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A lot of new developments out of Israel, particularly as it relates to Netnyahu's claims that war with Iran maybe in the offing and that the Trump administration is okay with it. This started last week with a quiet piece in the Washington Post. Israel likely to strike Iran in coming months. Warren's US intelligence.
So think about the structure there US.
This is it's key that this is the Washington Post. You know, this is Washington, DC's newspaper. US intelligence officials leaked to that paper that they're concerned that Israel is going to strike Iran. There was a previous assessment under the outgoing Biden administration that there was a very high likelihood that Israel would strike Iran within the first six months of twenty twenty five.
At the time, the Biden administration.
Weighed whether or not it would kind of publicly endorse a move like that and decided not to. Israel now say you know now saying that he really has Trump's buy in for this attack. Trump himself gave an interview with Fox News recently where he said something very similar to what Witcoff said and will Roll Wickcoff and second, Trump said, we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and there's two ways to stop that. One is we blow up there in nuclear facilities. Two is
that we get a deal. And he says he would much rather get a deal than launch launch a war. That's what you're hearing from Trump, But he's not ruling out that he would support and Israeli strike.
We can.
Here's Steve Whitkoff recently in an interview talking about the role that Iran is playing in these ongoing Israeli negotiations.
Throll c three.
Iran as the benefactor. But of course the largest issue is the nuclear and the President has said they will not get a bomb. Them getting a bomb.
Is devastating to the region.
It will force every other country in that region to get a bomb too. We'll have a nuclear arms race, and that simply can't happen. But the President has also said this can be solved diplomatically, and if Iran shows an interest in solving it diplomatically, the American government remains open to those discussions. And so I hope that it can be solved diplomatically because the alternative is not such a good alternative.
And so we've talked about this before that all of this is happening in the context of the Israel Gaza war.
And if if the if the Israeli.
A salt on Gaza were the only thing that we're a kind of isolated geopolitical contest, then Trump's support for net Yahoo's ability to just wipe it off the MAP, I think would would be unchecked. Like, I totally agree, But it's happening in the context of this more regional consideration where Trump very much wants a Saudi Israeli peace deal normalization between the two.
He also wants an Iran nuclear deal.
I think he sees this as you know, a potential legacy item. It's deeply ironic, of course, because Obamba struck one and then Trump immediately ripped it up. But now now he believes that he can be uh you know, recognized as this great deal maker if he can just get back into the deal that he ripped up. And so it is the one thing that is giving the ceasefire oxygen and giving it, giving it legs, keeping it alive. You can put up C four here. This is from
drop sites Twitter feed. So is basically is Israel, uh you know, struck and killed two police officers in Gaza who were guarding uh An aid.
An AID convoy Hamas.
Has said that, you know, Israel's continuing to attack and kill people inside Gaza, you know, puts the puts the ceasefire in jeopardy. They said the attack on Palatine police officers guarding AID trucks and southern Gaza quote clear violation of the ceasefire Trump quote and then says that you know, Trump should not believe that it's going to be easy to go go along with Netnyahu's idea here and Trump's
idea that they're just going to clear everybody out. This is quote Trump quote has no clue about the resistance of the Palestinians. He has no clue about how the Palestinians are connected to their homeland. It's not real estate, it's it's a homeland. He argued that every time Israelly officials have spoken about the quote elimination of Hamas, the
group has only grown stronger. And I do think it is accurate to say that every time Trump says that when he wants all of the Palestinians out and he's not going to let them back, his position gets weaker. You say that out loud, You're not You're not. You're not going to win people over that way.
And so.
That is what Trump is saying. But what Trump is actually doing is the status quote. On Saturday, you had the hostage exchange go off as planned, so you had all of this talk about war with Iran Trump and demanding that every single hostage needed to be out by Saturday or else they were going to all hell, all.
Hell will break a loose again.
And instead wit Cooff gets back in there and he's like, no, like we got that, We've got a deal. We're going to continue with this deal, and and so the deal goes off. So the latest news is that Yahoo, he spoke last night at this major pro Israel conference, he has authorized finally his negotiators to go back to Cairo
and continue with with the negotiations toward phase two. And Phase two it's the part that Witkoff is is trying to make sure is completed, because that that is the part where all of the remaining hostages are exchanged and uh reconstruction is then supposed to begin and it's supposed to be a permanent ceasefire. The question of what role
Hamas plays is the one that's being negotiated. Hamas is sending a lot of signals that they're willing to just step back right, that they're willing to demilitarize, that that that a technical uh you know that a bunch of technocrats, either affiliated with the palsitting authority or not, but under the auspices of the guarante, the guarantee of the us age of the UAE others could actually be the ones
to play a role in the in the reconstruction. That they understand that that that may be the thing that that has to happen. It is telling that it is the Israelis who are the obstacle to this situation, because you know, once they make that concession, what's at that point, what's the argument from Israel that you can't allow this? Like they've said, like, you know, surrender and give us the hostages and it's over. And that's effectively what they would be saying.
So what do you make of this reversion back to phase two? Because first we were first the deal was off. Now the deal is back on. Why for what purpose is it some grand deal with Iran? Because that Washington Post report is very troubling, right, is that basically the Biden people at the end of course, by the way they leak it at the internet. Like, by the way, while we were in office we discovered they wanted to attack Iran. I'm like, well, maybe you should have done
something about it. But oh, right, that would be asking too much. Unfortunately.
One possibility is that, So think about it this way. If Trump really does want a permanent ceasefire, Saudi Israeli normalization, and an Iran nuclear deal that costs a lot of capital with the Miriam Madelson kind of wing of his financing.
So if he really does want that.
What does he have to do is to build up capital first, And how do you build up capital green light by being a complete lunatic in Hey, you want to you want to ethnically cleanse all of Gaza, go for it.
I'll do it for you.
I'll do it for you. Yeah.
So, and you see this too, went in with North Korea. You know, he'll talk about wiping them off the face of the earth, right and then and then he'll come in and do the thing he wants to do.
Which is some type of So you're buying the evison.
So I think if you do buy that he wants a deal here, it is it is rational that he would at this point be acting like a madman so that when Yahoo later gets screwed, Trump can.
Say, look, I did everything I could.
I was even willing to do full on ethnic cleansing for you, but it's just not feasible.
So we have to get serious about this.
And Egypt is saying that they've got a plan where it's a three to five year reconstruction, does not involve Hamas anymore in the government. UEE and Saudi will pay for it, and look, I want I would love I would love to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians even more than you would, but bbe it's just not feasible, it's not doable.
And I'm not sending American troops.
And when you send Israeli troops, all they do is do tik toks and get themselves killed and lead to ICC indictments and ICJ allegations of genocide and the completely just embarrassing yourself and further isolating yourself on the world stage.
So look, can't do that. We're gonna have to do a deal.
Like that's a best case scenario, perhaps.
Right, what's the mid case scenario?
Because if it's born, it's all just what I can't get my head around, is why, Because as you just said, and look, if Obama had ever say all hell will break loose and then didn't attack.
Moss after they read line, can you imagine?
Can you imagine what the tom Cottons and all of them of the world would look like. I've always seen Trump as somebody who talks big but never actually wants to follow me. Occasionally, you can point to a few things, the Costum Solimani killing, for example, but there were a lot of I mean, actually I was supposed to interview Trump the day. You remember that American spy plane that got shot down. It was unmanned, it like it was a Navy plane that was shot down in twenty eighteen.
And I was supposed to interview him that day got canceled.
And apparently what came out is that Trump had ordered a retaliatory strike that John Bolton had been pushing.
But then at the last minute.
He was like, Hey, you know what, we shouldn't kill any of the easy I Rannie and they didn't kill any of our people. Let's not kill kill any of theirs. Bolt and all of them were furious.
He seems to be he seems to have like a.
Duality inside where it's like like, on the one hand, says, we're gonna athletically, we're gonna own Gaza, We're gonna ethnically cleanse it our cell.
I'll do it for you. And then on the other hand he's like, maybe we should sit with Russian and China. We'll all just cut all our military spending. You're like, wait, what things?
Which one of these is true?
What's going on here? So yeah, I don't know.
I'm worried about the Israel thing only because it does seem to Israel played him very well. Not only DoD have the Mirria Madelson connection, they have effectively well. Yes, Trump has pushed them around, Wick Coff and others. He does obviously accept the framing on Iran. You and I know institutionally nothing would make more political sense in Washington terms than to support it is really strike on Iran.
That's where the majority of the GOP is now. There are important characters in the Trump universe JD.
I would hope being one of them.
But also many of the people who Trump is appointed to the Pentagon oppose the very type of strike, very strongly opposed any sort of So maybe they will win out. Are they even in the room, We don't know. And so that's what I think that the big war behind the scenes is. But I mean, look at the very least, I'm just happy let phase two go three, people stop getting killed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The risk in Trump's madman strategy, of course, is that Nenya who won't recognize it for it's just the madness that it is, and think it's real.
In Nenyah's speech last night.
To this this pro Israel UH conference, he said, you know, Trump's idea for Gaza has opened up possibilities for us that we never even dreams were possible, and we are going to pursue that with everything we have. So he he thinks he's taking Trump seriously and literally, and he's going to and he's going to try to take this moment to effectuate what what Trump put out as a possibility. The question is can Witkough reel him in enough and and how much agency does NETNA who actually have and
we we don't know. Meanwhile, let's talk about a little bit of the reporting that's that's been coming out lately nine seven two and Israeli Investigative News out that we actually partner with them on a story about about a month ago Ryder that they you know, a lot of their stuff has to go through a sensor, so the stuff that comes out has been already you know there, Yes, yes, but so consider that when you understand, when you think about the pieces that have been coming out of there,
we can put up C five. This is an investigation by Uvial Abraham in nine seven two which exposed you know, one of them more horrifying like cinematic horror film anecdotes a the IDF came across a couple in their eighties who told the Israeli soldiers that they because of their disabilities the man walks with a cane, that they were unable to evacuate the area with their with their family, and so they were still they're still in northern Gaza.
They and this is according to nine seven two, And like I said, went.
Through the sensor.
They strap explosives around this couple and used them as human shields. They call the mosquitoes as one of the terms for them, use them as human shields, going through the neighborhood while they're you know, clearing it of of hamas fighters, and then at the end execute them. Just levels of criminality on display almost unimaginable.
And this comes after nine to seven to two.
Very recently reported that the IDF had discovered that when it dropped these bunker buster bombs that as a consequence of the explosion, it released an enormous amount of carbon monoxide and basically burning up all of.
The oxygen in these tunnels.
And so they understood that this was a conventional bomb that operated as a chemical weapon, and that if they knew or if they guessed that somebody that they were trying to kill was in a tunnel, but they didn't know within five hundred meters or more where they were.
They could drop some of these bunker.
Busters and it would asphixiate, it would suffocate everyone in the tunnel. They what nine seven two also reported is that there were essentially no precautions taken to make sure that there were no hostages in the area, and they know for a fact now that as a result of that, a significant number of Israeli hostages were suffocated through this
through this bomb and asphyxiate strategy. Eventually they started requiring commanders to take some assessment of whether or not they were going to kill hostages, and so the killing of hostages has apparently diminished recently. But absolutely horrifying stuff coming out of out of nine to seven two.
So any thoughts on any of this port we got moved to the next one.
So starting to say it's just horrible, Yeah, I mean, it makes sense and it feeds or sorry. It fits with the testimony of a lot of these surviving hostages.
About that that they're Noumber one fear was the end that they were the constant bombing.
They could remember, they said they're like I could hear the bombs falling.
Yeah, me, it's just as horrible constantly.
And then two other things to talking about before we move on. Curious for your take on this. I think it's within the realm of possibility.
It's if he pulls off phase two, then yes, fascinating, There's still there's a lot to be said.
Fascinating political piece here.
Trump privately calls Steve whitcough quote a modern day Kissinger. And if there's going to be an American diplomat who shakes up American foreign policy and actually gets something accomplished, it would stand to reason that it would be somebody that comes from out of the fold. And I think I've seen you talking about this. In some ways, international real estate is as the perfect good training grounds. It's almost as good as when Trump made Excellon CEO the Secretary of State.
Although he was a terrible secretary.
It turned out to be terrible, But you would think that being the CEO of Exon would actually be I'm an American difficace.
I'll tell you that I'm a.
Very pro Witcoff Wikkoff has all of the ingredients that you need for a great international diplomat international finance, worked in Vegas, used to putting together like complex deals. Most importantly, has the total trust of the president because apparently they've been friends for like twenty or thirty years or whatever. Forty years, yeah, forty year friendship, so actual ironclad trust, their proven track record. Now he yelled at Bebee, got
him to do the at least phase one. There are a lot of hostages who owe their lives to Steve Wikoff. Whatever else happens, there are what thirty forty people and who knows how many Palestinians. You literally owe your life to Steve Wikoff. Wikoff got that guy Mark Fogel, released that Russian or the guy who was being held by Russia. He is today in Saudi Arabia with this with Secretary Rubio meeting with the Russian foreign minister to specifically negotiate.
Apparently he and Putin had a long discussion about Ukraine whenever Witkoff was in Russia to secure the release of Mark Fogel. So if he does, if he gets phase two, and or if he is successful in negotiating a Ukraine piece deal, then yeah, he's absolutely the next.
And you know that we won't talk.
We're not going to go into what what we mean, we don't need We're not gonna we're gonna go into kisen Jiffer.
Now, let's just set that aside. Last piece.
Our buddy Mike Gallagher, former congressman, a lead sponsor of the TikTok bill in the House, now an executive over at Pallenteer because this is Washington, d C. That's how that goes, became the latest person involved in the effort to ban TikTok, which is now back in the app store.
To stay out loud, how it was that.
It got over the hump playlist clip in a second, what we don't mention here at Mark Warner, who was on the Senate.
Side, the guy he already said this the icy guy, and.
He's on the stage and he says, I want to hear whether Mike tells the real story, the true story of how this happened in and Gallagher did tell the true story.
So let's roll this a bipartisan consensus.
We had the executive branch, but the bill was still dead until October seventh, and people started to see a bunch of anti Semitic content on the platform, and our bill had legs again.
And so producer Mac made it a great point when he was watching this too, because you can sort of sort of see Gollager trying to clean it up where he's like, after October seventh, that's when it got it's momentum.
He's like, oh, that's not going to sound exactly right.
So then he shoehorns in because there was a whole lot of anti Semitic content on TikTok. There was not a whole lot of anti Semitic content on TikTok. What there was there were a lot of videos from Palestinians in Gaza of them getting killed, named and their neighborhoods getting destroyed, and so it allowed the American public to connect directly in a parasocial way with real human beings on the ground and bypass the cable news New York Times version of what was happening. He reckcons that to
anti semitism. But Max's funny point not funny. What is wait a minute, anti semitism on a social media platform is a reason to ban it?
Have you ever logged onto.
X x X dot com?
X do I actually? Have you ever logged onto Twitter lately?
It is you know, Kanye is like the moderate one on Twitter right now, it is an absolute cesspool of unadulterated, straight up anti Semitism.
Well, I don't support banning anything for quote unquote anti right.
But if we did, it would not be TikTok alone that would get rolled up in it. But you know, just another you know, Romney has said this before Warner blinking, So there's no mystery about what it was.
It gave the final push.
Yes, the national security establishment wanted to ban it before that, but they couldn't get the.
I listen, I was pro banned tiktoks is twenty eighteen, even though I'll say that that's why it happened. Now, you know, sometimes you do good things for the wrong reasons.
Okay.
And by the way, Trump, you I don't even know why you guys are complaining anymore.
You want, Yeah, it's like we are. We're the ones who sit here lost.
Why are these That was what was funny And they're on that stage celebrating as if they won, Right, how did we win this victory?
It's like Trump just came in. It was like, actually, no, we're not doing this all.
It'd be like if the refs came in at the very end and we're like, okay, actually the chiefs.
One, that's right.
It was it was at one point that much of a blowout in the TikTok victory. But I knew in my heart, I always knew Trump would I gave them When Trump started talking about TikTok.
The like is gabo the young people love you. No, it's not.
It's not just the whole young people thing.
I r L. What it is is is jeff yass is huge donor who's a huge stike whispering in his ear in mar Lago for the last four years on top of Trump.
Maybe this it's what the elon thing.
At the end of the day, he respects only one thing, commodity of attention.
That's it.
There's nothing else that he respects more in the world. Hence he's like, okay, I'm pro TikTok.
So there we go.
All right, let's talk about the Democrats. This is objectively hilarious. John Stewart interviewing Jensaki with some shocking moments for Jenzaki, not for everybody else.
Let's take a listen.
I've been shocked by how undemocratic the Democratic Party can be Tell me.
What do you mean by I don't disagree with you necessarily, but what do you mean by that.
By putting their foot on the scales to get you know, make sure that Hillary Clinton comes out of the thing, or make sure that you know that they're that they're listening to that anger about the way that even the ACA quite frankly struck me as a very.
Concern because it didn't have a public option in it.
Correct that it didn't address the very thing that was causing the foundational upset. If I were to break this down narratively, what I think the Democrats have forgotten is government may not be perfect, but it's the only thing large enough to offset multinational corporate exploitation and corruption. And if we don't act like that's urgent and that affects
people's lives, then yeah, you're so. If the big policies that we make are billions more dollars to insurance companies that we think are fucking people over left and right for their healthcare, what so isn't that part of why people lost faith?
Yeah?
So, yes, I think we're saying, well, I'm trying to say something similar, which is this boom boom, which is Democrats just lost everything. They control nothing they control. I mean, they don't control the House, they don't control the Senate, they don't control the White House, and they don't control the Supreme Court. So now is the time to break some shit, right and break some China.
I do control the email list to continue to ask her money.
All right, break it down for me, Ryan, what's your personal favorite? My favorite was, oh, whenever he talks about that, are going to go oh, and she's like, put, that's Asian history.
We've moved on from that.
My favorite was when she and you can roll it back and see it, she literally rolls her eyes at the public option. Really yeah, interesting, She's like, oh god, this again, the freaking public option.
Oh he moved past this? Yeah, what are you still fighting these vices?
Okay, so these these damn people who wanted the government to come in and solve the major problem in their lives and that and that's what gets that's what gets the eye roll. The whole thing is just personally demoralizing in the sense that.
Looking back at my.
Career, which pre you know, came in before the public option, but like I spent a year and a half covering the fight over the public option and then cover the twenty sixteen presidential campaign and knowing that, like, if they would have listened to people like us, there's a good chance you fend off this this populist right and instead channel the energy into a populist left.
They didn't, and so it's.
Like I don't I don't have the energy to even do the I Tooldia Sos and and like with sake like and she and I are both like yeah, But to me, it's like, well, you guys won, Yeah, everybody lost, and.
It is what it is.
And she's on MSNBC now and she's got the power, She's got the wine Moms in her pocket.
Yeah, I don't mean the entire.
Don't know how much in their pocket. I feel like that, like the democratic base is really pissed off.
Yeah, okay, So I've been talking about this with Crystal. What do you make of all this democratic activism?
Like, is it real?
There's people are lighting up the phone lines right now. I don't take phone line as so just because your base is pissed off about something does not indicate that the entire country is pissed off about some It just means you're things so you would see this all the time with Republicans, right, So what was it when Obergefell happened? You had a bunch of Christian Republicans light up Republican phone lines like what are you guys going to do about this?
Doesn't mean that being anti.
Gate marriage or whatever was popular, but it did mean it animated a certain percentage of the population. What do you make of the democratic activism right now?
I think the key thing to understand is that our understanding of democratic activism.
Is mediated through the mainstream media because those.
Organs are more associated with the center left New York Times, the MSNBC, CNN and MSNBC and CNN have basically given up, like they're not leading the resistance the way that they did in twenty seventeen, And so you could have similar levels of anger from Democrats across the country as you had in twenty seventeen, but you wouldn't hear about it because you're not going to hear it from like but Joe Rogan, like Universe like they don't care.
That's not the thing that they are covering, and you're not.
And if you don't hear it from CNNMSNBC, then you're not gonna hear it from anybody basically, and so you have to actually be in it to see it. And so as a result of that, the broader public doesn't see the energy out there, and Democrats in Congress are just annoyed at it.
They saw that suck Crystal's thing.
Yeah, I did, and I think we might have Ezra Levine on Wednesday on Counterpoints. He's like public enemy number one because he's the Indivisible co founder, because he's like, they've got millions of people who have ideas.
So then let me ask you what I asked her. What are they supposed to do?
Well, the thing they want them to do is to fight around the March fourteenth budget and just say and to check Elon. Like what they're trying to do is we need to check Elon Musk with our power in the House because Congressional Republicans need our votes to do a government funding.
And then they want to act like the Tea Party basically.
Yeah, and the only thing they want is some checks on DOJ Like that's the thing. They're like, let's fight for something and let's stop in Musk from destroying the federal government.
Like that's the thing they.
Want, So I don't know.
I just still I still grapple with It's because we was talking about Crystal and she was like, oh, you have his attention, and I'm like, what do It's like? Do people want to see Maxwell Frost? Like do a sit in front of the USA?
I d B.
I mean just think you look like an idiot? You know personally?
Is that what the Democratic base wants? Like they want them to fight on the budget. There's issue it would that even be enough for them? Like if I think back to the Tea Party and like how they were able to do it. It took taking super unpopular positions, holding the government hostage, and you needed Fox News like a constant media drum beat, yeah, which they don't have,
but I mean maybe they do. I mean I was looking at Midas touch, which I try to pay attention to them now because I think they're like the heart of the Democratic resistance. And I mean a lot of this stuff is like I don't see politicians per se like engaging with it. And a lot of is just like Trump loses it as he gets laughed at by the world seven hundred and sixteen thousand views. A lot of it is like dunk on Trump content, which I guess obviously is still appetite for no no hate.
You know, listen, it's a free market.
I wish you guys the best, But I don't see how that translates into being a democratic politician. I just don't understand how they are supposed to channel that energy. Because we talked about this last time, which is that Russia Gate was fake at the end. The part of the reason why they're so demoralized is they staked everything on a genuine lie about what about the Like it was an undemocratic, literal lie about Donald Trump, And so that's why they don't have any ground to fight on.
And that's why I just I don't know what the quote unquote democratic base wants their politicians to fight on. When all their fight it's like for what the integrity of usaid. It's like, okay, I mean, you know, be my guest, I don't see how that is at all.
Maybe yeah, Education Department like FAA, NIHK like that kind of stuff.
We'll see March.
We're less than a month away from this funding deadline, and you know, who knows what stuff Elon Musk breaks between now and then.
Anything I mean that's the risk though, but at the end of the day, it's still reactive. You're waiting for your enemy to screw up as opposed to like proposing anything else. We see some of this with hak King Jefferies. By the way, let's take a listen.
Donald Trump's favorability rating is actually higher than it ever was the first time round. Let me ask you. A recent poll by Marquette looked at several of the things that he has done or says that he is going to do, and sixty three percent favor federal government's recognition of only two sexes, sixty percent favored deporting immigrants who entered the United States illegally, sixty percent favor expanding oil and gas production, fifty nine percent favored declaring an emergency
at the southern border. Is there anything you are seeing that that Trump is doing that you are in favor of? Do you think is the right thing?
Let me say, as it relates to all of those issues, we're just at the beginning, and the core promise that Donald Trump made is that he's going to lower costs for everyday Americans. In fact, we were told that grocery prices would go down on day one on January twentieth, costs aren't lower. In fact, costs are increasing. The price of eggs is skyrocketing out of control. Inflation is on the way up. That was the core promise that's been broken.
With respect to immigration. Listen, we have to secure the border. We have a broken immigration system, and we need to fix it in a comprehensive and bipartisan way at the same period of time as Democrats. We're going to protect dreamers, protect farm workers, and protect families who help our communities across the country thrive.
I don't even know where to start with this guy. He's got negative charisma, no political risk. But that is where I do feel somewhat sympathy for the for the liberals out there where I'm like, man, it's like but I will tell you, you're the people who set up the system that you know, promoted the Hakim Jeffries of the world and the complete you know, monarchy of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer over the Democratic Party where they
can handpick whoever they want. There's not even a semblance of popularity whenever it comes to who's controlling the response for this party who just suffered a massive Loft.
So this was one of the more demoralizing moments too, when the left knocked Joe Crowley out, who was supposed to be the next speaker, right, and he was caucus chair at the time, and so then Barbara Lee runs for caucus chair against Takim Jeffries, who is Crowley's protege, Yes, and Jeffries wins.
So it's like, I just don't have the energy.
You're just one are the activists. They'd be like, I'm just so tired of being tired.
I was tired. I was. But what's interesting is that, And what's interesting about.
That clip in particular, Jeffries, whatever you think about his politics, is actually one of the more talented communicators that they've ever had in a leadership role.
And that was not an energetic performance at all.
And I think that that there's substance and a structural problem, but beneath it. In twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, when Democrats are feeling their oats, Keem Jeffries could get on any cable program or get the get on the House floor and give a speech that two Democrats was inspiring because they had a sense of what their moral core was a Trump, and it was immigration, and you know, he was treating you know like you know, Trump was you know, evil and awful, and they were going to stand up
to him, and they don't have that anymore. At the end, he finishes by what the Democratic compromise is on immigration rather than what it used to be. You know, the yard sign that said all are welcome, All are welcome. It has a moral urgency to it, and that allowed people like Jeffries to speak with more confidence. And so to have somebody who's as good a communicator as him sounds so bad, and so to lack so much confidence suggests that the Democrats really just don't have.
Their footing, because I agree, you know, they really they just and He's.
Got a clean hit with the like, hey, didn you say you're going to do something about inflation? Like that's the that's their cleanest hit.
Right, But they but they're so dizzy by Elon and all this other stuff. They just don't know what to do. Well, I'm sure we'll keep talking about it. It is one of the central stories. It's kind of hilarious, honestly to see them all fall apart.
Let's get to Luigi. What do you have for us on Luigi.
All right, so our man, Luigi man gion.
He's back your man, not mine.
Although, although I have to be honest, Luigi and I have a lot in common. We both love ye a lot. We we read a lot of the same books. We share a lot of the same theories about Japan. I guess we both do hate uh we both hate corporate health care, so you know, but that's something that we all a lot of. Is ham and he has become a leftist icon, although every single I wouldn't say esoteric.
Yeah, it's it's it's a stupid thing.
I think I described him as a right wing anarcho capitalist. That's the that's probably the best description, although anybody who just murders someone in cold blood is probably not all the ware together.
But nonetheless has become a popular.
Figure, and so he is lawyer, yes speaks. His lawyers have put out a statement. When you put this up on the screen, he says, I am overwhelmed by and grateful for everyone who has written me to share their stories and express their support powerfully. This support has transcended political, racial, and even class divisions, as male has flooded Metropolitan Detention Center from across the country and around the globe. While it is impossible for me to reply to most letters,
please note that I read everyone that I receive. Thank you again to everyone who took the time to write. I look forward to hearing more in the future. The lawyers also posted an faq on luigimanngioneinfo dot com, which is tells you everything anybody might want to know about Luigi, so you know where is he.
Like?
For instance, may I send him items like books?
But put E two up there on the screen ext The funny part about this is faq is it represents all of the mail that they're getting. Can I send mail to Aligi? Can you respond? Are there any restriction on his mail? May I send him books? Can I send him photos?
Did you see that? Can I send him photos?
So?
Ladies or men?
Or men?
So?
He has asked people to limit the number of photos they send to five no listeners.
Due to the volume of photos could dig longer than usual to screen and shared.
So also quote Please note that every photo that has received is screened.
And reviewed by Basman.
First, just an fyi for those of you who are sending pics.
Can you imagine this guy's in box? He said, jail, how can I sign up for official court information? What else can I send Luigi's for this other than books, mail, news article or photos?
No other eyes.
The Brier Prisons does not allow packages from outside of the facility. Everything must be purchased through his commissary account.
And then it says how can I contribute to Luigi and that it links to his Gifts and Go, which has a goal of a million dollars raised and so
far has raised. According to this four hundred and sixty seven thousand and seven hundred and fifty four dollars from it looks like more than fifteen thousand people, more than a thousand people have done pray praying for Luigi, okay, which is okay, That's where I'm gonna go with weird because it's like, if you're praying, I assume you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, like you've got some idea about the sanctity of life.
And he did kill somebody, right allegedly.
Allegedly he has guilty.
You know today there's a documentary actually it's an app that we're doing. This documentary premiers about him today from HBO, which is one hour one but apparently like in the hours after the killing, there were four separate doc deals that were signed, like Netflix, HBO and I mean, look, I'm.
Gonna watch it, Let's be honest.
I don't watch it.
I'm gonna watch White Lotus and then I'm gonna watch the Luigi thing. It just has to be done. It's just one of those where I'll probably watch everything about it. It's like the Fire Festival, you know, where did we need two documentaries?
Apparently we did, We did so.
I mean, I just think it's fascinating because it hasn't been in the news for what two months almost three months now since all of this, but it's pretty clear there's still a lot of public interest in the case. And I don't know, I mean, I remember Ken and Crystal and everybody else talking about it and be like, you can just see the explosion of if not outright support or at the very least discussed for the healthcare guy. But if you look at the democratic response, none of
it seems to incorporate any of that popular energy. Like we just talked, play that clip of Hakim Jeffreys, and so it couldn't be more out of step with whatever the hell this is. I mean, there's a lot of people out there apparently sending third traps to Luigi, man printing them out and sending them to a Bureau of Prisons, which you know you.
Need help, but I don't know.
I mean, serial killers also get that stuff apparently all the time.
So what do I know. There's a weird segment of the public out there.
Luigi's defense probably still rests on the potential of jury mulification, like you.
Think, so well, okay, so explain this one to me too. Doesn't he have two separate charges. There's there's state charge. So what's the difference. What's the federal charge that's against it? I guess I was reading on his website. I didn't quite understand it.
It's depriving somebody of their h they're basically their civil rights by killing them.
Okay, So why they didn't do that and he would do that? Is it because he crossed interstate lines? Is because he went from Pennsylvania to or sorry plan.
I guess that would that would qualify. The Feds will often do this if they think that the.
State won't handle Yeah.
Right, So there's people versus MANGIONI New York State, there's Commonwealth of PA versus Manngioni, and then there's USA versus Mangioni at the federal level.
I was just trying to understand. I was like, well, what did he do in Pennsylvania?
And sometimes it was possession of a false identification, probably something like that.
Sometimes this will happen to cops where they will be acquitted or not charged. More often I think not charged. There's some double jeopardy implications. Okay, if you're acquitted not charged, but at the state level, and then the FEDS will come in and do a civil rights case against the cop.
So I don't know, we'll see.
All right, well, oh yeah, so it is your travel in interstate commerce with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, and place under surveillance with the intent to kill. That's the federal It's stalking is the charge that has been leveled against him. And then murder through use of a firearm on top of firearms offences that I guess stack on top of.
It, right, because it did the interstate thing.
Interstate all right, well, lesson in our justice system. I'm sure it'll still I still think it'll be the trial of the centry. We all know it well in terms of the public interest on downtown in New York City, there's there's.
A lot going on.
Stay tuned, all right, Ryan, you've got a good segment for us. Let's get to it, all right, Woke or Base? All right, I'm ready to hit me.
Okay, so we can throw up e one here.
So there was this article that came out in Breitbart recently by the anti trust holdover Doha Mechi continued woke agenda instead of taking on big tech with a photo of Doha Mechi there, okay, And this is just such a fascinating I think entre into our into our current politics that I wanted to unpack this thoroughly and play a game with Sager called woke or Base because.
As a reminder of the audience, I have not seen any of this. I have no idea what's coming.
And so the in this bright Bart article, which and so we both have done enough Washington reporting that we know that sometimes articles are the.
Powerful work of journalistic endeavors.
And some of it is fed to Other times you get an OPO document which just fed to you, and as you read this one, we don't know.
You can never say for one certain where it came from.
But you're like, did this bright Bart guy really come up with all of these different examples or were these package So this looks looks like OPO and which means corporate OPO at this point not not part as an OPO. And so the key part here of this article put up E two here that Brave Heart Rights. Many populist Republicans, including Jadie Vance and Josh Holly, also supported Biden's anti trust chief Jonathan Canter for continuing the work of the
first Trump administration with lawsuits against Apple and Google. A slater who's an incoming Trump anti chief enforcer will almost certainly continue these lawsuits against big tech. However, after Canter resigned on December eighteenth, his woke deputy, Doha Mecki, took over as acting anti trust chief and pushed through many radical actions in the last weeks of Biden's lame duck presidency.
So look at the two step here is interesting.
What they're trying to say is like, Okay, we acknowledge that Jonathan Canter, Lena Khan, that entire anti monopoly universe in the democratic ecosystem is cool because.
It was doing the same stuff that Trump was doing.
So they realized they can't really attack that because it has populist bona fides that are.
Impregnable.
But they're saying this woke lady came in and did a bunch of mean things to Corporate America because she's woke.
And so we're going to go through their bill.
Of indictment against Doha Mechi for being woke. And let's actually click the links that they provide to decide whether or not the action they're describing.
Is woke or is it base?
Okay, what do we got?
So in the final weeks of the Biden administration, Mechi issued rules addressing quote HR policies, which typically have nothing to do with anti trust policy. So the guidelines provide examples and cite cases to explain how the agencies analyze
business practices that may violate anti trust laws. The guidlines also explained certain types of agreements between employers, such as wage fixing or no poach agreements, may expose companies and executives to criminal liability under the anti trust laws.
So what did Mechi do?
She told companies around the country that if you enter into no poach agreement wage fixing, those types of non competes that not only could you be civilly liable, you could also even be criminally liable. Is that woke or is that base?
I would say based, I would personally say based telling telling a company what to do and not.
To exploit people supposed to be based. But apparently it's woke here, all right?
Yeah, so oh and I forgot.
We're dedicating We're dedicating this segment to none other than Hillary Clinton for her the most woke comment ever made on behalf of corporate America, which defines basically an entire era.
So roll e four here to remind people, if we.
Broke up the big banks tomorrow, and I will if if they are ast a systemic risks, I will with that end racism with that, and sexism with that, and discrimination against the LGBT community.
That's the one Crystal's favorites.
That's the essence of corporate America using woke language to defend itself, saying, don't break up the big banks. Why because that won't won't solve gay rights, won't won't do all these other things.
All right, So we got we got one. We got one for based here.
Okay, next, Breitbart says, quote she issued a last minute lawsuit against six major landlords in line with the Biden administrations, blaming AI and landlords rather than his own inflationary policies for high rent. So you can put up I believe this is East six, which I don't even think I need to explain to you or to the audience this one.
So this was, Yeah, we cover this one, Yeah, we covered this.
This is a this is a mechy policy that she rolled out attacking landlords over.
Juicing rent. Is it woke, woke er based?
I gotta go with based. I gotta go with base personally. But I mean, let's let's make this clear. I don't speak for quote maga, populist writer, any of these people, and even woke and or based. It basically gets defined in terms of like, in terms of liberalism and who.
The person is.
So for example, if you fire like you're talking about, this is what basically I think the point you're trying to make. If you have a lady who's a LIB and you own that lib, that's based right in terms of the culture war. The problem is is that when you actually look at some of these policies and things like that, some of these things just these definitions fall apart, and that is part of the problem with a lot
of the attack vector. This kind of gets the whole idea of those versus MAGA and what it even means. But part of the thing I always try to point out is like, guys, magas whatever Trump wants it to be.
And that's where there are a lot of people who are like, this doesn't fit with what Trump ran on. I'm like, well, you know, the thing is Trump at the end of the day.
Yeah, he said a lot of stuff, but what did he really say? I alone can fix it, And I increasingly think that's really what Trump was all about. And to the extent that he's good or he's bad, or he's maga or whatever, it's whatever it aligns in terms of his transactional reality and whatever happens to be him feeling that day. But if he had faith eat in some sort of broader agenda, I mean, honestly, like, you didn't hear it here.
I tell you that, luckily I didn't have any faith.
Yes, so we have two more so this next one is she sued KKR over paperwork violations.
That's what That's how Breitbart describes it.
So basically KKR, massive private equity firm that does mergers and acquisitions. Uh, there is a there are federal laws that require that if you're doing a major merger that you submit filing, you know, with the Department of Justice. Here's what we're doing so that you can review this.
KKR came up with a clever workaround. They're like, what if we don't do that and we just do the merger, then it can't be reviewed in this In this document they have they quote from several executives who are saying.
Less is more.
Let's make sure we are not submitting these works. So this is this wokeness run them up or based?
That one is I don't I wouldn't call that necessarily based. But this is more of a personal thing. Is that I I hate private equity firms like KKR, so I'm personally sported.
So go go rip them now.
Now this is part is the last one is where it gets interesting and I think we can and we can actually start talking about some philosophy here.
So they also whack her for Mechi, so quote this is bright part. Mechi repeatedly invoked W. E. B.
Du bois a Black Marxist thinker to further her argument that antitrust laws must be used against what she considers racism. This one was to me the most egregious because it is actually backwards. It is a reverse, incorrect reading of the speech that they reference. So you can put up E. Eight and for the fun of it, let me do this whole three paragraph section of it. So this is from us. The speech that they said is woke. So the economic opportunities in liberties protected by the Sherman Act,
this is what she said as in her speech. In particular, protections against monopolies were important to the founders too. Jefferson Lift listed a restriction against monopolies among the rights that deserved to be enumerated in the Bill of Rights. After all, England's grant of monopolies for different products, including tea, may
well have set the American revolution in motion. The foundations on which the Sherman Act rests are not limited solely to concern about contractual restraints, property rights, and industrial relations. They also contemplate individual liberty and concern about distribution of power. Why is this concern for economic opportunity and liberty so important?
I come back to my thesis, because efforts to secure social and political rights are at risk if they are not backstopped by economic opportunity, and because antitrust plays an important role in our economic liberty and democracy of opportunity tradition.
In his nineteen thirty five book Black Reconstruction in America, du Bois famously argued that a key reason why the Confederacy collapsed and the institution of slavery with it, was because when Union sold arrived in the South, black Americans, as do Boys put it, left the plantations and led a general strike. They exercised the most basic economic right that comes with freedom, the freedom to make decisions about
one's labor. The exercise of this economic liberty devastated the Southern economy, and, as he put it, furnished two hundred thousand Federal soldiers. There is no this is no doubt resonant for all of us in the room who have helped advance labor competition, jurisprudence, and protected the ability of organized workers to act collectively.
So you respond to that, while I find her whether.
That's or it's based.
Yeah, well, you know, like I said, it's it could be based, could be woke.
I guess it don't really know. You know.
Unfortunately, and here's the quote where she finishes. She says, on this telling, we should think harder about calls to subordinate our anti trust and anti monopoly laws purportedly in service of some other social and political values. So she's saying, do not subordinate antitrust to a push for civil rights or for other woke or for a woke agen.
She's specifically explicitly saying, do not do that.
She's saying that economic rights are fundamental. Are If you don't have economic liberty, if you don't have economic resources in your community, you don't have the ability to fight for political and civil rights. It is the reverse of wokeism to lead to say no, that it is essential.
American liberty is essential.
So to have that, to me, to have that speech, the evidence of her wokeness was like, well, what are you going on here, Brian?
You probably taught ten times harder about this article than the personally.
Yeah, because he took stuff that was handed to him as my guests and just slap and just slap.
If anything, Look, this is a very good view into exactly how look everything is about framing right, So as you what did they say, like some black Marxist is the way that they phrase it.
I unfortunately don't know.
Enough about it.
I need to find a good book about it.
You no, no, no, I've read about him, but I have never read a book specifically about him. And it gets to the heart of where all the tension is with MAGA and you know, with Bannonism, with the coherent ideology around this. But I think really what it comes down to is the current vector is all about control within the right, and to the extent that anything is considered like horseshoe or whatever, the right is the one that has to be in control. And I'm speaking in terms
of the way that they see this movement. So for them, anybody who was willing to work with the Biden apparatics or any of these people, these are bad, right, These are enemies we need, and if we're going to have anybody who even agrees with that, it has to be somebody who already aligns with us on the cultural issues. So I do think it's unfortunate because yeah, you have people like Chopra and others who really did try to you know, transcend I guess partisan boundaries, but what can
we say. The number one listen here, is that good faith does not get rewarded in Washington.
No, that's really the what happened.
My number one lesson from any of those people, and I hate to say it because it almost makes me sound like Blue Maga is, Oh, you're an idiot forever trying to work with those people.
They're like, at the end of the day, it's about us where a team, and we fight within the team.
I don't think it should work that way, but that's where the political incentives are right.
And it also noticed as the last point, notice the interesting trap it sets up because anybody who's watching this by the end is like, wait a minute. So all of the things that they claimed made her woke actually are not woke at all. What they're left with is she's black. Yeah, and it's like, wait a minute. The one quote that the right loves from Martin Luther King is like, let's judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
Did not happen with doaha here? But the second that I say that, they're like, aha, you're now you're woke. And we were right. We're right the whole time.
So it's this like get out of doing like pretty blatant racism free card, because as soon as you criticize that, then you're being well.
I used toe race everywhere. Ryan, you're the one, you're the one who pointed it out.
Not that that's right.
Yeah, look, Bustin, I don't even know if that's that. I I really don't know if it's that deep. I really just think it was some stupid corporate apoh piece.
I think it was kk R.
Yeah right, Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Yeah, and there's the KKK.
KKR's attorneys are the same that have Eric Adams now and we can we can get into that some other times.
That's that's gonna be. I actually am looking forward to that.
All right, guys. I hope you guys enjoyed the Bro Show. I certainly did. Chrys will be back tomorrow.
We'll see you all the