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Everyone, we have some major breaking news. We just wrapped our show and of course we received the big news of the day. The Supreme Court has now ruled nine zero to reject the Colorado Supreme Court decision that would have held Donald J. Trump off of the ballot in that state. The Colorado Supreme Court affirming a Colorado Secretary of State decision ruling that Donald Trump was not allowed on the ballot because he had violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
In their estimation, the nine oz decision is a bit complicated, Crystal, and we can break it down for everyone.
Let's put it up there on the screen.
While they unanimously agree that that the Colorado Supreme Court went too far and the Colorasado Secretary of State in their disqualification of Donald Trump on the ballot. The majority opinion, which includes six out of the nine justices, effectively says
that this was overstepping the role of Congress. The Congress, through its enumeration of the fourteenth Amendment, not only had to have that stand, but would have to pass a piece of legislation that specifically lays out which individuals and how were to be disqualified from office under the fourteenth Amendment.
Three of the liberal.
Justices Katanji, Bound Jackson, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice and Lena Kagan dissented from that majority opinion, but found with the nine to zero unanimous decision that they of Colorado had gone beyond.
The terms of the fourteenth Amendment.
So basically the majority opinion and where this justification now comes down is Colorado went too far, and that in the future that Congress itself must pass specifically which types of individuals, why, and how are disqualified from the ballot, and that the hodgepodge nature of allowing secretaries of state like Maine or Cholorado or others could not stand.
This what they all.
Unanimously found so very impactful case, probably the most significant one since Bush versus Gore in terms of that decision, but this one a little bit different in its finding.
Yeah, yeahs number.
It wasn't surprising the direction that this went in. Just to emphasize one of the things you're saying there, that piece about the majority rule that Congress basically has to pass a law in order for this section of the Constitution to apply.
My recollection from when.
I was researching this previously is that would mean that this provision is not self executing.
Some parts of the Constitution just.
They are what they are, and they are available for enforcement as they are, and others actually require an Act of Congress. That's what the majority of saying is saying. That's the piece that a minority of the liberal justices are saying, Hey, we don't agree with that part. That part goes further than we need to in this decision. Just as a reminder, I want to read to people the text of Amendment fourteen, Section three, just so we
have a recollection of what we're talking about here. So it says no person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and vice president, or hold any office civil or military under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislator legislature, or as an executive or a judicial officer
of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged an insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may buy a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability. That last piece, the fact that it points in the amendment to Congress, was part of what they used as a justification for saying, well, that sort of indicates that what they really mean is Congress has
the final say in how this provision is applied. One other thing that I wanted to note here is that they do not appear to have taken any stand or said anything about whether or not they believed that Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection or gave aid or comfort to an insurrection, And that was not actually even the focus of his team's argument in this case. They were
focused more on these technical legal questions. Does the President of the United States count as a quote officer of the United States, a whole or as an office holder of the United States, who does this responsibility fall to?
And I wanted to read a little.
Bit of the liberals who had the dissenting view that they agreed that Colorado went too far. They agreed that they did not have the power to enforce this particular piece of the Constitution, but they said they should have had a more limited ruling. They say, if it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of the case, than it is necess sari not to decide more. That's from actually the Dobbs decision. That fundamental principle of judicial
restraint is practically as old as our republic. This court is authorized to say what the law is only because those who apply a rule to particular cases much must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. That's Marbury versus Madison. Today the Court departs from that vital principle, deciding not just this case, but challenges that might arise in the future.
In this case, the Court must decide whether Colorado may keep a presidential candidate off the ballot on the ground that he is an oath breaking insurrectionist and thus disqualified from holding federal office under Section three of the Fourteenth Amendment allowing Colorado to do so, would we agree create a chaotic state by state patchwork at odds with our nation's federalism principles. That is enough to resolve this case.
Yet the majority goes further, and again they go on to point out this piece of their interpretation that the body that has the ability to enforce this provision is common That's the piece that they descend on, even as.
They agree over all, Yeah, it's actually interesting too. Trump's argument, as I'm understanding here from what they write, was to hold that the section three disqualifies quote every oath breaking insurrectionist, except, as they write, the most powerful one, because he was arguing that the president was not in effect a quote unquote office holder of.
The United States.
He says, actually, though both of these results are inconsistent both Colorado and President Trump's argument about the highest office in the land. Thus, they then use the contextual point to Congress and say, both of the Trump argument and Colorado argument are inconsistent with the historical basis of section three of the fourteenth Amendment, and thus they're establishing this new standard for how this is going to work in
the first place. So I know, it's kind of complicated Lee Lee's and all that, then that effect is obvious. It's Colorado loss, Maine and all these other states are
not allowed to do this. I guess it invites an interesting question because one of the things that we had talked to here before is if they had ruled in the way that the liberals had wanted to them, then this would have been a different question post the conviction if it were to happen of January sixth on that case, because there's going to be a big argument there on
a legal standard about free speech. But Supreme Court now making it so that even if any of that were to occur, Congress itself, by two thirds of have to pass a law being like, yeah, that qualifies as an explicit event under X, Y and Z, and that's how
we are able to remove somebody from the ballot. So this is one setting a pretty high standard effectively politically impossible today, but you know, who knows what it would look like in the future that we as a Congress and of people are the only ones who will be able to establish some sort of law where states could act in this manner.
After biden Mania sweeps the nation and They've got a seventy seat majority in the Senate and a majority, and I think they can pass this law and deeming that Donald Trump is an insuractionist, just to underscore or give an example there. So if they had ruled in the more limited way that the liberal justices wanted them to and basically lived unresolved, Okay, they're saying Colorado can't do this, but we're not going to really say what the process
would be that would meet our standards. Then if you had someone like Trump who was actually found guilty of insurrection through the criminal system, then you could have an argument again of like, okay, well, now does this supply the Supreme Court? First of all, Donald Trump has not been charged with insurrection. I just want to be clear about this is and I'm just talking in hypotheticals here, but the Supreme Court has closed that door and said no, no,
this has to be explicitly done through congressional legislation. But as I said, not making any sort of determination of whether or not in their view, donald Trump did insight or aid a bet, whatever the language, is an insurrection.
So that's where we are.
Just a reminder to you, there's still quite a few cases for Trump before the Supreme Court. We still have the immunity case where we heard some of the arguments around there that wasn't really expected today. This one, believe had to have an expedited opinion in order to resolve this before the election.
And there may even be some more that come to the court.
So all of that will affect the overall trial date for the eventual January sixth trial. So stay tuned. This is not the first breaking news segment that we're likely to do on the subject. We'll see you guys later. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal.
Indeed, we do jam packed show this morning. So we got a lot of breaking news here with regards to Israel. Kamala Harris meeting with Israeli Security Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz. This is over the objections of bb Net Yahoo, which is interesting and this comes of course as the US is dropping the teeniest, tiniest, most measly bit of aid on in Gaza in what is honestly a humiliating situation for the United States of Americas.
Will break all of that down for you.
We have more really bad polls for Joe Biden, both from the Wall Street Journal and from the New York Times. I feel like we say this every week, but I also feel like every week things just keep getting.
For him, getty more data.
The picture keeps becoming more clear, and we also have some specific numbers about just how unhappy the Democratic base is with his policy visa the Israel. Also, speaking of that Super Tuesday is tomorrow, will tell you what to expect, what states are set to vote, and also how you can register a protest vote if you live.
In one of those states.
One of Biden's favorite CNN anchors is roasting him also for his Israel policy. New York Times is in absolute chaos. As we have been tracking here. They're now being accused by the Union of racially profiling in a leak investigation that has to do with that supposed expose on sexual assault being weaponized by Hamas. On October seventh, the reporter who has been breaking a lot of these stories from the Intercept is going to join us to break all.
Of that down for you.
We also have a lot of answers now about that flower massacre that we covered last week. I'm going to break that down in my monologue and Sager's taking look at Elon's AI lawsuit, which has huge implications, and for once I am actually on team Elon on this one.
Yeah, I think I will convert everyone too pro Elon at least of this topic, this particular instance, on this very particular one.
In the meantime, let's go and put this up there on the screen. We have got a live stream that is coming for everybody on March seventh for the State of the Union. We will have an exclusive premium only live stream after the State of the Union where you guys get to ask questions live and the four of us will answer from here at the desk.
So we'll have the Counterpoints crew with us.
We'll preview, we'll lead into it, we'll watch it all live together, and then we will react on the other side before we go into premium content. So if you want to participate in that, Breakingpoints dot com to become a premium subscriber today.
All right, So let's go ahead and get to the very latest with regards to Israel. Kamala Harris making some news yesterday. This's got a lot of attention. We'll talk about whether or not it should have gotten a lot of attention on the other side. But at Edmund Pettis Bridge commemorating historic civil rights event, she called for a temporary ceasefire and use some more I guess, strenuous language with regards to Israel's assault on Goazia.
Let's take a look and what she had to say.
And given.
The immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire or at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table. This will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in. This would allow us to build something more enduring, to ensure Israel is secure and to respect the right of the Palestinian people to dignity, freedom and self determination.
So she says immediate ceasefire there, but what she's really talking about is just the same temporary ceasefire that they've been pushing for, which you know is unlikely to happen because Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire. So it was weird to meet Zagera because people were like making a deal on a gest yes, but.
She's just actually backing the.
Same I immediately pack on the.
Biden administration policy for a while now.
Right, So I saw all like everything, everyone and people They're like, oh my gosh, Kamala breaks with Biden.
And I was like, well, did you listen?
Because it says to build an enduring thing that leads to a release of hostages. I'm like, this is the current framework that has been put forth by the Biden administration, by the Egyptians, by the Qataris, by the Israelis and Hamas. Now let's be clear in terms of quote unquote agreement. The Biden administration claims that the Israelis have agreed to it quote unquote in principle, there has been no vote in the Israeli War Cabinet or acceptance by those cabinet officials.
We have yet to hear word from hamasas to whether they would.
Agree on it.
As I understand the crystal, A lot of it comes down to they want an itemized list of the state of the hostages, which I'm not exactly sure that's what they claim. I'm not exactly sure what hamasas pushback is. As you said, they want a permanency spire. There could be a lot of posturing going on. We don't exactly know for sure. But for some reason this was interpreted as a departure in policy when sure, I mean, you
can use rhetoric all you want. Yeah, it doesn't change anything at all in terms of where the ground is.
The very most you can say is that the rhetoric was a little different here for her to talk about the immense scale of the suffering of Palestinians.
That is a shift in tone.
Yeah, that's fair, And I do think that that shift in tone, as basically meaningless as it ends up being, is a direct result of the protest vote in Michigan. The immense amount of polling at this point that shows that the Biden administration has a huge problem, in particular with the base of their own party, and that it extends way beyond just Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, basically
extends throughout the entire Democratic base. We're going to give you some polls in the next segment that back that up. But Sager, you know what I have really read into this along with let's put this next piece up on the screen. Kamala Harrison also meeting with Benny Gantz, he as a member of the Israeli security Cabinet in DC today they're going to talk about this temporary cease fire. They're supposed to talk about humanitarian aid and variety of
other things. Noteworthy that Gans is seen as a potential opponent of BB Netanyaho, potential replacement. His approval rating much higher than net Nyaho. You know, he's sort of framed as a moderate. He's really not. This is a former IDF chief of staff. This is also a very hawkish guy.
But the fact that he came here in that the US invited him here over the objections of Netnyahu, who did not approve this trip, which, by the way, you know, by Israeli law, you're supposed to have the approval Prime Minister. This is sort of seen as a you know, a slap in the face of BB, or a strong.
Signal to BB or whatever.
Again, it ends up being pretty meaningless because they're not actually changing the policy.
But they have shifted.
From just out and out we're defending Israel, We're defending everything they're doing, to trying to gaslight you into believing that, oh, we're doing everything we can and we really do want to cease fire, which is you know, these people they are obstinate. Can't we can't convince them. We can't persuade them, And for the millionth time, you have a million tools at your disposal if you actually wanted to use leverage to compel them to take a different course, but you remain unwilling to.
Use those tools.
So this is basically, you know, a different variety of all of those reports we're getting, you know, those leaked reports, always having tough conversations behind the scenes with Bbie. This
is just basically the new phase. At this point, you can't really defend Israel the writings on the wall with regard to the Democratic base, so they have to shift postures and pretend like they're working really hard to change the outcome on the ground, even though the reality is very clear that the policy is the exact same of unconditional support and not using any leverage to try to change behavior.
I read it as Biden can't meet with GANS because he's not ahead of state, so they had to send the number two. I also saw Ganz confirm that he'll be meeting with the National Security Advisor Sullivan. But I also see it similarly in terms of they think they have a bb problem as opposed to I mean, if we look at GANS I mean, this is when one of the people who has been the most vociferous and arguing for war with Lebanon and for the continuation and the expansion of the war.
It's not just to Bbe's benefit.
Right, There are some important domestic political differences between Gans and Nets and Yahu that matter in an Israeli context, but for our purposes, they're basically.
United on the warfront.
So in that then what we have to understand is what I think is happening is that they're trying to reframe it away from bib to try and send a signal that the US subtly supports Benny Gantz, where the policy though would not change. And you know, there's no look, as people you and I who have now followed this basically day in and day out, there is no substantive daylight at all really between these two men on the
way that the war should be prosecuted. Furthermore, in terms of whatever some sort of future coalition would look like, there is no coalition in the future where Gance would be able to arise that does not also include many of the people who support Bebe right now. So it's
not like a whole lot of things would change. I do think that there has been obviously some adjustment post Michigan and then attention for Super Tuesday and some of the fallout, which we will discuss, but substantively I don't see a single change right now in the policy.
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. Now.
I mean the Biden administration both with the policy they announced these you know, the sanctions of these four violent settlers, and with their focus on the problems of Bibi net Yahoo or Ben Gevier or Smochrit specifically, they want to pretend like this is an issue of like a few bad apples versus, you know, a whole of government and the fact that all of Israeli society is basically behind the way this war has been prosecuted, with the exception
of the coalition behind the hostage families who want a deal in order to secure the release of the hostages. I also want to say another thing about that potential hostage deal that has been driving me crazy, the framing in the Western press and coming also from the Biden administration. Kamala Harris, you even heard it a little bit there in the comments she played, is that if the deal fails,
it's because Hamas is just being unreasonable. Well, I just want to be clear what Hamas is saying is effectively not that they're like good actors. I'm not saying that or anything, guys, but just so we understand their position. They see that Natanyahu has said, listen, even if we secure this deal, afterwards, we're going into Rafa, where one point three million Palestinians have been pushed and are sheltering
in absolutely, already dire and dangerous conditions. Okay, so they're saying, no, we don't want just a temporary pause in the genocide, we want it to stop completely, especially since this is hanging over all of the heads of the Palestinian civilians there in Rafa. So you know, to frame this is just like, oh, it's just the Palestinian side that's being unreasonable, I think is disingenuous, and negotiation requires both sides to you.
Know, come to the table.
And at this point it should be incredibly clear, and it would be consistent with what not only the Democratic base, but the overwhelming majority of Americans want to push for a permanent cease fire.
Gaza is already all but destroyed.
I mean the level of hunger starvation which we're about to get to is just horrifying. The medical system has completely broken down. Every civilian target you can imagine has been targeted and destroyed.
Northern Gaza is like completely destroyed.
There's nothing to go back to there, so the annihilation is virtually complete, and I guess they want to finish off the job in Rafin. That is effectively what the Palestinian side is objecting to with regard to that immense scale of suffering. The Biden administration has responded by dropping air dropping the teeniest, tiniest bit of aid that you can imagine. Go ahead and show these images. You can see sins some as many people online called it like
hunger games ass humanitarian aid drop. Here you can see Palestinians running to the ocean to try to secure some food for their families.
Which are you know, as we've reported.
Babies now officially dying of starvation. Some of the images that are coming out of people who are children whose bodies are wasted is horrifying.
There isn't a person in.
The Gaza strip who has sufficient food at this point. The amount of aid trucks that have been allowed in by Israel has plummeted precipitously even after that ICJ ruling, those aid truck deliveries are down by forty percent. And honestly, Sagar the fact that the US has to resort to this, which it's thirty eight thousand meals, which is enough for one meal for two percent of the population, just so
we understand the math here. Now, this is an attempt for them to solve their conscience, but it's also such a humiliation, Like we give Israel so much money, we give them total diplomatic cover at the UN, we backed them NonStop, and we can't even get our humanitarian aid trucks into.
The Gaza strip. We can't do that.
We have to you know, drop things in, you know, just this pitodly amount. It's absolutely embarrassing that this is what they have come to. But because they're not willing to use any sort of aid or leverage, this is where we are.
No, I'm actually furious about it because number one, let's put this up there on the screen, as you can see up in front of you. Dropping aid from planes quote is expensive and inefficient.
Why do it?
Well, really, what they arrive at, and this again is why I'm furious, is that we are eating the cost here with the Royal Jordanians probably cost well into the millions of dollars to try and do something like this. It's incredibly inefficient, it's super expensive, and the solution is actually quite obvious.
Just let the trucks that are already.
Prepaid into the damn gaza strip, which are the ones which carry all.
Of the food.
But they won't do it, and then apparently we won't even ask them to do it, or we won't or I guess we've asked them and they said no. So it's like, well, this is what we're resorting to. What does exactly does this mean? What's a precedent?
Are we going to now unilaterally air drop all of this?
I mean, in my opinion, Israel should be paying for literally one hundred percent of all this. They're going to ones who create the entire situation, or we can bill them and you can take it out of the aid that we've been providing them by. It would be totally fine with something like that, But this is a humiliation
in terms of we have to resort to these. I mean, it's not even really fair to call it half ass, like you know what two percent to measure an ass to try and do something like this when the solution is just staring us right in the face, and you know, we all know what this is. It's basically a pr At this point, I actually think it's I actually don't think I think it's moral to be honest, because you're almost giving people hope that something like this will continue.
I mean, think about any billions and billions.
And trillions of dollars like it would cost if you want an amount to be able to supply the entire place the strip by eight. It's not gonna happen. And I don't think it should happen on Opera. I think they're the ones that should do it.
I mean, it's just like, it's just very obvious that the actual answer is a cease fire, not a six week and then you can get back to murdering civilians en mass a ceasefire and a massive influx of humanitarian age. Remember the Gaza Strip because of the long standing is really blockade has been dependent on aid far before October seventh, and now they're getting many fewer trucks in than they were before, and obviously their capability to produce their own
food is completely ravaged. Bakeries have been destroyed, Obviously there's.
No imports coming in.
Farmland has been raised and destroyed, orchards have been destroyed, and there's no ability of Palestinians to move even within the Gaza strip without completely risking their lives. So it is a dire and desperate situation. The answer is very clear, which is a ceasefire and a massive surge of humanitarian aid. This does literally nothing except maybe like Joe Biden can sleep a little better at night because he feels like
he did something. It is a total pr move and it fits again with the Kamala Harris comments, you know, a little more vociferous language with her meeting with Benny Gantz, and then you add this humanitarian aid drop. They are trying to change their image with regards to this conflict. They're not trying to change the policy, but they're trying. They think they have an image problem, and this is part of what came out to Saber after the uncommitted
vote in Michigan last week. You saw a bunch of like Democratic flag types being like, oh, well, you know, they need to change the way they're being perceived on this issue. No, you need to change the policy, and then the perception will change along with it.
But they're trying to trick people.
And I'm seeing also, like all of their shills on Twitter and whatever also trying to say, don't you understand Joe Biden's working day and night to try to secure a ceasefire. So they're trying to change the messaging here without actually trying to change the policy, and these aid drops are just, you know, a pr stunt in an attempt to try to change that image. John Kirby was asked, you know, a very good question about, hey, why are
we helping Israel star Palestinians effectively? And you'll see his response basically, but Hamas, it's all there followed, et cetera, et cetera. Israel bears no responsibility ever for any of their actions in the Gaza strip because of October seventh, apparently. And then we've also got in there Joe Biden, you know, inspiring portrait of leadership, mixing up Israel and Ukraine multiple times as he announces this ad drop policy.
Let's take a listen to that.
Israel self has tried to help with the delivery of humanitarian assistants. As I said, they tried air drops themselves just a week or so ago on their own accord, we still start.
We it's a war.
Zone and they and there's nowhere else for them to go. It's not like in some other conflicts where they can they.
Can easily flee.
And and let's not forget how this started. Okay, there'd be no need for air drops if AMAS hadn't chosen to break what was a ceasefire in place on the sixth of October. So let's not forget how this started. If you haven't done it, I encourage you to go online and read the twenty seventeen manifesto with Hamas. I know you're smiling, but you should do it because if you don't have any wait, let me finish. Let me finish.
This is an organization that has military capabilities and has every intent of wiping Israel and the Israeli people off the map. That has to be unacceptable to everybody. Mister Sinwar chose to start this war. There was a ceasfire in place, he broke it.
Do you think that the Israelis were defending themselves legitimately when they killed?
There had been.
Too many people killed over the course of this conflict. The President has said that himself.
In the coming days, we're going to join with our friends in Jordan and other some Friday air drops of additional food and supplies in the Ukraine and seek to continue open up whether I avn'ts this into the Ukraine, including possibility of a marine card, sol were large amounts of humanitarian assistance.
So just to be really clear, I mean, this logic is so bankrupt it's unbelievable. Basically, you could defend literally anything being done by Israel and the Gaza strip based on this logic of welhamas started it, which you know, we'll leave aside the many decades that preceded October seventh, but one atrocity which was committed on October seventh, Without a doubt, those atrocities do not deserve, or do not merit, or do not justify additional atrocities committed by Israel. But
you know, this is the continued line. And then when they're asked about specific horrors perpetrated by the Israeli forces, it's this very sanitized, very generic, Oh, too many civilians have been killed. Well, but you won't condemn those killings, you won't change your policy to try to thwart those killings.
You just allow this to go on and on and on.
Under this logic, we could have knew Afghanistan. It's like, okay, is that.
Should have started it?
I agree?
I mean that's one of the And remember, look, there was a probably would have been at least some little support, you know here in the US. It's not like that was a non existent rhetorical position in the aftermath after nine to eleven.
What would most.
People have said, like, yeah, that's probably too far right, Because that's what it all comes down to. It's like, well, do we want to actually solve the problem what exactly is the future and all of that going?
Hold? Can we put a seven up there on the screen please?
Because this really comes back to something that we highlighted actually from the very beginning of the war, is that the way that you're conducting the war, you were making it nearly impossible for what the future is going to look like where it is controlled in any way and doesn't explode into further violence. They say, lack of plan
for governing Gaza form of the backdrop to deadly convoy chaos. Look, ignore the passive language and all of that that is in front of you, but the crux of the point is actually correct, which is that at the end of the day, whenever you have no legitimate partner that is on the ground and you're wiping out all of the infrastructure, and you were conducting the war in such a way that the civilian populace is totally against you, and the only there is no legitimate governing authority, and you are
going to fire on people whenever they're swarming a bunch of food. You are setting the conditions for exactly the same course that happened in Mogadishu in Somalia after the outbreak of the civil war, and don't forget that has not to this day still been resolved more than thirty some years later. They are basically creating that for in that territory without any plan, and without a plan that is legitimate in the eyes of the people under which
the war is being conducted. On top of that will probably cover this tomorrow, you're actually continuing settlement policy and having a government that has directly opposed to any legitimate governing authority, meaning you really only have two options, which is, you know, hunger games Somalia or you know, you take security responsibility and they kind of want to have some sort of middle ground, but the net result is terrible because it will increase terrorism, but most importantly, it will
increase starvation and very likely absolute mass disaster, you know, for I think maybe many decades to come.
I mean I object to the framing that there's no plan because I think we're watching the plan unfold. I think Nan Yahoo has intentionally kept the plan quote unquote vague, maybe right, so that he can sort of play both sides. But we can see in the actions what the plan is. The only question is whether they will be able to
fully accomplish that. I mean, the initial plan is complete annihilation, and then you force the hand of the international community of like, well, there's nowhere for them to go back to, and there's no one who can run this area. What are we going to do? I guess we just have to resettle. I mean they even announced that they were going to keep security control quote unquote of the Gaza strip,
that they were going to create a buffer zone. Those are two things that the US supposedly objected to, but that plan was released with no real objections from the United States of America. So, you know, in pushing the population all the way to Rafa, where they're pressed up against the Egyptian border in destroying the entirety of the
Gaza strip. I think we see the plan unfolding, even as they keep it a little bit vag so that the US doesn't have to completely confront the reality of what they have planned, which in theory at least we would potentially maybe object to.
One more piece that I thought.
Was noteworthy with regard to the aid drop of the thirty eight thousand meals, this pitiy amount, and the circumstances under which we ended up doing that. This is a former ambassador put this up on the screen, former Ambassador to Algeria and also former Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford. He says, I've seen Israel humiliate previous US administrations, but aside from murderous nineteen sixty seven, is really air striking
against the US Navy ship Liberty. Now forcing USA to do air drops of aid to Gazas if USA is no better than Egypt and Jordan, is Israel's worst humiliation of USA I've ever seen. I should add the USA will do humanitarian aid air drops to Gazin's if the Israeli Air Force graciously agrees not to shoot down the American planes over Gaza. And he goes on to clarify too, because someone asked him, what do you better than Egypt
and Jordan. He's just saying, you know, with regard to our position, amount of aid that we fund, you would think that we would have a lot more say over the situation, but we don't, and so we're reduced to this pathetic pr stunt situation.
Yeah, Robert Ford is a very very credible individual.
I would definitely look he's somebody that we should be listening to on this situation.
Yes, indeed, all right, let's talk about the polls.
Crystal mentioned at the top of the show. Every week we've got news that's terrible for Joe Biden. But listen, we're not the ones that create the news. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. What have we got from a brand new New York Times SIENA poll says, if the twenty twenty four election were held today, who would you vote for if the candidates were Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Donald Trump at forty eight percent, Joe Biden forty three percent, Ten percent say they don't
know and or refused to answer. But the next one really delves into so many of the problems that Biden faces with various different groups. If we can please show that to everybody. So here's what we've got. You know, Trump has a plus four lead amongst men, Trump has a plus seven lead. This one actually takes skill. Amongst women, Trump has plus one lead. That's never happened before, But Donald Trump was on the ballot. Amongst whites, Trump plus eleven.
Amongst Hispanics, Trump plus two. Amongst blacks, it says Biden plus fifty one. However, Crystal, you know that you know could be deceiving because you're actually supposed to be leading by seventy Amongst Black Americans, You're not supposed to be leading by fifty.
I've talked to here before.
If just ten percent of the black vote goes differently, then Republicans would win some three hundred.
And something votes in the electoral college.
Now, amongst rural voters, Trump plus thirty two, suburban Biden plus three.
That's a bad number.
You actually should be winning that by much more urban voters Biden plus twenty eight. So basically, amongst every demographic subgroup, Biden is underwater. Where's either underwater or not leading by the margins that he needs to amongst very critical parts of the Democratic coalition.
And this isn't just a single poll that we have here.
The Wall Street Journal basically can for me these results the same day if we can go to the next one there please and we can show everyone here. Even in a five way race where you've got everybody from RFK Junior to Cornell Weston Jill Stein on the ballot, Trump is at forty percent, Biden is at thirty five.
So it's becoming clear here that well, Trump will lose some support, but from the third party candidates RFK Junior getting nine percent, Cornell Weston two, and Jill Stein at one, a lot of that support crystal is bled from Joe Biden at least enough to continue the Trump lead in a general.
Election that would include all of them there.
And then not to mention, you know, everyone's like, well, RFK, whether you get the ballot or not, Well, he's already on Arizona and Georgia, or at least he has enough ballots to get on Arizona and Georgia. That could be enough, honestly to swing the entire thing.
That's it. You only need a couple percent.
It is important to note. I'm sure he's going to face all kinds of lasses, so there's no guarantees that he'll be on the ballots and even those states, but there's no doubt that he's a problem for Joe Biden. Jill Stein is likely to be on the ballot in basically every state. That's a problem for Joe Biden, even if you're talking about one or two percent difference. But I mean without them, he's losing easily without them, and historically now things may be different, now we don't know,
but usually Trump support is actually understated. So we've never been in a situation, either with Hillary Clinton or with Joe Biden, where the Democratic candidate was behind Trump. And consistently, this isn't just like one poll that's an outlier. It's poll after poll after poll that shows Donald Trump beating
Joe Biden. If you dig into more of the numbers on that New York Times Siena Pole, what comes out is a trend that we've been tracking for a long time, which is so called class de alignment, where historically you have non wide in particular working class voters going overwhelmingly for Democrats, and that's not the case any longer in this poll, and that's the place where Joe Biden seems
to be bleeding the most support. So they say in this write up of the New York Times poll that mister Biden won seventy two percent of non white, non college voters in twenty twenty, providing him with a nearly fifty point edge over Trump. Now that edge is down to just six points, forty seven percent to forty one percent.
So what was a fifty point edge for.
Joe Biden and the Democrats among non college, non white voters is now down to a six percent edge. To be honest with you, Sager, looking at the numbers among these different demographic groups, I'm like, how is he even as close to Trump as he is? That you are losing women.
To Donald Trump?
That's crazy.
The modern era of politics has been defined by a huge gender gap, with women going significantly towards Democrats and men going towards Republicans, not so accordining to this poll. Now, again, it's not an outlier. Okay, Now maybe some of these demographic groups you could say, Okay, well, maybe it's a small sample size. Other polls showed different a different picture with regard to these demographic groups, but especially with regard
to non white, non college voters. This is a trend we've been tracking for a long time, and it spells doom for Joe Biden and the Democrats. If this is what things actually look like on election Day.
Yeah, so what we could see very clearly is flashing warning signs across the entire electorate. Also, I feel like we've glossed over Hispanics. Trump plus two amongst Hispantics.
Anybody want to tell me? I mean, this is the group where George W.
Bush was considered the most successful Republican amongst Hispanics because he won forty percent of the vote of the Hispanic vote in the year two thousand. It had never topped really that roughly. Trump came within thirty some percent, including the South Texas like Laredo Swing, but for him to actually get now it seems fifty at the very least. What I have seen is that the vast majority of this number is likely Hispanic men, and this actually tracks
across all male groups, both black and Hispanic. Is that you're not only seeing class D alignment unfortunately, and I did a whole monologue on this, You're actually seeing a lot of gender de alignment as well, where a lot of men are starting to vote Republican or at least identifying more with the right, and then women identify more with the left. Now we're going to show you though, some of the cope. So here, let's put this up on the screen. We have Obama's former campaign manager, Jim Messina.
He says NYT chases headlines while ignoring what's happening. Trump consistently underperforms and Biden overperforms in primaries in New Hampshire, Trump seven points worst poll than a result in South Carolina minus eight, Michigan minus ten. Best predictor of elections equals howe voters vote, and they are voting for Dems and for Biden. Well, here's what he forgets, folks. Primary voters are not general election voters.
Number one.
Now, he's not wrong that it's not something to look at, but that is not in any way, as I understand at Crystal, primary voter turnout is not a good predictor at all of eventual general election. And in fact, the smart point that he would have made is not about this. It would be about all the slew of special elections in the midterms that we have because really that's the only thing saving them. Well, the only thing saving them is that the polls are totally wrong. In twenty twenty two,
every special election Democrats have overperformed and that's it. So just don't believe them. I mean, that's a tough sell, you know, given what we have here. But they have a point. We know, we'll be stupid not to they would be stupid to discount it. Yeah, but this this is ridiculous, you know, whatever this nonsense is.
Yeah, well, put the next one up on the screen. There's actually a response to him from another Obama era person, Jon Favreau here Podza Bro. He says, why is words from Dan Pfeiffer, another Podza bro. Instead of dismissing the polls, we should embrace the idea Trump can win this election and then use that frightening notion to re energize the anti Maga majority that delivered victories in eighteen, nineteen, twenty two,
twenty two, and twenty three. Telling people what they want to hear may be satisfying in the short term, but it rarely works out. So they're saying, like jiu jitsu, move use the fact that we're down in the polls actually as motivator. And you actually had on Morning Joe another one in one of Biden's favorite programs, apparently distressingly, you had Donnie Deutsch saying, basically, the way Democrats need to go about trying to win is by scaring the
hell out of people about Donald Trump effectively. And that's really the only thing they ever tried to do, right. They don't try to offer people anything, they don't try to really make an affirmative case. They are still banking on going back to that same old, same old playbook of yes, but Trump. So you may be pissed off about X and Y and Z, but Trump, so you got to stick with us, and you got to vote for us. And I mean, yeah, work for them in
twenty twenty two. It worked for them in twenty twenty well enough, but those margins have been very thin, and these polls, you cannot look at them and not think that they have a very, very big problem on their hands.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just so obvious whenever you see it.
And I think, I think think a lot of what flashes as well, Crystal is Biden's age is just such an intense like it is such an intense factor for so many voters, and it's one of those where the media and is forced to cover it every once in a while, whenever the Special Council is like, he didn't remember when his own son died in an interview.
And then he's like, well, how did that? Dare he bring that up?
And then they're like, well, according to the transcript, you brought it up, sir, and then you weren't able to remember it.
It's unfixable.
And so when you have an unfixable, glaring problem which everybody on earth, you know, can understand and empathize with the voter as to why they wouldn't want to vote for him, I mean, don't I look at that. I'm like, Jesus Man needs to go immediately. I can't imagine in there for another four years. But then you add on
all of the attendant chaos of Israel, the economy. I mean, there's you know, immigration, Like if we look at the issue by issue polling, immigration is his lowest approval rating, Gaza's number two actual, and then.
The economy number three.
Each of those are so highly determinative for the way that both independence and others who very rarely vote, who may not come out to vote, may find it to themselves they're simply unable to vote for you, and then age, I think, just pushes you over the edge. So there's major, major warning signs here, and especially if you're thing with
two with Trump. As we covered today or as we covered in our last show, Trump has now successfully pushed the vast majority of his trial dates either very close to the reduction date or possibly.
After the election day.
So the worst issue for him may actually not even come before people actually cast vote. So combine those two factors, things are looking good right now for Trump.
Let me also say one thing about immigration, because they had their dueling border visits last week, and Joe Biden was like, I call on Donald Trump to work with me on a bipartisan border security bill. And it's like, you're whole putting the morality of the side that you guys can go back and watch that Ris debate on immigration, and if you're hungry for that content at the moment, I don't have the energy. But your whole case is supposed to be that Trump is so awful that we
cannot have another four years of that. And core to that case from Democrats has always been about his basically fascism at the border. And now you're like, you know what, we're going to compete with him. We want to work with him on the fascism at the border, and you know, we also want to like keep the kids in cages. And we're just as horrible and cruel as the Republicans.
It's like, what kind of and they think this is some kind of an own Like, no, you have just accepted the entire Republican messaging around immigration, and so how are you supposed to you know, your whole tactic is like to scare people.
About Johnald Trump.
And I think there are some legitimate things, by the way, to be scared about about a second Trump term. But on one of the issues that he was the most extreme, the most aggressive about, you're going to just go ahead and accept his case and reach out a hand to work with him on implementing those policies. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. And so, you know, to me,
yet another political fail. And as you were just alluding to, Sager, the problems for the Democratic Party and for Joe Biden go so far beyond any one demographic group, and in fact, some of the biggest issues are with their own base, which we're going to show you in a minute, that they're apparently terrified of even setting foot on a freaking college campus because of Israel protests, which you know, you have a lot of not just young people, but a
lot of people who are saying, you know, morally, I just I think that this is a genocide, and morally, I just cannot pull the lever for someone who I believe is funding and supporting a genocide that's happening right now in front of my eyes on social media.
Well let's go to that part then, and the Wall Street Journal helpfully actually dug into some of this, So let's go ahead and put this up there please on the screen. What you can see there in front of you is that this is amongst the vast majority of voters. So it says, do you think Israel's actions in the Gaza strip in response to October seven have gone too far, not gone far enough, or been about right? Forty two percent say gone too far, so that's a plurality. Twenty
four percent say been about right? Not gone far enough is nineteen percent, and don't know and or refuse is fifteen percent. But a pretty clear you know, plurality there, which is saying that they said, gone too far. Let's go to the next slide please, because this is where you can actually see something very interesting too. It says, when you think about the war between Israel and Hamas, do you think that the US is doing too much, too little, or about the right amount to support the
Israeli people or in the Palestinian people. So amongst the amount of people who say who are asked that question about Israeli people, now thirty percent of the electorate is saying that actually the US is doing too much to support the Israeli people, twenty five percent say too little, thirty two percent say about the right amount, So a significant eight percent increase since December of twenty twenty three. Whenever you're asked or you're doing too much or too little.
Now when you flip it, you can see the exact same rise in the amount of people who now say that the US is doing too little to support the Palestinian people. Only twenty four percent say that they are doing too much, but thirty three percent say too little, twenty five percent say that they are doing about the right amount, And then the don't know number is roughly you know, seventeen fifteen percent or whatever across both demographics. I think when you combine those two things, you can
see a clear trend line. And furthermore, as we have covered here, if you see and just to the next.
One, just because I can show everyone.
Again is that Gaza is now is number two most unpopular issue, which is crazy whenever you consider it against inflation, economy and Ukraine.
Somehow forty six percent approval rating on Ukraine.
I would love to meet and to talk to those people, especially if you're into the Gaza thing.
You should watch someone.
It's actually one of the tiest of proofer ratings on any issue.
Please don't get me started on Yeah, the people who the people who consume are Gaza content should also con see words our content that said what we what we could show people here is that electorally, this is a major major problem and what you alluded to in particular on the campuses is one where it is actually significantly curtailing his ability to go out and to campaign. So we have a clip here just to show you what is facing you know, the Bidens as they crossed the country.
Jill Biden was actually at an event in Arizona, where she was interrupted by a ceasefire protester. Here's what happened. So that's what's awaiting Biden on college campuses. And Crystal, you flagged this report which you can put up there and you could react.
Is quote how.
Biden aids are trying to shield the president for protests where Democratic President Crystal is unable to go on college campuses.
Incredible.
So they say they're taking increasingly extraordinary steps to minimize disruptions from pro Palestinian protests at his events. They're making them smaller, they're withholding their precise locations, and they're avoiding college campuses altogether. A Democratic president cannot go to college campuses.
Think about that. What that means in terms of the.
Modern democratic base and coalition that they rely upon. They cannot set foot on college campuses in an at least one instance, considering hiring a private company to vet attendees. Now that specific report is with regard to this big fundraiser they have planned that's going to be Biden, Clinton, and Obama. It's on March twenty eighth in New York City.
Just for anyone who lives in New York City. By the way, expectations are that it's going to be at Radio City Music Hall, but they have not actually released that information for exactly this reason.
They've also upped the t ticket.
Price to try to price out any potential protesters, any potential riff raff that might come in with ideas about, you know, standing up and protesting. They say that a turning point in their thinking was Biden gave a speech in Virginia that was interrupted multiple times with protests. So they are so terrified of their own base that they basically can't campaign.
I mean, that's the reality of what.
They can't do big rallies, they can't do big events, they can't go to college campus as Kamwa Harris was supposed to do some big college campus tour that was postponed or canceled or whatever, because they're so fearful of having to actually face these people who have huge issues with their policy visa the Israel face to face. I also found this line sober in this report, just incredibly sad,
and I have to note it here. They say the moderator of that discussion with the three presidents is going to be late night host Stephen Colbert, whom the campaign sees as a low risk friendly choice, the people familiar with the planning set.
How do you agree to do that? Think somebody leaks that.
Think of how far that man has fallen. Yeah, remember the White House correspondent. I mean he handed George W. Bush his ass while he was sitting right there over the Iraq war. And now you're being hand picked because you're a low risk friendly choice.
That is so sad.
I cannot, as someone who used to love the Colbert rapport, that is like the saddest fall I can possibly imagine.
So that's where we are.
But I wanted to highlight one other thing from the polls, especially the polling we put up earlier from the Wall Street Journal about Israel. Basically, young people in the Democratic Coalition have won the argument in the Democratic Party about Israel. They found that there is no longer much of an age gap in the Democratic base with regards to how they view Israel and their conduct in the Gaza strip.
Some forty percent of Democrats under age forty said the US was doing too much to help the Israeli people, compared with thirty three percent of Democrats age forty and older, so a seven point difference. But back in December that gap was twenty four points. Maybe even more telling, among Democrats age forty and older, seventy one percent said Israel had gone too far in responding to Hamas. That is
identical to the share of Democrats under age forty. So you know, originally the Biden view was like, oh, none of this is going to matter. People going to get over a by election day. Then the view was, well, we're going to have to find some suburban women to overcome the Arab American opposition in the state of Michigan. Now that Kpe is like, well, it's just Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and young people, which is kind of large
part of your base. But it becomes really clear when you look at these numbers that the problem is way bigger than one demographic group. And that was reflected in the uncommitted vote, which yes, was strongest in Arab American areas and in college towns, but there was a significant uncommitted vote across the entire state of Michigan. So well,
they've got huge issues on their hands. And that's why, you know, to tie it back into what we were talking about with regards to the airdrops and Kamala Harris's comments, and her meeting with Benny Ganson whatever. That's why they are trying so aggressively to change their posture and their framing of this issue, even as again they are wholly unwilling to actually change the policy, which is clearly the thing that needs to happen in order to move any of these numbers.
Very likely and we will see some of those results on Super Tuesday. That's a good transition to the next part. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Super Tuesday is tomorrow, what is it? Who is voting? So we actually have a very useful map that we have right there in front of you. We've got Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and California.
And so of course California is the prize possession in that primary because they have the most amount of delegates. Texas is going to be number two there. This is where you know, between Trump and Biden, I think we all know who is going to win. So the real questions about what's going to happen underneath that is the strength of the Nikki Haley vote.
I did want to give everybody an update.
Crystal Nikki Haley did make history yesterday here in Washington, d C. She is the first GOP woman to ever win a contest with two thousand votes and sixty percent of the DC vote. Her campaign, with all seriousness, said that it showed that those who worked.
Closely with Trump in Washington, d C are the ones who rejected it.
That's hilarious.
Yeah, that's that's nick is.
Like two perfect.
I saw it.
I saw I saw a lot of Nikky signs on my driving to Washington this morning, and I just kept thinking, how in all good conscience can you think that this is in any way electorally beneficial to you. So the one contest which she will likely win in this entire thing is Washington, d C. Not her home state, you know, traditionally something you want to do when you're a politician.
So we're going to see what the Nikki in all this.
I'm really curious actually to watch it in the most populous states, places like Texas, places like California, not just in terms of the delegates that she's going to get, but that's a good test for what the national popular vote maybe, you know, whenever it comes to Trump, and in places where everybody assumes Trump is going to win weather and wise, people would want to cast an anti
Trump vote within the Republican Party. Let's I'm curious on that the second part is uncommitted, which you have flagged here. We actually have a very useful map that we can put here up on the screen.
This was how do we pronounce this, gentleman.
I've been saying at injermentum and go.
On momentum as we understand that he's an anonymous poster on Twitter.
But he's actually very good.
He is worth the follow He does very good job in terms of compiling polling results and maps and such things. This is from his substack. What you can see is actually in front of you are the various ways that uncommitted works. So in some of the states you can vote uncommitted, and some you can vote uncommitted, but are all writing votes are counted. Some you cannot vote uncommitted, but blank ballots are counted, and some you can't vote uncommitted.
You have only ride ins, but only right INDs that are qualified candidates count. And in some you can't vote uncommitted rite ins and are not provided. Some there are no primary, and some have already voted, so as you can see in front of you. If you are interested, you can just take a screenshot or something of this and see which state you're actually in. But yeah, I'm always reminded of how insane the sometimes the US electoral system is and various different states and how they run
certain things. I remember I was asking you on the phone. I was like, Hey, can I vote? I'm not sure if I'm registered in a party. You're like, oh, we don't do that here, And I'm.
Like, what, like, what crazy states some of those states?
Yeah, I mean it's good, you know, in prison. I don't know, it's just like I do.
I'm kind of in favor of having some like more federal standardization of whatever.
We'll save that for another day.
Actually, put that map just back upon the scare. I want to flag a couple of states here to keep an eye on. Unfortunately, our state of Virginia saga. You cannot vote uncommittee, uncommitted. They do have right ins, but they only count right ins for quote unquote qualified candidates, which is such a bullshit.
How does that work?
Right?
It's not so obnoxious, but you have, among other super Tuesday states. You know, a lot of eyes are going to be on Minnesota, which has a significant Muslim population and where there has been some organizing with regard to uncommitted, and you can vote uncommitted in the state of Michigan.
Of Minnesota.
The other state, uh that kind of jumped down at me is Colorado, which obviously has you know, significant young a lot of college towns, activist space. That's another place where you can vote uncommitted, So that is noteworthy as well. Vermont is another one I would pay attention to, you know, being a great hippie state that I love. You cannot vote uncommitted, but all write in votes are counted, so there may be some sort of a write in effort there.
I could see something like I never would have expected. Also highlighted actually by an injurormentum this morning, which is one of the Indivisible chapters in Colorado, is backing the uncommitted vote. And if I don't know, if you guys know anything about indivisible.
I don't know what it is.
It's like the.
Most like lib Trump era resistance.
Organization move on to UK sort of like that.
Yeah, And so for them to be backing uncommitted was kind of noteworthy. It's gone very like lib mainstream for them to be backing, which I thought was interesting.
Got it well across the pond. Our friends in the UK also had an interesting election. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. George Galloway, who some of you may know as longtime anti war activist, is going to be back in Parliament after basically running a campaign for his seat all on Gaza and on protests
of Rishi Sunak's policy of supporting Israel. So he will be taking his common seat for the Workers Party of Britain after pulling some twelve three and thirty five votes, more than six thousand votes than any other candidate in the race, so that's pretty extraordinary. He was previously a Labor MP up until two thousand and three as an independent, then for kids situations between two thousand and three and
twenty fifteen. But he really has made a name for himself both there and you know even here in various US Western programs as being a very consistent force against.
Iraq war, the US and Britaish involvement.
And now against Western policy in Israel, so into Ukraine. On Ukraine as well, it's an important signal. I mean you should remember too. You know, across the pond things work very differently. Europeans have always their governments may be sporting Israel right now, but their populations have been way
more israel skeptic. And I'm not just talking about the Islamic population in Europe, like the overall Western European population has been far more skeptical of the Israeli government, specifically on bds and on settlements for decades, longer than any even nascent left movement here in the United States. We have a fascinating interview with mister Galloway actually on Sky News, where he really gave it back to his interviewer.
Let's take a listen.
The Prime Minister is saying, God, we're talking about little Rishi Sunak in the fag end of his prime ministership. Don't talk to me as if he's come down from the mount with tablets of stone. The things that he says are somehow meant to oh me. They may owe you, they don't owe me.
A lot of people have just watched what the Prime Minister said. This is your opportunity to respond to what he said. Well, he says that there are forces here at home trying to tear us apart. He is implying youre a divisive figure.
You have run an.
Election campaign that has tried to appeal particularly and not entirely to one section of the.
Community on the election. Me or Rishi, I've got the democratic mandate here, not Rischia. He didn't even come second. He was lucky to come third. So don't put to me statements made by Rushi Suna, because if I'm supposed to be impressed by them, you don't impress me much.
We Itt Skuy has spent some time today on the streets of Rochdale and there are people who say that they feel intimidated by people like you and the people that have supported you. You have and they have pointed out that you have concentrated your campaign on foreign affairs and they worry that Rochdale will not be the wind Act.
That's my answer to you. I was just elected with a thumping majority by the electorate in Rochdale. That's all that matters to me.
Yeah, he's right, and you know, like I said, he won forty of the vote. As he pointed to the Conservative Party, only one twelve percent of the vote. Yeah, but yeah, he's like I love a good British shitster politician. There's just nothing better than So I'm going to enjoy seeing him in the House of Sorry, in the House of Comments.
Yeah he will. He will definitely make a name it.
Yeah.
Just to give a little bit of background on this election, and to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know who this person was before this moment of looked at policies, will just call them very heterodox. But he ran this. I mean, what's significant about this campaign is he really did lean into Israel Gaza and also that this seat that he's won isn't you know the largest Muslim area
that you know is that is in this region. So they have about thirty percent Muslim population in Rochdale, so significant, but it's far from a majority.
The other thing that.
Is noteworthy here the labor candidate, and this is an area that usually goes for labor. The labor candidate was forced to drop out because of some what I would say were genuinely anti Semitic comments, and so he was forced down and so you had kind.
Of this like vacuum situation.
But the reason I thought it was noteworthy is both
because this guy is obviously quite a character. In that interview was hilarious and I love how they're freaking out about, you know, the workings of democracy where he got more votes than Labor and the two worries combined, by the way, But the other thing is, yeah, it is a signal of not that these things are all parallel, but it is a signal of how much electoral power, how much care and concern there is for this issue, and a lot of times, you know, some of the politics here
are reflective of what is going on in the UK. So that's part of why I thought it was noteworthy, especially going into Super Tuesday with the possibility of more uncommitted votes. I think politicians who have underestimated the amount of emotion and concern about these policies of unconditional support, I think that they have you know, made obviously they've made a moral mistake, but in terms of their own political prospects, I also think they have made a dire mistake.
And it's very clear with regards to the poll of the Democratic base they do not agree with Joe Biden on his unconditional support of Israel, and I don't think his little pr aid drop or sending Kamala out to say the words cease fire, even as what they're really talking about is what they used to be calling a quote unquote humanitarian pause.
I don't think that's going to fix the problem for them.
Yeah, well, we'll watch with great interests.
Oh I should have said this on Counterpoints Wednesday morning. We will both be on the show to break down Super Tuesday results, especially because California is going to be such an impactful part of it, and the polls don't close there until most of our viewership here on the East Coast, including us, will have want gone to bed, So we will break it down for you early Eastern time.
That way will be breaking for you, right whenever you wake up with bright and shiny in the morning with those results, we're.
Early to bed people.
Yeah, guys, sorry, we will stay a plate within reason.
Okay, California is not reasonable, by the way, daylight savings time is soon, so expector rant coming to you very quickly.
Let's go to the media park.
Yes, absolutely so.
I wanted to highlight for you guys a really significant monologue from CNN's for reied Zakaria. Part of why this is noteworthy Is because remember that previous report had come out listing who Joe Biden's favorite like news personalities were. One of them was Forreied Zakaria, and he breaks him across the coals for his Israel policy.
Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
When Hamas launched its gruesome terror attack on Israel on October seventh of last year, President Biden made a decision based on conviction and calculation. He announced his complete solidarity with the country. Biden must have calculated that the only way to have any influence on Israel would be to hug it close, show real empathy, sended the arms it needed, and thus earn Israel's trust to shape its response. It was a thought through strategy, but it has failed almost completely.
From the start, the administration urged the Israelis to consider proportionality in their response to Hamas. Israel heard it and went ahead with one of the most extensive bombing campaigns in this century against a population of about two point two million people that, by Israel's own estimates, contained about thirty thousand Hamas. Means, by one January estimate, more than half of buildings across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.
The administration counciled Israel against a large ground invasion of Gaza, advising it to take a narrower targeted approach aimed at eliminating Hamas, militants, and infrastructure. The Israeli government had lots of long meetings with US officials and then again went ahead with the ground invasion. The Biden team urged a humanitarian pause, but only got a brief one when it was able to get the government of Kata to broker
a hostage exchange. After initial operations wound up. American officials told Israeli officials that what was done in the north of Gaza could not be done to the south. Yet, after telling people to move to the south to get out of harm's way, Israel then proceeded to bomb the south in a manner that President Biden himself admitted is indiscriminate. The US has repeatedly pressured Israel to make greater efforts
to protect innocent civilians, but to little avail. Now it has been counseling against an invasion of Raffa, the city nestled close to Egypt, where over a million Palestinians have huddled together. Prime Minister Benjamin Natania, who has promised to invade Rafa whether another hostage deal is made or not. Washington has warned that after the war there should be no Israeli seizure of land in Gaza and no new Israeli occupation of the territory. The Israeli government's plans are
to do both. The result is that American policy on the Gaza War now appears hapless, ineffective, and immoral.
So he says that the Biden policy on the Gaza War has been hapless, ineffective and immoral. Sager, I don't have to tell you how unusual it is to hear those sorts of things on CNN, which we're going to cover, the level of propaganda on CNN, and the amount of internal pushback and upset about the double standards with regard
to Israel and the Palestinians. But the fact that one of Biden's favorite commentators took such an aggressive approach, and I think lays out pretty aptly looking back over the course of this war, how when we meekly ask for something at every turn, Israel has been like, no, screw you. He puts it all in context pretty well.
One of the things I hate about Biden is that he doesn't have a coherent worldview. He kind of just trusts his instincts, and he's very obstinate regardless of what he chooses. Sometimes it works in my benefit, like Afghanistan on Ukraine, doesn't necessarily work to our benefit on Israel.
I think it's the same thing. One of the things.
Well, look, I disagree vehemently with the worldview of Fared Zakaria and of Thomas Friedman, but you have to hand it to them.
They are genuinely.
Consistent, like in terms of the way that they view the world, and so within their framework, which is probably most aligned with Biden, I think it is clearly noteworthy what they are saying. I couldn't help but think also of one of Biden's favorite calmness Thomas Friedman, and actually, we have this, we can put it up there on
the screen. He wrote it just a couple of days ago, on February twenty seventh, where he writes Israel is losing its greatest asset, which is acceptance, and he writes, quote, I do not think Israelis or the Biden administration fully appreciate the rage that is bubbling around the world, fueled by social media and TV footage over the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians with US supplied weapons in Israel's
war on Gaza. Hamas has much to answer for in triggering this human tragedy, but Israel and the US are seen as driving events now and getting most of the blame. That such anger is boiling over in the Arab world is obvious, but I heard it over and over again in conversations in India from the past week. That is even more telling because the Hindu dominated government of Prime Minister Modi is the only major power in the global
support that has even supported Israel and blamed Hamas. That many civilian debts in a relatively short war would be problematic in any context. The point though, that I think of what he is sharing showing within this is that it is not just the Arab world, where, to be fair, he did write the column from so that probably is
going to change a little bit of his outlook. More so, it's what I think I've brought this up in you as well, in the context of a lot of this is guys, regardless of whether you support the war or not, you know, rhetorically, Israel will not be the same as a nation in terms of its sovereign relations with others. I think that was a huge mistake because it's a tiny little strip of land that relies on global trade
to keep it afloat. You know, you can't have a high tech nation and tell of even startup and all that in the desert if you got nobody to sell it to, especially when you're in a country with what like the population of eleven million. It just doesn't work, especially also when you have to import a decent amount of labor from the people who now hate you even more to run, you know, to clean your toilets or whatever. I mean, this is all a very precarious situation that
they're already sitting on. And the point of his column, and I think of Farid as well, is to show that the international acceptance where people were like were unhappy with Israel, even in the Arab world.
But we're not idiots.
We could see the abraham A core as in normalization there is going in different directions.
Very selfish.
They've changed things completely, right, Things are more like the nineteen seventy three consensus today than ever you know since that time period, and that's a cute strategic catastrophe. That's something that Israel worked decades to try and get away from.
And I think this has made them a lot less safe, and also the US too by aligning ourselves with it, we always know how to pick them right and to make sure that people are aligned against us in a region too, where we were trying our best, at least allegedly to get out of because it wasn't all that strategically important to us, and which keep just getting pulled back in.
By our over and over again, by our mistakes.
Yeah.
So I think overall has been an absolute strategic disaster.
I mean, think about Biden has lost indivisible chapters, unbelievable, like the backbone of the lib resistance.
He's lost.
For Reed Zakaria, he's lost, Thomas Friedman lost. There was I don't know if you watched this interview that Bernie Sanders did with Alex Wagner, which I mean there were some issues there, but this is m thes NBC, you know, Primetime NBC and Alex Wagner saying this policy of shipping bombs and then dropping this pittle bit of aid is in it. You can't reconcile it. It's irreconcilable. Yeah, so the fact that you have you know that much like
across the board, mainstream liberal criticism is really something. And I do think that's why they're trying to what do they say, put lipstick on a pig. They are trying to change the image of their approach to this conflict. That's why they're sending out Kamala Harris to talk about the immense suffering of Palestinians and to call for this immediate cease fire. Of course it'll only be temper and then we'll get right back to the killing. But that's
why they're trying to change the image. And you know, for the once again, what really needs to change is the actual policy here, although you know it's it's not beyond people like Thomas Friedman to get tricked by just like the new packaging.
Put on the policy. So we'll see.
But you know, to your point about Israel, they are plus placing a huge bet and this is basically, you know, because both for ideological reasons, but also because he wants to keep this war going so he can you know, hopefully hang onto power by his fingertips. That's what his what his plan is. They're placing a huge bet that they can get away with a complete you know, modern day ethnic cleansing, colonization, annihilation that we're all watching in real time, and that they will be able to get
away with it. That's what they're betting on. We can all see the images. We can see what's happening. We can see the massacres, we can see the destruction. We can see the babies shriveled up, their bodies, wasted, dying literally of starvation. The horrible image of a child who has been you know, withered away and is fighting for his life right now, that has gone viral. These images of horror are everywhere, and they're hoping that with our backing,
they will be able to get away with it. That's the bet we'll see.
Yeah, I think that's well said Crystal.
And we have a good guest who's going to be joining us down to breakdown some of this media chaos.
Let's get to it.
So we have a bunch of media ground to cover, both regards with regards to CNN and also New York Times with Daniel Bogoslaw who joins us now. He's a reporter for the intercept who's been breaking some incredibly important stories there.
Good to see you, Daniel.
Good to see you, Dan.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course.
So let's start with this story that you just put out about CNN.
You got an internal leak.
Put this up on the screen that reveals that Christian Ahmanpur actually expressed in an internal meeting, along with a number of other staffers, great concern over CNN's coverage of the Israel assault on the Gaza strip. She mentioned, you know that you've got a sort of hypocrisy. I don't think that that was the word that she used, but go ahead and breakdown for is what you heard in this leaked meeting?
Sure well.
I think the largest takeaway from this was the continued confirmation of an earlier report I did about the concerns raised by the CNN internal protocol for all Israel coverage.
It's called the Second Eye Alias. It's basically an internal system that ensures all news concerning Israel or Palestine is run through a team of editors largely comprised of Jerusalem Bureaus staff members, and the rational given by CNN is to ensure that subject matter experts and people on the ground have an opportunity to touch and oversee the reporting
of an extremely sensitive issue. However, multiple staffers last month expressed to me that this protocol caused serious delays and getting out Israel coverage, and also ultimately shaped the editorial line regarding Israel and Palestine by prioritizing IDF statements at the top of pieces and basically just the system.
While justified by CNN and.
Executives and editors for you know, ensuring accurate, really resulted in a degradation of the Israel coverage, and that was confirmed this week when we published a story about an internal meeting at CNN where even Christian ammanfor you know, the chief International correspondent, similarly expressed concern about a double standard that was created through this protocol, and her concern was echoed by a number of other staffers who were
present at this meeting who said that they felt delegitimized by CNN's coverage. They felt that it was delegitimizing CNN's standing in the region, and according to one staffer, turning on CNN was more concerning than the bombs falling around them while while they were covering Israel's attack in Linon.
So, Daniel, you guy also band at the forefront of exposing some of what's going on over at the New York Times, and there has now been a witch hunt that has been started inside the Time, not necessarily to question some of the reporting around their October seven rape story, but instead to find out who are the people who have been leaking to you? So, what do you make of a media organization starting a leak investigation, even though
they themselves subsist on leaks. Whatever, it's something that they are makes them look bad given your reporting.
Well, I think it.
Confirms a lot of what we heard throughout the course of reporting about the internal structural flaws president the New York Times. Instead of trying to listen to the reporters who they trust to put out accurate news from dangerous and challenging places, who are speaking up and saying this story did not meet the standards which we all try to hold ourselves to as reporters and editors, the Times
is completely ignoring the people on the ground. They're they're ignoring the people who make that newspaper function and provide it with with the reporting that it it. You know, it is the foundation of the whole thing, and they're saying, no, we're going to crack down. And as as a source pointed out, you know, people do not leak because they're hyper radicalized partisans. You know, that is the picture that
I think The Times is trying to paint that. You know, these are people who are who are stepping out of line, who are prioritizing their own personal politics over the good of the institution. But as once Wor's pointed out that it's actually the opposite is true for almost all leakers, be the government officials or New York Times staffers. Leaking is a course of last resort when the official channels
for attempting to reform catastrophic system failures break down. And I think that's that's certainly what all of us who have been reporting on this have noticed and observed talking to people on the inside.
I just someone are remind people too, what the story is that you reported down. And as we reference, this has to do with what they billed as this blockbuster intensive investigation into sexual assault being used systematically as a weapon of war by hamas on October seventh, and there were three reporters who were bylined on that piece immediately after it was published, it came under a lot of scrutiny. Actually, one of the main victims in the story her family.
She was murdered on October seventh by Hamas her family freaked out. They rebutted the reports. They said, you interviewed us under false pretenses. We had no idea that this was about a rape. We actually do not believe that she was raped. We have no evidence that she was raped, and actually we have evidence in the other direction that she was not raped. Some of the quote unquote eyewitnesses
that they cited had changed their stories. There were all sorts of issues here, and you all received this leak that The Daily, their premier podcast, had planned an episode around this blockbuster investor negation that they eventually ended up shelving because they either had to soften the language and raise questions and make it less ambiguous than the report, which was very conclusive in asserting what happened, or go with the original reporting, which had, you know, sort of
fallen apart under scrutiny, or shelved it all together, and that's what they ultimately decided to do. You all have since reported additional information about a not Schworts, who was revealed online by C. Squirrel to have effectively no background in journalism, but to have served previously in the IDF in intelligence unit. Another of the reporters byline on the piece,
Adam Sella, also had very limited experience. And these were the two reporters charged with, you know, the extensive quote unquote, on the ground investigation. So there's been a lot of tumult around this piece, around how these reporters with no experience got to work at the premier elite media institution in probably the world, and so sponsor to that for The New York Times isn't gosh, what happened here? How do we get this report wrong? What are the issues?
How did these journalists quote unquote journalists really no experience, how they get put on this piece? No, the response has been to go after the people, to shine the light on the problem that as actually unfolding at the Times.
And there's another shoot to drop here.
This was also a number of outlets got their hands on this letter that came from the Times. Union put this up on the screen from the Washington Post. The Union is saying, not only are you doing this leak hunt, but you are racially targeting you are racially profiling your employees, assuming that anyone with you know, who's presumably like Arab, American or Muslim, or who has some sort of identity that you think may be skeptical of Israel's line, you
are singling them out and targeting them. Here, talk about this piece of it, because I mean, they say directly, we demand the time cease what has become a destructive and racially targeted which hunt in response to the reports that you all have put out.
Sure, so you know, I think what the union is referring to here is the sort of interrogation of members of a of a Middle East affinity group within the New York Times. And and and you know, the Times UH pushed back on on the union statement and and said, you know that this is inaccurate. And if you actually look at the spread of the people that we've interrogated, and you'll see that that we're not We're not UH racially profiling our staff.
We're interrogating everyone. Don't worry.
Yeah, but but again it's it's it's shocking that you know each step of this process, you know, you have an opportunity for for UH newsroom leadership to take responsibility to reassure the reporters who work extremely hard and put their lives at that risk at times to cover this reporting, and there's an opportunity to actually welcome real feedback from the people who are on the ground doing this, who
want to see the paper succeed, who work there. For many of them, that's the that's the end of the line. That's that's the that's the you know, top goal for so many reporters to get in there and uh, you know that that notion that they are so that that they're reporters who have who have invested so much in this in this company, would be willing to throw it all away, uh for for frivolous uh personal reasons instead
of for wanting to see the organization succeed. Is proof of concept for perhaps why some of these flaws and failures have been allowed to fester and exist for so long.
Daniel Ryan had predicted online that this leak investigation was likely to backfire and trigger additional leaks because of people being upset by this response. You know, has that prediction come to fruition? Are you having more staffers come to you, are you hearing more from.
Your Yeah, I mean I can't speak to Ryan's Rolldex, but I know certainly that has been the case for myself.
Yes, all right, well good we looked well. You there to seeing more of it. Appreciate your work.
Dan, Thanks Daniel, great to see you.
Thanks for having me. Okay, Chrissel, what are you looking at?
Chaotic incident? A crush of bodies, food aid related deaths. Western media rush to create fog of war confusion after a straightforward massacre by Israeli forces left over one hundred Palestinians dead and more than seven hundred wounded. Their headlines
and stories followed a classic playbook. Rather than straightforwardly report what we know based on video, audio and visual evidence, eyewitness testimony, and reports of doctors who treated the wounded, they instead attempted to shroud the whole quote chaotic incident in mystery, thereby running cover for the war criminals who committed this atrocity, the Israeli government, which set the genocidal policy in the United States, which backs them every step of the way.
This in spite of the.
Fact that, in many instances, if these news outlets simply followed their own reports to their logical conclusion, the fact that Israeli forces murdered starving Palestinians as they sought food becomes undeniable. Here's a report by Al Jazeera, who had reporters on the ground that day.
In the early hours of the morning, thousands of people flocked to Al Rashid Road, southwest of Gaza City, desperate for aid. Instead, survivors say they walked into a trap. By the time the sun rose, the extent of the horror was clear. The dead and the dying lying side by side, gunned down by Israeli fire.
The Israeli's just opened random fire on us, as if it was a trap. Once we approached the eight trucks, the Israeli thanks and warplane started firing on us. If this continues like this, we do not want any aid, deliver it at all. Every convoy coming means another massacred.
The IDF, in a series of shifting explanations, attempted to undercut the testimony of Palestinians on the ground.
There's three different explanations we're hearing from the IDF so far. Initially was that there was a stampede that caused loads of people to die. Then there was a suggestion that a truck had actually driven by civilian driver had mowed down a loads of the Palestinians. Then there was a suggestion that actually that this was potentially a.
Mass Now, obviously, the fact that a the IDEF has been caught lying often and b their story kept changing throughout the day should make you highly skeptical, to say the least, of their account, but news outlets nevertheless gave
it great credence. What's more, the one piece of supposed evidence that Israel offered for their version of events was revealed to be selectively edited, and even that video on careful review backed up the clear cut evidence that this was not a chaotic incident but another massacre courtesy of the IDF. Both in New York Times and BBC Verified noted that this video, which the Israelis offered as evidence of a stampede, was edited and the Israelis refused to
provide the original footage. Per the New York Times quote, the video, which does not include audio, was edited by the Israeli military with multiple clips spliced together, leaving out a key moment before many in the crowd began running away from the trucks, with some people crawling behind walls, appearing to take cover. Gee, Wonder what caused them to flee? Wonder why audio of the gunfire, I mean stampede was not included. BBC Verified notes that the video shows events
in two different locations. In a portion of the footage, you can actually see Israeli tanks and motionless bodies depicted by the red boxes strewn across the ground. Now, this video alone is highly suggestive of what actually occurred, but we've got quite a bit more evidence. Just to eliminate any potential doubt. Alt zero release footage from nearby, which
was verified by both The Times and BBC. And in that video you can hear volleys of gunfire and see trace arounds in the sky coming from a nearby Israeli military base. Trace rounds, by the way, are used to mark tar targets for soldiers to fire on. Here is a portion of that video. Now, the Israelis, in one of their shifting fabrications, earclaimed their soldiers did fire some warning shots, but that the deaths were definitely caused by
a stampede. Well, there is a pretty easy way to know whether or not that's true.
You can ask the.
Doctors and hospitals who treated the victims. To find out what type of injuries they were actually treating. Sure enough, those doctors say the overwhelming majority of their patients were being treated for gunshot wounds, not broken bones and other injuries consistent with a stampede.
The head of Alauda.
Hospital told the Associated Press that eighty percent of the injured at his hospital had been struck by gunfire, So of the one hundred and seventy six wounded, one hundred and forty two had gunshot wounds. The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital said one hundred percent of their injured were treated for gunshot wounds. He also said that the majority of those wounds were to the head, neck, or chest, in other words, attempted kill shots.
Contrary to that IDF claim.
That soldiers had felt unsafe and so fired non lethal shots at Palestinian's legs. And if you don't trust the claims of these hospital administrators, the UN has since sent a team to investigate and confirmed exactly the same information. They found a quote large number of gunshot wounds in the wake of what has now been dubbed the Flower massacre.
Ditto euromat Human Rights Monitor, which had researchers there on the ground from the very first moments of this whrror, and they confirmed the nature of the wounds, which were again overwhelmingly from gunfire, not due to a stampede. Now, the nature of the wounds sustained is about as definitive a piece of evidence as you could possibly get. One side says people died in stampede, the others says gunfire. The wounded and dead are riddled with bullets. Case closed.
But of course that hasn't stopped the media from throwing up their hands. How can one possibly know what happened? What even are facts in reality?
Really?
Alan McLoud has done a great job capturing many of the most egregious headlines, although it to be perfectly honest. Open up literally any Western outlet and you can easily pull your own sample of atrocious headlines. CNN went with at least one hundred killed and seven hundred injured in chaotic incident where IDF open fire as people waited for food in Gaza. Palestinian officials say, Now, this one checks a whole lot of manufacturing consent boxes. This is a
chaotic incident, not a massacre. The IDF quote open fire, but that gunfire isn't then connected to the deaths, and just for good measure, the whole chaotic incident is qualified as only being based on the word of Palestinian officials. And you know who can trust those hamas loving barbarians anyway. Forbes says more than one hundred Palestinians killed while waiting for food. Health Ministry says here Israel isn't even mentioned where the Palestinian's food poison, where they hit by a tornado?
Who knows?
And again this is all only per the Health Ministry, So how can anyone really know if any of this even happened. The Guardian, in a similar vein, invented an entirely new category.
Of cause of death.
Apparently these Gosins were struck down not by bullets, but they suffered food aid related deaths. The New York Times decided to compose a tortured high coup in an attempt to avoid describing any blame to Israel. Here's their headline as hungary gosinskroto convoy, a crush of bodies, Israeli gunshots
and a deadly toll. In a later, even more outrageous posts, they seemed to suggest that it was actually Israel's generosity which backfired here quote disastrous convoy was part of new Israeli effort to hand out more.
Aid in Gasa.
Really, I can't begin to explain my absolute contempt for all of these schools, because although anyone who wants to know the facts about this massacre can easily find them, the truth is the press attempts to confuse.
An off escape. They worked.
They needed just to to lay enough, just to confuse enough for Americans to avoid the totality of the absolute horror that we are paying for and running cover for.
They need just enough.
Well, it's complicated for people to shrug their shoulders at the unfortunate food aid related deaths from the chaotic incident and then just move on. And they need to allow the Biden administrations paid propagandas to be able to point to the conflicting accounts to avoid having to respond to this carnage directly, which by the way, is exactly what State of State.
Department spokesman Matthew Miller did.
So do you think that Israeli is complying with this ICJ link?
And do you believe do you agree that.
Today's attack near Gaza on starving people waiting for momentary assistance violence this ice ages.
So again, let me just say I don't believe we have established the facts of what actually happened today, but it is important that those facts be established, which is why we have called for an investigation, and we'll look forward to the results of that investigation. As I've seen, there are conflicting accounts, and we don't know the ground truth of what happened.
Conflicting accounts. We don't know the ground truth of what happened. We call for Israel to investigate themselves. Meanwhile, new horrors are being inflicted on innocent Palestinians so rapidly we can barely even keep track. In fact, more eight Sakers were shot by the IDF since the Flower massacre. Yet again,
a new war crime is being normalized. Now the Biden administration wants to assuage their conscience and do a little pr move by dropping enough aid to feed one meal to one point six percent of the population in Gaza a single meal, while supplying the bombs and bullets that have enabled this continued slaughter. They can gaslight and obscure reality all that they want, but the blood on their hands is undeniable, and Sager I saw the IDF.
Put out the results of their investigator. You'll never guess what they do.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
All right, saga, what are you looking at?
Well?
Elon Musk has been in the headlines a lot in last year so mostly for various political or Twitter based reasons, but in recent days he's actually made them in a way that doesn't conveniently align with the culture wars and instead reminds us of the pre political Elon, who for years has been a Cassandra on artificial intelligence and his belief that, if not responsibly handled, would be a catastrophe for the human race. He made big news this week
with a major lawsuit against open AI. That's the group that he helped co found in twenty fifteen, which goes far beyond his most recent split with leader Sam Altman and cuts to the heart of debates around AI and
its recent rapid development. The lawsuit effectively alleges that Altman and open AI have breached the original founding of the mission but on the organization by becoming a de facto arm of the Microsoft Corporation and putting profits ahead of the mission originally of open source AI that would be
beneficial to humanity. So the lawsuit is worth reading in its entirety, as Elon particularly takes aim at the most recent kerfuffle that involved Altmann Brief Ouster, and it notes that the board of open Ai has been cleansed largely of those who believe in their original mission of developing
AI for the benefit of humanity. After the purge of the board and the subsequent reinstatement of Altman, Elon alleges that OpenAI has both already achieved artificial general intelligence and has decided to sell the benefits of that to Microsoft,
the most valuable technology company in the world. He writes in his lawsuit, quote, mister Altman has handpookeed a new board that lacks technical expertise or any substantial background in AI governance with the previous board had by design, adding new board consists of members with more experience in profit enterprises or politics rather than in AI ethics and in governance.
They were also reportedly quote big fans of Altman. As he says in the lawsuit, it doesn't take a genius to see that Elon is right, since the new board members literally includes the sellout neoliberal economist Larry Summers. Furthermore, Elon points out, quote, with this restructuring, OpenAI, Inc. Has abandoned its nonprofit mission of developing AGI for the benefit of umanity, broadly, thereby keeping it out of the hands a large for profit corporation in which vast power will
be unduly concentrated. Much of the lawsuit relies on a technicality that's going to play out in court. Effectively, it boils down to whether you think open Ai has effectively achieved so called artificial general intelligence or not. AGI is the catchall term of an AI that is capable of thinking for itself and for surpassing purely human control. Per Elon's telling, open AI's current licensing deal with Microsoft is a sham that relies on a definition where OpenAI and
Microsoft have an exclusive agreement on quote PREAGI technology. This so called PREAGI tech that Microsoft isn't incorporating into its vast office empire has boosted the valuation of OpenAI to some eighty one hundred billion dollars and has been tremendously
impactful to the Microsoft Corporation stock. A paradox that Elon's lawsuit points out is that OpenAI has a direct financial incentive to say that it has not achieved so called AGI, because if it has, it would then instruct the board and the company to decide whether to then exit its Microsoft license and instead then ensure the technology is used for the benefit of humanity. This points out the fundamental
disconnect with an open ai itself. It is a structure as both a nonprofit and a for profit enterprise, where people are getting on the for profit side stupendously rich. So put it in simpler terms, have you ever known a group of people, no matter how well meaning, who would simply turn off one of the biggest money spigots
in the world for some far off philosophical principles. The reason that the lawsuit, in my opinion, is imperative is it actually would instruct a jury if it proceeds that far, to rule on what exactly AGI is taking the definition out of the hands of the creators and beneficiaries of the tech and instead establishing a new standard. The standard may sound facetious, but hundreds of billions of dollars.
Here are on the line. More importantly, it actually puts the debate into the public realm, where it belongs.
The biggest problem with AI research right now is that the immense cost of R and D has monopolized much of the development in the hands of the existing big tech players, each with their own incentive to use AI for their own profitable aim and not to worry about any of the social problems. Open AI, in its founding in twenty fifteen, was set up explicity to avoid this trap, to pursue nonprofit research and to bolster an open source
environment which technology startups could then build themselves on top of. Basically, it would concentrate the R and D costs within open AI, but then allow potentially millions of businesses to piggyback off of them and to level the playing field against Microsoft, Google and others. There Since, transformation basically into a for profit company has destroyed much of that vision and has set back any dream of an original open source environment.
Open sources I have laid out in a previous monologue on the subject is, in my opinion, the only way to really solve many of these problems that we have before us on AI ideological capture of big tech companies, ruthless pursuit of profit over any responsible ability, monopolization, complete lack of transparency. But most important of all is the public say and what is already acknowledged.
As a world changing technology.
This lawsuit is the first fight in what I hope is a general public awareness of this issue that we have very little time to actually get ahead of, because if we don't, then the lawsuit and even the discussion around this is moot. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook. They will just be bigger and stronger than they ever were before. They'll buy their way out of any more scrutiny, leaving us simply to bow to our existing and new overlords. So it's a really interesting lawsuit, Crystal.
Yeah, and if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Okay, guys, thank you so much for watching.
We really appreciate it, and we will see you all tomorrow.