he committed in an insurrection. I guess also at the same time leaving it up to the court. This has also thrown things into the GOP primary. Vivik Ramaswami honestly a genius move in my opinion, being like, you know what, I will drop out, Crystal, if I will drop out and pull myself off the ballot if they are allowed to block Trump now setting and throwing the gauntlet to Nikki Haley and to Ron DeSantis. DeSantis was asked about this on Newsmax.
Here's what he had to say, and real quick.
Fellow GP twenty twenty four presidential candidate that Graumaswami saying he will remove himself from the Colorado ballot unless Trump's eligibility is restored.
Would you do the same.
No, I think that's just playing into the left. I think the case will get overturned by the Supreme Court. But I've qualified for all the ballots, I'm competing in all the states, and I'm going to accumulate the delegates necessary. That's the whole name of the game in this situation.
So it would just be playing to the left.
Crystal, This just does demonstrate all the difficulty of running against Trump. And I thought that those two clips actually show some of the political conundrums and dynamics that we have right now.
We got the president and most of the Democrats.
They agree, like I guess at a rhetorical level of quote unquote, insurrection was committed. This all actually started. You were the first person who ever showed it to me. Actually, of those Atlantic articles of there's law professors who.
Are laying out this legal theory.
Only took a matter of three months to go all the way to the Supreme Court.
And now we're going to have it.
Effectively has to be challenged sometime just in the next two weeks before January fourth, that's the deadline before Colorado is allowed to implement this, and presumably the High Court is going to take up this challenge. But politically this has set up some crazy dynamics, but legally too. What we've discovered is that the Court's ruling on this will
set the rule for all fifty states. This is not an election decision, because if they rule on the side of the Colorado Supreme Court, they would decide that for the entire country, Donald Trump is not allowed to remain on the ballot. This probably the most significant electoral case I think since Bush versus Gore, and that's just the first of many cases that will be appearing before the Court this year.
No doubt about it.
So this is not a state election law issue. That's why it would be relevant for the entire country. This has to do directly with this provision in the Constitution, which was originally put in place you following the Civil War.
It was used most often during.
Reconstruction to bar people who had, you know, been traitorous against our own country from ever holding office again.
And you know, just to give people.
The text of what that says, This is section three of the Civil War era fourteenth Amendment. It says, quote, no person shall hold any office civil or military under the US who have previous, having previously taken an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort
to the enemies thereof. So anybody who held has to be barred, you know, from holding office if they engaged in an insurrection.
Left unsaid, here is.
How you determine because someone engaged in an insurrection, and that has never been decided, and so in that way, I actually think it's very appropriate that this go to the Supreme Court, for you know, the not that I have a lot of confidence in this court at this point. I think it's a very partisan entity. Three of the nine justices actually put on the court, of course by Donald Trump. But I do think that is the appropriate place for them to adjudicate how should this provision in
the Constitution actually be applied. And you know, there's a lot of hot takes down there. Perhaps my take is the hottest of all, which is actually I think it's a very tricky legal question. I don't think that it is clear cut in either direction. Now, a lot of the analysis that I've seen, effectively people who are opposed to this decision, it effectually seems like they just don't think that this should be in the Constitution at all, That they think it should be left to the voters.
I think that's a perfectly legitimate point of view. It's not one that I happen to agree with. I think it's appropriate for a state to have the means to bar people who have engaged in traitorous or rebellions or insurrections against the state, to prohibit them from holding office. So I do think it's appropriate that something like this be in the Constitution. But then this type of legal questions this raises is primarily, as I said, who are
the officeholders? That was actually what the lower Colorado Court got hung up on, as they said, well, technically, we don't think that the presidency qualifies as an office under this particular provision. That was the piece that the Colorado Supreme Court said, No, we think by the plane reading Dictionary definition, the President of the United States would qualify. And then the key question is okay, well, what's your definition of an insurrection and what's your definition of whether
someone engaged in it? And who is it up to to determine? Does it have to be determined by an Act of Congress? That's one possibility. That's what some other courts have ruled, because there have been something like eighteen cases so far on the same challenge in different states. All of them have been rejected except for this one. The other question then becomes, okay, well does the state court have the ability and the jurisdiction to be able
to rule on this question? So there are all kinds of very difficult and frankly unprecedented legal terrain here to navigate. And so, like I said, actually I actually think it is entirely appropriate that this go to the Supreme Court for them to say, listen, this is the meaning of the text, this is how it's determined, this is the standard going forward. And also, let's be clear, it is almost unimaginable that this court is going to side with color.
Yeah.
I actually I don't think there's a chance it could go nine. Oh, I really do believe that, although maybe seven to two or something like that. From my court watcher, so I would split the difference. I don't think that people are saying that the clause itself is appropriate. It's just that the bar needs to be a lot higher. So, for example, if we think about the Civil War, taking up arms and fighting for the Confederate States and literally
fighting against your own country. One of the reasons why they have that provision in there was specifically about people who were officers of the United States military.
Or take Jefferson Davis.
He was literally a sitting senator for the state of Mississippi, I mean, genuinely committed treason. And yet this is where I think treason, the word itself, the eventual punishment for it, our public understanding of it. Let's think about it. I believe the Rosenberg were the last people who were put
to death for committing treason. Bob Hanson, the FBI spy from two thousand and July two thousand and one, I believe he also could have qualified for the death penalty because he was actively caught spying for Russia, but he eventually pleaded guilty.
And all that.
Those are about as far as I go for what treason and that should look like.
And I think the same.
Thing in this provision.
No no, no.
In terms of how we publicly understand it, as in for example of Hillary Clinton going on television and accusing Tulci Gabbard of committing treason. She called her a Russian spy. That's outrageous to me because to me, the word treason, the idea of the public understanding and the legal definition has to remain incredibly, incredibly high and used only in
the rarest of circumstances when it truly qualifies. I think insurrection too, is one there where we had a political, a civic and a legal understanding of that time of what it means to take up rebellion against the cause of the United States and the United States government. That is not even close to arriving at that bar for their where I think we are right now where I
do think this comes into anti democratic territory. Now that being said, I agree, I'm glad that it's going to the Supreme Court, and I hope they set the bar as high as I just said, where unless you literally declare a civil war against the United States, actively use your office as a government holder at the federal level, and you violate your oath and you work against those industry aid and to bet genuine enemies to foreign governments or others.
That's one separate thing.
But a political understanding here where we've already had the political means to deal with this, and that was called impeachment and Trump didn't get impeached. I mean, this is something where I talked about previously. People can go roll it if they want. I think it was like January seventh, maybe January eighth. I did an entire monologue about this about why I eventually thought that the debt resolving this through small d democratic means, to me, remains the best
possible avenue. I don't disagree that it's very legally we should have something like this on the books, especially if we consider what the country and the environment and all of that were at the time. But there's also a reason it basically wasn't used for over one hundred years. And think we're even close to anything like that, nor should we be.
I so, the definition of insurrection in the Merriam Webster Dictionary is an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an establish government. I think January sixth meets that definition. I mean very very I mean he does it because very clearly what they were there to do, and they were all say, in seventeen seventy six, and they certainly saw themselves as revolutionaries engaged in an act
to try to it was Keystone cops right. The fact that they had very little chance of succeeding doesn't really matter, though. The intent was to block the workings of our government and the peaceful transfer of power. So I don't think it's crazy to label this an insurrection, but again, I think it's tricky, right.
The other question, there are First.
Amendment issues here too, in terms of whether Trump's speech that he gave that day, you know, is that protected political speech or because he was, you know, effectively inciting this insurrection, does that then you know, get excluded from the qualification of political speech. Again, I think these are difficult legal questions, but there's a reason why, and we'll
get to the pulling a little bit. There's a reason why I think a majority of the country is like, yeah, I support it, because if you just look at the plain faced reading of this text that no person shall hold any office if they shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof majority of the country I think looks at that and goes, yeah, that rings kind of true. So that's why I think it's entirely appropriate for this
to go to the Supreme Court. The reason Sagaway said that a lot of people it seems to me like they're not arguing the legal merits of the case, they're just arguing that this really shouldn't be a clause in the Constitution is because if you're just appealing to, like, you know what, it should be the voters that decide period, end of story. I do think that's a legitimate position to hold. It's not the one that I happen to hold,
but I do think it's a legitimate position. But that means you just don't think that this should apply in any instance. Part of the reason why this hasn't been used in one hundred years is because we haven't seen this particular set of packs and circumstances ever unfold before us.
I just think it's I don't think it comes even close. I mean, the reason I could say BLM is they burned down a police station. That's revolt against civil authority.
But are I'm trying to overturnal election?
That's my thing, it's be ludicrous to prosecute them. They should be prosecuted for property damage, not for insurrection. I mean, this is one of those where even this whole, like you said, Keystone cops trying to get electors change and all that, that has all been dealt with at a very basic legal matter rising to this, and this is the other thing about insurrection as we commonly understand it. From the Civil War time period, this was legally defined
by acts of Congress, yes, by the Republican Congress. Also, I should note much of that provision and of that time was when the Southern States no longer had any political ability to exert their will in Congress because of the radical Republicans that were in charge of that time. I'm not saying I'm not even against that. I think
it was probably a good thing. But the legal understanding and the questions around insurrection and who was a legitimate officer and whether they violated their court and what that all meant, that all changed around eighteen eighty and such forth as we came to a reconciliation part and we moved on past reconstruction. There's a lot of debates and things about that time.
At the country.
But this is my point, is that the bar needs to be so incredibly high, as in like the Rosenbergs literally passing along nuclear secrets to the Russians, or Benedict Arnold, or quite literally Bob Hanson.
Treasons Again, no question, different question.
Yeah, But.
In what way is January sixth not an act or instance of revolting against civil authority? I mean, it seems to me the textbook definition of that. But then again, if you well, no, that's not true.
It could be applied that way.
We have have you ever seen an instance maybe two thousand, but have you ever seen an instance where you have people being incited by a president to go and march on the Capitol and try to overturn the legitimate election results.
We have not seen that before. To say this is just like any other protest, you know, and I know this is one of the arguments, and you see this from you know, some of my compatriots on the left of basically like, this is a slippery slope and it's going to be used against us, and I am sensitive to that, but I do think that this is different of character and kind than anything we have seen. I mean, it was shocking to us on that day when we
saw this unfolding. If you read the you know, messages of what these people thought they were doing, they clearly thought they were doing an insurrection. They thought that they were revolutionaries. They believed that they were patriots in this moment, but they definitely had a revolutionary furnivor and were trying to overturn legitimate election results. So are their tricky legal questions?
Yes?
Do?
I think it's difficult to say, Okay, does this technically meet the definition? Does it technically meet the definition of he engaged in it or you know, was aiding and abetting it.
I think that's difficult.
I think the free speech questions are difficult, but I just can't see how people just dismiss it out of hand. And most of the people who I see doing that, they don't actually engage with any of the legal arguments whatsoever. So again, there is an appropriate place to adjudicate these difficult legal questions. That is the Supreme Court of the United States. And so I think it is good that this is going there now. I think it's good it's
going there in an expedited fashion. I wish I had more confidence in the court, but it is what it is at this point in history. And the other The last thing I'll say on this too is you know some of the like the freak ount I guess on the right over this is like, we know it's going to be overturned. This is one challenge out of eighteen. It's good that he's getting his due process. This is going through the process right now, and you know what
the end result is going to be. It's probably only going to innore to his benefit in the Republican primary. And it's very very very like ninety nine percent likely that the Supreme Court is going to overturn it anyway.
That very true.
That said, it's one of those moments of like, oh wow, they would do it if they could. And I think that's where I mean think about it too. It's like when people freak out about an abortion law in Texas. They're like, oh my god, if these people get power, this is what they want to do on a national level.
But those actually getting acted power.
In Texas, but they got this is the coleraded Supreme Court's overridden.
Okay, let's just put it.
Then a right wing state wants it to I mean, this happens all the time. You have a Mississippi or Florida or whatever that passes some law. They know it's unconstitutional, they pass it anyway. Then Democrats are like, look what they would do if they possibly could, and then it goes to the Supreme Court and it gets struck down. These are, of course people have a not even a right. I think they should freak out about it, just from
a small, d democratic level. I just think again, to come back to the bar and what it looks like. I agree with you, it's DAP absolutely should go to the Supreme Court.
I'm glad it is.
I'm glad it actually will get resolved early rather than have all this stuff playing out now years.
I would say the same for January sixth. But Trump has never been convicted of insurrection.
That's another thing is that there was well it's complicated, but back in the Civil War time there was a military tribunal and military understanding and the terms of appomatics and the terms of I forget where Sherman accepted the other surrender, but there was a commonly we led understanding of the Union Army as blessed by the Commander in chief,
of what it looked like and what the terms of parole. Now, these were all laid out at the time and such that you stayed within that you would no longer you know, you could be eventually rehabilitated, and Congress itself could decide that you were no longer and you were able to run for election.
This is all long you know, Reconstruction era stuff.
We haven't had a single one of those types of understandings with Trump, which is again why I don't even think it comes close.
To the fil What to you in terms of like if something, if a different set of facts had unfolded on January six, what to you would meet the ball?
So if our Congress passed a law that said January sixth itself was considered.
To be you think this should be in the hands of Congress.
I think it should be in the hands of the Commander in chief and of the Congress. We should commonly come to an understanding of which and then should then be challenged and tested within the court where we can have a genuine understanding and have a total democratic buy in. This act was itself a insurrection.
So it's not necessarily that January six doesn't quitqualify. It's that you don't think that the Colorado Supreme Court is the appropriate venue to determine. Oh absolutely, But if the Congress had passed an act that said, yes, January sixth was an insuraction, need.
Say, absolutely absolutely, I would just as we did under reconstruction, as we understood what rebellion was, as we understood what Confederates were. This is about both democracy, about law, and about the way that we I mean, let's go go to the next one here, please, so we can put
this up on the screen. This is why I do think is complicated and gets to what you're talking about, which is that the Supreme Court about being disqualified for insurrection, and they specifically point to people like Zebulon Vance in eighteen seventy five, who was a genuinely unreconstructed Southerner and Confederate who is disqualified from holding office. And this gets to the question then of how it's interpreted in the modern era. And actually, Colorado is not the first time
that this has happened to them. So let's go to the next part. You found this where the presidential hopeful shows that a naturalized citizen who wanted to run for president despite not being American born, lost his bid. Why because he contended under the Constitution's requirement that the US born provision violates equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
This is something that Jenks put forward previously. A magistrate judge actually ruled that it did not affect the validity of the Constitution's distinction between natural born and naturalized citizens. He eventually appealed that decision, and a panel of the tenth US sort of appeals back to the judge who found that the state has a legitimate interest in leaving him off of the ballot if he cannot assume the office. This gets to a little bit of the interpretation of that Fourteenth Amendment.
Let me explain why this matters and is relevant to this particular case. It's because one of the legal questions here is whether the state courts are the appropriate venue to decide constitutional ballot issues. So, even though this is a different constitutional ballot issue, in this instance, not only did the did the original the Colorado I believe state Supreme Court decide that, yes, it is an appropriate venue for us to decide we have an interest directly in
deciding these constitutional ballot issues. But the other thing that's interesting is when it went up to the US Circuit Court of Appeals, and they agreed with the Colorado State Court. Guess who is on the US Circuit Court of Appeals Meels Corsi. So that particular legal question, that's why that's relevant here. Now, there are a host of other legal questions as I've been discussing the First Amendment issues, what
is an insurrection? How do you determine is this provision of the Constitution what they call self executing, meaning that you can just apply it based on its sort of plane face meaning, or does it require an Act of Congress in order? As Saga is suggesting, that's what he thinks it should be at least that it requires an Act of Congress to set forth. Okay, here's the definitions, here's how it here's how it operates, here's how we determine,
et cetera. Again, all of these things are sort of open ended because we have so had so little precedent in terms of using this provision after the Civil War. So, you know, it's as I said, I do think it's a complicated legal question. I don't think that it is like easy. I think these are tricky things. But when you look at the just basic definition, if you look at the plain English language interpretation of what this provision says.
It does seem like it applies to me. It does seem like it applies, I think to me January sixth. I think it's very easy to classify it as an insurrection when you consider the intent and what the people involved were in understanding their business on that day, what they were up to on that day. Obviously Trump was the whole reason they were there was because of Trump, Right, So I don't think it's crazy to look at this
and go, yeah, this is appropriate. And again I come back to I think it is also appropriate to have a provision like this in the Constitution. I think a state has an interest in protecting, you know, the protecting the country from people who have attempted to subvert it in the past. I think that's like a basic sort of tenet of statehood.
Finally, I don't disagree that it shouldn't.
I mean, at a certain point, whether we agree or not on the Constitution doesn't matter because it ain't going to change.
So it's there.
The forty Amendment is long time test of time, so it is what it is. As for the intent thing, though, this is where I just disagree because For example, if I join a cult and I kill somebody in cold blood or killed somebody because of my religious beliefs, Am I going to get prosecuted for religious crime, especially if
it doesn't fall within their hate crime provision? No, even though that would be definite, that would be defined as a religious act of war, whatever you could want to call it rhetorically, I would be prosecuted under the state of Virginia or DC or wherever it happened to resign and I would kill that person, they would prosecute me for murder if it fell within a hate crime provision.
Then they could add on you know whatever. These are well.
Commonly understood within statute of which they can be applied and adjudicated through the legal system that have now stood the test of time forever. You know, a common understanding of something like a hate crime, for example, I mean that stuff gets thrown around all the time. There's a reason that the judge gets to actually rule as to what it is and what it's not. We could sit here on a news show and call something a hage crime. That's fine within the First Amendment, but that's not how
the law works. So I just think saying like how it appears, you know, based on our individual understanding. That's not how you know, interpreting the constitution the law, nor should it work both from a civil code and a criminal code. It's like, well within an actual understanding through the legal system.
So I guess sally quite a lot of precedent of using the dictionary definitions of terms and even looking back at what was the dictionary definition of the term during the time period when this amendment was instituted to try to determine what was the meaning clanface meaning at the time. So it's not like you have to be some secret decoder to figure things out. A different judges apply this differently. Some of them do take more of the like secret
secret decoder approach that was. I mean, for example, it feels preposterous the lower court ruling that the presidency is not in office of.
The United States. You look at that and you're like, what, that's ridiculous.
But you know, if you look at this provision versus that provision and maybe at the time and they should have specified it in particular, and you know there are other courts who have thought that as well, and that part is sort of in dispute. So there are different ways of analyzing this, but I just want to point out that it is not unusual or you know, out
of the realm of what's appropriate. Just just look at the dictionary definition of these terms and what the people writing you know, this text at the time, what they would have thought that these words mean.
Yeah, well that you and I are opening up originalism and interpretation and living constitutions.
And there are many schools of thought on how to.
Do this, loyally tearing their hair.
And let's also be clear, like I've said this many times before, all of that sort of goes out the window because of the partisan nature of the courts, where you know, I have no doubt that when it gets the Supreme Court, they're going to find whatever legal rationale that they want to do what they want to do, and they'll sort of fill in, you know, backfill the
legal justification after the fact. So it's not like I think that these people are all like just calling balls and strikes and trying to faithfully apply some sort of an approach.
Not at all.
But there are plenty of instances where just looking at the dictionary definition is actually how people approach these rulings. And you know, we really are in unprecedented territory. We haven't seen something like what happened on January sixth before. We haven't seen a president like Donald Trump before. We haven't seen, you know, this set of facts and circumstances in quite a long time. So again, difficult decisions, and I think it's appropriate to be left to this proom.
Cool, it'll be fun, Crystal. I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing what happens. Let's go to the next part here, and this is a political question which I think is easier to talk about. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Democrats actually supporting the Colorado ruling eighty four to eight, Independence, forty eight to thirty five, Republicans who oppose at sixty six to twenty four, so the overall support number stands at fifty four oppose at
thirty three. Keep in mind this was a relatively quick one sample of three four hundred people from you gov, but still significant, the very first poll that we've actually seen on this direct question of the support for the Colorado court ruling disqualifying Trump from the primary ballot. Let's go to the next part here, please, And this is important as well. Is that this has now put forward
a political campaign on Democratic states. Lieutenant governor of the state of California is now writing to the Secretary of State, Shirley Weber to explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California's twenty twenty four presidential primary. I would expect in the coming days that almost every Democrat or at least hard blue state is going to try and pursue this in terms of their lieutenant governorships.
Of course, it will eventually get adjudicated at the Supreme Court level, but they will try to get it to
be done. It does show you, though, that this is tremendously politically popular with a lot of the Democratic Party and frankly not even particularly injurious whenever you look at the independent number and publicans and I think that's where Crystal, we can agree at least on this is I mean, I think on a question like this, the public opinion actually doesn't matter because if this is the legal question, but because people are probably looking at it in the way that you are is like did he do it
or not? And most people do think Trump at the very least most people think Trump acted badly on that day and I think this is probably the lens of which they're looking at it.
They're like, yeah, I would agree with that something like that.
Maybe they don't necessarily understand their legal ramifications of everything we're talking about, but as an actual political question, I think that they can. I think this fits even the Republican number of the twenty four percent.
That exactly matches.
But it exactly matches the number of Republicans In a recent New York Times Santa pol who said that Trump shouldn't be on the ballot if he's convicted.
Yeah, so it's the same thing.
It's just people who, you know, within the Republican Party, the Nikki Haley voter who's really consolidating right now and actually like doing pretty well in New Hampshire.
I think that's where it comes down.
Yeah, there is a very normy reaction here of like, yeah, January six was bad, and maybe it is appropriate that, you know, we take these sort of extraordinary measures against him, and just looking at the text here.
That seems like it fits.
So I was actually surprised though that the numbers were this strong in favor of it, just because it is, you know, it is an extraordinary move.
There's no doubt about it.
It is a dramatic move to take a leading president v leading presidential candidate off the ballot. I don't deny that whatsoever. So I was I was actually a little surprised to see a twenty point margin in favor of that court decision, and in particular, I mean, I wasn't surprised at obviously eighty four percent of Democrats support it. I wasn't not surprised to see that a plurality forty
eight percent of Independence support it. I was surprised to see that basically a quarter of Republicans are like, yeah, I think that's appropriate given the fact that Trump is still such a dominant figure within the Republican Party.
I wonder if that number will.
Move as the news cycle really kicks in and the very very clear and hard partisan lines on this question sort of kick in, and if there's more of a rally to, you know, a sort of like tribal instinct or partisan rallying around what this question means. I wonder if you don't see that support on the Republican side dip. But I was, I was kind of surprised by this instant poll reaction myself. I thought that there would be more of a fifty to fifty split on this question.
I would have assumed so too, although I mean, I don't know.
It also is one of those where on January sixth you saw Republicans are like, yeah, he acted badly, but I also think he's the best candidate.
So people have complicated feelings about all of this.
Inconsistent.
Yeah, people are deeply inconsistent, which is part of the why it's fun to cover politics. Let's cover this next one up on the screen. Fifty three percent previously had support, for example, the prosecution Christal. That almost exactly matches the number who support the ballot barring of the ballot, which is why I think it's all coming down to a question of like, do I think Trump back to badly?
Yeah?
I also will say, for all the stories that we do here, which are totally legitimate, in which I genuinely still believe I think Trump does have you know, I would give him the edge even though I think it's near a coin toss. Is this still an albatross around his neck? Most people, the more the question of like do you like Trump and do you support his personal conduct?
Or January sixth, anything related to stop the steal. We've seen people like Doug Mastriano, all these other Carrie Lake and many of these other places they lost big and deep red country when a generic Republican was doing very well on the ballot. So I would not count this an abortion out that could still sink him at the end of the day.
And Trump is his own worst enemy.
For example, remember Sean Hannity kept trying to get him to endorse mail in balloting during his town hall and he just wouldn't do it. Yeah, when he has a religious belief in his head as he does that he believes the election.
Was stolen from him, he will never drop it.
Guys ever, And so if somebody's going to challenge him on it, poke him Biden, or somebody starts to get on that, he'll give his rant about dominion voting systems.
You know what was interesting to me.
I don't know if you guys saw this poll floating around, but there was a des Moines Register poll, this like a very high quality poll of Iowa caucus goers, and they asked them all these different, like very inflammatory comments that Trump has made, Like does that make you more likely to support him? Less likely or it doesn't matter, and the headline from this was that his comments about poisoning the blood of America make more Republicans more likely
to vot formed than less likely. It was forty two to twenty eight. But actually there was the one that had the most negative impact on Iowa Coccas goers.
Was a little surprising to me.
It was twenty twenty election fraud justifies terminating parts of the US Constitution. That was overwhelmingly negative. There were only fourteen percent that said it made them more likely to support Trump, and there were forty seven percent who actually who said this makes me less likely to support Trump, which, you know, I just I found that interesting. It was, like I said, it was surprising to me. It also made me feel like maybe Ron de Santis and Nikki
Haley and co. Have been too nervous about talking about any of this. I mean, this appears to be the most damaging comment that he's made, and I haven't heard any of them bring it up really at all. So there's that. But it also does show you that even within a Republican base that overwhelmingly does think that the election was stolen, there's a discomfort with the level of disorder and chaos and certainly a direct attack on the Constitution that Trump has floated in the past.
Yeah, definitely, I think that.
I mean, look, it's the reason why is that people who even let's say for at least most Republicans I know with people who are like, yeah, the election was stolen, they don't mean it.
And the way that Trump actually meets.
It, they're like, well, Mark Zuckerberg, you know, censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, and that's election interference. I'm like, yeah, I mean conceptually yes, but that's not what Trump is saying. And I think that having to often grapple when it's truly like in your face and sometimes with Trump makes people uncomfortable.
That's that I still think people a lot of people are ever going to vote for him.
I'm not quite sure I agree though, because with DeSantis, he's got to win over Trump voters too. Nikki Haley has always been just an anti Trump candidate. She's a return to yesteryear, so of course going to get yesterdayear type voters. But if you actually want to win an outright majority, that would require winning actual maga people, and
maga people support Trump as a cult of personality. Let's not even put aside like anything that you know, whether they support or believe anything, it's more about protecting him. The individuals. Yeah, that's where I mean, they've always been in a tough press.
I always thought it was impossible, Like I from the beginning have said, like, I don't think that there is a strategy that they could deploy that would be successful. And I still think that that is the case. However, polling does at this point show that this is actually more not his election fraud claims, but the chaos and the lawlessness surrounding those election fraud claims are more of a liability for him with Republicans than I had really thought.
That's I guess that's what I appoint in.
I don't have to say, like, listen, DeSantis tried the tiptoe around criticizing Trump thing, and how's it working out for him?
How's the working out for any of them? How's the work?
I mean the most sort of like shameless sick of is vivig Ramslomi And what's he yet?
Five percent? Right now?
So it's not like the strategy of just pretending like Trump doesn't exist, or more or less praising him and occasionally throwing like a little sideways job at him. It's not like that was successful either, so they may as well have actually rand as stance losing to Chris Christy in New Hampshire right now, which is pretty extraordinary in and of itself.
Yeah, well, that's a whole other conversation, I think.
Anyway, we wanted to also give people a taste too of how this is us Mike boomerang out on Joe Biden and on the Democrats. Let's take a listen to what the Texas Lieutenant governor had to say.
Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight, law, it makes me think, except we believe in democracy in Texas, maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing eight million people to cross the borders since he's been president, disrupting our state.
Yeah, so there you go.
Don't threaten me with there with a good time, ess sir. Removing Joe Biden from.
The ballot would be honestly, it would be fun. Well, look, we'll see.
I do think this is certainly going to open up a can of worms, although at the same time, if Scotus just kills the can of worms, and we're probably going to be better off, Why don't we talk about broader war?
All right, So we've had a lot of big developments with regards to Israel, and in particular with the Houthis attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, which has had massive reverberations in terms of global economic activity, in terms specifically of Israeli economic activity, and the Hoothies they're looming in hard. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. They just released this new, very highly produced propaganda video.
You can see them, you know, in these boats. The water looks beautiful, they're you know, have all their weapons, they're doing their military trot whatever that is the official name for that is. We can go ahead and take I think you get the idea here, and I talked to you a little bit about this before.
You know.
This makes all the sense in the world for the Houthies strategically, because one thing that unifies, you know, most everybody in Yemen is support for the Palestinian.
Cause opposition to Israel.
It gets to show them, you know, taken on the biggest bad guys from their perspective in the world, that would be the United States of America and frankly given us a real bloody nose in the process. So the US, because of what an extraordinary impact this is having with by the way, and we'll get to this in a minute, with very low cost weaponry that the Houthis are deploying here, our Defense Department has now announced a new effort to try to curb these attacks.
Let's put this up on the screen.
So they have announced the creation of an enhanced Naval Protection Force operating in the Southern Red Sea, an attempt to ward off mounting attacks from Yemen's rebel Houthis on merchant shipping. Lloyd Austin, US Defense Secretary said the new effort would be called Operation Prosperity Guardian was necessary to tackle the recent escalation in reckless houthy attacks originating from Yemen.
Other participants in the effort, and this is noteworthy, included bacherin Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sey Shelles, Way to Go, Sey Shells and Spain. New coalition of the Willing here just stropped.
It was like wow, say Shales, congrats.
Why that is noteworthy is that there were a number of our other close Arab allies, in particular Egypt and Saudi Arabia. You notice are not part of that coalition. So I think this shows a few things. Number One, this is in and of itself escalatory. The fact that we are getting more engaged, that we are contemplating direct attacks on the hu Thi's, that we have this broader military presence, This creates more possibilities of a bigger spark
and a conflagration. So that's the most important thing to keep in mind. Number Two is, once again, it's humiliating that this is the coalition. That these are all the countries with all of the money and all of the things that we do to try to keep these people on our side, and when we come to them are like we need to do this thing to protect global shipping, They're like, no, Because we showed you on an earlier show this week that US support, like US approval rating
in the region has fallen off a cliff. Joe Biden has like a six percent approval rating in the whole region. Every country that's associated with US because of our unconditional support for Israel, their approval ratings in the region have fallen off a cliff, and it's put them in a precarious position with their own populations. So it shows you how weak we are too in terms of you know, what we're actually able to put together and to respond to this.
Yeah, it's very interesting, and that you were talking about the astometric piece. I want to spend some time on this because it's something that highlighted. It's actually even more stark than I had laid out previously. Let's put this up there. This gives you people a taste. There is a two million dollar missile that we are currently using
to shoot down two thousand dollars drones. They say that the shortest range options are the evolved Sea Sparrow missile, designed to fire at targets less than five nautical miles away, costs one point eight million dollars per shot for targets inside one nautical mile for another weapon system. Let's go to the next part here, please, And they say, by contrast, experts are now estimating the Hufy one way attack drone, primarily Uranian made, costs just two one thousand dollars. The
larger ones cost twenty thousand dollars. So just let that sink in. Their most advanced attack drone, which has now disrupted tens of billions of dollars of cargo and added untold millions of dollars in gas for the amount of fuel that these companies have to pay to now go around the Horn of Africa. We now are seeing that it costs two million dollars for each one of these missiles.
And it demonstrates why terrorism is very often a very good trade on behalf of people who just have the will to be able to subject yourself to a two million dollar missile or possibly get wiped out by a US carrier, because if you keep it going for long enough, you can couse some massive and serious damage to the overall global economy. Right now today, it is the most
significant shipping crisis since Ukraine. And I know that's not a very long period, but I mean pre Ukraine that was, I mean probably the biggest disruptive to global shipping in modern American or modern global history. I think since the fall of the Soviet Union, we've never seen anything so crazy like that. We're having really a poly crisis in shipping.
There is Ukraine, there is now the Red Sea, and actually there's a drought in Panama and the sea levels in Panama right now in terms of ability for the supertankers to go through is I think it's lower than normal, which is causing all kinds of chaos inside the Panama Canal. This is causing huge problems right now for Egypt in terms of their revenue. They could go broke if they don't get the fees that they normally do for the Suez. So there's all kinds of crazy fortieth order effects that
are a result of this policy. And I do think this is the single most precarious choke point because one attack drone kills one wrong guy, one US sailor, that's right, one British sailor, that's it, game over, And the most situation.
The more we involve ourselves here, the more targets there are there are, the more possibilities there are that one of our men and women gets killed in this operation. So this is tremendously increasing the risk. And I'll get to in a second the fact that now we've got a bunch of like hawkish national security like former CIA democrats who are like, this thing we're doing with Israel is not in our national security interest whatsoever. But the
economic impact is already tremendous. It's tremendous globally, but for Israel in particular, is pretty devastating. Put this up on the screen. This is a report from how Retz on the economic war. Their headline here who Thi's open new and dangerous front in Israel's economic war. Attacks on Israel link ships threaten a key route for Israeli exports and imports. Fortunately for Israel, global trade is also at risk in
the Red Sea. And the reason they say that's fortunately is because it's dragging us into it, so that's why it's a good thing for them. The Huthis have said the most their targeting is really linked ships or ships that are heading to Israel, but the linkage has.
Been a little loose thus far.
That's why the imperative to have this like global response to protect the shipping lanes. They write this piece that the Huthi attacks are pinching Israel's maritime trade. Cargo traffic at a loot port is down by eighty percent, eighty percent cost.
Of marine insurance.
This is also really important for Israeli owned and now presumably israel Israel bound vessels is soaring. Companies like Israel Zim are re routing their ships away from the Red Sea. Heave then go around Africa instead, a change that adds two weeks to the voyage. All of this will add to the cost of imports, which will be passed on
to the Israeli consumer. And they also said it's reasonable to assume that many foreign shipping companies are going to opt to avoid stopping in Israeli ports altogether, to avoid the risk of their vessels being targeted. So Israel obviously the war has imposed a tremendous economic cost on them from the number of reservists that they've called up. It really has sort of stopped the regular economy. Any tourism obviously is basically stamped out. People are mostly not going
about their normal lives, so spending is way down. I saw there expecting the Israeli economy to shrink by a fifteen percent annual rate in the fourth quarter.
Yeah, I mean that is a huge number.
They both face immen's short term costs. So I think we've talked about it before. The war costs something like one hundred to two hundred million dollars a day just in terms of paying all these reservists. Then they've got one of the largest internal displaces, how would you say it, displacements?
There we go, all right, my language is back the largest internal displacement I believe in the history of the State of Israel, because you have all of the people near the Lebanese border and near Gaza who have been resettled and they're paying for all their hotel bills. So you've got huge portions of the country of where people have been uprooted from their homes inside of Israel and who are staying in Tel Aviv or any of the
more metropolitan areas. So if that costs a ton of money, then all these prime aged working mails are in the military, they're in reserve, they're not working their jobs. Then you've got all these Palestinians who and Arabs who were working and coming across the border in Israel, who are now no longer coming across. So you have a major poly crisis. I think, yeah, for the Israeli economy, that's not the
short term. And then on the long term, look, they've already said we're not going to let any these Palestinians back in anymore. I mean, that was thousands of people who were working in day labors, any kind of lower end work. They're like, well, maybe we can bring people in, bring people in from where and it's Israel's a tiny little country, so then you'd have to worry about housing.
I mean their.
Structural problems I think right now economically and also in terms of their employment and workforce especially too. It looks more and more likely to me, and I've seen a lot of speculation around this that they are going to have to militarily occupy Gaza for at least some time. Right that's going to take a tremendous, tremendous amount of people in the Israeli army.
Days.
People can't return back to work, let alone continue to run their business, and that puts the country continued in a wartime footing for quite some time. So this could seriously cost them for a long time, and I would urge them to think about that too.
The other thing that Adam Tooze was writing about, which is that you know, listen, capital has no loyalty of course, so they're looking at not only this war and you know, the massive shipping catastrophe and the fact that everyone in the world is like opposed to what's happening there except
for us. Apparently they're thinking about also the you know, the tumult in the country with Netanyahu in charge before the war and his corruption and his attempts to overhaul the judiciary, and the fact that you had these mass disruptive protests for months and months on end. So there was already a pullback of capital and a foreign direct investment in particular. This is only going to accelerate that.
I mean, you know, there's a grassroots boycott, divestment and sanctioned movement that seeks to sort of like take capital away from Israel. IM sure, it's had very minimal impact frankly on the Israeli economy. This is like a sort of a capital strike that they could be facing because they just want to make money and they're not going to want to put up with risks and chaos and you know, psycho like reactionary right wing governments and the tunnel that it's creating. So it really does create a
long term problem for them. And you might say, well, okay, we threw the entire like actual economic sanction playbook at Russia and they've been more or less okay, you know, they've spun up a war economy and things haven't been amazing, but they've they've managed to hold on Dyance went years preparing for potential levying of sanctions, and their economy is
structured very differently. The Netanyahu government had intentionally relied aggressively on foreign direct investment in order to spur and build their economy, so they have much greater exposure here.
In terms of that act, they're not even remotely the same.
Russia is a population of what like one hundred million maybe more people. They have a vast expanse, they have a huge amount of resources. Israel is like a tiny sliver of the Middle East. They don't have the same level of access to ports that they control. They don't have a real navy. I mean, I could go on forever in terms of they don't have an industrial base.
Their population all right, they've mobilized the entire thing. They are relatively at the limits of that For the amount of more people that could they could bring in, I mean, it's totally, in completely It's much more like Japan or Taiwan or any of these other island nations which relied dramatically on foreign capital and on foreign resources to be able to keep their basic like Western way of life going.
So it's not even remotely the same, and it does demonstrate a lot of the procarity that they're in yeah.
Right now, because remember ultimately, you know, I mean economic pressure was part of what led to the South Africa apartheid regime. And so the fact that you have this amount of potential economic pressure being applied possibly in the long term, I mean, that could be a pressure point for the Israeli government in terms of the decisions that they make in the future. I tease this before put this up on the screen, in terms of these I was shocked to see this letter based on who has
signed off on it. So this is Chrissy Hoolihan tweeted, I'm calling in the Biden administration to use all of our nation's leverage to shift the Israeli military stride and defending itself against us. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unacceptable and and this is the key part, not in line with American interest. The signatories here, Jason Crow, Christy hulihanho I just mentioned Abigail Spanberger, shocked at that one, Mikey,
Cheryl Seth Moulton, and Alissa Slotkin. So these are like former members of the military, former agents in the CIA who are saying this, we had a something's got to change.
This is a disaster.
Now they claim they care about the humanitarian piece. I suspect much more that they are concerned about the devastating impact this is having on our national security and the fact that it is putting our people at greater risk, our unconditional support for Israel.
Let me just read you a little bit of this letter.
They say, Dear President Biden, We're deeply concerned by Prime Minister Netanya Who's current military strategy in Gaza, the mounting civilian death told humanitarian crisis are unacceptable, not in line with American interests, nor do they advance the cause of security for our ally Israel. We also believe it jeopardizes efforts to destroy the terrorist organization Hamas and secure the release of all hostages.
So take that in.
They're saying that the approach is actually hindering the ability to eradicate Hamas. This is something we've been saying from the beginning. This actually creates more radicalization. And you can look at our very recent track record, or you can go back a lot further and look at that track record as well, to see the way that these actions will almost inevitably create blowback and increase the radicalization that you are trying to root out.
So the fact that these very like.
I would describe them as not even normy like sort of more right leaning democrats, more hawkish Democrats, are now like whoa, whoa. Something's got to change here and change fast.
That was very noteworthy to be the only thing I would speak up on their behalf is that all of them were at least involved in some way in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I don't think anyone who's served in that war can't help but look at some of the parallels.
Yeah, and be like, some difference, this is idiotic. Let's go you know where it was a disaster.
Urge people to do. People should go listen to Tim Dillon.
He was recently on Joe Rogan, and Tim was apparent he was talking about in his hilarious way, he was a former Iraq war supporter actually in his old days, and he gave some of his.
Perspective about Israel and Gaza and all that.
And the reason I think so is that he'll both make you laugh and make very deeply profound points at the same time. And he made a lot of what we talk about here, but he did it a lot funnier than.
Let's move on.
As I mentioned before, there have been so many just utterly insane and gas lighting and wild comments coming out of Israel that we felt the need to devote an entire segment to them to go through some of the highlights. This will not be a comprehensive survey of the list of wild comments that have been made, but just to give you a sense of the discourse that is coming from not just like random Israelis, but from political leaders with power, from journalists and analysts who were on TV
all the time. I want to start with this one because this one was in many ways like the wildest, although it's a pretty good competition here. So this is the Deputy mayor of Jerusalem. She's responding to the reports that we covered here that the idea had targeted and killed two Christian women at a Catholic church in Gaza, and so she's being asked about this. Just take a listen to what her response is.
Take a listen.
Why is it necessary it is reported to start shooting, having snipers outside a church.
I don't I saw the reports this morning the church. There are no churches in gazas so I'm not quite sure where the report is there's a Catholic church in there isn't there that is Unfortunately there are no Christians because they were dry driven driven out.
By There are, respectfully, there are Christians because I spoke to an MP yesterday who has family members in the church who are Christians.
Well, I don't know what happen. I don't know who was attacked. I didn't see the report.
I mean there are no churches in Gaza.
Yes, there Actually, just di is denying reality to try to avoid the implications of what the IDF did here, which is what the Pope described as terrorism. There are no churches in Gaza. Uh, yeah, actually there are. Well, there are no Christians at Gaza. Well, actually there are. Oh well, the report that I previously claimed that I had seen, I actually didn't see that report.
So I have no idea.
Yeah, amazing, this is look. I mean.
One of the reasons I think I also want to highlight this too is because I am so deeply annoyed by this idea that you know, Israel and Netanyahu, or even Israel and the far right are one and the same, and that we are not allowed to criticize or to look at this country which has much more robust debate about itself than we are allowed to have over here, and people rightfully, I think, can demonstrate and understand that, you know, criticizing a political party or a particular strategy
does not mean that you are against the entire country's right to exist or any of that. And I think a lot of people also wanted to nine about a pretty decent segment of Israeli politics, which agrees with some of these statements, which are I think antithetical to our ends and their ends. But their ends are their business. They can decide. At the very least, though, we need to have a full visibility into what they want and
what they are saying. And I think it's pretty unfortunate because if we paid better attention, especially to in the age of translation of Google translating all that, it's not difficult to suss out this is a Western country. They have sets just like this in Tel Aviv. They're sitting on them and talking about it in Hebrew. You can go and look if you want, and if that's too hard for you, you can read the English Israeli pressed, which
often translates that all for you. And yet we try to get all of our A lot of people, especially you watch cable so much of us filtered down through so many levels, you just have a totally hijacked and different view of what it all looks like. You think everyone, I honestly think you would think that everybody is eminently reasonable in Israel, and then everyone in Palestine is like some how or everyone in Hamas in Gaza is like some sort of hummas flag waving terrorists. It just like
couldn't be more further from it. There's all the nuance and it is completely lost.
The other thing is, I want to play the next one, but if you heard any Palestinian or Palestinian supporter saying some of these things, like everyone in this country would know about it, every politician would be getting asked about it,
it would be played on a loop. And yet these things are like said in the open commonly in Israel, and our politicians just pretend like they don't hear it, they don't see it, and that it's some just like purely targeted ethical mission and war that's being engaged in in the Gaza strip. It's just if you listen to their own comments and then look at what they're doing on the ground, it becomes undeniable, what is happening in front of your eyes. So here's our next example. This
is an Israeli journalist, Shimone Ricklin. He says, I am for the war crimes. I don't care if I am criticized, and I honestly don't care. He goes on, I am unable to sleep if I don't see houses being destroyed in Gaza. What can I say? More and more and more, more houses, more buildings. I want to see more of them destroyed. I want there to be nothing for them to return to. In the Torah, it says they must return to the salt of the earth, and they must complain.
This is why we cannot reach a solution. And that is what war crimes mean to me. So I'm for the war crimes.
You know.
I appreciate the honesty, actually, and this is something we've talked about, something Daryl Cooper talks about. The far right in Israel has always been much more upfront about the project they're engaged in, about what their goals are, about what they actually want, and I think this man is being very honest about his perspective.
Here.
By the way, someone pointed out and I confirmed he's wearing a pin there in that segment, it's a stern Gang pin. So to give people a little bit of the sense of the history here. In the early days of the sort of like colonial period of the founding of the state of Israel, there were a number of militias. The large ones were Haganah, which was the more like labor affiliated one. There, Goon which then becomes Lacud, and our Gun was already, like you know, they committed all
kinds of terrorist decks. They were already very far right. The stern Gang was the ones that were to the right of them. They called themselves terrorists. They referred to themselves as terrorists. They actually sought to come to some sort of an ally ship with Nazi Germany because they thought the Nazis were less of a threat to Jews than Britain. So they sought multiple times to come to some sort of a deal and accommodation with Hitler and
the Nazis. They advocated for mass expulsion of all Arabs from Palestine and from Jordan. Their publications openly talked about a Jewish master race, contrasting the Jews with Arabs, who were seen as a.
Nation of slaves.
So that's the pin that he's wearing as he says that he's for the war crimes.
Yeah.
I mean, look, it's kind of like Ukraine where they ought honesty around these countries and there, what is it the honesty around their countries and their political constituencies and who matters and who has power with the neo Nazis. I mean, a lot of people here just simply don't want to acknowledge it. And that's the issue, is that you can separate this easily from the state, from its
people and from what is actually has support. But you're right in this that if Palestinians or Arabs and all those words, well, i mean look, also you can go find those videos too if you want, about Arabs and Ammas leaders and all those saying that about Jews. But you're right in that there is a lot of disparate coverage in the way that it ends up showing up in our discourse, especially amongst our elected officials.
Oh for sure.
True.
So let's go next to we met this woman before. Her name is Daniell o Weiss. She is the head of a Zionist settler movement, and she was interviewed by Isaac Chatner previously, she's the one that said effectively like, yeah, we're building the settlements because the US and others want there to be a Palestine state. We don't want there to be a Palestinian state. And then she said, it is a very very simple thing to understand. Again, honest appreciate that. Let's go and put her up on the
screen about what she wants to happen in Gaza. So she says, Gaza must be a rased so that the settlers.
Can see the sea.
She goes on, the situation needs to end what we did in northern Gaza. We must do it south of Gaza, evacuating Gaza of Arabs and building Jewish settlements in all of Gaza.
So making it pretty.
Pretty clear here, she says the settlers they want to see the sea, and in order to see the sea, all homes in Gaza must be destroyed.
There are no homes or Arabs left in Gaza.
This, she says, is a logical and romantic demand. That is her perspective is that Gaza should be you know, the parking lot image of Gaza. And again just laying it out here, what she has an idea of what she wants the day after conversation to be like, and you wonder why NATANYAHUO is so like reluctant to come forward with what his plan is. It's because people like her are a important part of his electoral coalition, of his governing.
Cold incredibly important.
As Glenn points out, Israelis, when speaking in Hebrew, are often more candid and truthful about the real goals in Gaza than their American supporters, and both parties are. And this is the settler issue is one that has been long condemned by bipartisan administrations here in Washington. It's against our official posture from the State Department. It's so much so that President Biden even proposed sanctions or entry delay on people who espouse this or have been involved in
violence from entering the United States. But you know, the political circumstances right now the time are basically like are you with them or are you not with them? And I just don't know why it's so difficult to even parse through this and just be like, well, you know, definitely you think it's horrible what happened on October seventh. I definitely think Hamos needs to go. I think your
military strategy is bad. I think some elements of your society are totally out of control, and you should probably you know, do something about that at the very least just for international cooperation perspective. I also think this is why Netanyahu's position is just so terrible, both for Israel and really for the long term prospects of the nation, is because by fusing himself with the state, he has made it here in this country too, such that criticism
of him is being called anti Semitic. Well, a lot of people are just gonna be like, Okay, I'll take that trade because I disagree entirely that erodes long term support. And then saying here where if he's so politically held by these people in his political constituency, then how exactly are we supposed to ever see this come to an end?
That's my problem.
And Danielle is not alone.
Put the last the tear sheet that we have at the end. Put this up in the screen. She's not alone in wanting to destroy all of Gaza and destroy all of the homes. This was an Israeli politician on the radio is David Azuli, the head of the town of Matula in northern Israel. He called on Israel to forcibly eject Palestinians in Gaza to Lebanon, flatten the besieged enclave and turn into a museum, just like in Auschwitz,
the of course concentration camp in Poland. Quote after October seventh, instead of urging people to go south, we should direct them to the beaches. The Navy can transport them to the shores of Lebanon, where there are already sufficient refugee camps. Then a security strip should be established from the seat of the Gaza border fence, completely empty, as a reminder of what was once there. It should resemble the Auschwitz
concentration camp. Of course, one point one million people, one million of which were Jews, were killed by Nazi Germany in that concentration camp, and that's what he is saying he wants to see.
It was interesting, actually, as Auschwitz came out with a statement they say memory of victims of Auschwitz has at
times violated and instrumentalized. In various statements, David appears to wish to use a symbol of the largest cemetery in the world to some sort of sick, hateful, pseudo artistic symbolic expression calling for acts that seemed to transgress any civil, wartime, moral or human laws that may sound as a call from murder of the scale at kind Auschwitz puts the whole honest world face to face with a madness that
must be confronted and firmly rejected. We do hope is really a thority will react to such a shameful abuse, as terrorism can never be a response to terrorism. I thought that was pretty significant to come from the Auschwitz memorial itself. Who they do not. I also want to make it clear they basically just protect the legacy of Alshroth. They are not political in any way. They only come out when people either mistakenly refer to Auschwitz or use it in this context.
I want something else to be turned in protect.
The memory of the people who all died there. And if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend that people go and visit or any of the concentration campsites in Poland in order to get a view, to see it for yourself, and also to understand where they are coming from too. And I really do respect them for coming out and seeing.
Something like that.
The last one saga I thought you would enjoy, in particular because this is the girl Boss Israeli minister. This is the woman who is the Israeli Minister for the advancement of the status of women. So a little bit of identity politics being played here by the net Yahoo government. Let's see what this enlightened liberal feminist has to say about what she wants to see.
And God, I don't care about Gaza.
I literally don't care. For all I care.
They can go out and swim in the sea. I want to see dead bodies of terrorists. Who oh, there you go, there you go.
The last thing I'll say on this saga of why I think these things are important too is because there is a long, multi decade attempt to paint Palestinians as the soul obstacle to peace. There is no doubt that extremists on the Palestinian side have blocked, for example, the Oslo Accords, have been opposed to it, have sought to
undermine it. But when you hear these comments, and when you read the Likud party charter, which talks about from the river to the seat, when you see Natan Yahoo bragging about thwarting a Palestinian state and saying, hey, you got to stick with me if you want to block a Palestinian state forever. This provides some context of the type of viewpoints and analysis that are not just present, but quite dominant in his political coalition, which is governing
the state of is right now. And if you're not dealing with that, if you're not reckoning with that, then you're just living in a complete fantasy land and the results you're going to get are going to match the like, you know, total disconnect from reality that you're working with.
Yeah, this is another issue I have too with a lot of older politicians and even people who don't understand the country is they use Biden in particularly lives in like a gold in my are Israel.
It's like bro, that's been less fifty years away.
And look, America's changed a lot in fifty years, but not even close to as much. Is the amount of demographic change that they have had versus what we've had actually makes our immigration problems look very different, just in terms of their make up, their politics where things have gone. And I think that's actually one of the bigger problems that we face in this is that people may have gone in the nineties or in the eighties.
I'll tell you what I see this a lot with India.
For example, a lot of people who immigrated to the United States from India in the eighties have this idea of India as like this led by the Nehrus and the Congress Party, and then they go back and they're like, what the hell is going on here? I'm like, Yeah, the country changed all lot and ever since you left. It turns out that when there's a new party in town, the entire civic understanding of the country change in a single generation.
Yeah, that doesn't really happen here, but it.
Does happen in the rest of the world all the time, and so you have to update your understanding of that. And that's something that a lot of politicians refuse to do, even though we're living in twenty twenty three.
And you can go watch it all for yourself if.
You care too.
Yeah.
And that's the other thing, is this whole freak own about like oh my god, the kids on TikTok, like their views are so different, Like yeah, because these videos are getting views on TikTok.
And they have no.
Individual understanding of the time period I'm talking about. Because I'm even just on the cusp of like I remember the aud barocks and all those other people who were in charge. But the vast majority of my life has been spent under this type, and I can vaguely remember some of it.
I mean, if you're ten years younger than me, you can't remember forget any of that. Yeah, it doesn't even exist.
That's very true. That's a very good point. All right, all right, let's move on to other threats to democracy. We discussed the concern about Trump's name being taken off the ballot in Colorado.
Well, the DNC many they're just the same thing.
Yeah, I mean, they're just not even hiding that they want to cancel democracy. In terms of the Democratic primary, we've got more states that have just decided. Even though we've got Dean Phellows, we've got Mary and Williams, and we also have Jank hugre Eve. Though there's you know, constitutional questions around his bid, he does have opponents, and they're just canceling primaries in states with no real reason. Put this up on the screen. This is from Mary Anne.
She says the DNC is at it again. We discovered the Massachusetts Democratic Party intends to include only Joe Biden as their primary candidate on the Massachusetts ballot. She goes on to say that the dumb chair there is misplaced attempt at protecting Joe Biden rob's Massachusetts Democrats of their voice and choice in the upcoming election. This action is a flagrant violation of DANC rules and process.
She goes on to.
Explain, I want to read this because this is specific to the Massachusetts process. She says, I've actively campaigned in Massachusetts. The Secretary of State has a discretion to include FEC filed candidates who have received national media coverage, which I have, she definitely has. We hope Secretary of the Commonwealth will protect Massachusetts voters from that state's attempt at circumventing democracy. Massachusetts not alone. Let's put this up on the screen.
These are the states now that have just said we're just going to anoint Joe Biden, don't want to hear from the voters, don't want to even get them to give them a chance, or you know, cast about, don't even want to pretend like we're doing anything other than just giving Joe Biden our full support. Tennessee, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and as we had.
Covered before, Florida.
So this is pretty wild, Like Democrats claim to be wanting to protect democracy, and they're running to protect democracy, et cetera. I mean, this is without any sort of recourse, no court process whatsoever. Just we're not going to have a contest, So we're.
Not going to happen because Biden is winning by seventy percent in the primary.
So why don't you just let that go? Why don't you just let the vote happen.
He can get seventy five percent, he can get be coordinated out after he won the election. There's no reason to even do it. It's just to set the precedent of like nobody is allowed to dismis at all. The last national poll I saw only add Marianne at thirteen percent and Dean Phillips five So it's.
Like, why do you even care? Yeah, why do you care? I don't understand.
Yeah, I mean it seems preposterous that they would be worried. But I do think that they feel more fragility than they probably should, just because you know, they see the polls of people overwhelmingly like we want another choice?
Is there another choice?
And so I think they're fearful that if there's a recognition that, oh, you actually do have other options and there is an actual way of like, all right, well who are the candidates and what do I think? And do I want to go in another direction? I think they're very fearful of that dynamic playing out, and so
that's where these incredibly heavy handed tactics come in. And let's not forget also, I mean there have been heavy handed tactics from the beginning, just in terms of rearranging the primary states to front load the ones that Joe Biden feels most secure in South Carolina first and foremost. Now that's created some problems for him. Actually a New Hampshire which has in there. I think I don't know if it's a law or constitution that they have to
be the first in the nation primer. They're going forward with it. Joe Biden is not going to be on the ballot. There's like a writing campaign for him, but that actually created more of a risk for him than there would have been. So in a certain way, their heavy handed tactics have kind of like backfired. It's manifesting the thing that they're terrified of. Dean Phillips weighed in on this as well. Man, there have been some hatchet jobs on Dean Phillips lately too. We're going to get
into that in a minute. His caucus, his fellow caucus members are furious with him.
It's stepping out on of line.
He says, Democrats cannot be the party of democracy while shamelessly suppressing it.
President Biden.
Party leaders must be on the record about whether they support the suppression of Democrats. No wonder Americans under thirty plan to vote for Trump over Biden by six points.
Yeah, I mean, look good for him, and he is kind of laying it all out on the line we should highlight. I think this probably gets to what you're talking about, is that they don't want any outlet, especially now, for some of the anger over Biden.
You found this particular clip.
NBC News interviewed some young voters who said that they won't vote for Biden.
Let's take a listen. Do you plan on voting for him this time? Laura, No, No, not anymore.
The twenty three year old was part of the surgeon young voters in the liberal Dane County that helped Biden flip the battleground state three years ago. He's now angry at the President over his support for Israel's invasion of Gaza.
He is allowing this war to happen and is funding this war.
I don't know what will happen if I don't vote for him, but I know it won't be me supporting that.
On climate, on COVID responses, tell his and his administration, we're doing really great work. But I think after October seventh, the question became a matter of human rights.
Interesting, yeah, so on Israel, But you know, there's a lot of other reasons. You're already seeing some discontent I think on student loans or for example, that was just on the left. So these people who think, I think theyll probably vote for Cornell West or something, or maybe it's not vote period, which is a totally fine choice, I think.
I think voting is probably the most likely scenario. But I mean that is the reality is outside of the Democratic primary, they are likely to have other.
Choices on the ballad.
I just saw Quinnipiac pole come out, and the numbers with eighteen to thirty four year olds are pretty stunning. So Biden is at thirty three percent with eighteen to thirty four year olds in this Quinnipiac poll. Trump is at twenty rfk Junior is at twenty four but Cornell West is at six, Jill Stein's at ten.
Wow.
So yeah, and you know it was also interesting to me Black voters in this poll. So you have sixty one percent, think about that, with this supposedly rock solid constituency only quote unquote sixty one percent back in Biden, four percent backing Trump, fifteen percent with RFK Junior, ten
percent with Cornell West, nine percent with Jill Stein. So people do have other outlets if they just cannot stomach what they are watching unfold before their eyes in Gaza, with our full support and backing our bombs stamp made in America being dropped on these babies and these children.
They have other options. And so you know, I mean, you have people in the Biden campaign who pre presumably know how to read a poll and see the way that I'm sure it's not one hundred percent because of Israel, but the time period in which support among young people has fallen off a cliff corresponds very closely with October
seventh and what has unfolded since then. You know, they have to realize this is a gigantic issue with them for them, and you know what they're hoping is I was thinking about this after we had our conversation about Trump's like poisoning the blood comments or whatever.
What they're hoping is that he says more stuff.
Like that and people go, you know what, I got it, Like, this guy is just too terrible that I got to vote for. I gotta stuck it up and vote for Joe. That's what they're hoping for. But remember they have to basically like run the table on that. They have to get everybody to make that calculation and not bail out and vote for you know, Coronel West or Jill Stein or someone else that's on the ballot. And I just
don't know if that works this time around now. To make the countercase, In that New York Times Siena poll that we covered, it was interesting because among registered voters, Trump had a lead. Among likely voters, so they apply their like likely voter screen, they actually had Biden with an edge of two and among people who voted in twenty twenty, who like actually voted in twenty twenty, and especially among people who voted in twenty twenty two, Biden
had a huge lead. So among people who are the more reliable voters, his calculation is basically working out. So in any case, we'll see, But you know, I think it does expose part of why they're engaging these very heavy handed tactics, even though you would think that he would look at these poles where he's up tremendously and be like, Oh, I've got this, it's nothing to worry.
Yeah.
I think it more is about denying an escape valve of some kind for any of the discontent that's been brewing. Now that's right for some time, and that's fundamentally that's very undemocratic.
The last thing I wanted to show you I mentioned this like absolute hatchet job on Dean Phillips, who you know, I think for people in DC, Democrats in DC, like, it's one thing for a Marian Williamson, it's one thing for a Jank Huger.
They're outside the system.
They already see them as basically like traitors to the cause, right, so when they jump in the race, that's one thing. But for Dean Phillips, this like centristy, normy Democrat who is an elected member of Congress to come out and run against Joe Biden. Apparently people have a lot of feelings about that. Put this up on the screen. This is from Axios Here are some of the on the record quotes that they got from his fellow party members
in Congress. Representative Robert Garcia called phillips campaign a total joke, very disrespectful of the president and the party, saying he's torched his reputation. Steny Hoyer, Dean Phillips is not going to win any primary. I think he's not helpful to the country. Sidney Camlon, jay Do Dove.
I don't know. I brutalized that. Sorry, Sidney.
He seems to be taking a page out of the Trump playbook. It makes me wonder if he's a real Democrat. One senior House Democrat describe the feeling toward Phillips within the Democratic Caucus as pure hatred, saying many members are pissed about his attacks on Biden, and you know where this energy comes from, Sager. It's embarrassing to them.
Yes, it is, because he's right.
He's right that Joe Biden is a terrible candidate, that they are risking the party in the country's future by staying lockstep behind him. His criticisms of Joe Biden are by and large accurate, and they feel humiliated that he actually has the guts to say it and to actually do something about it, while they just sit there, you know, snibbling and privately like being worried about how the election is going to go, but totally unwilling to step on the line.
I think it will be. I think it's yeah, I mean that bad. It also shows you how much of a risk it was for him. I still don't quite understand it, given the fact that he also he's not even going to run for Congress anymore. Maybe he was just done and he wants to plant a flag and he genuinely who believes it. So more power to him.
But it shows you too, like when you're in the system and you violate the tenets of it by speaking out the basic truth even though it knows everybody's true, they will come out and they will absolutly destroy your life. You won't even be able to get a lobbyist job after this. I hope he's rich. I don't know what his personal network is.
Rich Okay, good, he was rich, so he does have a safety net there. But listen, I want to give him credit, and I don't even really care.
I don't know. I don't know him, you know, I thought.
It was we had a feisty exchange, but I thought he was like perfectly, you know, nice and seems like a genuine human being when I met, But I don't even really care about his intentions.
Good for him.
It takes courage to do this, and we've seen how hard it is to go against the people that you're working with day in and day out, and.
He actually did it, So kudos to him.
We can have a disagreement about policies and back and forth, although I will say, you just signed on to Medicare for all, which I was happy.
That was interesting, interesting and happy to know.
But you know, we need to see more of that willingness to step out of line from these just like archaic, sclerotic, broken party systems that have completely done a disservice to American public.
Yeah, I agree, all right, soryery looking at well.
There's been a massive debate in this country in the last few weeks over the Ivy League, especially after the university presidents refused to say calling for the genocide against Jews did not per se violate student code of conduct. The debate has a couple of elements. First is the free speech implication as to whether such a statement should constitute harassment. The second is about hypocrisy of these institutions, unquestionably if they would have course answered in the affirmative
if the group was, say, black people or trans people. Now, those who have watched this show already know what I think. I think their answers were actually correct. I think I don't think any statement should be barred within a First Amendment framework unless it does go in the direction of actually targeting an individual student. That point should be that the entire diversity, equity and inclusion regime, though, is illegitimate and dumb, that no group of people period should be
quote unquote protected. A new front has now emerged in this war to get these presidents fired, and that is going after the academic credentials themselves of Harvard President Claudine Gay.
Now.
Almost immediately after the hearing controversy, the Washington Freebeacon's Aaron Siberian reported that significant portions of Claudiine Gay's entire thesis appeared to have been copied and entire paragraphs from other academic work claimed as her own. Now, despite the frankly pretty good evidence that she did in fact commit plagiarism in her thesis, the exact act which many Harvard students have now been expelled for Over the years, Harvard has stood by her. They don't want to bow to the
cancellation mob. This has only since heightened the effort to review her academic record. More recent examples actually show further the extent of the alleged plagiarism within her thesis. The Free Beacon again reports an official academic report has now been filed against Claudine Gay with the Harvard Research Integrity Office,
detailing over forty cases of alleged plagiarism. The funniest case actually is that Gay appears to have lifted entirely a section of acknowledgments in her thesis from someone else's dedication. But this is where I actually want to stop for a moment and make a point to try and connect it back to the free speech and debate.
The entire so.
Called plagiarism scandal is itself a smokescreen. The problem with her is not that she is an imperfect academic. It's that her entire brand of academia is a farce and a fiction. As I jokingly remarked on Twitter or x as the latest have called it. When this scandal hit it's impossible to plagiarize when your entire discipline is fake. Gay herself is an original of the anti racist school
of thought. Her entire thesis is racial Gobbledegook that I had to go through talking about taking charge black electoral successes in the Redefinition of American politics. It's written in nineteen ninety seven, and the entire document is basically dedicated to making the case of quotas and legislators and judges who are black in some sort of older school justification for DEI and affirmative action decisions made in the post
nineteen sixty five era. Really, the point I want to make is this, The problem isn't the integrity of the academic work, just the work itself is bad. Gay herself is the poster child of everything that's actually gone wrong with Harvard. She is not a real academic. Instead, she previously was the dean of harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences program, where they promoted her to president. This is how they bragged about her accomplishments.
Quote.
She created an expansive initiative on inequality in America. Oversaw hires intended to bolster Harvard's offering in the areas of climate change and ethnic studies, and sanctioned several well known professors accused of sexual harassment without due process by the way.
In other words, she was a BLM Hall monitor, as proven by her statements August of twenty twenty, when she was the DEI Dean at Harvard, she said, our engagement and anti racist action and the infusion of inclusive practices into all aspects of our teaching and research mission reflect a new sense of institutional responsibility and requires sustained effort over time. So again I have a message to those who are involved in this fight. The problem is not
Claudine Gay. The problem is the whole system. If you want further proof of destructive ideology and how it goes through these institutions, consider, as my friend has pointed out, all seven of the Colorado justices who ruled on the Trump ballot were appointed by Democrats. The only thing that distinguishes the four who ruled to remove Trump is that they all attended the Ivy League for law school. The three who descended are Denver law graduates. We have two
ways that we can go in this moment. You understand the destructive effect of elite systems themselves that produces and promotes Claudine Gay's or you try to get a scalp in the name of guarding against fake accusations of anti Semitism, Bill Ackman and as people want the latter, and I want the former, and I think it's time to very much reframe the entire message around this. I'm curious what
you make of this, Crystal. I've been very annoyed because I feel like people are becoming fake hall monitors and they're like, well, she didn't improperly, and like, I don't care about that, that's not the problem. It's like with the genocide comment, it's like, oh, so now we're supposed to put Jews in the marginalization category. This is all this is an invented scandal in my opinion. So it's like, if you want to criticize DEI and go after the system.
And all that, I'm all on board. But unfortunately I don't really see a lot of that.
Well, I mean, that's why I'm so it's.
Just very clear that the people like Chris Rofo, who are most associated with opposition to quote unquote DEI or identity politics, like now that it's a different group, they don't actually have like consistent principles. And Rufo was very open and up front about the way that he wanted to plant this plagiarism story in mainstream media. He actually tweeted, we launched the Claudiine gay plagiarism story from the right.
The next step is to smuggle it into the media apparatus at the left, legitimizing the narrative to center left actors who have the power to topple her then squeeze.
So just so you know, you do have to give it to overw listen.
Maybe so okay, but you know, the plagiarism stuff is legitimate, and so I guess you know, even though it came from a bad place, we should still look at it. But just be aware it's not like this is like a good faith attempt to ensure academic integrity. They're pissed off that she said, no, Actually, if you are pro Palestinian and you you know, are out of march or you're doing a chant or whatever, and you're not harassing or bullying or hurting anyone, you have a right to
do that. She stood up for free speech in the way that conservatives have been asking these presidents who stand up for free speech, and the minute that it was a group that they had a different feeling about, they turn on a dime. So that's where this whole conversation comes from. And I think it's very important for people to understand the context with which these charges are being left.
This is my thing too, just for re understand. It's about principles and systems. If you want to talk and critique about them, that's fine, but trying to work in this individual way especially. Look, you know, I respect some of Chris Rufoe's work, but part of the problem I have is that he's willing to sign on, you know, to somebody like Acman, where I don't think Acmen is
even working towards the same end at all. I mean, Roofe look to be transparent, has always been after DEI he's just a lot more I guess, like politically savvy.
I can't he but not on this one.
Well, I mean he wants he wants Jewish people to have a special car amount where it's the rules are different. I mean that's why he's going after Actually I.
Don't think he does.
I think he thinks Acman and this last crusade is a useful idiot, And this is a tactical defeat, and this is kind of what I was doing this.
So that's ridiculous because now you're just what you're pressuring is for someone to come in who is more censorious, right, who was more committed to the things.
That you supposedly oppose. So it's preposterous.
I'm with you one hundred percent. They disagree with me. They're like, any scalp is good. It just shows the system that they have to you know, it's like a fuck around and find I guess we're behind the paywall. Fuck around and fire out and find out that you can do that. I don't think that's going to happen at all. I think in that result will be worse.
They just their tactical thing is like is if you can get a scalp and you can show that the right has power, then they'll try and you know, come to us.
Yeah, what has that power? What has that power gotten them? What it's gotten them is more like pro censorship wins. Then the left was ever able to accomplish. I mean, they did more to enshrine and guarantee there will be more censorship on college campuses, and you know, the next time that a college student feels unsafe for whatever, that they'll have more avenues to pursue that that's what they're winning here.
I only it's fair to say than the left is ever accomplished.
Absolutely absolutely, do you think that anti semitism which bad as what happened here?
Just given what happened here, these presidents they instantly caved the minute that there was a backlash to them, saying, well, actually the context of the speech matters, and no, if it's not bullying or harassment, like that was the right answer. And so even after BLM and the left and whatever whatever, these presidents actually have the right answer on free speech, and that's gone now they all capitulated.
I would put it this way, is that I still do believe that it absolutely is the case if you said that about Blacker trans people, that you would be gone at Harvard tomorrow.
And also the fact.
Is said, but said, what about blacker transport, because that's the other piece is it's not like anyone was calling for genocide. I agree, So it's preposterous.
Yeah, but under the definition, if I say that little kids shouldn't be pluged full of hormones, they would be like your anti trans and you're calling for a transgendistor.
If I think you should ban eighteen year olds or anyone.
On there, give me an example of that actually happening where someone said something that was uncomfortable. I mean, there may be examples of that, but in this instance, they gave the right answer that can be used then in other instant, Well, you said that this was the context here, so over here, now that someone is saying they're saying like, then you make them commit to the words that they've
already put out there. But to then demand censorship and the interest of well, you would have censored here, so I want you to censor across the board.
That's stupid.
I'm not even ridiculous. I agree with you completely.
That's why I did this entire monologu because I'm like, guys, it's not about that, It's about the whole IVY League.
It's about this whole corrupt system.
But and I don't think unfortunately, if they don't they care much about that, I would like to see things change completely.
We would move much more in the direction.
Instead of having hearings about, for example, what is your code of conduct policy on anti Semitism, I'd be like, yeah, how much do you guys, how much money you guys make, and how much head funge dollars are moving around here? Maybe wish pay some taxes on that. That's what they actually fear, just so everybody knows in terms of going after profits. And hey, how come you guys have more administrators than you do students.
That's pretty interesting.
You're making these people completely bankrupt and you have no share in any of their futures.
And yet you're all building.
Yeah, I should send you this from the Wall Street Journal. Do you know where all these new student dollars are going to? Granit countertops in dorm rooms?
Now?
I had one hundred year old dorm. It was such a piece of shit. And I'm not saying necessarily that's a good thing, but I mean the idea that everyone should go into deeper debt so that I could have slept in a nicer bedroom and had access to a lazy river and all these other student services is preposterous. So look, this is again a question about systems. What's upholding this entire thing? What real fights questions and all of them are about and differences in tactics.
So I do think we agree at least some.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I mean this is like we may not agree on this part, but this is basically like capitalism applied to the universe system. The students become the customer they put into Why do they put it into place these parks to try to attract the student body that already has money. Why Because they're the ones and their parents who are more likely to give them more money for
the university. That's the system that you're talking about. But you know, on the core level with all of this, I honestly I just want to say, I don't know if she's played.
I didn't look at it.
I literally haven't read the stories because to me, I can't get past the fact that there was this fake outrage over things that students didn't even say with regard to genocide, and then you know, moments later they're backing dollars for bombs to be dropped on kids in what
many scholars are saying is actually a genocide. To me, I just can't get past that and what it says about the insane priorities and like decrepit, ridiculous, absurd system of distraction that we have instead of any form of democracy or actual interest in.
What would be good for the people.
So I can't get past that part of the story to even engage with like Chris Rufo's plagiarism thing.
That's fair. I will say, CNN covered it and they even said the chief.
That was his goal. He said, let me get this into mainstream media and then we'll squeeze. So I guess it's.
Working got your quest for more censorship is working out.
I hope you're happy.
Let's move on, all right.
So since this is the last show of the year, it's been a tough show already, Right, We've had debates, we've had discussions, we've had disagreements. We had to find a way to wrap things up in a good direction. So last time we did the superlative section, we had it included some worse things and all that. But this time we decided, you know what, if you devolved into anything negative, it's just going to get a downer and
why end the year on such a note. So everything from this moment forward is going to be a positive, superlative about something that happened this year. So first we're doing best moment, Crystal, what.
Do you got?
Yeah, So for me, best moment of the year is when the UAW, after their historic stand up strike, was able to obtain extraordinary gains from all of the Big three automakers. It's now set off a wave of organizing among automakers that are not currently unionized, including Tesla and
perhaps the Cherry on Top. The sweetest moment of them all was when Jim Kramer, who had been trashing them, trashing the president Sean Fain as a Marxist, telling the car companies they should just ship all their jobs to Mexico, when even he was forced to admit that the auto workers had one.
Take a listen.
I think that the UAW was underestimated, Paul Way, because Fain just beat them everywhere. It was very much grill action was very smart. They were completely they were outgained at every turn. I mean it was almost like they were and Fame was a great NFL coach who really figured out all the weaknesses the other team and just came in and blew them away.
And they were blitzing. They were doing right.
I mean they had like linebacker and squirter blitches and safety blitches, and you know they like the other guys like the like I love I love Farley and I love barring, you know, you know, and I think that they were wow what happened? They were in the wow what happened?
Camp?
And when the game was over, it was just a real beatdown.
Real beat down.
I love at the beginning saga when he's like they were underestimated. It's like by who by you more than anyone else? That goes unacknowledged though, but still beautiful to see them.
Yeah.
Mine is a good old fashioned, clean fun United America and hilarity and horror and shot and frout. And that was a congresswoman Loweren Bobert at Beetlejuice. I mean, who who cannot help but laugh at this woman just making an utter and total fool of herself in public vaping, getting kicked out for groping her mate, then ign saying and denying actually that she acted this way, forcing the employees at this theater to then leak the condemning video of this to local news.
And this one went everywhere.
It was all everyone's speed. It hit the normy start. I even dressed up as Beetlejuice for Halloween as a tribute to missus Bobert for reminding me. Rewatched the movie so thank you. I've only said beetlejuiceant no twice now wons so far. So there were a lot of great jokes. There were just there were too many good ones that happened as a result of this. So for me, it was just good old clash, good old fashioned clean foot.
It feels like a throwback to more n I agree. I agree when we could cover things like that, and I have to be like, you know, are we watching and ethnic cleansing? Are we watching a genocide? It feels good to nostalgically relive Lauren Bobert's night out there at Beetlejuice.
And you're so right that this really did land.
With an audience everybody.
Yeah.
Now, I still maintain that I actually am in support of more representation for trashy hose everywhere. I would like to see more of this on, you know, among life dis among my you know, my political ideology.
So let's go for more. Try.
She's actually Grandma too, more trashy Grandma. You had, Kyle and I covered the rub map that came. Apparently there's been a huge searge in interest in Grandma porn and g i lfs, which people can probably interpret them maybe.
Lauren Bobert spark that you know, I'm just connecting.
I'm just connecting the dots now that perhaps she was the spark and the interest for there.
Only six years older than I. Oh my god. Okay, that's a whole other conversation.
All right, Next question, we won't judge people's personal decision.
What do we have?
Okay, Next we have what are we most excited for about twenty twenty four? And mine, I just said pure chaos at this point. I mean, listen, Biden or Trump or both could die, someone could get thrown in jail, someone could be impeached, someone could get kicked off the bat. I mean, we just don't even know. And not that
I'm saying any of these are good things. I'm not saying that what's so ever, But at this point I'm just sort of like in the I guess we're gonna have to embrace the embrace, the suck, let it burn, whatever, because I think it's going to be an insane year and it's very hard for me to come up with something that I'm genuinely, like, affirmatively, positively excited about.
One of the most tough frequent questions we get is how do you deal with this?
How do you deal with the job?
And to be honest, a detached curiosity has been the way that I've eventually landed on. That's the only way I think you can actually stay sane and do the job. And yeah, that's why for pure chaos, you can't help but have some a little bit of excitement about it. I love history. It's very rare for people to actually be able to know in the moment that you were quote unquote living through history. I think most people through
the nineties they probably thought they were. But unless it was the fall of the Berlin waller, well, I guess I was eighty nine. So even that the fall of the Soviet Union something like that, most likely things are
gonna pass you by. But you know, with Ukraine, with so just in the years that you and I have been doing a show together, I mean, what think about the things COVID pandemic in the one hundred years January sixth, you know, the latest, the Ukraine War, Israel and Hamas, I mean, so many of these things, and then now to just know to be on the precipice of this,
I can't help but feel some excitement. At least I get to live through something crazy and help make sense of it of the world with all of you people. So for me, that's an exciting thing. All right, what about you once again? I mean, can't hell had to put a UFO thing in here. Let's put this up there. One thing I'm excited about and is that repeatedly from people in the UFO community they said this UFO transparency is going to be forced in there or not, whether
the legislation passes or it doesn't. So just even though they did a cover up, they blocked all of the transparent NICHE transparency initiatives inside of the Senate NDAA, I think a lot more people like David Grush are going to come forward and tell us a little bit about what they know, and I think we will be just a tiny little bit step closer to understanding the reality and the truth of what is happening.
So the reality of it.
Though, I don't think we'll find out, you know, per se or whatever in twenty twenty four, but I think we'll have more interesting stuff to cover in twenty twenty four as a result of Dave Gresh coming forward, and I'm hopeful for that, or maybe we'll get disproven the other way.
Either way, I'll take it. Indeed, that's good for people.
So obviously twenty twenty three was a year with a lot of clouds, a lot of very dark clouds. But that's why we said, all right, well let's try to look for a silver lining in some of this. And for me, it was the way that we've seen, you know, in the wake of Row versus Way being overturned, that people have really shown up to try to reclaim or
protect their rights at the ballot. The abortion rights have won in every single ballot test where they have been on, you know, where voters have had a chance to go and weigh in. They have won in seven different states since it was originally overturned in June of twenty twenty two, and we just saw one of these in Ohio in
this past off your election. So to me, that's obviously I didn't support Wrote versus Way being overturned, but it is at least encouraging the backlash to that, and how many people have flooded the polls to try to reclaim the rights that they have lost.
Yeah, it was interesting. I mean nobody expected it. I certainly didn't, so it was stunning. To the whole chaos thing. I'll put mine here up on the screen. We can put this up there, which is about Ukraine, and that's the reality setting in on the ground in Ukraine. And that might sound callous, but I really believed since the day of the invasion that this was the most precarious situation in the world, just because of nuclear weapons. I
think our policy has just been a total disaster. Thousands of Ukraine, tens of thousands of Ukrainian men have now been killed. You've got hundreds of thousands who are injured. Just yesterday I read a story about a freaking forty seven year old guy who was kidnapped off the street, too poor to bribe his way out of the draft, and now is on the front line, serving in an infantry division, and he's upset about it. He says, physically, I cannot handle this. I wish I was twenty years younger.
So look, we need to put an end to this situation for the Ukrainian people, for the gold, you know, for the good of peace. I still believe, even with Israel Hamas and all that this this is one of those situations where you are just one bad moment away from going hot, and it has been a long priority of mine from the day that happened, in order to keep and try and stop you know, the ongoing insanity. And I think that the vibe shifted completely because of
the failure of the Ukrainian counter offensive. And I hope in the next year that we will see peace come to that region, or at least, you know, an attempt and an acknowledgment of that for the future.
That's what I certainly hope.
So all right, our last category is what was the biggest plot twist or what have you got for this one?
Well, this is what.
I've been meaning to do for a long time Israel hamas happened, so obviously I was just going to put it in the show. But it is about Hassan minajh And I got to be honest, you know. I did a monologue about Hassanmonaj about how the New Yorker exposed him. I still think he plays into identity politics, tropes and
others that I vehemently agree with. But one of the stories in that New Yorker article was accused Hassan Minaj of lying about how he was rejected from the prom because his prom or his like possible prom dates parents were racist, And I got to say I listened to Hassan's rebuttal whenever it came out, I guess a month and a half or so ago, and he convinced me, at least on this one point. He absolutely convinced me. I'll play some of it for you right now if you didn't hear it.
First, I want to talk about how and why I was rejected from PROM. Now, let me first say this. I am thirty eight years old with a wife and two kids. I do not give a shit about PROM. But it's a big story from my first stand up special and the New Yorker imply that I made it all up and that my race wasn't a factor in my rejection. But it was, and I have the evidence to prove it.
He's got Look, he's got like a twenty something long minute video, he's got the receipts, he goes through some of the other allegations.
Does he have what like emails or what's.
Got text messages?
Emails like her saying this and this acknowledging you know that some stuff happened in the past.
I mean, look, it's on the prompt thing.
It's there's nobody like she absolutely railroaded him, and on some of the other ones, I wouldn't see she railroaded him as much on the other ones, but she definitely misconstrued some of the things that he said, and she did not include the fulsome nature of his response. So I got to own up to it, Hassan, I apologize.
That's one of those where you know, I fell victim.
I'll say this too about you know, the belief in the mainstream media and all that.
This wasn't even me trusting the New Yorker. It just looked factual.
And I know that reporter I followed her for years now, Claire Malone, who used to work over at five three Dates. I was like, man, this is Claire Malone's work. You know, this is somebody who I know, and I've trusted her work for a long time.
Now.
The response, you know that, all the way that it was presented, it looks totally ironclad. Also, he did not have any comment immediately in the aftermath, so you couldn't help but just think like.
Oh god, it was a huge mistake on his part.
I agree with you, But after the fulsome nature of it all came out I'm like, all right, you got to give it to the man.
And I've been meeting to this for a while, So, Hassan, here's to you.
Which has she responded to the fact.
About the story, which is bullshit? Come on, they haven't done a correction. No, no correction. They stand They said they stand.
By it one hundred and that causing a question.
Now, yeah, exactly. So no, I'm like, is this whole thing.
It's because that makes it clear, like, oh, this was a hatchet job, right, You had a story you wanted to tell about this, and you were trying to fit the facts into what you wanted to say, and so.
Yeah, and personal consequences from what I can see, I mean, he didn't get the Daily I mean, I don't know if he would want the Daily Show position, but I would I would tell him not to take it given where that show has gone. But he probably didn't get a job up because of it. And you know that doesn't that doesn't sit right with me.
That could also play into why he didn't respond. You know, it may have been that they told him, like you just never know behind the scenes what pressures he was under to just like stay quiet on it and hope that it goes away anyway. All right, our apologies to Hassan for you know, not believing him in the first place.
That's right, all right.
My plot is, do you guys remember back when Mayor Eric Adams was elected mayor of New York City and the reps this job always the next Democratic presidential candidate, and this guy's a superstar and he's shown out a win and showing Democrats how it's done well. That has now completely flipped to him giving answers like this.
One, mister Mayor.
We've come to the end of what was a very eventful twenty twenty three.
Right, So when you look at the totality of the year, if you had to describe it, and it's tough to do in one word, what would that word be?
And tell me why?
New York This is a place where every day you wake up you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trace Center to a person who's celebrating a new business that's open. This is a very very complicated city.
I mean honest with you, I just really wanted to play that come in the show because every part of it. You know, what really bugs me the most is he asked him for one word, and then he says, which is two words, and then it just gets more and more absurd from there, and he's like, it's amazing you wake up and see a plane fly into the World Trade Center or someone opening a small business, No incredible city.
That is one of the most what the fuck moments that I've ever seen, where it's like, dude, what is wrong with you? Also, if you're a family of nine to eleven, right, it's like you'd be like, yeah, that was actually the worst day of my life.
Thanks for reminding me of that. What's wrong with you?
Incredible? I love to how the interviewer just keeps his like interview.
I feel like he's on too. I feel like he had, you know, alistic questions and he didn't even play. I mean, you know, it is like sometimes when people are talking, you've got other stuff and you want to make sure you're ready for the next question and all that.
I don't think he realized what was being said, especially when.
You're throwing out like the softest of softballs of all time, and so yeah, your brain probably just like checks out. Like I'm sure he'll say something, you know, Anna dine here and we'll move on to the next one or wrap it up or whatever, and instead he just gives the most ridiculous and hilarious answer of all times.
I appreciate it. I thank him for that moment. Thank you, Mayor.
I would have expected him just like say a lyric from NYC, from Annie or something.
It's like, what are you doing right?
It's just like anyway, all right, Thank you Mary Mayor Adams, and thank you to all of you for being with us this year, trusting us to cover news that has been oftentimes very difficult, very challenging, very complex. We are going to be off next week, but I'm gonna look to do is gonna be out ount but if big things break on Israel or anything else, I'll do some little updates for you guys. And we also have additional content that we're looking forward to you all getting to
check out. I did a long interview with Norm Finkelstein and Sager is sitting down with Tucker Carlson, So definitely look for those as well.
There you go, take advantage if you can. We're gonna be releasing them earlier to our premium stubs. Otherwise I will see you all in the new year.
Happy holidays, guys, see you in the new year.