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But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Christal Indeed.
We do lots of interesting stories to talk about this morning, including oral arguments in a landmark free speech case in front of the Supreme Court. This one is really really interesting, cuts across ideological lines, deals with a lot of very thorny issues around state power and social media. So we're going to dig into that and tell you what the implications could be. We also have some new theories out about something we talked about yesterday, Trump's consistent underperformance in
the primaries that have been held so far. Nate Conden analysis of different theories of why that may be occurring. So we're going to take a look at that and what that could mean for the future and for the general election. We also have new details about the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny that we're going to get into what exactly the hell happened there interesting details that are coming out now from his team and from others. Joe Biden was on late night. That's all I got
to say about that. Yeah, we've got We've got some highlights from that to bring to you. Also, today is the primary in Michigan, and obviously Joe Biden very much expected to win. However, a very open question about how many voters, especially young voters, are going to cast their ballot for uncommitted as a rebuke of Joe Biden and his unconditional support for Israel. John Stewart was back on last night with some Israel takes.
We'll take a look at that.
And I am looking at an extraordinary scandal that is unfolding right now at the New York Times that is just absolutely unbelievable. This woman with literally no journalistic experience ending up with a byline on one of the most fraud and sensitive stories of all time that has now been discredited. I can't even believe some of the details here, so we'll break all of that down for you.
Yeah, I'm really excited to hear that report.
As a reminder for Breakingpoints dot com, you can become a pre subscriber. We're doing a exclusive subscriber only livestream after the State of the Union where our subscribers can interact with us and ask questions. You're going to learn some more details, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So if you could support that and all of our work, we're already developing new focus groups. We've got the State of the Union special etc. You
can go ahead and sign up for that. But let's go ahead and begin with this social media case because it is probably one of the most significant First Amendment cases to come before the Court in quite a long time. It comes down to two separate laws in the state of Florida and the state of Texas which were designed by these two state legislators to try and protect quote
unquote conservative viewpoints. But the legal question before the court, and its actually frankly very interesting, is this, It does do the tech platforms Are they common carriers as classified by these state legislatures aka like the Internet company which doesn't censor information that you or I might be pinging, and it doesn't have any say at an auditorial judgment. Or are they editorial platforms that have the right to pick and choose the way that a newspaper would the
way that you or I would. The reason why this is all at play is it comes back to the way that they were originally classified, where the tech companies effectively are both allowed to behave as quasi common carriers because of the monopolistic effects of the network basically the network effects of their business, but also because of pre existing law from nineteen ninety six Section two thirty of the Communications and Decency Act.
Which also allow them to have some editorial judgment.
So basically, the states have passed these separate laws.
They're now before the court.
The people who are challenging the laws are the trade Organization which represents all of the big tech companies. We have a little bit of flavor from the arguments which showed some skepticism but also some interesting alignment between some of the liberal justices and the Republicans and then some
of the more conservative justices who are countering. First here, we're going to play for you some questioning by Justice Alido of the lawyers about who exactly is making speech determinations, what the algorithm is, and how the mechanics of this all work.
Let's take a listen.
They're not going to see a bunch of material that glorifies suicide.
Is there any distinction between action or editing that takes place as a result of an algorithm as opposed to an individual?
I don't think so. You're honored. These algorithms don't spring from the ether. They are essentially computer programs designed by humans to try to do some of this editorial function is number what do you.
Do with to say, deep learning algorithm which teaches itself and has very little human intervention, You.
Still had to have somebody who kind created the universe that that algorithm is going to look for.
Who's speaking then the algorithm or the person?
I think you know, the question in these cases would be the Facebook is speaking, that YouTube is speaking, because they're the ones that are using these devices to run their editorial discretion across these massive volumes. And the reason they're doing this, and of course they're supplementing it with lots and lots of humans as well, But the reason they have to use the algorithms, of course, is the volume of material on these sites, which just shows you the volume of editorial discretion.
Yeah, and finally, I'm sorry to keep going this deplement. Exactly what are they saying? So is the algorithm saying I don't know, I'm not on any you know, But what is it saying it's safe? Is it a consistent message? What I mean? Usually when we had Hurly, uh, the it was their parade and they didn't want certain people in their parade, you understood that. What are they saying here?
They're saying things like Facebook doesn't want pro terrorist.
Stuff on our Okay, So as you see as a little bit of the pushback there from the lawyers for them. But Crystal, it's a very interesting question, and it really comes back to, as I said, some of the press release for example, that they put out, they go just as Florida may not tell the New York Times what opinion pieces to publish or Fox News what interviews to air, it may not tell Facebook and YouTube what content to disseminate.
He's looping in the algorithm with the plugged in editorial judgment. The crux of the Texas and the Texas and the Florida law are that there is a baseline free speech assumption, especially in the case of the Florida law that applies to elected representatives, that does not allow for editorial discretion of these quote unquote standards to come into play. I think it's a very important one. I definitely support the law, even if it may be intended to be applied solely
or whatever to conservative viewpoints. But I think that's why we've seen even liberal outlets and people who are skeptical of technology and not really necessarily supportive of Texas or Florida who say that if they rule in the opposite direction, you're giving them carte blanche to censor whatever they want.
Yeah, I'd encourage you to in some ways put aside the specific of the motivations of these particular laws and think about the core issues here. So the argument from the tech companies is effectively like the libertarian argument. We are you know, we have these companies and we have a right to basically run them the way that we want. We have a right to enforce our terms of service. We are not a government, so we are not subject to free speech laws, and basically we can do what
we want on our platforms. On the other side is states like Florida and Texas and presumably other states around the country that also have an interest in this saying no,
this is the modern public square. Free speech is incredibly important for society on these platforms because that is the way our society is constituted at this point, and the state has an interest in making sure that there is some level of free speech, especially with regard to elections and candidates, that is protected and preserved on these platforms.
And so the interest of citizens and of the state in protecting free speech rights is superior to the interests of these companies that are arguing not we have free speech rights.
To publish on our platforms what we want.
The other thing that I would say here in terms of these companies Zagur is they really want to have it both ways in terms of this question about whether they're common carriers or whether they're publishers. When they don't want responsibility for bad things that are published on their platforms, oh, then they're not publishers.
They're common carriers.
They don't want any liability and any responsibility for the content that's going on on their platforms. But when they want to effectively please their advertisers and protect their business models. Then, oh, we're publishers, this is our speech. We have to protect our free speech rights here, and we're just making editorial judgments in the same way as the New York Times. And I would say basically like, you can't have it both ways. And so to me, that's sort of the
core of the issue here. Now, I do think that the questions are somewhat complex, right. I do think it is a thorny, tricky issue to legislate. Okay, where is the line? How much can these states just dictate to companies how to run their platforms and who to censor and who not doesn't start.
I mean, that can get into very tricky grounds as well.
But when I think about it at bottom, when you have this core competition between the corporations and the state, at least the state, there's some sort of theoretical democratic mechanism for making these choices and having citizen input into way that free speech is mediated and moderated and permitted on these platforms. Versus with a company, whether it's a public company or private company.
You have no say.
It's just up to these few oligarchs what they feel like doing on their platform with massive costs and consequences as we've seen for society.
I'll continue and dig into a little bit what you said where you're talking about liability and this is something that we can understand, but people who are not publishing may not, which is at the end of the day, as editorial organizations like breaking points like The New York Times or others we because we curate information, are also liable under defamation and libel law, as in, if we were to publish something which was absolutely wrong and that
somebody could then prove that we knew it was wrong before we published it, and we did it specifically to defige or reliable somebody else, they could take us to court.
But the section two thirty of.
The Communications in Decent Yacht actually allows the social media companies not to be liable under the same standard, as in, if I take to Facebook and I quote unquote defame somebody else, that person cannot sue Facebook for platforming defamation. So in that case, they're trying to treat themselves as a common carrier in the same way that common carrier like at and T. They have no editorial judgment over who I pick up and call. They don't drop my
phone call because I'm saying problematic things. Maybe the government will, but that's a different story in terms of how the actual company itself, which has allowed this effective legalistic monopoly or you know, regulatory monopoly on top of the service that they provide, even though it's a private company, we classify it on are a very different set of standards, the same way that comcasts and isp internet providers do as well the social media companies in this weird gray area.
And actually thought Justice Katanji Brown Jackson did a really good job of digging into this about elected officials and the elected official standard under the Florida law, which allows anyone running for public office not to be subject specifically to this. Really listen to the counter argument being given by the social media company and some of the democratic implications.
Let's take a listen. We want to have what about a straightforward one?
Right?
I understood that one of these was no candidate can be deplatformed. That seems pretty straightforward.
Right, right?
And so why isn't that enforcing anti discrimination principles with no candid If somebody is a candidate for office, they can't be deplatformed, So.
That means they can't be deplatformed no matter how many times they violate my client's terms of use, no matter how horrible their conduct, no matter how misrepresenting they are in their speech, we still have to carry it. And not just have to carry it, but under this statute, we have to give it pride of place. And it doesn't take much to register as a candidate in Florida,
And so this gives a license to anybody. Even if there's you know, somebody who's only going to pull you know, two percent in their local precinct, they can post anything they want that can cause us to fundamentally change our editorial policies and have to ignore our terms of use.
So that's really worth digging into.
You know.
When he says it, you're like, oh, well this seems you know, reasonable or whatever. But I'm like, well, okay, let's hold on a second. How do you get from two percent to ten percent? Anyone want to tell me? Maybe it's by being able to reach voters, which is online. So yeah, if the state of Florida makes it so that anybody can get on the ballot and pull a two percent, I mean, listen, what if we all learned
from the rf Cajunior thing. It ain't that easy to get on the ballot, okay, And so if you can get there, then yeah, you should be in a place where you are in a level playing field against other candidates on the social media companies.
I don't see what's exactly wrong with that.
And when you phrase it that way, you can then understand some of the inverse ways where this could apply. As we all learn post January sixth, with the deplatforming of Trump from simultaneous deplatforming and really the simultaneous destruction of parlor, you're.
Like, whoa.
You have companies which are technically separate, effectively working in concert from a major social pressure campaign, and the company and even the individual at that point, the sitting president of the United States has no genuine recourse to reach millions and millions of people. You know, we're not talking about a plumbing business in Ohio. Here, we're talking about the basically singular ways which the vast majority of Americans
are interacting with presidential candidates and fundraising. And so when you consider it in that vein, we come much more to the common carrier status. Again, the companies don't want this because they simply want to be able to do what they want to do so it doesn't affect their advertising business sets. But these are multi trillion dollar companies
get their market cap. I don't even think, honestly, it would have that much of an effect, especially if they're legally if they're legally required Crystal, what are they going to do?
They're be like, hey, we have legally do it, what are we supposed.
To do it?
That's true, that's true, And especially if they're all held to the same standard, then it's an even playing field. I mean, the core tension here is this question, do citizens have an interest in the way these platforms are run that goes above and beyond the profit motive of the companies themselves, Because that is kind of the unspoken part of all of this, and you just pointed to
it Soccer in terms of the advertising dollars. The reason these companies are making the decisions they are where there's kicking Trump off the platform or you know, moderating speech in the ways that they do, it's all because of profit. It's not because they.
You know, aren't interested in speech.
It's not because they have some message that they want to convey through their algorithm the way that you know, a newspaper wants to publish the news and cover it in a certain way. No, they're making these decisions because
they believe that decisions that will maximize profit. So where do we place in our order of priorities the desire for these companies, their owners, their shareholders to maximize their profits and the interest that citizens have in having platforms that you know, enable free speech, that allow them to understand candidates, and their platforms that allow candidates to be able to run and get their message out even if
they aren't the best funded. And so you know, it's very much my physician that this is the modern town square that we do all very much have an interest in what goes on here, and that in some certain ways, when you're talking about core rights like free speech, they do trump the prerogatives of these companies to run their platforms in precisely the way that they think will absolutely maximize profit. And you're right, I don't think it would be massively harmful to them if they had to comply
with these laws. You know, one of the things that would be implicated here is definitely with the Florida law. I think with both the Florida and the techis law.
But because you're dealing with the way that the algorithm promotes and suppresses content, you would also have to have some level of transparency around how those decisions are being made, what content is being promoted, what content is being suppressed, And so it also give us a tool to be able to understand the inner workings of these companies in a way that I think would be extraordinarily beneficial just in terms of transparency. And you know, sunlight being an incredible disinfectant.
So there is a lot at stake here.
Again, I'm not going to pretend like the issues aren't tricky and that there isn't an important balance to strike here, et cetera. But to me, at its core, this tension between a democratic society, our interest in speech, which is, you know, a core constitutional right, and the interests of these companies to just absolutely maximize their profit.
There is a limiting principle.
There are rights as citizens of this country, trump their rights to you know, do whatever they want on the platform in the interest of maximizing profit.
Yeah, and I think you know it's okay YouTube, the platform where a lot of you are consuming this right now, I don't think people understand the scale. YouTube in twenty twenty three accounted for thirty one point five billion dollars in profit. That is just ten or ten percent of Google's overall revenue, and that thirty one billion is bigger than Netflix. How much money Netflix made in the year
twenty twenty three. Ten percent of Google is roughly equivalent to Netflix, which is one of the most predominant streaming platforms in.
The whole world.
YouTube is YouTube is media now basically at this point, and this is just here. I'm talking in the US context. I've talked to you about this before, Crystal, but in many countries like India or in South America as well, which did not have the same analog TV, YouTube is media because they don't have cable television in the same way everybody skipped and started the entry point at the mobile phone level.
And with data.
That is the major way that people consume not just news, everything television shows. And when you think about the dramatic cultural power that something like that has not only here but all around the world, you start to understand why I think common carrier status is not only justified now, I mean it would have been justified many many years ago.
So let's put this up there on the screen from the Wall Street Journal.
I encourage people to read this if they want a decent primer on some of the.
Things that were at play.
I would note, you know, based on the arguments, it definitely did seem as if the majority of the conservative justices were not on the side of the Red States in this case, using a much more libertarian point of view in some of their questioning.
Let's go to the next one there, please. This is a net choice.
It's kind of a write up of their specific allegations as to why the law should not be should be allowed to stand. It basically just comes back to an argument is that their private companies, no matter at the scale, they should not have to be told by the government how and when and which way to run their business. But I mean that even to me falls apart a little bit, crystal, because you and I have all kinds of regulations that we have to comply, like workers comp.
Anybody who runs a business, you have to buy a worker's comp right, I think that's fine. Or you know, if you're a certain size, like you have to provide health insurance. If you're a plumbing company, you have to have a trade certification. You can't just be going out and doing anything. You know, there's all kinds of things that.
We're all required to do minimum right, we have to make minimis.
There's so many different things that we all have to do whenever we run a business.
I don't necessarily enjoy it all, but we don't have a choice.
So the idea then, at a baseline level that you know, this principle like you can't tell people what and what not to do.
It's like, well, we already do that.
It's just that we're trying to apply it to a twenty first century standard.
If anything, I think we're some twenty years late.
That's a good point. That's actually a very good point.
Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of how this case is going to play out, I genuinely don't know. There was questioning that, you know, from both ends of the ideological spectrum that seemed pretty scp of the presentation coming from these companies.
So it left me somewhat hopeful.
That they will rule in favor of free speech and the rights of states to regulate these companies and the interests of citizens to you know, have the First Amendment protected. But I genuinely don't know how it's ultimately going to play out because you know, it's it's tricky and it's not an ideologically clear cut case. As you said, just
thinking about the right. You know, you have these competing ideological strands of you know, this newfound at least rhetorical interest in free speech, and then the you know, sort of radical libertarian strain that has been on the rise of the Republican Party for decades at this point. So which of those ideologies wins out here among the conservative justices who obviously have a significant majority on the court is really an open question.
We don't know, you know, I hope this has been a decent enough primer just so people can really dig into it. However this happens, we won't know for several months. Of course, in terms of how this all plays out, it's going to have big, big impacts, And especially consider this Crystal. If it comes before the twenty twenty four election, Who knows, November could be a very interesting to imagine. If they do uphold the legislation, November could be very interesting.
Yeah, So what's allowed to stand and what's not?
Yeah, Well, and that's an important note is right now these laws are on hold, they haven't been implemented while they go through the court system, and these justices make a decision, so we will see how it all turns out.
Here you are.
Interesting analysis yesterday from Nate con in the New York Times of why it is that Donald Trump has consistently underperformed his polls in these primaries. Now, no one here is saying that he's not an absolute lock for the Republican nomination, that he isn't an incredibly forced in the Republican Party, that he isn't probably at this point the favorite to win the general election against Joe Biden. But it's an interesting enough phenomenon that we wanted to spend some time digging into it.
So put this up on the screen. From the New York Times, Nate.
Cohen says three theories for why Trump's prime results are not matching expectations. He's underperformed the polls in each of the first three contests. So first let me give you just the data. We share this with you yesterday, but just to refresh. So in Iowa, the final five thirty eight polling average had Trump leaving Haley by thirty four
points with the fifty three percent share. Instead of beating her by thirty four points, he beat her by thirty two points with a lower share fifty one percent.
Not that different, but a little bit off.
In New Hampshire, in the poles, he led by eighteen points with fifty four percent. In the end he won by eleven points with fifty four percent, so a narrower margin then was predicted. In South Carolina, Trump led by twenty eight points in the polls with sixty two percent of the vote, and he ultimately won by twenty points with sixty percent of the vote.
So again, it's not a huge.
Underperformance, but it is a consistent trend in the primary states that we've seen thus far. So the three explanations that Nate floats here possibilities Number one is just simply undecided voters who you know, we're telling polsters I don't know going into it ultimately broke for Nicki Haley. There is some evidence that this accounts for part of it, but it can't account for all of it because of the piece of Trump also underperforming his vote share going in.
So again, like in South Carolina, he came in with sixty two percent, he ultimately won with sixty percent, so you can't just attribute that diminishment to undecided voters breaking in Nikki Haley's direction. The second possibility is that polsters are getting the electorate wrong, especially because on the Democratic
side there isn't much of a competition. There's been more hype around the Republican side, so you've had a proportionally larger number of Democrats voting in Republican primaries and independent Democratic leaning independence voting in primaries that polsters typically pulling a Republican primary. They are not calling Democratic voters at all to see what they're going to do, because they're just assuming, well, a Democratic voter is not going to
vote in public and primary. That assumption may be off, and that may be part of the Trump underperformance here in the Nikky Haley relative overperformance. The last one, which is the most tantalizing to Democrats and Biden supporters, is that there is actually a hidden Biden vote and that there is, you know, some secret enthusiasm for Joe Biden or secret antipathy towards Donald Trump that isn't being picked
up in the polls. This is sort of akin to the like shy Trump voter theory from twenty sixteen and what they say here I'll just read from the piece. In this theory, the polls did well in modeling the lecturate while undecided voters split between the candidates, but anti Trump voters simply were not as likely to take surveys as pro Trump voters. If this theory were true true, then the general election polls might also be utter estimating mister Biden by just as much as they've underestimated Miss
Haley quote. There is one reason the anti Trump turnout might have relevance for general election polling. It's consistent with other data showing mister Biden with the edge among the mo those highly engaged voters.
This could yield a slight.
Turnout and advantage even in a general election, and may also mean the current polls of all registered voters slightly underestimate mister Biden compared with the narrow group of actual voters and sagre. This is something that a number of polls have found is right now, this far out from the general election, polsters are looking at all registered voters, but in the instances where they've narrowed that down to the likely voters, the voters who show up consistently, election after election,
Biden is a little bit better in those polls. So that's kind of the theory here, is that the actual electorate is more likely to favor Biden, which makes some sense given the realignment amongst the parties and so many college educated voters who tend to be the most reliable voters year after year, election cycle after election cycle, they're the ones that reliably show up.
This used to be the advantage that Republicans have.
Now with the electorate shifting, it seems to be an advantage that Democrats have.
So that's the other theory that's out there.
Yeah, the theories, I mean, I really don't know what to say.
So back in twenty twenty, just for context, one of the thingies that I heard all the time from the Trump people where don't believe these polls look at how people feel about the economy, and they were actually right in terms of how close the election was, the how I feel about the economy, and who I trust more, Where they had Biden and Trump tied as opposed to Biden beating Trump by like six to seven points in
many of these nationals. That ended up being a very good approximator for the overall vote totals, even though Biden was to be able to take it up.
However, what did we all learn in twenty twenty two?
We apply that exact same logic, where Biden is historically underwater on the economy compared to every single other modern president in a midterm, we apply the midterm lesson and we say Biden would have to overperform by more than a century, and then he almost.
Does, merely does. True.
And so what we learned from that is that in
certain instances, some social issues can trump the economy. Now, of course, there are a lot of different lower propensity voters who stayed at home, the high propensity people really jacked it up because of all of the abortion turnout that happened, lots of college educated people, the Trump cope Again, I'm going to give here as well, twenty twenty four will be more of a normal election because lower propensity voters who love Trump but don't necessarily give a shit
about Mitch McConnell or anybody else will be coming out to vote. Yeah, I could see it in so many different ways that in terms of my prediction, I still come back to fifty to fifty. But I do think it's humiliating actually for both of them. You know, considering considering Trump's unpopular, it should be runaway, should be so easy. Considering Biden's age, he should be beaten. He should be you know, beating him by fifty five forty five or
something like that. So the fact that it is fifty to fifty, I think is not good, Yeah, for euther of these people.
This was basically the case Ryan Gerdsky was making to us when he was here about how Republicans, not Trump specifically in the primaries, but Republicans in these special elections
why they're doing so poorly. And it's because the white, affluent, college educated suburban vote is so heavily Democratic now and they're show it up for all these elections and that since you know, Republicans have chased all these you know, weird conspiracy rabbit holes that are like disconnected from the interests of that population and make them sort of like and just like are like an instant turned off to a lot of normies in that population that it has
led to disaster and abortion being you know, the primary issue where Republicans have really put themselves out on a fringe extremist position that is abhorrent to not just zac group of voters, but really the overwhelming majority of Americans.
But he thinks that.
That is a very different story in a special election versus a general election, because obviously you have more people turn out in a general election, and so those people who are the low propensity voters, maybe they're motivated, maybe they come out. Maybe that or rases this advantage that Democrats have had in the special elections.
I genuinely don't know.
I mean, if I had to guess, it's probably like a combination of all of these three things that he floats here, all of them make some sense to me. You know, it does seem there's some data to backup that undecideds have been breaking towards Nikki Haley. There is data to back up that Democrats are making up a larger percentage of the electorate in these primaries than polsters are really anticipating, and so there's sort of like this
built in, inaccurate electorate that they're pulling on. But I do also think that the data surrounding the fact that likely voters have a you know, Biden gets a slightly more favorable outcome when you limit the universe to those people who are most likely to actually show up in an election. It does sort of indicate that there's something
going on there as well. Actually put up the third element here and we can show you this sort of underscore some of the points you're making Sagreabuk, specifically Joe Biden's weakness. So this is the latest gallop hole. His approval has now edged down to thirty eight percent. That is three points. That is three points lower than the last date. It's one point shy of his all time low, and person also says accurately well below the fifty percent
threshold that has typically led to reelection for incumbents. I took a note though, to sober of the specifics on his approval rating on various aspects of the job, so it actually gets the highest rating. I mean, this is not a great number, but on the situation in Ukraine
is a forty percent approval. What was noteworthy to me is that his handling, his unconditional support of israel Is handling of what they describe as the situation in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians now nearly as poorly rated as his handling of immigration, which has long been. I mean, his handling of immigration has now long been one of the low points in terms of public perception
of how he is doing in the presidency. So I thought that was quite noteworthy because across the first of all, I mean, he's dramatically at odds with the Democratic base in terms of what they want to see. When you've got fifty percent of Democrats saying this is a genocide, you are very much.
At odds, but you have a majority. There's a pull that just came out.
There's a majority of all religious groups who support a cease fire, and then you have people on the other extreme who think that, oh, actually we should be doing even more somehow for Israel. I don't even know how that's possible. But you do have this rhetoric on the right as well of like, oh, he's not doing enough to back Israel, and even this little hand ring behind the scenes is like he shouldn't be doing that. He should just be saying, go and kill the bad guys.
So that has become a major major problem for him in terms of facing reelection.
Yeah, I think it is certainly true. You can definitely look at that.
I would combine the economic number immigration being very low.
He basically is just being.
Hit at all sides from everybody, which is very, very problematic. At the same time, an interesting situation developing in Ukraine and in Russia. The head of Ukrainian Intelligence making some very eyebrow raising remarks, let's put this up there on the screen from the Kiev Post. The head of Ukraine Intelligence believes that Navalny Alexi Navalny, the Russian dissident who died in Russian prison quote died of a detached blood clot.
Says that the cause of death.
Actually aligns with the initial assertion that was made by the Kremlin. Now this has sparked a lot of it discussion because it's like, well, is this confirmation that he.
Did die of natural causes?
However, that one countervailing piece of evidence which definitely needs to be discussed here is put this up there please, is according to Navalny and his or Navalney's organization, after his death, there was actually a prisoner swap proposal that was being discussed which would have allowed for the swap of Navalny in exchange and likely Evan Gersovich and possibly even another American who is in custody to be traded for an alleged Russian hit man who is being held
in a German prison. This is somebody who Putin has personally spoke about before the question for a while, exactly with the Tucker Carlson. So the reason why, I don't know. We've read it two ways, and I read it one way, which is, well, maybe he did die of natural causes, because why would you kill him if he was going to be a valuable part of the prisoner swap. The other is, well, they killed him so they don't have to swap him and have to deal with him on the outside.
Both seem equally and very plausible.
The other thing that I come back to is even if he did technically die of natural causes, if you guys saw the video, he looked terrible the day before he died. I mean he's very obvious and being I mean, being in prison, you know, newsplash not good for your health.
So I don't know. That's kind of my summary of the situation.
It's sort of like if Julian Assange died in prison right now of quote unquote natural causes, It's like, well, his health is in such poor condition because because of the captivity, because of the imprisonment because of the years of effectively like psychological and physical torture that he has endured. So then if you know, even if someone didn't slip poison into his tea, he still was really murdered by
the state. You know, he still did not, in my opinion, die of natural causes in the same way that some one who was free and living their life quote unquote dies of natural causes. That death is still on the hands of the United States government and you know, the UK government at this point as well, who have been imprisoning him for years at this point, so I sort
of view it in the same way. With regard to the Ukrainian report, there's a few things to put out here that because I was talking to our friend Diegor about all of this, and he, for what it's worth, yeaher was very convinced that Putin actually murdered this guy. Now, he doesn't have any special knowledge, he's just reading based on his you know, insight into Russian politics and specifically
how happy Putin seemed after Navaldey was dead. But he said, keep in mind, the Ukrainians also hated Navalny, which may be sort of confusing to you, but they wanted him to be very explicitly pro Ukrainian, and he didn't follow along with the messaging and the position they wanted him to take.
So they didn't like navalne either.
And there's also a question of like how they would have this special knowledge into whether it was a blood clot or whether it was something else. So, as I said, listen, in terms of the specifics of how he died, why at this moment, I do think it's compelling what the Navalney team is putting out there. Their theory is effectively they said. Putin was clearly told the only way to get Krasikov, that's the dude he talked about in the Tucker Carlson in an interview, who he clearly wants back is
to exchange him for Navalny. Putin decided, since they're willing to offer Krasikov in principle, then I just need to get rid of that bargaining chip then offer someone else when the time comes. So that would be the theory on the side of it was Putin. It wasn't just you know, him dying from being in captivity, but it was, you know, an explicit intentional murder.
Do we know will we ever really know?
No.
But again to me, the top line of however we feel about him, where a political prisoners should not First of all, they shouldn't be political prisoners. Second of all, they should't be out an imhorrent conditions. Third of all, they certainly shouldn't be murdered. No matter how you feel about them, whether you grew with their politics or not, his death is on the hands of Vladimir Putin. That to me is very clear yet.
And the question now about the prisoner swap kind of interesting. Some news that just broke out of the Financial Times that have in front of me. The Germany appetite apparently for the deal with the Kremlin is now much lower, as you said, because Putin had assumed that they could swap him in principle, then all he had to do was to have some sort of get rid of navalney and they can offer up as Evan Gersovich and possibly this new American citizen dual American citizen who's in prison
in Russia. But it appears now that the Germans are cooling on their any sort of prisoner swap. I mean, one of the reasons this is the bad news is look, Evan has now been in prison now for almost what two three hundred days. I mean, he's nearing a year in captivity. Seems fine, you know the images that are coming out of Moscow.
He appears healthy.
But you know that it's not good, as we learn here with Nivolney, to be put in prison for quite a long time. So I would hope certainly that even if the you know, yes, I think this is abhorrent and all that, but we need to get our man out of there as soon as possible. And you know, in exchange or Russian hitman doesn't seem like.
Too bad of a deal.
So be it.
All right, Let's move on to the next part here. Oh, this was some major news that happened just yesterday, combines with some even worse major news. I'll start with the major headline coming overnight from our allies in France. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
In terms of nobody asking for this and yet being floated anyway, President Emmanuel Macrone, at a major meeting of the European powers to mark the two year anniversary of Ukraine invasion, now is floating the idea of Western troops on the ground.
He says, quote, there is.
No consensus today to send in an official endorsed manner of troops on the ground, but in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out. This is absolutely extraordinary news to me, news to a lot of people in NATO, very quickly crystal overnight, the Kremlin reacting saying that if this is in fact true, then war with the United States with NATO is quote inevitable.
Here's what they say. Quote.
In that case, it wouldn't be likely inevitable. That is how we assess it. That is, according to the official spokesperson for the Kremlin, so Macron basically floating an entire war with the NATO alliance. I do find it interesting that immediately the Germans actually smacked him down.
Olaf Shaw's a.
Chancellor of Germany, immediately putting out a tweet in German saying just so we're clear, there will be no Western troops or NATO troops that are being sent into the country.
But just goes to show, you know, the.
Brainworm is there even with reality on the ground. They're like, well, Ukraine's losing, America won't ship them anymore, ammo. We literally don't have the capacity to send AMMO, so what's left.
It was inevitable.
I didn't think they were stupid enough to float it though, especially somebody in a democratic country. But if anything, I'm happy about it. Please run on it. Put it to the American people. Should we send Western troops to save Ukraine on the battlefield?
I think I know what that answer would be.
NATO Chief Stoltenberg came out to also rebuff Macron's comments.
Although I think his phrasing is very interesting.
He says there are no plans, yes exactly, for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine. But Macron didn't say there were plans. He said that this is something that needs to be kept on the table and you know, a theory that needs to be discussed. He didn't say
that there are active plans to do it. And listen, it makes some logical sense if you are in the you know, extreme pro Ukraine camp, where you genuinely believe that Russia intends, you know, next is going to be Poland on their list and they're gonna, you know, try to have this incredibly expansionist imperial project and that it's going to force the native NATO conflict down the line.
Anyway, So if.
You're looking at the at the the situation, the battle situation in Ukraine, and you realize like they don't have a chance to win unless you do have something like NATO and US and French boots on the ground in the country, that's how you end up saying like this.
I think it's an extraordinary I think it's extraordinarily revealing about how dire the Ukrainian situation actually is right now and how out of ideas they are for changing that save for, you know, something that would be incredibly not just unpopular, but insane, foolish, reckless, et cetera, as is being floated here.
What's really fascinating to me is that if you read so I talked previously about how Germany was their parliament. You know, they have a democratic system over there, Crystal where major things actually get floated to the legislature and they get to vote and decide how and whether they should send certain types of cruise missiles.
This really interesting concept which maybe want to try it well in their parliament.
They overwhelmingly voted not to send Taurus cruise mass missiles to Ukraine, and the German chancellor gave a very good justification for this, he says, Listen, these are longer rage missiles. They could use them to strike Russia. But more importantly, the Ukrainian troops are too incompetent and not well trained enough, and to actually employ these on the battlefield would require
German troops on the ground to operate these cruise missile systems. Thus, I am not putting Germany in a place where we're going to become an active combatant, he says, quote, we will not become a party to the war. I have to come back to the strategic logic. The entire point of our supposed you know, why we got a back Ukraine to the hill, is that if we don't stop putin here, then he's going to continue into NATO countries.
Then why are the major powers in NATO, like Germany, the largest economy on the continent, largest economy out of in Britain in the NATO alliance, Why are they so cautious and they're not shipping everything they've got because they don't believe it. It's one of those where at this point the Cranians have been roughly hung out to dry.
They've been screwed.
I think you know from day one, they're like dangled here. They're basically being used as Pond's vast majority of the prime age, courageous males. They're all dead and or amputated now. And so now I think we're really starting to get a taste of what this war is really all about. You see it being pitched here in Washington as like, hey, guys, the money's not being sent to Ukraine. It's being sent our defense contractors. So it's good for the economy.
Wait what multiple officials have set that up. Yeah, Tory Newlan came out. We just got to keep in mind this money that we're sent to kr this is really going to our defensive destauma that is so sick.
I can't even believe it. I can't even believe it.
You know, there was a an executive from one of those companies that went to speak to college students in Texas. Uh huh, and they're getting all these questions about like, you know, how much if I go to work at your company, you know, will I get to directly be involved in making the bombs to kill Palestinian children?
And he was like, uh, no idea how to do it.
But the sickness of thinking that that's a reason to go to war. It's really I mean, that's a mask off moment, because that is a big part of the reason why we end up in these endless conflicts, because there are people that are making a buck off, and not just making a buck they are filthy rich and they all live right around here.
By the way.
There's a reason why McClain Virginia is one of the wealthiest zip codes in the entire fricking country. It's because of these goals and that ideology of like, wow, war is good for the economy.
Sick.
It is absolutely sick that they would make that argument, and it's extraordinarily revealing that they feel like that's the best that they can do at this point in terms of selling this for the American people. We're talking about this before, Sager, but I do think it is worth noting.
You know, now that you have the Israel war on Palestine, the Ukrainian cause, it really has taken a massive hit because all of the aspirational ideological life language about oh, it's a fight for democracy and we're so principled and human rights and we're against these Russian war crimes and whatever, like, they can't even talk like that anymore.
No, they don't even talk like that anymore.
And actually, well John Stewart made this very point in some of his dialogue and his show last night. We'll
show you a little bit of in another segment. But you know, they can't even say those words because the hypocrisy is so blatant and so shameful that even these basically shameless people can't bring themselves to, you know, say the words international rules based order when we're they're saying, you know, basically, we don't care about what the ICJ has to say, and we're going to argue on Israel's behalf that the occupation, the settlements aren't really illegal, or
at least they're not you know, you're not the proper venue to be dealing with it. We can't really say what war crimes are when it comes to Israel. All of that has gone out the window. So now they're just left with like, well, it's good for the weapons makers to keep shipping these weapons and making more money.
Insanity.
So Russia annexing Eastern Ukraine illegal Israel settlements.
It's complicated.
It's like, well, you know, they both got a historical claim, right, that's the defense that all of these people, I this sanctimony that we have been subjected to over the last two years. It has been one of the great pleasures to watch it completely unwined, just to make it all clear though, by the way, in terms of NATO, just because Germany may be acting well in this one instance, there has been a major development which we were miss if we didn't go into put it up there on the screen.
Please.
Officially, yesterday, the Hungarian Parliament voted for Stockholm, Sweden to join the NATO Alliance, clearing the way for all thirty two countries for allowed to its ascension. This is effectively very noteworthy because Sweden, I don't think a lot of people understand this, has had an official policy of neutrality for two hundred years. They were actually neutral in the
Second World War. A lot of US airmen who had damaged aircraft actually went and landed in Sweden and were interred there, apparently at a good time whenever they were there. But my point just being like, even when the Nazis were around and the Russians the Cold War.
They had an official policy of neutrality.
You really want to tell me that the things have changed so much for them to abandon it now. Listen, it's their right, but it's also our right not to allow them in. We've decided to Finland and Sweden adding a huge border with Russia. We actually have a map that we can show everybody here. This is extraordinary. I mean, look at this new map of NATO. But if we go to the next one, guys, please, I want everybody to understand just how much frontage has now been added
for the overall NATO border. Look at that border crystal between Finland and Russia. We are talking about some eight hundred miles of new territory that basically the United States is now set to defend, and of which we will go to nuclear war over Finland, a country which has literally been at war with Russia and invaded by them previously. The theory being that we should extend it all the way over there to make sure that nothing happens. And
lo and behold what has the effective result? Has Russia, you know, invaded Finland and.
A that No, But guess what. They haven't backed down.
They've increased defense spending historic levels, not just to fund Ukraine, They've actually remilitarized their border with Finland, and both Finland and Sweden now, who were both under the two percent defense threshold, are doing everything in their power to could you know, try and meet to two percent, which, look, I guess if they're going to be the Alliance at least I support that. But it's one of those where the circular logic of the war, it's like we've got
to expand NATO to defend NATO. We got to defend Ukraine to defend NATO. It just it never ends. All it leads to is more of US entrenchment on the continent, where nobody ever asked why it makes any strategic sense. Like, sorry, Finland, you know you guys have been invaded before. Are you really that critical to the US economy?
No, absolutely not. You people literally fought with the Nazis also in World War Two. Like we have to really.
Think about what we're extending ourselves for. So I've been saying this rant for a while.
Buck. Yeah, it's one of those where you.
Know, you can't just let it pass because it's one of those it's just how just how North Macedonia got into the Alliance, just how Montenegro. Everybody just signs these people up as if there's no consequence to it. And then one day there really might be. And look at that border and tell me that you don't think nothing's gonna happen.
Yeah, and remember those expansions happened under the supposedly anti natas on the Trump So keep that in mind when you see this l freaka, Oh my god, he's going to break up the NATO alliance really because he did the exact opposite last time he was in office, you know,
with regard to Finland the Russians. The Kremlin spokesman Pescavi told the BBC, Russia be watching closely how NATO uses the finished territory quote in terms of basing weapon systems and infrastructure there, which will be right up close to our borders, potentially threatening US. Based on that, measures will be taken. So, as far as I can tell, the entire logic logic of admitting Finland into NATO is basically like, oh, the Russians aren't.
Going to like this, right, That's right?
So is that what our forum policy is based around? Like owning the Russians? Because what you're doing is you're creating more potential vectors of escalation, more potential vectors of conflict, and you're calling that improved security, not to mention, I mean the discussion that you're having here about Hey, American people, like are you ready to send your sons and daughters to you know, die for Finland or die for North Macedonia or whatever. That's never discussed in the US press,
I mean really never discussed in the US space. Yeah, and maybe the American people say, yeah, but we believe in that, you know, we think this is good for us whatever. But the very fact that the debate doesn't even happen, you know, it's just never spelled out what the implications actually are of this expansion. It's effectively taken
as a given. It's accepted as just all upside, no downside, as a great way to like own putin, you know, put him in his place and show him that we're going to do the thing he doesn't want us to do, and for what ultimately, So that's the other tragedy here is just and this has been the case throughout the entire Ukraine War, is there's only ever been one side and one narrative presented. None of the potential follow on
costs and consequences have ever been laid out. And that's how you end up in a situation like we are right now and like the Ukrainians are right now. That is horrible, absolutely horrible for everyone involved. With no end in sight and no plan for how we're going to ever resolve this conflict, that's how you end up there. So it is, it is, you know, it is a troubling dynamic. There's just no doubt about it.
It's just one of those where you know, look, I can think about it in terms of economic terms. You know how much trade we do with Finland eleven billion dollars, Like you want to go to nuclear war over eleven billion dollars.
Not everything is Munich, you know, Not everything is World War Two in the fall of France. It's the brain.
It's the infection of the brain that you know. You can double NATO's border with Russia and nobody talks about it, and think about it in terms also not just you know, the nukes, because obviously we would get to there. Let's say it doesn't go nuclear and it's merely conventional. That means, just like in World War Two, there're gonna be guys from Kansas or wherever deployed up to the Arctic Circle to defend the territorial integrity of the Finnish Russo border. Sorry,
I don't think it's worth it. I think most people would agree with me if you actually put it up for a vote. But that's why it all just sneaks in and the next thing you know, boom, you get involved in this and you never even had a say in the first place.
Enough of the soapbox, I think, Crystal, we've got Israel.
We've got things to soapboxing regard to Israel as well. Are great President of the United States, Joseph Biden. He went on seth Myer's last night. Before he did though, he decided they decided to go get ice cream at thirty Walk, as you do, and it's just a bizarre scene unfolding.
Gets asked about Israel and makes.
Some actually confidential news about his expectations of this temporary ceasefire.
Let's just watch how this all unfolded.
When you think that will start, well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend, I mean the end of the weekend at least, my not security visor tells me that we're close. We're close, not done yet, and my hope is by next Monday we'll have.
I mean, I don't know, there's just something optically about talking about something so extraordinary, extraordinarily serious where thousands, if not millions of lives are on the line while you're casually eating an ice cream cone with Seth Myers. That it's just it just is very discordant. I guess would
be the right word there. So in an attempt to I guess, silence the critics and show he's really really up to the job, et cetera, he decided to do this softball interview with Seth Myers on late I won't sit for, you know, a journalist at a real newspaper or anything that might be even remotely contentious, like what would have probably also been a softball interview in front of the super Bowl. But he'll go on late night
television and you'll banter with Seth Myers. Here he did address a bit of his Israel policy.
Let's take a listen to.
Someha what you have to say, because again, we see this horrible every day, we see this horrible images of Gaza, and is there a path forward?
Is there a safe future for the people who live there?
There is a path forward with difficulty, But here's the path forward. Look, first of all, there are the hostages being held must be released, and then we've got at least some principal agreement. There will be a ceasefire well that takes place. Ramadan's coming up, and there's been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out. That gives us time to begin to move in directions that a lot
of Arab countries are prepared to move in. For example, Saudi Arabia is ready to recognize Israel, Jordan, is Egypt, There's six other states. I've been working with Cutter, and the bottom line is that I'm not I think the only way Israel ultimately survives, and I make no bones about it. I get criticized for having said a long time ago, you need not be a Jew to be a Zionist. I'm a Zionist where they know Israel, there's not a Jew in the world to be safe. But
here's the deal. They also have to take advantage of an opportunity to have peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians who are being used as pawns by Hamas. Israel has slowed down the attacks in Rafa. They have to, and they've made a commitment to me they're going to see to it that there's ability to evacuate significant portions of Rafa before they go and take out the remainder of Hamas.
But it's a process.
And look, Israel has had the overwhelming support of the vast majority of nations. If it keeps this up without this incredibly conservative government they have and Ben Gaverer and others the most I've known, every major foreign policy leader in Israel since go to Mayir, they're going to lose support from around the world and that is not an Israel's interest.
So there's a lot there actually to say Sager first of all, on that last piece, you know, he wants to frame the problem with Israel as just being specific to these few extremists like BeneVir, just like with his settler policy. I'm going to sanction these four violent settlers, as if the problem with the settlements is just this fringe violent group, not the entire policy of settlements which
has been ongoing since the Goldemeyer days. He wants to paint and is like, oh, it's just the problem is just this government which obviously is not the case, especially when you look at the fact that you know, all of the coalition members of the war Cabinet, even the ones that were quote unquote moderate, you know, people like President Isaac Hertzog, who's out there saying there's no uninvolved civilians.
Like the overwhelming majority.
Of Israeli society, regardless of where they situate themselves on the domestic political spectrum, is on board with this, you know, outrageous assault on the Gaza strip. So I think it is very disingenuous and really gas lighty to try to pin this just on Oh, it's just Ben Gavier. It is just these few extremists, that's the real problem here.
That's number one. Number two.
On Rafa, I noticed the language has shifted from originally the Biden administration was really warning net Yahoo against going into Rafa at all. Now he's saying, oh, I got this promise from bb that he's going to evacuate the civilians because you know, they've done such a great job of protecting civilians thus far. So I noted that shift in language, which we've seen some of before. The other thing, Sager, I find so disgusting this language about how if there wasn't an.
Israel, there wouldn't be a Jew in the world who was safe.
We have a huge Jewish diaspora here, and the idea that you are president of the United States and you don't think you can keep your own people safe is a real admission. That is, you know, that is sort of scary and disgusting all and pathetic all at once. But the other thing is here, in terms of Jewish secure, I would say that there is no country on the
planet that is making Jews less secure than Israel. I think of those comments we played the other day of that, like you know, women's equality or whatever minister that they have in Israel who said she wants she is proud of the ruins of Gaza. She wants the children and the grandchildren of these Palestinians to know not what Israel did, what the Jews did to them. There is no country in the world that is filmenting more likely future extremism
and radicalism against Jewish people than israelis right now. So on every level, I found those comments so obnoxious, abhorrent, disingenuous and just wrong that I can't even begin to describe it.
But that line, too, has always bothered me, and it's like a typical Bidenism, So I just have it in front of me. There are seven point six million Jews in the United States who are living peacefully, freely as all other American citizens. There's only nine point three million people who live inside Israel. And if I have my math right, what is it? Around twenty percent of those are Arab.
So what do we got.
We have probably the same number of Jews who live in the US men who live in the State of Israel. So if Israel didn't exist, then the Jews in America wouldn't be safe. There have been Jews in this country since the Civil War. You know, there are people who Jews who fought on both sides whenever they didn't exist. They were proud patriots and they have a deep tie to our American history and they had nothing to do with the State of Israel. Just so everybody knows. But
this is the problem. You know, the Israelis want it that both ways too. They have it so that you have a conflation of Judaism and of their own sovereignty, which basically allows Israel not to be treated as a nation state like any other through which there are pluses and minuses. They imbue themselves with the religious sense. And then same thing here is that you conflate anti Zionism quote unquote with anti semit and with Jewish safety here
in America. Now, the Jews themselves want to make the decision, that's your right as an American. But for an Irish Catholic president to say that, I think it's anti Semitic. I do because again it's a conflation of a nation statehood with the identity as a US citizen.
I would say the same thing about India.
You know, India's sovereignty or whatever has no place on my rights as or my conception or my identity as an American citizen. It happens to be a place where my family is from. There are a lot of countries that don't exist anymore. It'si Lesia or whatever. It's not a country but a region that people emigrated from to the US. But they don't think of their territorially integrity of that place. Let's say the Balkans Yugoslavia as conflating
with their own identity and safety here in America. And that's the exact problem where a lot of domestic Jews want to have it both ways. But now the president wants to have it both ways too. I think that's really wrong.
So I think part of this little, you know, late night appearance and whatever also has to do with the fact that the primary in Michigan is today. I think that the Biden campaign people have stopped diluting themselves about the idea that a lot of these people worried about the you know, our complicity and genocide and the Gaza.
They'll get over it. They'll get over it, they'll move on.
Don't worry. That's just this fringe group. They're really not that big a deal. I actually saw a poll that from yesterday from Emerson of the Michigan Democratic primary electorate that had roughly ten percent of voters planning to vote uncommitted, which pretty extraordinary, and almost thirty percent of young voters
between eighteen and twenty nine planning to vote uncommitted. I mean, this is like an ad hoc movement that just sprung up, that has next no money behind it, etc. And yet you have enough sentiment that it could potentially today take a significant chunk of the vote.
So I think part of the why.
He's out there, you know, doing his little ice cream ceasefire bit is to try to persuade people that, oh, I'm really interested in piece, Oh I'm really standing up to the Nat Yahoo government, etc.
Etc. When it's going to take a lot more than that.
At this point, you're going to have to actually change policy, not just pretend to be interested in peace for one late night appearance.
In a sign of how concerned.
They are about what the vote total will be in Michigan for uncommitted, they sent Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was way more popular in the state than Joe Biden by the way, out to try to get the vote out, to try to convince the Democratic faithful that they needed to go, they needed to show up, they needed to vote for Joe Biden. Let's take a listen to how she is making the case.
Well, I'm not sure what we're going to stand on Tuesday. To tell you the truth, I can tell you this that Michigan has been so fortunate to be the home of a robust Arab Muslim Palestinian community.
And a robust Jewish community.
We've lived in harmony as neighbors for decades, and there's a lot of pain all across all of these communities because of what's happening halfway around the world. This is, I think a very high stakes moment. I am encouraging
people to cast an affirmative vote for President Biden. I understand the pain that people are feeling, and I'll continue to work to build bridges with folks in all of these communities because they're all important to me, They're all important to Michigan, and I know they're all important to President Biden as well. Sounds like you're preparing for a sizable portion of the vote being uncommitted and sending that protest message to President Biden.
You know, Dana, I'm just not sure what to expect.
Just not sure what to expect. I mean, that's very interesting.
So she doesn't want to set any expectations whatsoever for how it's going to come out. I mean, you can imagine, first of all, very clear, she's a much better politician than Joe Biden is. You know, she went on her way picked to vice president.
She'd be way.
Better than Tom Lays.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, in any case, you can see she's going out of her way to try to express her sympathy for Arab American populations. In the state, which she knows is a significant constituency in Michigan and very important to her electorally, not to mention Joe Biden.
So you know, she's really trying.
To express this sympathy while fully supporting the guy who was doing all the terrible things that are causing them so much pain and grief and causing them to turn away from the Democratic Party. But I found it extraordinary both that they felt the need to send her out to a variety of cable news shows, and I also found it quite extraordinary that she would not commit to what percent of the vote she thought Uncommitted would get. She did not want to set any sort of expectations
so that they can spin after the fact. You know, if Uncommitted does get ten percent of the vote, oh, that's not that much, that's not that significant. In reality, that would be I think quite significant in the context of, you know, voting for literally Uncommitted over the guy who was president right now on this sort of like ad hoc shoestring effort that sprung up. Is uh, it's it's interesting. It's interesting for a protest vote. We'll see what happens.
No, I think they're I think they're worried about it a crystal, I really do, and because there's no other reason to have that. Also, I'm not sure if you saw Beto what he had. He had some sort of like maya culpa. He put out a statement He's like, actually, I do support President Biden.
Just to be clear, my opinion of.
Beato is back to what it used to be. That also shows their concern.
They couldn't even let you know, the great influencer Beto O'Rourke to have them say on this. They had to completely log it down. What a what a weakling?
That's so lame. I agreed, immediately caved.
We also wanted to show you Nancy Pelosi was subject to something she's not used to, which was an actually tough interview, and there was a number of extraordinary moments, but one in particular where she's both exposed as completely ignorant and her attempted support for the Biden policy just crumbles in real time.
Let's take a listen to how this went down.
We have a.
I don't want to call mister because I've lost so much respect for him. Nata Yahoo there, who seems to.
Be you've lost respect for him?
A long time ago. But nonetheless he seems to be calling the shots and he and his very extreme right wing I wouldn't even say conservative, because that's a legitimate place to be in the world of think England the spectrum, but right wing, radical, right wing cabinet.
But there are leavers that Biden could use, which he hasn't used. There are leavers which previous presidents have used when Israel has, in their view, crossed the line.
For example, go back.
To the nineteen fifty six Eisenhower it's recum sanctions if Israel didn't pull its forces out of Sinai. Reagan, you know, held up delivery of fighter jets over Israel's action. Eleven George Bush Senior block loan guarantees because of settlement building.
I was there the day that that. I know he went back to fifty six.
I mean, so these levers are there.
There's some, but the president has said something about the settlements. He has said something about the settlements, But.
Saying and blocking weapons supplies for us very different things.
It's not it's a path, it's a path.
Path, it's a path.
So the Reagan example was great, and she.
Apparently, I guess it wasn't aware. She seemed to know about the bush one, lady, you.
Were alive at that time. I'm pretty sure you were in Congress, so you know.
And then this week like, well, the President has said something about the settlement. Oh wow, he said something about the settlements. What a brave warrior, really standing up for human rights here. And then when she's pressed on she's like, it's a path. It's like, well, yeah, I guess it
is a path, isn't it. But you know, it's so rare that American politicians actually get pushed on any of this, and they're so locked into this mindset that, oh, well, Israel can just do whatever they want, we really have no power over them, et cetera, et cetera. I mean that is exposed right there then and there in real time.
And she also sober echoes the same language about like, oh, it's the problem is just this like extremist government, that's the real issue, trying to confine it to a few bad apples, so to speak, versus you know, the entirety of the project and the illegal occupation and the settlements and the you know, assault on Palestinians, the collective punishment et cetera.
Yeah, I mean that is one of those where for a long for a while, there was a sizeable I wouldn't say anti settlement, but people who did not agree with the policy. It doesn't appear that they have any real power in Israeli society right now. A lot of that is downstream a demographic, a lot of it is downstream of how people feel.
About Hamas about with the war.
But there's no use in pretending that a society that exists doesn't exist. So we can't project, we can't project our own neurosies and desigres onto another country. I see this with American Indians all the time. They don't like Mody or a lot of the BJP, and it's like, yeah, well India does, and you don't live there anymore, so deal with it. It's one of those where you can't conjure up a fake country in your head. You just have to deal with what's actually in front of you.
You also flag this crystal about the ICJ, and let's
put it up there on the screen. They're currently filing their report to the ICJ by trying to protest the ruling that plausible acts of genocide were occurring and I think it fits very much with this where they both have their US politicians who are defending them, but at the baseline level, they are preparing and are worried about the continued pushback from the Community of Nations, even if there is no genuine enforcement mechanism, you know, per se,
it's just you know, basically imagine it's like South Africa. Like if you find yourself basically, you know, at the crux of a global genuine BDS movement, then at post doctor seven, let's say two to three years from now,
it's goin have some serious ramifications for your economy. I actually just saw a piece of news that flash this morning about how Secretary Janet Yellen just sent a letter to BB expressing concern about the situation of the Israeli economy and directly tying it to the West Bank and to continued settlement, saying that you have.
A real problem here. So if our Treasury secretary is getting involved, you know, is bad.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
So this report was mandated by the ICJ and their initial ruling saying that Israel is plausibly committing genocide, and they said you have a month to follow a report about how you're complying with these injunctions.
They stopped short of.
Overtly calling for a ceasefire, but they called on them to cease the actions that basically led them to that conclusion that you're plausibly committing genocide. There was a lot of focus on allowing in humanitarian aid, a lot of focus on accountability for those who are overtly inciting genocide.
Now that's problematic for the Israelis since some of the comments cited in South Africa's filing go all the way up to the President and the Prime Minister and numerous Security Cabinet members, numerous LIQUD party members, etc. So this report that Israel filed, which unfortunately is actually private, is not made public, but reportedly they said it would be brief and that they were expected to assert this is per haurets, that it is permitting humanitarian aid including food,
medical equipment, to enter Gaza in an organized manner, is permitting civilians to leave areas in which there is fighting in.
Accords with international law.
Report is also expected to state that Israel investigates the suspected war crimes in cases of incitement advocating harming civilians in Gaza to your point saga about how Israel does appear to be concerned about what happens at the Icy Jay, even as it doesn't, you know, as everyone always say, have an enforcement mechanism. Supreme Court also doesn't have an enforcement mechanism. It's all about the way that the institutions and bodies that are involved, whether they respect the decisions
or not, they do seem to be concerned. They put out that memo, remember from a top leader of the Eye, basically being like, don't do any war crimes, guys, and
definitely don't record yourself doing any war crimes. That was seen as basically, you know, a sort of like last minute attempt to cram for the exam of showing that they're serious about war crimes and human rights, etc. But let me show you the reality, which won't be any surprise to any of you who have been watching this show, because we've been covering the fact that they've been allowing these protesters to block AID from coming into the Gaza strip.
So the idea that they've been you know, really expediting in AID and that that's been a top priority for them in compliance with what they're required to by the ICJ is obviously preposterous not to mention the fact that we now have confirmed reports of babies and others actually dying from starvation. But Human Rights Watch had specific numbers to Rebut what Israel is claiming here in their ICJ response,
we can put this up on the screen. They say Israel is not complying with the World Court order in the genocide case, failing to ensure basic services and aid.
Here's the bottom line.
Fewer trucks have entered Gaza and fewer aid missions have been permitted to reach northern Gaza in the weeks since the ruling then in the weeks preceding it. According to the un SO data published by OCCHA and the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, say that the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza with food, aid, medicine, et cetera drop by more than
a third in the weeks following the ICJ ruling. You had ninety three trucks posts per day post ICJ ruling versus one hundred and forty seven trucks per day, and you only had fifty seven trucks per day between the most recent time period between February ninth and February twenty first, so we're actually going backwards. We're going in the wrong direction in terms of humanitarian aid to a postulation that
is now literally starving to death. And some portion of that certainly has to do with these protests that are being allowed, which are blocking the trucks. Another part of why this is occurring is because you've had now documented reports, including by CNN that Israeli forces have struck a food convoy that was back on February fifth. You've also had relief organizations saying that they can no longer operate because
of their fear that they will be attacked. In spite of the fact that they're coordinating with the IDF, with Israeli authorities, they're giving them their coordinates to avoid being attacked standard deconfliction channels. That has been no guarantee whatsoever. So that's the other portion is that these aid convoys have no ability to move, especially to Dorlan Gaza, and remain safe. And you have very limited amounts coming into
the Strip in the first place. So you know, it's preposterous to imagine that Israel has actually fulfilled their obligations that the ICJ ruled back a month ago.
Yeah.
No, it's the protests that they've allowed have been absolutely insane, especially considering their response that we covered yesterday to the protests there are against Bby. They just don't treat them equally. It's like, well, then you're basically allowing it to happen. And you know, people have eyes. Unfortunately for them, we all have. You know, there's video and Google Translate, and that's I honestly think if this had happened in the nineties,
we've living in a totally different situation. Imagine no phones, you know, no footage, and I mean, in a lot of ways, it's kind of what two thousand and six was like. Two thousand and six was a brutal war. We didn't really learn that much. Most of it was totally controlled by the media apparatus. But in the current system, the stuff doesn't work anymore. There's some major media news which we've been wanting to cover now for quite some time.
I have some mixed feelings about this. Let's get into it. Let's put it up there on the screen. Vice Media, which was once valued at five point seven billion dollars after filing for bankruptcy previously is now shutting down Vice dot Com and laying off hundreds of staffers.
This is really extraordinary.
So Vices were all remember, filed for bankruptcy last year. It was then bought by a consortium led by basically like one of those private investment groups. They're selling the company off piecemeal. They've come to a decision where what they've decided, We're just not going to publish on this
website at all anymore. I don't really know what plans they have that remain for the brand, And hundreds of the people who worked there asked they're gone, on top of the hundreds of people that were already laid off previously. And I guess the only reason why I could say I have mixed feelings is I'm not quite sure that we would be at least I don't think I would be here without Vice. Vice was one of the major
inspirations that I had for getting into this business. Watching the Vice Guides to Travel Shane Smith was a huge inspiration to me back in the early twenty tens, all of them, all of the original founders, kind of their image and the gonzo ability, but more importantly, it was a story of legitimately in the mainstream, and the.
Millennial aspect was played up a bit too much.
But the thing that they did get right was that the staid and the like boring aspect and the propagandistic ways that original media worked was not something that the new generation wanted, and I think early early days of Ice genuinely spoke to that, and that spoke to a lot of their success. But look, you know, at the same way, Shane has also been a very cautionary tale. One that I think about for our business all the
time is I'm like this guy. I mean, he was raising billions and billions of dollars to turn into a Ponzi scheme where he's like taking money out inflating the value. At one point he admitted to somebody that there was no grand plan. It was to try and sell to the latest idiot who was buying their marketing place. You know, now he's living in luxury and Los Angeles last time I checked, Yeah, and all these people are screwed.
That was what a lot of people pointed out. That executives were still getting big book fat bonuses last year as recently as last year, even as you know, their business model was completely crumbling. It is old for me to think about. First of all, it's sad for the people who worked there. And you know, this is part of a broader trend of massive media layoffs that we've been see La Times, BuzzFeed, you know, the collapse of
the Messenger. That's a whole other story, but there's clearly, you know, a failure of some of the business models that supported, especially these digital focused companies for a long time. I agree with you the early days advice. You know, I was at MSNBC when Vice was really hot, right and they were terrified, the terrified advice because they could go out, they could send someone on a freaking ice.
This ride along, which was wild.
Any established media outlet, you know you have to have. First of all, you just probably wouldn't do it, but if you did, the expense involved, the caution involved, the number of fixers that you'd have to have, the amount of security you'd have to have, All of that would have to be in place for understandable good reasons, because
you want to protect your people. And here comes Vice just willing to go balls out into all kinds of crazy stuff, and people were glued to it because it did have that like authentic, unvarnished, unpackaged, non corporate feel, and so it really was a glimpse and a preview into you know, some of the media brands now, the alternative media brands that are.
Successful, you know, in terms of their business.
I looked at their YouTube channel yesterday to see what kind of things they're doing.
I mean there's, yeah, what's top was very like, it's very.
Niche, but some of their stuff still pops off, you know, it still gets millions of you sometimes on YouTube. And so I was thinking, you know, Vice, at this point, it probably makes sense as like an operation a little bit larger than what we do, you know, to just put out like video content on these you know, interesting or edgy or whatever topics that have a real audience that people still are interested in. But and I think this is the case for a lot of these news
organizations that have failed. But to have this like nine hundred person operation with this giant headquarters in Brooklyn or wherever and support all of that, there's just that's just not going to work.
It's just not going to work.
The other company that was the you know, big hot company at the time when Vice was coming up, and that everybody was terrified of and trying to get in on their success was BuzzFeed and as the same deal, I mean completely completely hollowed out. You know, that business model is also completely collapsed, and so you know a lot of ways, it really is an end, the end of an era for Vice and BuzzFeed and these other
auntlets of feet totally hollowed out. But there was a moment there when there was a lot of dumb money flowing to these companies, many of which were much less credible than Vice or BuzzFeed. You think about like mic yeah, dot com and all these all these companies that sprung up.
Then there were finally multiple.
One hundred million dollars valuations and whatever, and money was flown out.
What was the there was just recent with the recount.
Was the video play that raised millions and millions of dollars, And it's like, I just want to know how that ever penciled out, however penciled out that that was going to work out from a business perspective, it just doesn't really make sense to me.
It doesn't well.
And the reason, look, it's funny whenever the rich people go bust, but it's not funny whenever you hire people and then they get screwed, but you legitimately sell them a vision. It also, there are hundreds of people who are now out of work. Let's put this up there on the screen. Just in January twenty twenty four or five hundred journalists were laid off from the La Times, from Vice, from so many different places, GQ Sports, Illustrated.
So a lot of this is ideological, a lot of it is just bad business, as you point out with BuzzFeed. I just looked up their stock currently trading at thirty three cents a share. Whenever it debuted, it debuted at ten dollars a share.
So what is that.
You can do the math in terms of what the overall loss and their stock value is. I mean, it's basically a bargain company just waiting and being chucked off, you know, piece by piece. It's kind of humiliating for not only a lot of the money that was put in, but just for the game that a lot of those
people talked at the time. It's one of those it's a good lesson in humility, but also just you know, you got to run scared, You got to be careful whenever you're running a company and I don't think a lot of these people did, so it's sad what happened. One of my favorite Vice docs was the guy Heimo, the one who lived in the Arctic Circle. It came out in like two thousand and nine. I remember watching him.
I've never seen anything like this. I just watched you went on YouTube debut eleven years ago, now at some point has like eight and a half million views. I mean that was the heyday, the Vice Guide to North Korea with the cannibal thing from like Berria. I mean, these were incredible, incredible to watch. They changed the whole game, and then boom, you know, for a variety of reasons, most of them their own fault, it just.
All went away.
Yeah, I mean, that ad supportive model just it just doesn't It doesn't work.
It just doesn't work. It just doesn't pencil out.
There just isn't the money there, And so you have to be able to switch to you know.
Reader supported or viewer support, some sort.
Of membership model, and to make that work, you have to be providing something that is really meaningful to people where they feel like they want to be invested into it.
And even then, you know.
It will be difficult to support, you know, nine hundred people. It's just an insane size and overhead to be able to support. I think there used to be, you know, going back in the day, there used to be like a prestige ethos around media where it wasn't so much about like this is a money making venture. It was more about, like, this is a civic commitment. This is a you know, prestige for me, my family, my whatever, my business. And so the profit making was also not
as central. But also the business models worked a bit better than they do now. So I think we're very much in a transitional phase right now, and it's not clear whether what comes out on the other end is better or worse.
I'd say big time, big time. All right, let's move on to the next part here. There was a very interesting exchange between Joe Rogan and Kid Rock on the war in Gaza that we wanted to break down for everybody.
Let's take a listen.
If you lived in Gaza, you would be convinced that it's the end of the world, right because it is the end of the world in one place, in that spot, it's the end of the world, but where you are it's not. And you got to look at it that way. And when I look at it that way, I'm.
The only wars we won were fucking ones. We were the most brutal motherfuckers on the planet. Which I don't disagree with what Israel's doing. It's like they should just go in there and be like, you know what, we want our hostages back. If we don't have them back, clock starts now in fucking twenty four hours, we're gonna start bombing motherfuckers and killing fucking civilians thirty forty thousand
a fucking time. So you civilians better fucking pack up and fucking get these fucking motherfuckers and you go against the oas you fucking go against them. We're not playing fucking games with you.
That's the only thing people understand.
This is what happened Nagasaki in Hiroshima, Boom swiped out. They're like, oh, yes, we don't have Supreme Leader more. We did not know you had such big bombs.
Yeah, but everybody has big bombs.
Now.
The problem is you use a big bomb, you set a precedent that they can use a big bomb. They don't have one, well they don't, but their allies too.
That's the real.
Problem out of them, someone's gonna learn.
Yeah, but you can't just nuclear bomb people. I didn't say the nuclear bomb you back, No, I didn't. Okay, he said you here as Shima in Nagasaki. I thought you meant it like No, No, I.
Was saying just the brute force of strength used in.
Those Yeah, but even even a conventional bombing campaign, if you want to do that somewhere, they can do that to your place. And this is what we have.
To fuck around and find out.
Yeah, until someone launches nukes. Yeah, but if you think about you're a kid and you don't know why there's a conflict between Palestine and Israel, and you're living in Palestine, and then they start bombing and then they kill your mom. Yeah but you didn't do it. But right, but you didn't do anything.
It sounds like butling.
And then you get guns. You're gonna go want to attack people, You're going to want to avenge them, You're gonna want to join whatever group whatever World War two end.
Now, I'm sorry, man, this is fucking war. It's terrible. It's the worst thing on earth. I'm a peaceful man.
Right, but you're not supposed to pick civilian targets that's actually.
Supposed to targets they are.
Wow.
So there's a lot of I think going on there. I think it's okay.
First of all, what I find interesting about Kid Rock is he clearly, uh, you know, no offense, mister Rock. But it appears you haven't done actually a little bit of reading about the Second World War and exactly why Hiroshima and Nagasaki and those targets were picked. You know, even at that time, the explicit justification Crystal was not to hit civilian targets for the sake of them. It was to wipe out mechanical centers and specifically centers of production.
The only time where there was an.
Explicit goal of basically burning an entire city of civil billions and all that to the ground was dressed in that was actually not the US.
It was a UK centered operation.
But even then there was a lot of consternation in America, in the UK government and elsewhere when that decision was made, and it was never justified in the terms that Kid Rock is laying out there.
And it didn't work.
Well, okay, but there's let's presume that it did work. I think there's a case for the atomic bomb, that it definitely compelled right the surrender. But my point is that throughout the entire justification of the firebombing campaign on Tokyo, on all of the major cities in Japan, it was always to center industrial production. It was never a primary goal, including of Curtis LeMay and of bomber Command. You can go and read the history if you would like to.
I have done extensive, deep dive into the topic, and it was explicitly agreed from the chiefest Staff, the President of the United States, Harry Truman, and everybody involved that it was not the quote unquote the purpose of the operation, and that was when we had atomic and air supremacy. Rogan's best point there is like, well, first of all, dude, you know other people can also do that. And this the reason I'm talking this way is let's accept that this actually would work.
Well, it didn't work, number one.
You know, it may have worked in the atomic case, but the atomic supremacy and all that we had at
that time no longer applies in this. And then whenever we did firebomb Dresden and in much of the lat later stages of the war, the veracity of the ferocity of the fire botting campaign compelled many Germans, including Luffwaffa pilots weremox soldiers, children, older men, to fight even more for Hitler because they didn't want to repeat the same humiliation of Versailles, which made it much more bloody and much more difficult to compel victory in the first place.
So that's if you just don't even accept much of the morality. And then Rogan's point of course is like, hey man, that's also a war crime, Like you're not supposed to do that. And that's the thing what shocks me is even you know, everybody just tries to retcon World War Two. They didn't even talk like this then, and we were fighting the Nazis the Japanese.
And they hid the photos and videos of what was done to civilians.
Oh yeah, for that kid, because they knew the whore.
And there's also a reason why after World War Two we say, all right, we got to have some rules of the road here, because to your point, even at that time, it was clear that the US wasn't going to be the only one with nuclear capabilities, and so you know, that was why we had to establish, all right, we have to protect civilians number one, because this shit that just happened cannot happen again, and why there was so much policy around nuclear deterrence, because it is a
very different deal when you are the one and only batty out there with a nuke and now you know Israel had Iran is closed.
You have numerous Saudi scouty's to have nukes, You.
Have numerous global powers with nuclear massive nuclear capabilities that could literally destroy the world, and actually appreciated Brogan bring that up because that is the facet of this that we actually don't that often we talked about it. We talk about it more with regard to Russia and Ukraine because the conflict there is so direct. But that is the logic of you know, kid rocks, idiotic, fuck around and find out. Mentality is like, oh really, let's explore
where that actually goes. He raises not only the fact of, you know, the escalation that you do not ultimately want, which could have massive implications for everyone in the globe. He raises the morality of you can't target civilians, that's a war crime. There's a reason why we put that out of bounds. But he also talks about the fact that you know, even in terms of even if you put aside the morality of it, which I don't think
we should do. But even if you put that aside, these little kids we just had their mom killed, Like, what do you think is going to happen to them?
They're going to be radicalized, They're going to grow up and.
Join whatever militant terrorist organization is available, and they're going to try to come and kill you. So even just from a logical like all right, we got to win and we got to keep our people safe, etc. Perspective, this is foolish. And it has been clear that this is foolish from the very beginning. So I actually thought he did a good job raising some very salient points in a very accessible way. And I mean, kid Rock
is just embarrassing. Sometimes people think Joe is just going to go along with whatever insane bullshit they're going to spell, and he has this normal instinct of like, you know, other people have big bombs too, and by the way, those are war crimes, so maybe we shouldn't be going in that.
Yeah. And it's also it actually doesn't make sense too.
I mean, what everybody where the instinct comes from is it's an obvious instinct and It's one that a lot of Americans said after World War or sorry, after nine to eleven.
They're like, oh, it's bomb back to the Stone Age.
Everything I learned about Islam I learned about on nine to eleven.
But here's what people don't get.
I think the only historical precedent for the mindset that he's talking about there is Jenghis Khan and the Mongols in terms of the way that they were able to subjugate many of the powers that.
Were under them. Here's where everybody forgets.
After a while, those people, all, you know, they may have acquiesced in the beginning, they mostly fought back, and in the end they threw off the Mongols after let's say one hundred years or so. My point only being that it doesn't really ever work. You know, in the long run. The best empires, the ones that were ever able to successfully conquer, which even the Mongols eventually resorted to, was listen, you know, we're in charge. You pay us some tax, but you do what you want to do.
As in, trying to compel people through force for a long and sustained period of time is very rarely a winning solution.
That's again the point that I would make.
I would also say, you know, look at the number of people that they've already killed. If it was if the logic was theirs, we're going to continue to kill tens of thousands of people without the hostages being turned over.
Well it hasn't worked so far, Yeah, you know, it hasn't.
If anything, also, I mean, what's the most common talking point, Hamas doesn't care about the population. Well, if that's true, then why would they care if you continue to massacre the population. What's the population supposed to do about it? You think they know where all the hostages are? No, they don't. I just saw video yesterday, I think yesterday of Ryan that Ryan highlighted people of Hamas explicitly, you know,
having a conflict or whatever with the local population. But it's one of those where you really still obscure, you know, the actual.
People who are on the ground, and you're genuinely defensive.
So that's something that I've taken away from a lot of the reading on the Tokyo campaign, on the fire bombing campaign, and on Dresden and all of that as well.
These really were ordinary folks.
I'm talking like farmers daughters, people who were sixteen seventeen years old, little kids, and they burned alive. And it's one of those where the people around them never forgot it, and they fought.
To the death as a result of what they saw, in.
Many cases executed prisoners of our prisoners of war and others as explicit revenge for those past which I do not hope or want invite. It was a horrible time and it's not something we would ever want to repeat again.
Yeah, yeah, we don't want to go backwards there, Crystal, What are you taking a look at? A massive scandal is developing the New York Times, where it has now been revealed but the co author of a discredited article on rape on October seventh, liked genocidal posts on social media, is a former member of an IDF intelligence unit and had not even worked as a journalist at all prior to taking on a central role in Times coverage. The Times is now investigating the journalists, a woman by the
name of a Not Schwartz. But the questions about this incident go so far beyond this one journalist and her appreciation for psychopathic social media posts. So here is the backstory. On December twenty eighth, the New York Times published and News alerted what appeared to be an extensive investigation into one of the most fraught and contested parts of the Israeli October seventh narrative, that sexual assault was used by Hamas systematically as a weapon of war on that day.
The piece was headlined screams without words, how Hamas weaponized sexual violence on October seventh, and the byeline name three different authors, Jeffrey Gettelman, Anna Schwartz, and Adam Sella. Now, the fact that Hammas committed atrocities on October seventh is not in dispute. However, certain particularly horrifying anecdotes claimed by the Israeli government had fallen apart under scrutiny by Israeli
outlet Haretz. These debunked claims include that forty babies were beheaded, that a baby was found in an oven, and that a pregnant woman had her baby cut out of her, among others. It is no accident, of course, that these stories were propagated. This ajic prop about the barbarism of Hamas was crucial for Israel in their attempt to justify
a barbaric assault on the Gaza Strip. So this piece Screams Without Words was published by the New York Times purporting to back up Israeli assertions about widespread rape on October seventh. It was incredibly significant, but no sooner had the piece been published that major problems emerged. The family of a woman murdered by Jimlas, who was presented as a central figure in the New York Times narrative about widespread rape, denounced the story in furious and unequivocal terms.
They claimed that when The Times interviewed them about their murdered loved one, Gal Abdush, under false pretenses. The family said that they had no indication Gal had been raped, no evidence to support such claims, did not believe them to be true, and that they had no idea that The Times had planned to say.
That Gal had been raped.
Multiple family members told the Israeli press that the media invented the story and demanded that they stop spreading lies. Gal's story comprised no less than one third of the lengthy Times report, and that was really just the beginning of the problems with that report. Key witnesses were caught
telling inconsistent stories to different news outlets. Screams Without Words had relied on the testimony of a volunteer with an ultra orthodox nonprofit called Zaka that had been caught fabricating some of the most visceral debunked anecdotes about October seventh, including that one about the forty beheaded babies, and the Times itself, well, they appeared to lose confidence in the reporting, as our colleague Rian Graham, along with Daniel Bogislaw reported
for The Intercept, an episode of the New York Times flagship podcast, The Daily had been planned to detail the reporting from the sexual assault piece, which had originally been much hyped by the New York Times newsroom. But as the quote unquote reporting in the piece fell apart, the Times was left with a major dilemma about what to do. Should they ignore the problems, stand by their shoddy reporting and push out the Daily episode as recorded.
Should they edit the Daily.
Episode and attempt to correct the record, add caveats and effectively admit the problems with that original report, or should they take the coward's way out and just shelve the episode entirely. Now, a responsible outlet would either correct the original story or retract it. Given these serious journalistic failings that have been brought to light, but the Times shows to keep their propaganda piece as is, shelve the daily
episode and hope that everyone just moved on. Incredibly, the lead author of that piece, Jeffrey Gettleman, was at great pains to explain that as a journalist, he did not see his job as providing evidence for his reporting claims.
Take a listen.
I don't want to even use the word evidence because evidence is almost like the legal term that suggests you're trying to prove an allegation or prove a case of court. That's not my role.
We all have our roles, and my role is to document, is to percent, is to give people of voice.
So if this investigation didn't include evidence, what the hell are we doing here? But as if all of that wasn't wild enough, we are now learning some absolutely shocking things about the background of the second reporter on that piece, the aforementioned A not Schwartz. Shout out to the Squirrel for doing this digging online. First of all, on October seventh, a not like to post calling for Gaza to be
turned into a slaughterhouse. This post was so overtly genocidal in its rhetoric that it was actually cited in South Africa's filing at the HEGG. The post read, in part one, principle that needs to be abandoned today proportionality need a disproportionate response. May Israel see what she is hiding in the basement. If all the captives are not returned, immediately turn the strip into a slaughterhouse. If a hair falls from their head, execute security prisoners violate.
Any norm on the way to victory.
The post goes on to explain quote those in front of us are human animals and not also apparently liked a post about that forty beheaded babies lie, and another one calling for an effective propaganda operation to equate humas with isis love for our journalists to be out here explicitly advocating for propaganda campaigns. This is completely insane. If a journalists had liked similarly genocidal post calling for Israel to be turned into a slaughterhouse, it would be a
national scandal. The entire New York Times leadership be dragged in front of congressional hearings and summarily fired. In fact, New York Times foresound a prominent staff writer who was not involved in Israel Palisi and coverage simply for signing a letter opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice, of course, has now agreed that it is in fact plausible Israel is committing genocide. Now, after Annot's posts were exposed, she locked down her Twitter account deleted
most of her history before returning. While she can delete her social media history, she can't really so easily delete her professional past, which, if anything, is actually even wilder so. Apparently, prior to landing this plum gig at the New York Times, a not Schwartz had never worked as a journalist, never published a single piece anywhere. Ever, before being scooped up by The Times in November, just after the October seventh attack,
she had been working as a small time filmmaker. Perhaps the Times was looking for someone with a flair for the cinematic, but really think about this. Actual journalists spend their entire careers dreaming of a New York Times byline. The Times, after all, is the holy grail of elite journalism, and this lady with literally zero experience somehow gets brought in on a highly sensitive investigation on one of the most fraught topics imaginable.
How the hell did this happen?
But not?
Is not only a former filmmaker, she is also a former IDF soldier who served, I kid you not, in an Air Force intelligence unit. So the lady with the genocidal social media posts, with no prior journalism experience and a background in Israeli military intelligence was contracted to report on a piece which perfectly served Israeli government propaganda efforts at the time.
What is happening here?
Ryan, of course has been doing great reporting, as usually he has got it from several sources. The Times is parting ways with a not It's already been reported she is under investigation, but at this point those actions seem like convenience scapegoating to cover up much graver questions, who brought this lady in, how did they find her, who
green let this piece? Why have they not addressed the journalistic collapse of their supposedly blockbuster investigation, and what other Israeli propaganda and lies are they currently laundering.
It's not only The New York.
Times, by the way, Wall Street Journal recently published a piece based on zero evidence that ran cover for Israeli claims about UNRA, which helped justify the US pulling aid at a time when Palestinians in.
Gaza are starving to death.
That piece, too, was co authored by a so called journalist named Carrie Keller Lynn with undeniable biases. She too served in the IDF, and Aaronview bragged about how her very close friend literally created social media for the IDF.
Those are her words, not mine.
Once these photos that you can see on your screen starts circulating, Carrie Keller Lynn also locked her accounts, scrubbed her history, or prevent anyone from gathering further insights into her pro Israel bias. Now this incident casts in a whole new light. The studies would show systematic bias across major news outlets when it comes to coverage of Israelis
and coverage of Palestinians. Israelis are slaughtered, Palestinians just mysteriously die, great pains are often taken and make sure that Israel Is never directly ascribed blank. And as the Palestinian death toll has climbed, the coverage of their deaths has actually plummeted. It is a testament to the outrageous nature of the suffering that, in spite of this, onslaught of lies and propaganda.
The American people still overwhelmingly support a ceasefire, even or not with her skills as a filmmaker with an Israeli intelligence background, can't craft propaganda strong enough to overcome the visceral horror of what has been done. And Sager Ryan has another piece.
Which is going to post, and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
All right, well see you guys. Was later
Mhm