Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today, extra amazing.
Crystal is back. What do we have to do?
Oh, it's nice to be back in the chair.
Although I watched You and Ryan show yesterday fantastic as always. So lot to get to you this morning. So we've got the very latest on Israel's likely response to those Iranian strikes and whether or not we are going to be dragged into a much larger regional war. We also have a little update for you on which politicians stand to make the most money off of said war. Trump was in court yesterday, is the first day of his hush money trial, his first criminal case, so we'll break
that down for you. Some interesting note from him, apparently little drowsy in that courtroom long day, you know, older guy's talk about that. At the same time, truth social stock prices continue to plummet. There's an interesting report of some of the significant small holders of that stock and how they are feeling about their investment at this point. We've got some major updates in Israel as settlers went on a violent rampage in the occupied West Banks.
Will update you on that.
We also have a number of Gosens who are trying to return north under Israeli fire. RFK Junior saying that he was asked to be Trump's VP, and also saying that he is no longer seeking the Libertarian Party nomination. That could be actually quite consequential. We have a criminal investigation now opened into the circumstances surrounding the bridge collapse in Baltimore. Very important updates there. And we've got a
little Ryan Grim's scoop for you. He was able to get his hands along with Jeremy Skahill on the New York Times internal memo giving their writers guidance on how they should be talking about Israel's war Gaza, and it is quite something. It is actually pretty shocking, even given you know, my very low expectations for the New York Times. But before we get to any of that, Sager, well, personal news here.
Yes, that's right.
You maybe may be able to see something right over here.
Real there it is gold plat.
It only took what ten months to get it? Not really sure. Apparently it's the shortage.
In the factory allegedly, Oh is that what happened?
Who knows?
Okay, took a lot of emails, took some tweets, took some badgering, but the YouTube plaque is here. It feels somewhat anti climactic since we qualified for it, like I said, about eight to ten months ago.
About two and fifty thousand subscribers.
Roughly round one point twenty five million subscribers currently quarter of our way to the next one million.
But hey, we'll take it. We're glad it's here.
Which wanted to say thank you to everybody who is out there who helped build We've helped build two channels now to one million, which many people can say that they've done, which is really all entirely because of all of you. So thank you to those of us who have been with us from the very beginning or who have just joined, you guys are the one who make this possible and if you can help us out breakingpoints dot Com.
Who knew supply chain snaffoos would even hit the gold plaque industry.
Okay, that's what they said was happening. I'm I'm still a little bit. I'm a little dubious.
Kyle got his like later weeks later.
I know people who have hit one million and they get it like two days later. And you know, when I was rolling around in India, I even saw guys there who had their plaques that they had gotten within a couple of days. So somehow Google logistics are better in India than in America.
But hey, whatever, it's here now and that's what counts. That's right.
We'll take it and a permanent fixture of the set. So thank you YouTube for finally getting into us. All right, why don't we go ahead and start with Iran as Crystal set kind of a hard turn in terms of what is currently on the horizon. So yesterday we brought everybody the news that the Israeli government had vowed to retaliate against the Iranians. There was some question as to us their President Biden and his pressure on the Israelis
not to militarily retaliate. He said, take the win, you got the win, don't widen this into a broader war. There does now, though, seem to be in a change the US government now saying that any response is up to the Israelis. This was John Kirby, the White House spokesperson, talking about this from the podium yesterday.
Let's take a lesson.
Is the administration presenting alternatives to NYA.
This is an Israeli decision to make whether and how they'll respond to what Iran did on Saturday, and we're going to leave it squarely.
With them their decision to make. But are you making suggestions?
We are not involved in their decision making process about a potential response.
So it's up to the Israeli government for what some sort of potential response is. The crystally the US government now has completely changed it's tune. First it was take the win, don't do anything. The Israeli war cabinet immediately there were some deliberations. Both two members, Benny Gantz and Yoef Galant, the Defense minister, both immediately advocated for retaliatory strike. Apparently Netanyahu said we got to hold off until I talk to President Biden. President Biden tells them not to
do it. However, in the interim twelve to twenty four hours, there's now been a change from the Israelis where all is being telegraphed from the IDF to the US government, and now in the change of rhetoric where we're like expecting some sort of military retaliation. Yesterday they had said at a time and place of their choosing, it is now expected, not necessarily imminently, but somewhere within a shorter period, maybe less than a week they set up to a month.
But you know, we shouldn't forget crystal.
It did take the Iranians about a week to retaliate on the embassy. There is we need to dispel this notion that in a quote unquote immediate retaliation is just going to happen in the moment. That's not really how these things work. It can be a slower burn, but it is still you know, still accelerated on a timeline.
Yeah, I just want to pause, since it's my first chance to react to this and reflect on the fact that we are truly on the brink right now. There's no denying it. We'll go through. We're getting some contradictory reports out of Israel about what response might look like, what the scale might be. But Joe Biden is to blame with his policy for the fact that we have come to this place of potential broader escalation, potentially pulling
us directly into a hot, wider regional war. And let's be clear, I mean we've been saying this for months. The Biden administration's goal of keeping this contained to goz I mean, that has long been over. You can see what's happened in Syria, you can see what's happened in Iraq, you can see what's happened with the Huthis in Yemen.
And now obviously this direct conflict with Iran, it is because Joe Biden has given net Yahoo no limits whatsoever and allowed him to have carte blanche and consistently said, Okay, while I might hand ring a little bit, at the end of the day, you can do whatever you want. And so once again that's the message that we hear coming from John Kirby. Hey guys, it's up to you
do whatever you want. As if we aren't directly implicated, as if we aren't the ones who is involved in you know, shooting down these missiles and drones that were coming at Israel as if we don't have service members who are stationed.
In the Middle East. It's complete insanity.
And for what So that BB can continue, his genocide, can continue, his ethnic cleansing, can hold on to power when you know you've got a democratic president who supposedly is opposed to a lot of what Bibe Netanya who stands for. It is so utterly insane at every step.
I mean, even think about some of the things we talked about before soccer, like this policy of Okay, we're gonna directly combat the hoothies and what they're doing in Yemen, pretending like we don't understand that if this war just end, if we actually had a cease fire, all of that would stop with an acknowledgment. We know that the policy's not going to work, and yet we pursue it anyways. I think that's perfectly emblematic of how absurd, dangerous, and
insane this policy has been all the way along. So I don't want to lose sight of that, even as we get into the specifics of what the likely response is, et cetera, et cetera. There was no reason that we would all have to be sitting here today with baited breath, waiting to see whether the world is about to blow up.
Yeah, well, thank you for reiterating that it's absolutely true.
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
The Israelis are reporting from their own domestic media that the War Cabinet quote has decided to hit back forcefully at Iran for the Saturday missile attack. In this unsourced report, they say that the War Cabinet has made the decision clearly and forcefully. The response will be designed to send the message that Israel quote will not allow an attack of that magnitude against it to pass without a reaction.
The response will then be designed to make plain that Israel will not allow the Iranians to establish the equation that they have sought to assert.
In recent days.
Now, this is basically about who is establishing mutual deterrence because the Israelis, let's not forget, began this entire episode whenever they struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus. They claim that it was an IRGC military outpost. Doesn't necessarily change the fact that it was still an embassy in Damascus, and the subsequent fallout from that. Then a week later was in the Iranian response directly on Israel, the first in the Iranian and Israeli history in terms of that attack.
So then the question is now, what are the Israelis going to do? The Iranians said, we consider this matter closed. We have established our deterrence. We have showed the world that we can if we want to launch strikes from our territory directly onto Israel. The Israelis say, well, we've had a ninety nine percent shootdown rate. We'll get to that in a little bit in terms of how much
the US military actually did. But now the response appears to be that the Israelis want to establish a scenario where they are allowed to carry out this activity and bear no attack upon the Iranians, to establish the deterrence from their end. So here is the chief of Staff of the IDF actually speaking at a military base in Israel in English. Keep in mind, which is directly calibrated for all of us about what their response is going to look like.
Let's take a.
Listen assessing the situation. We remain at our highest level of readiness. Iran will face the consequences for its actions. We will choose our response Accordingly, the idea remains ready to counter any threat for Miran and it still proxies as we continue our mission to defend the state of visity.
So did everybody pay very close attention to what was behind the idfchiev staff there? That was an F thirty five and that base Actually where this talk occurred is where Israel keeps its F thirty fives?
Which where do you think they got them? And who exulted to them?
The question and the big thing that we have to look at now is what that signifies for the response. So we're not looking necessarily at the launch of what the Iranians did, which were unmanned drones and re cruise missiles. Will this include a direct F thirty five lightning strike on on Iranian military facilities. We're seeing a report this morning that is a little bit all over the map. It just says that the US officials expect the Israeli response to Iran to be limited, But what exactly does
that mean. They say that both strikes are anticipated quote against Iranian military forces and Iranian back proxies outside of Iran. So the question then is if they hit proxies outside of Iran. That's one thing we've seen that happen many times. The IDF has been striking Hesbelunzeidisyria for probably eight years.
But a direct Israeli military strike and IDF strike on Iranian military targets inside of Iran, that is unprecedented in the same way that the attack was and is very much in the realm of where we could see an escalation. We also see a response from the Iranians saying that they will respond immediately. Is such a thing where to happen in which we could see the escalation ladder begin again?
Yeah, and bb wants this conflict.
I mean, it seems sort of insane, but from his psychotic political calculus, it actually makes sense. Because number one, as we've talked about a million times before, wildly unpopular bb Ntyahu is within Israel. There is an increasing realization among the Israeli public that the assault on Gaza has not gone the way that he said that it would. They are nowhere close to accomplishing the stated objective of eradicating Hamas. That's why he also has to hold down there. Oh,
we're going to go into Rafa. That's going to be the thing that's really going to take us over the top, so we can claim this victory. But there was an up ed in Haretz it Israeli newspaper, saying, listen, admit it this we've lost. This has been a catastrophe for us, not only because we failed to come anywhere close to accomplishing the objectives of eradicating Hamas or bringing the hostages home.
And Israel's more isolated internationally than ever before and has this pariahs status, so conflict with Iran directly gives Biebe another shot at some sort of ability to claim a quote unquote victory. It keeps the war going, so it keeps his rip on power. And also, you know, while the news media is talking about this potential large regional war, what are they not talking about the conditions for Gozans
who continue to starve to death, continue to suffer. There's a lot of indications that the Israeli promises about increasing humanitarian aid were basically.
False, and that hasn't come to fruition.
So the intense media pressure that was beginning to be applied in the wake, especially of that World Central Kitchen, the aid workers being assassinated by Israeli forces, suddenly that's all gone, and the US and other region Middle Eastern regional allies rallied to Israel's defense and the Gazo assault and the humanitarian crisis there sort of fades into the background.
So for him, as utterly psychotic and insane as this all seems to us watching it unfold, he has every incentive to escalate, every incentive to try to drag us into it.
So, you know, the the.
Fact that there's at least one report out there from NBC News that potentially this retaliatory strike, whichhouldn't happen at all by the I mean, they started this whole situation to begin with with the strike on Iran's embassy, but that it may be limited in scope is very hopeful, in very good news. But you know, we really have to wait and see what happens because I'm not convinced that' where they're.
Having this is.
The other problem is that what does that mean? It's all in the eye of the beholden. Ryan and I talked a lot about this yesterday, which is that you could look at the Iranian attack two ways. The Israeli right wing is like, no, it was calibrated for mass death. It's just how happened that the defense was really good, or you could say they telegraphed it for hours ahead.
It was kind of a symbolic gesture.
Yeah, both seem like in the realm of possibility, and only the Iranians actually know the truth to what that is.
I mean, I don't think you give seventy two hours advance warning if you're trying to you know, calculated for mass But the right in Israel concertainly spin it how they want because they are desperate and have long been itching for this conflent.
Yeah, I mean, but their response is just like, listen, you know, there's missiles and owns and all that came into our skies and that's terrifying.
I'm like, I don't even disagree.
But my point is that you can look and draw from it whatever you want. What could be limited to Israel and to the US. That may not be limited to the IRGC. Isran has its own major political military factions which are all at war with each other. There's a huge contingent of the Iranian regime which is incredibly angry that they haven't done more on the Israel and situation with response to gaz that they already feel like they've been totally screwed by the US and they want a full on war.
Are they gonna win out?
I mean, it's one of those where the Ayatola himself, how much power does he really have. We talked about this with Tree Taparsi yesterday about the Iranian Military Council, So don't you know, don't forget that they have their own internal domestic politics. In a very similar way. There's also let's put this up there for what they've currently
said in terms of their response. Yesterday, their foreign minister spoke with the British Foreign Minister David Cameron said that Iran does not want escalation of tension in the region, but stress if that is hi else seeks adventure, our next response will be quote immediate, stronger, and more extensive. So the immediate, the stronger, the more extensive. So, as you said, we may not get then in this case, a change in the notification policy to the United States.
There's also a big question around the Iron Dome and the amount of interceptor missiles that they remain. How much more US military force is going to have to be employed in order to do something like this, How much is going to cost the single defense Saturday's attack costs one point five billion. What if it's bigger, it's going to cost ten billion, twenty billion. We simply have no idea.
There's also, of course, now if there's a reckoning Crystal, as you said, as to the actual what instigated this entire thing with the bombing of the embassy. So there was a fascinating interview here with the Foreigner Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister David Cameron on Sky News in the UK where they pressed him on what Britain would do if one of their embassies was bonned.
Let's take a lesson.
Is it bad judgment or good judgment to hit Iranian sovereign territory in Damascus?
Was that's something the Israelis decided to do.
We haven't made ac I know, well, let me un answer the question, which is I can completely understand the frustration the Israelis feel when they look at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and they look at the terrible things that they have done all over the world, including the support they give to Hermas and of course her mass were responsible for October the seventh, and that is where all of this begins. So you can completely understand the frustration.
Yeah, but what about Iran's frustration at part of its sovereign territory being flattened.
Well, I would argue there is a massive degree of difference between what Israel did in Damascus and as I said, three hundred and one weapons being launched by the State of Iran at the State of Israel for the first time, a state on state attack, one hundred and one ballistic missiles, thirty six cruise missiles, one hundred and eighty five drones.
That is a degree of difference.
And I think a reckless and dangerous thing for Iran to have done. And I think the whole world could see all these countries that have somehow wondered where you know, what is the true nature of Iran. It's there in black and white.
What would Britain do, the hostile nation flatten one of our constituents.
Well, we would take you know, we would take the very strong action.
And Iran would say that that's what they did.
Well, what they did, as I said, was a massive attack, so.
They were a right to respond, but they overreacted.
Is what I'm saying is that the attack, the attack they carried out was on a very large scale, much bigger than people.
Except to respond.
What countries have a right to respond when they feel they've suffered an aggression, of course they do. But look at the scale of that response. Had those weapons not been shot down, but there could have been thousands of casualties, including civilian casualties. I think that's a really important point to take into account.
Well, we would have a massive response. I agree, And look, I'm not justifying any of this. I don't want missiles flying all over the place in Damascus or in Israel because I don't want to be involved in it. And it's our troops that are ones that are shooting down most of these missiles, which we'll get to in a little bit. But this is part of the problem, and we talked about this yesterday. A huge number of the American commentariat and US senators were like, this is an
unprovoked attack. That is insane, ridiculous. Is it is like this did not happen inside of a vacuum. And this is part of the issue. The embulgening of Neta Nahu and of the Israeli military because we told them very specifically, do not hit the Iranians without clearing or telling us about it, And what do you think they did? They did it, and they didn't even tell us. Then no heads up to the United States. We found out on
social media whenever this happened. And now, who do you think is responsible in paying the bill for shooting down all these damn missiles? And whose troops tens of thousands are all across the region, who are sitting ducks waiting to take the shot if and when that this does expand and the US military inevitably is involved.
That's what drives me the craziest about all.
And I loved this like attempted intellectual debate in the New York Times and other places. Is it actually a violation of the Vienna Convention and international law.
To hit an embassy? Of course?
Of course, if a US embassy was hit anywhere around the world, whether it was you know, the embassy itself or an adjacent consular building, do you think we'd be having the slightest bit of debate.
A bik about that. I wouldn't say. I would say that we shouldn't.
If you kill CIA officer in US embassy, We're going to blow the shit out of you, and we shall.
It's entirely predictable.
I mean, and not only is it predictable, this is the response that the Israelis wanted. They recording this response because as I just said before, Babe wants this conflict. He for his political ass needs this conflict, and so of course Iran was going to hit back.
We're lucky that.
They showed the restraint that they did, that they provided the notice that this appears to have been more of a you know, domestic political show for the Iranians to say, listen, you're not going to just hit our embassy and kill one of our top military leaders with no response. We're lucky that the response was that limited. But it just the two things that drove me so insane watching this all unfold is Number one, the Israeli's immediately playing the victims,
Oh how dare you? And so much of the American political class and media class going right along with this, pretending, like you said, Saga, that it was quote unquote unprovoked.
Polease get out of here.
Another thing that has driven me insane is you know you saw you now the attacks on embassies like it's open season that is over, because what could the US ever say about it?
Again?
When you didn't condemn Israel when they attacked the Iranian embassy in Syria.
That's over it.
And then the other thing that I mentioned to you that made me completely insane is Israel immediately, Oh, we need, we need a meeting of the UN Security Council. Well, you don't care about the UN when they're condemning you, when they're demanding a ceasefire or a ceasefire resolution gets passed through the UN Security Council, you don't have.
Anything to say about that.
But now Sun, oh we need the UN Security Council. What about a resolution against you for hitting the embassy?
How about that? Would you listen to that? Of course not.
So just so much of this drove me absolutely bonkers and is so typical of the incredibly one sided way that we view anything through the media and political class when it comes to Israel.
Yeah, I mean, that's it's just it is so perfect.
And let's put this final piece up report from Ken Klippenstein, and it just confirms every suspicion that I had in the immediate afternoon because the Israelis and the IDF kept bragging about a ninety nine percent interception rate and if people want to you can go back and roll the tape, and I said, I would love to know how much that the US shot down and the IDF did, because I was willing to bet that it was America and not them that shot down most of those drones and missiles.
And lo and behold the intercept here now reporting the US, not Israel's shot down most Iranian drones and missiles. American forces did most of the heavy lifting, and responding to Iran's retaliation for the attack, the United States shotdown more of the missiles and drones, and Israel did. More than half of the weapons were destroyed by US aircraft and missiles before they ever reached Israel. In fact, commanding a multinational air defense operation and scrambling American fighter jets. This
was a US military triumph. The extent of that military operation is currently unbeknownst to the American public.
Yeah, do you want to know why?
Because Sentcom, the US military, and the Pentagon refused to release the number of missiles that they and drones that they shot down. They have only released the names and the units and the type of aircraft and the missile guided missile destroyers that are the ones that actually engage and this just gives away the whole plot, which and this is part of the issue. Some response Crystal that I got from saying that the US military should which by the way, was one of the biggest freak outs
that I've invited in quite a long time. I said, modest proposal, the US military should defend America and not foreign nations that want to drag US into a war. And people were like, you don't understand. By US defending Israel, we prevented a larger war. But here's the thing. The Israelis would not feel so emboldened to blow up the Iranian embassy if they knew that they would also have to defend their own territory. This is part of the thing.
They socialize the risk to all of us, and we're the ones, God bless us who have the military capability to shoot down said missiles if we want to. By actually putting this blanket security onto Israel and saying you guys can do whatever we want and we were still going to defend you, we actually embolden this situation. So if we had created a situation where they were going to bear the ultimate risk of the behavior that they
carry out, they would be a lot more cautious. But they don't feel cautious because they don't have to be. And this is the exact proof that we doe.
You're one hundred percent correct.
If they knew they were on their own, truly on their own, they's no way they would have taken that action. And you can actually see it now in the nervousness around a larger scale response, because there were at least some indications from the Biden administration that hey, you are on your own for this if you take this further.
So I think to the extent that there's any sort of hesitation on BB's part, it's from a lack of confidence that the US will fully be behind them if they proceed any further.
But yeah, and it's not just with regard to their defense.
It's obviously at every turn whenever BB has crossed a line, there might be a little bit of tut tutting, there might be a little bit of leaks to you a favored reporter, but there isn't actually any sort of consequences. Whether it's attacking hospitals, whether it's attacking refugee camps, whether it's mass slaughter ofvillions, two thousand pound bombs dropped, killing aid workers.
None of it is really met with.
Any sort of actual consequence, actual policy change. We got a little rhetoric take change every now and again, but in terms of actual policy changed nothing. So why would he think that this was going to be any different. Hey knows that Biden will just go wherever maybe leads him along to and so that's how you end up with this completely insane and outrageous situation and incredibly dangerous situation. It's because Biden has allowed this scenario to unfold, and
it was incredibly predictable. I mean from how we've been talking since day one about the possibility of the spiraling into a wider war, this was always an incredibly dangerous and fraud situation. This was always a very real possibility on the table. The Biden administrations people, by the way, knew it too. It's not like they were unaware that this was a possible outcome. They just didn't do anything in order to forestall it and in fact enable exactly this dangerous scenario.
Yeah, absolutely right, and it's a dangerous moment.
I actually went back and checked.
I had a tweet, and we did multiple segments about wider war on October twenty third of twenty twenty three. So don't let anybody say that it is not possible to have predicted all of us. It was eminently predictable. It may not happen as quickly. People seem to think that international relations and all this just happens like day after day after day. But when you go back and read history, you can see it takes a month, some
times two months and all this to happen. But we can go back and see very clearly this led to this, led to this, led to this. In the moment, we have too much of a recency bias. This was inevitable. It's only been six months now that we're in this conflict, and already we're in a totally different scenario. Imagine where if this keeps going, imagine we're going to be a year from now. It could be a total nightmare. Why
is there so much war fever here in Washington. Well, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Something a little pretty interesting here from our friend over at Unusual Whales. Here's every US politician who's stock portfolio will benefit from a conflict in the Middle East between Iran and Israel. I've aggregated a list of their stocks, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and more. Many are making millions, and as you can see, there's quite a bit of red and
blue that is on there. You've got Kevin Hearn, Mark Green, Tommy Tuberville, Nancy Pelosi, Michael McCall, Marla Salazar, Alan Lowenthal, Lowis, FRANKL. Patrick Fallon, Diana Harshirshberger, Mike Kelly, Carol Miller, Dwight Evans.
That's just in the top ten.
So you can go through and read the entire report that he's put together. But what he gets at is that it's not only the politicians that we're going to be making a ton of money based on this. It's that the defense companies here in the US are salivating over a broader conflict. Put this up there, please on the screen, because this is the perfect evidence that you need. Lockheed Martin stock was actually upgraded and rated as a buy by Major Wall Street. How is over the missile
heavy weekend in Israel. They say Lockheed Martin has climbed early Monday, receiving an upgrade from JP Morgan. Meanwhile, defense stocks are all rising after US, British and Israeli defense forces on Saturday knock down a barrage of missiles and drones launched by Iran against Israel. The upgrade of the stock to overweight from neutral and park hiked its price target to five hundred and eighteen dollars from the current
four hundred and seventy five dollars price hike. On top of that, the defense industry is currently receiving the twenty twenty four budget where they are scheduled to get even more of an increase from the US government, not to
mention Crystal. Literally, as you and I speak here in Washington, there is an effort to try and pass foreign aid and get the Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan bill through the House of Representatives, which would be another one hundred billion dollars, the vast majority of that coming right back here to US defense companies. Yep.
And think of the quote unquote choices we have in our democracy. You know, Trump or Biden, they're both for this same disgusting, depraved system. They're both for continuing to fuel this. I mean, I think it's disgusting that people become wildly wealthy off of war. And you wonder why, why are we constantly involved in multiple wars at the same time, and you'd be hard pressed to find a better answer than this right in front of our face. There is a lot of money to be made off
of these conflicts. There is a lot of money to be made off of death and destruction. And you know, I actually I got to interview Medea Benjamin Code Pink, you know, legendary anti war activists going all the way back to Vietnam War, but really coming in to prominence founding Code Pink during the.
Iraq War days.
And we asked her, what is the thing like if you had to point to what is the root of the reason why we are constantly getting involved in and starting and stoking and escalating these wars.
And she had a one word answer is money. It's money.
It's really what it comes back to and why this thing continues to turn and why we continue to face these situations. So, you know, you've got the congress members who are this should be completely illegal, who stand to benefit from defense stocks spiking as they are right now, You've got the fact that you know, you've got military industrial complex facilities and bases in congressional districts around the country. So you have a direct tie in in all of
these congressional districts across the country. You have the donor class that makes millions of dollars every time we get involved in one of these wars. And then you wonder when you go to the ballot box, why is my choice between two candidates effectively who have basically the same views when it comes to keeping us involved in these conflicts.
This is really what it all comes back to.
Absolutely well said.
And let's put that final thing up there from CNBC, the JP Morton upgrade, which is it's just funny the way that they say.
They say upgrading.
Lockie Martin say it is an under owned defense stock and may find a bid in this dangerous world.
I know that's like a I guess a Wall Street text is, but what the hell does that mean?
I mean under owned as it's probably not enough parts of managed portfolios. I don't speak enough Wall Street ease in order to translate, but all we could say is that the people on Wall Street their job is to make money, and they know how to make money.
They're really good at it.
In fact, I just saw a report from the Goldman Snacks that there were up some twenty seven percent, driven entirely by investment banking profits from just the last quarter. So don't underestimate these people's ability to sniff out a dollar. And what they see very clearly here is that the quote unquote trend of where things are going is all towards funding this conflict, the Ukraine situation. Let's not forget the main case that they make right now, the neocons.
They realize none of you actually want to continue to fund Ukraine's failed war and to continue to send people into the gauntlet and be killed for no reason. So their new argument is actually good for the US economy because all this money is just going back to US defense companies.
And let's just say this.
Here's the other thing too, and part of the reason why we need to ban stock ownership really by members of Congress.
We just need to have confidence.
It's like, if you're so crazy that you believe that ideologically, I need to know one hundred percent that you're not being motivated by the multimillions of dollars that you have in your portfolio to benefit from a situation like this. Because all the names that I listed there, including Michael McCall and others, these people are worth two hundred and fifty million dollars. And that's the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, right. He's one of the chief proponents of
Ukraine AID. You literally have a financial stake here. Maybe you believe what you believe that in fact it's very possible, but you have to give confidence to the American people.
Yeah, and then the other question is like, what you know that we don't know that you get to benefit off of when you're trading stock.
It is a truly sick and a brave system that we have.
I mean, that's just the bottom line of these people who are war profiteers and the way this has become completely normalized around our society and especially here in Washington. You know whose stockholdings are not doing so well?
Though?
Right now?
Who is Donald Trump?
Oh?
Wow, that's right, we're here.
Talking about that in a minute.
But first let's start with he was in court yesterday. So the first of his criminal trials to actually begin is the quote unquote hush money one having to do with paymous sister Mey Daniels to try to keep quiet an affair that he allegedly had with her previously. Remember the Catch and Kill National inquirer all of this stuff from the past. That's what this one has to do with. He was in court yesterday. After the session, he came out and had some things to say about how this all went down.
Let's take a listen.
Thank you very much.
We had some amazing things happened today.
As you know, my son has graduated from high school level. Looks like the judgment not that he goes through the graduation of my senders worked very very hard. He's Grace Goods, so proud of the fact that he did so well. And I was looking forward for years to have his graduation with his mother and father there. And it looks like the judges aren't.
Going to allow beings to escape the scam.
It's a scam trial.
In addition, as you know, next Thursday were before the United States Supreme Court and our big hearing on immunity, and this is something that we've been waiting for a long time.
And the judge, of course, is not going.
To allow us.
He's a very conflicted judge and he's not going to allow us to go to that.
He won't allow me to leave here for half a day, go to EC and go before in the United States Supreme Court because he thinks he's superior. I guess they the Supreme Court. So I just want to thank you very much. But that I can't go to my son's graduation, or that I can't go.
To the United States Supreme Court, that I'm not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina.
Campaigning like I should be.
It's for the radical level of exactly what they want.
This is about election interference as well.
It's about behind so, as with many Trump statements, not entirely true, but it does contain a grain of truth.
Let's put this up on the screen.
So he specifically with regards to Baron's graduation, the judge said, we'll see.
Was not ruled out.
However, he is supposed to be in the courtroom every day, four days a week for the duration of the criminal trial. The judge said, if you don't show up, there will be an arrest. This trial, you know, slated to last somewhere around eight weeks. Obviously, campaign season is heating up.
Joe Biden is surprisingly actually going out and doing some rallies and campaigning to try to show a contrast with a week in Pennsylvania and speaking to voters while Trump is, you know, trapped in a courtroom litigating all of these things. You know, we're in the phase of the tread is obviously the very early phases where you're dealing with jury selection and some sort of like pre trial decisions about
what type of evidence is going to be allowed. So, for example, they're going to allow in information about the access Hollywood tape, but my understanding is they're not going to actually be able to play the tape. So those are the sorts of things that are being decided. With regard to the jurors, there are apparently dozens of them, basically half of the first jury pool that were like, I can't be impartial in this case, Like what are
you talking about here? I already have very strong feelings about this man and the things that he's done, which, you know, who can blame them. The idea of being able to find a jury pool that doesn't have some sort of preconceived notions about Trump very difficult.
But I will say, you.
Know, the jury of our peers has done a good job of trying to put their own biases aside and evaluate the evidence in front of them. But the details here from Axios, they said over two dozen of the jurors who said they can't be impartial in the case were white women, one Hispanic woman. For women of vas descent, fourteen were white men, one man of Asian descent. Six
other jurors were of unknown gender and racial descent. So anyway, that gives you a sense of some of the machinations that are going on right now.
Yeah, I mean, I do think it is absolutely nuts that he is going to be arrested if he's not allowed in the courtroom, because that is I mean, as a campaign blow that is huge, gigantic, and it's just this is the most political of all of the trials in my opinion, just because it's such a dumb criminal charge. It's an extraordinary interpretation of the law. It's still open question of whether you'll stand if there is some sort
of a conviction. In terms of the politics and all that, it is the least relevant, I think, to any of the things that people are concerned about Trump, and then it is going to keep him off of a campaign trail. You know, as I was reading Crystal, they didn't even choose any jury people yesterday.
Not one juror I selected.
I don't know a lot about juries and how all this stuff works. But given how the amount of what, there's all this bickering over what can be introduced and what can't be introduced, that he has to be present for all of that. I'm not, again, not an expert on New York criminal law. I had seen that they're often they don't necessarily have to be present for at least all of it or some of it or whatever.
It's as you said, it's completely up to the judge.
But I do think, just politically, I think it looks absolutely terrible to keep him chained into a courtroom for four to five days a week whenever his opponent is out there actively campaigning. I mean right now today he's headed to Pennsylvania's really going to be there all week is and be holding rallies. Trump just got off the campaign trail as well, so it isn't a huge blow
to him. A question two is that's the other thing I wanted to comment on about half the jury pool so they couldn't be impartial.
The other half are just lying because can you possibly I wouldn't be able to be impartially good. I've met the man before. I'd be like, look, I have my own personal bias.
It's different if you're coming up on somebody that you know nothing about, and you could probably know weigh evidence and all of that. But how can you possibly go into this and say I could be completely impartial when.
Judging this either pro or agance. I don't think it's possible.
With the fink your best bet would be to find jurors who hate both Biden and Trump.
Yeah, that's true, that would be your That's a good point.
That would be your best bet.
I mean, listen, I think people are capable to some extent, putting aside their political preferences to look at just the facts of this particular case. But you know, putting that aside and the challenges of fighting an impartial jury. There was another thing that caught a lot of people's attention, given especially all the conversation about Joe Biden, his age, and his sinility, which I think is all very much quite merited and warranted. Apparently Trump was having trouble staying
awake during some of the proceedings yesterday. Let's take a listen to Maggie Haberman commenting on that.
Yeah, I have to ask you, guys, have been at the times, have been live blogging this event, and forty minutes ago you wrote an observation that I was very surprised Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack.
Tell us about that.
Well, Jakie appeared to be asleep.
Then you know he redeevidly.
His head would would fall down.
There of another moments in other trials, like the eg Harrell trial, which was.
Around the corner in January.
Where he appeared very still and it seemed as if he might be sleeping. But then then he would move this time and give me pay attention to a note that.
His lawyer Todd glance past him.
His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack. Now, you know, sometimes people do fall asleep during court proceedings, but it's notable given the intensity of this morning and a lot of what was being markeding.
Knowing, yeah, that's rather surprising, I mean fell asleep.
Of course.
You can imagine what they would make of this if it was If it was Biden, I will say, listen, I was.
I don't even blame him. I probably fall asleep too. I'd be bored.
Maybe, but I don't know.
I feel like if I was in a criminal trial, I'd feel pretty amped up about that. You know, I'd probably be wanting to pay pretty close attention to what was going on, even though I was notorious in like back in school days, I couldn't stay awake, especially if they like put up a projector when I.
Was over, So I can relate you're done.
In one sense.
On the on the other hand, like it was pretty extraordinary first day of your criminal trial, and you're there like dozen off, can't keep it together. So we'll probably see more of that. Apparently at other times he was very animated in terms of his facial expressions, as Trump certainly can be. Maggie Haberman and some of for other colleagues at the New York Times, she, of course very well sourced, had a report on the way that he
hopes to spin this trial. Let's put this up on the screen, so the headline here in the twenty twenty four race, Trump's trial is about to take center stage. The race for president will shift much of its focus to a Manhattan courtroom. This looks like no other presidential campaign in the history of the country. When Republican Folster said that is undeniably true, and basically he is telling his advisors that he wants as much media coverage as
he can possibly get centered around his court appearances. You know, you see him speaking to the cameras afterwards. I'm sure we're going to get much more of that. He wants his supporters defending him on TV. He wants all of his the like you know, pro Trump media ecosystem, many of them have actually gone to Manhattan to be part of this whole scene. He is really counting on all of that and hoping that independents have a similar reaction
to his legal trouble as his own base has. I mean, it's undeniable that his legal problems at the very least didn't hurt him with a Republican base, and I think pretty clearly helped him with a Republican base. As we predicted Zager, that would help him sort of coalesce support, get everyone lockstep around him. Any idea of hey, maybe I'm flirting with Ron DeSantis, maybe I'm flirting with Nikki Haley or whoever else that was sort of quashed and it was all right, we got to be with our guy.
I think it's much.
Less likely that the rest of the electorate is going to have the same response. And even with regard to this case, I completely understand, and we've talked about this before, that it is the least serious of the charges. You know, a lot of polling suggests that Americans find this to be the least consequential of the charges. But it's not like it's not without its own tawdry details. And the danger for Trump is that some of this stuff has
faded from memory. And you made a comment Saga about how this isn't part of the core of like what people don't like about Trump. I'm not sure I agree with that, because part of the negative Trump factor is like the chaos, the insanity, right, this.
Sort of I mean, this is the details here grows.
He had an affair with a porn star, and then he tried to hide it not only from his wife but from the entire country.
You know, use these payments.
And manipulated, like lied about what the payments were for to get the story killed before election day. It's not like that's a nothing story in the context of all the other stuff that he did. It's a nothing story. But in the grand scheme of like political scandals, it is actually pretty significant. And at the time when voters were first learning about it, they actually found it to
be quite significant. So the danger for him is that people are reminded like, oh, yeah, this actually was really gross, and this actually is one of the reasons why I don't really like this man, and I don't think he should be in the Oval office.
Again, Look, it's possible. The only reason I say it is I think it's just so baked in with Trump. It's like when people were going after them, like he didn't pay his taxes. I'm like, you're telling me a man who filed for bankruptcy and was notorious for stiffing his contractors didn't pay his taxes.
Wow, I'm shocked.
You're telling me the person who has created a tabloid sex star image of himself had an affair with.
A porn star. Who would have guessed it.
It's not like he flaunted it all over television and wrote it to fame. At a certain point, I just think it's baked into his image. I don't think people particularly care. Again, I could be wrong at this point, though. I mean, look, we do have some electoral evidence. Let's
not just think about polls. Let's think about the elections at the height of the Stormy daniels maniay, eighteen, twenty nineteen, that's when Republican Party identification was sky high, right before COVID, When though, did with Trump really suffer eighteen really around the issue of healthcare? In twenty twenty he suffers because of COVID, And in twenty twenty two he suffers from
Stop the Steal and general chaos. So I think abortion, stop the Steal, and twenty eighteen we're talking about healthcare and the tax cuts, some Jobs Act. In general, those four have an electoral track record of being pretty successful in terms of mounting attack on Trump. This one, I don't see electoral evidence that it particularly matters.
I think that's fair.
Let's put this up on the screen from the Washington Post just to give you a sense of what I was just referring to, Like when this first was breaking, you can see kind of like a little bit below halfway down this list. December twenty eighteen, hush Money. They asked, Okay, what do you think about this? Do you think what he did is illegal? Do you think it's not illegal but unethical, or do you think that there's nothing wrong with it? And actually of all of these various Trump scandals, from.
Russiagate to the tax issue that you just referred to, to the Ukraine perfect phone call, to the twenty twenty election efforts, and the marl Lago docs, this was the one where the smallest percentage of people actually said there was nothing.
Wrong here, because in a certain sense, the facts of it are very difficult to actually outright defend. Like with Russia Gate, there was clearly a defense there. You know, even with the election efforts, he has spun some sort of a defense to make it kind of ambiga. No,
I'm just exercising my free speech. With the documents, he's made these claims about you know, presidential immunity, et cetera, et cetera, so you actually have a little bit more ground to stand on, whereas with this people may not find it as serious as those allegations. But it's kind of hard to just defend on the merits like paying off this gross publication and paying off this porn star to hide this affair that had happened. So that's why
I'm not totally convinced. I also just think there is something to the normally reaction of seeing someone in a courtroom on trial.
You know, we heard it from our.
Own focus group respondence in the Republican focus group when they were asked, Okay, if he is actually indicted of anything, if he's actually found guilty of any of these things that he's been indicted for, you're.
Still with him, And they're like, m I just can't. I just can't.
So I don't think that this situation is without risk for him, and I certainly don't buy his analysis that he can actually turn this to his benefit.
I just don't see.
No.
Listen, I've been wrong about many things in the past, and he's an extraordinary political actor and gets away with things and pulls things off and turns things to his advantage that no other politician really could. But I think having to spend eight weeks in a Manhattan courtroom talking about cover ups and porn stars and extramarital affairs and what's being billed as election interference from back twenty sixteen, it's not a good set of.
Facts for him.
No, I don't think it's good, and I think it will It could be.
This is the thing with Trump that could be.
Several compounding courtrooms, all of this that stacks up and it creates an image of somebody who is, you know, against the law. The normy reaction of seeing him convicted very very possible. Also, just not forget this. It's death by a thousand cuts to a certain extent. We've got all the money that he's going to spend on his legal bills, he's got all of his attention.
Now he's off of the campaign trail.
You know, he can never really argue the counterfactual of what it would look like if he wasn't burdened by all of these things. And it's just the first of several. I'm not saying it won't hurt him at all. I'm saying this particular one in the bigger one, I don't think it will be as consequential nearly as let's say, the January sixth trial.
But here's the thing.
Who knows if those are ever actually coming to trial. That's the best part.
Well.
The other thing that I would say politically is, you know, the Biden people, which you can tell from the fact that he's not laying out an affirmative agenda for anything, they really want this to be a rougherendum on Trump and Trump chaos, on Trump extremism, on abortion, on what Trump, what America would look like under a second Trump term, and so the more that Trump is the center of news and in a very unflattering light and reminding people of some of the things they really didn't like about
him last time around, where you know, since he's been kicked off of Twitter, he's been a little bit in the background, some of those memories have faded, some of his term is being.
Viewed through a bit of rose colored glasses.
It definitely benefits the Biden camp to have this be the center of news and it be about, you know, Donald Trump and his various travails. So I think for them they have to feel like, you know, this pushes the campaign in the direction that they ultimately wanted to go. How much of an impact it will have when weighed against, you know, the very serious issues.
Joe Biden has as well in terms.
Of the polls, I think is another question altogether. All right, let's go ahead and take a look at how Trump is performing financially. At this point, we had another put this up on the screen, huge collapse in terms of truth. Social Trump Media is the official name of the company, closed down more than eighteen percent. This has been attributed to the company apparently filed an official document they want
to issue millions of additional shares of stock. This appears to appears to have spooked investors who worry that, you know, flooding the zone with a bunch of new stock issuances, then that is going to cause a further collapse in the price. So this has been a real problem for him. The share price has fallen more than sixty two percent. It originally opened at seventy dollars and ninety cents. Now
it's down to around twenty seven dollars. So since Trump has such a significant chunk of this company, of course when the stock takes a beating, it is.
A huge problem for him and his now worth.
It also makes it less likely that this is going to be a real bailout for him in terms of being able to pay the cash that he needs to pay for that civil fraud suit that he's dealing with
in Manhattan. Let's put this up on the screen. We also had a report from the Washington Post about some of the people who have really you know, these are ordinary people who have invested much of their savings into truth Social stock, which guys, please don't do that I don't care how you feel about Donald Trump, please don't do that. So the headline here is small time investors
in Trump's truth social reckon with stock collapse. Some Trump supporters who invested in social media company have seen their shaff values plunge and.
See it as a test of faith.
So they talk to one gentleman who you can see on the screen if you're watching, Jerry Dean McLean. He has bought hundreds of shares for twenty five thousand dollars. He describes that as pretty much his whole nest egg. That DAG is now lost more than half its value. Of course, at this point he owns a tree removal service outside Oklahoma City. He says he's not worried. If anything, he says he wants to buy more. Quote, I know good and well it's in Trump's hands and he's got plans.
I have no doubt it's going to explode some time. And it's you know, individuals like mister McLain who have boosted the stock price way beyond anything that would be you know, rationally justified by the market. This is a company that lost tens of millions of dollars last year and the revenue side was poultry. It was a few million dollars that they even brought in in revenue, and
that was dwarfed by the losses. So, you know, it's it's really sad to me the way that so many of Trump's supporters have been financially hurt by their support for him and his various causes and other you know, grifting enterprises that have popped up around the whole.
Trump unis absolutely and if you see what he said, He's like, well, I want to buy more because Trump has got big plans.
I'm like, look, we don't give financial advice.
I would just say in generally, shouldn't be putting your money in single stocks, and probably not single stocks that are going to go wildly fluctuate in value, especially whenever it's your entire nest egg. He says that Trump's true social steak has now currently shranked by three billion after the stock is tanked. Shares are down by sixty percent from the peak of trading over the last three weeks, five point five million dollars in sale, forty million dollars
in losses and operations. There are no path to profitability that is currently on the horizon at least been released by the company, so you can make your own decisions.
I don't know, it's a free country.
I guess if people want to do it, but I do think it is absolutely morally wrong and it does demonstrate also this is a financial nestag that Trump will continue to try and to prop up to leverage because it is his bailout from a lot of the financial problems that he has right now. Now from what I was reading, Crystal, he can still the company can still
do stock buybacks, stock splitting. There's various different financial techniques to get Trump to the lock up period out of that where you can crop up the share price to a certain point where he is allowed to sell, and then he can cash out at least a certain percentage of this in order to boost his overall net worth and to make himself a lot more liquid into whether the storm and if he does do that, I mean, just imagine the optics of propping up a stock based
upon your own I mean they even call it DJT in terms of its stock ticker. And then you think about what that means about the ordinary investors that have put their money in this, and that he was basically financially taking advantage of them based upon their.
Network ordinary investors bailing on a billionaire. That's what's basically happening. And it's to talk about this as like a business enterprise. Was just think about where it is at this point. So there was at least somewhat of a logic to it when it launched. Because Trump was kicked off of Twitter. Twitter was like liberal coded under Jack Dorsey in the
sense was like all conservatives are being censored here. So there was at least somewhat of a business case of like, Okay, Trump is going to go over to this other quote unquote free speech platform and many conservatives may follow him there. Well,
now you have Twitter owned by Elon Musk. It's now like coded right wing and conservative, and there's no longer the same like anti liberal grievance around the what's going on at Twitter, and so that has really sort of collapsed the whole business case for True Social And we don't have a lot of insight into their metrics, but what insight we have suggests that their user base is poultry.
Plus it's just really boring to be on a platform where everyone is just like you know, has the exact same ideological worldview and supports Donald Trump.
That's what part of what makes Twitter and other.
Platforms that are successful so interesting is that you have this whole cocktail of a variety of why divergent views and that back and forth is what makes it so addictive and why people, even when they want to quit, can't quit. So, you know, and not to mention that the big revenue driver for all of these platforms, and part of why you get all the content moderation, the policies that you do very consistent across these platforms is advertisers.
Well, what advertisers really want to jump over to a true social.
Very few, right, very few who are ready to just be locked into this like sort of like right wing conservative lane because they want to appeal to a much broader set of individuals. And plus they don't have much of a user based on true social to start with. So the business case is not great. The only thing it's really had going for it is the fact that Trump has so many diehard supporters who see buying this stock as being faithful and loyal to Trump and have
some sort of you know, faith in him. As this gentleman does that he's going to figure it out, and he's going to make it a success one way or another. And so that's that's effectively all that the stock really has had going for it. So at the same time, we didn't want to lose sight of some significant developments both in the West Bank and in Gaza.
We can put this up on the screen.
What you are looking at here is a violent pogrum against Palestinians in the West Bank. As Israeli soldiers stand by and watch this latest violence, which you saw a car set on fire. You're seeing fires set on buildings, cars, all sorts of civilian infrastructure here in the West Bank, farms attacked and in the occupied West Bank as well. The source of this violence initially was a fourteen year
old Israeli boy who was found dead. Settlers blamed that death on Palestinians, but they have not allowed anyone in to evaluate what actually happened there, and so this sparked these violent attacks. You can see here this is a home that was set on fire. Two Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera and other reporters on the ground, were killed in that rampage, and many war who were injured as a result of the violence. We do have a State
Department statement from Matthew Miller. Let's put this up on the screen. So they say, we condemned the killings of fourteen year old Israeli ben Yamine Ikimayer and two Palestinians a twenty five year old Jihad Abu Aliyah and seventeen year old Omar Ahmad Abdul Ganihamed in the West Bank in recent days. This violence must stop and civilians must be protected. So very sort of both sides condemnation here
from the State Department and very anesthetic language. Can put this next piece up on the screen, just a little bit of background on how consistently we've seen these violent attacks from settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. This is from nine to seven to two magazine from a while ago, back when Biden initially levied these sanctions against four settlers, and then some of those sanctions were rolled back. But in any case, they say, meet the settlers targeted
by Biden sanctions, and they're victims. Palestinians and Israelis who have experienced the settlers attacks first hands see the move
as positive but wholly insufficient step toward accountability. And one of the things to really understand here is number one that this settler violence and you know, widespread attacks on Palestines the West Bank, This has been on the rise for years that they were very much emboldened by the Netnyahu government and especially some of the Coalition partners who you know are settlers themselves and are very encouraging and
directly inciting of this violence. But if we're being honest, I mean it has been official government policy to basically back this encroachment onto Palestinian land and violence against Palestinians for years, which is why many of these attacks.
When we showed you the video.
Where you've got Israeli soldiers just standing by while the car is being set on fire. The reason why one of the reasons why the response on October seventh was so poor is because IDF soldiers had been restationed to be in and near the West Bank rather than near the Gaza Strip, leaving that part of Israel completely unprotected, because they wanted to be there to back up these
violent settlers. So, you know, the other piece of this is there's a lot of desire to pretend like history started on October seventh, but the reality is in the months leading up to October seventh, you had an escalation in violence. You already had one of the most violent years on record when it comes to Palestinians, and since October seventh you have had an even larger escalation in
terms of the number of attacks. So armed settlers and the Israeli army have killed four hundred and sixty Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October seventh and uprooted hundreds of people from their land.
So this the latest program.
Which the other thing to say about the saga is even in the worst instances, So there was a horrific program in Hawara. You'll recall one of the net Yahoo coalition partners that it should be wiped off the map. You had a huge attacks and many injuries and killed as well, zero accountability, No one was even no one
was indicted, no one was found guilty, nothing happened. So they operate with impunity because they know they can not only get away with it, but that they're actually backed by the israel government.
Yeah, there's been hundreds of attacks, hundreds of killed actually that have been killed since October seventh. It's been the biggest spike in settler violence. Actually basically in modern times. And part of the issue with all of this is that this is separate from what's happening in Gaza, but it underscores the settler activity and its endorsement by the government,
the lawlessness. And it also is a blind spot for US policy because for years and even now there are currently sanctions that are on people who have been instigating part of this settler of violence at the same time that it is in opposition to official US policy, and it is something that is just demonstrating, you know, very clearly whether the Israeli government is advocating, you know, for this settlement, bolstering, providing weapons and then allowing this to occur.
Even the Israeli center left is actually condemning a lot of the setter of violence and settler riots because they, I mean, this has been a long time contensious issue about what exactly is our end state and purpose and a huge part of this backing these people is a big part of Netsa na Who's coalition, part of the reason you can't do anything about it.
Yeah, I mean, Smocher said of Hawara, we need to wipe it off them. It needs to be wiped out. There was one civilian who was killed there and one hundred other Palestinians who were injured for critically and as
I said, zero accountability. You know, you have a Biden administration coming out, oh, we're going to sanction four settlers, which is you know, pathetic in the context of number one, how widespread this you know, this violence, is how frequent the attacks are, and number two, it really sort of pretends like, oh, this is just these one off bad.
Apples when you've got idea of soldiers.
Standing by, you have a system of impunity and zero accountability for this violence, for the theft, for the assaults, for the fires that are set, and no criminal punishment for that whatsoever. So it's clearly a government policy and there's zero acknowledgement of that from the Biden administration. But to your point, it is really of a piece with what is happening in Gaza. And you know the other part of this, let's put this up on the screen
to the point of the official government policy. We covered this previously. Remember, Israel just announced the largest West Bank land grab since Oslo, and it happened while our own Secretary of State.
Tony B. Lincoln was there in the region.
So you know, the policy of pushing Palestini off of their land. It's been sort of a slow motion ethnic cleansing for years and years and years, and basically October seventh gave this Israeli government an excuse to accelerate it.
So that's why these things are connected.
And remember the West Bank, I mean, they had nothing to do with October seventh, and yet you've seen huge escalation and violence, hundreds of Palestinians who have been killed, and you know, in these attacks from settlers and also in attacks directly from the IDF.
So we didn't want to lose sight of that.
Another major development here is apparently there were some rumors in Gaza that Palestinese could return to the north. Remember Gaza City, of course, was previously the densest city in the entire Gaza strip. So you had over a million people are displaced from northern Gaza. Many of them are now in rough after being you know, also chased out of Communis and so there were rumors that, oh, we may be able to get back north, especially with the
idea of withdrawing some of their forces. Let's take a listen to a news report from Al Jacira's handout cutter about Palestinine's trying to return to the north.
A couple of meters away from Wadi Has, the area that separates the north of Gaza with the South of Gaza.
Earlier today in.
The morning, a couple of families had the opportunity to go back to the north.
It was very surprising.
People started coming from all parts of the southern areas to this area where they're saying that they want to go.
Back to the north.
As you see, people are holding their bags, are holding all of what they own and have, and they are walking to that checkpoint hoping they could cross back to the north. But on the other hand, people know that in the north there is starvation, there's famine.
They won't find food.
They know that the situation in another I Gozzels ship is very dire and it's unlivable, But they still want to go back to their houses.
They want to check up on their beloved ones.
Most of these families have their beloved ones still trapped under the rubble.
They want to go.
And see their families, see their houses, if they're still standing or not. We have been talking to more than one family and they said that they do not have anything to lose, and all they want right now is to go back to their houses.
We don't want to stay in Rafa. We want to go back to our home. There is nothing to do in Rafa. We're looking for peace enough of the situation. Look, people are running to go back. It will only get sick here if we stay.
The ability to for palsting to return to northern Gaza has also been a key demand of Hamas in the ongoing seasfire negotiations, and of course people very fearful that they may never be able to allowed to return home. And of course we know there isn't a lot to return to at this point in northern Gaza given the level of destruction, but people still desperate to try to make it back north and see what remains of their
life and of their possessions. Unfortunately, however, as these individuals were seeking to return to their homes, and we can put this up on the screen, they were fired upon by Israeli forces. You can see this video, this is from Middle East Monitor, and people are fleeing. You can see people, you know, ducking and covering. You can hear some of the audio the gunfire and people running here along the beach. We can go ahead and go to
the next element. Guys, We've got a New York Times report indicating that, you know, according to an emergency worker and two people who were attempting to make the journey, is really troops shot into this crowd. Twenty three were
wounded by Israeli gunfire and five people were killed. So as these individuals were trying to return home fired on by the IDF and a number of them killed and dozens of them injured, you know, And they say in this report, nearly two million Gosins have been displaced by the war between Hamas and Israel now and at six month, one of their biggest concerns is one and if they will be allowed to return to their homes or whether
they will be permanently displaced as previous generations were. The IDF has since announced on social media that they are officially not allowing the return of residents. Quote for your safety, do not approach the forces operating there.
Yeah, this is really really stunning because what we learn throughout all of this is that a lot of the things that they have said and that they have promised really just not materialized in terms of aid, in terms of what future governance in there all looks like the chaos vacuum inside of it. And actually, before the Iranian attack, this was getting quite a bit of attention, both inside
Israel and throughout the international community. I even saw that Israeli journalist Barack Rube talking about the West Bank Paul Gramson about how devastating that was for the international situation. The Iranian question has kind of moved on past this.
But part of the reason we're spending time here obviously because it's very significant to what the overall picture is going to look like, both in terms of whatever future that there is in Gaza and also what the how the Israeli government is going to manage both of the Palestinian territories.
Yeah, and this is you know, another thing that the US has claimed to care about.
People being able to return to their homes.
According to the IDF, operations have ended in northern Gaza, So.
Yeah, what's happening?
Right, what's the whole what's next? And don't you want people to look you said you're going to invade Rafas or don't you want people to get out of Rafa?
Which one?
Is it?
Exactly right? Exactly right?
We will learn to let we will learn the answer to some of those questions very soon.
I brought everybody yesterday some quotes from Trump's attack on RFK Junior, but we were able to track down the video and we just had to play some of it for you, as there's now a spat that's been open. RFK Junior responding, First, let's take a listen to what Trump had to say.
RFK Jr. Is, as you know, the most radical left candidate in the race. He's more so than the Green Party. He's more so than even crookeet Joe Biden. But he's got some nice things about him. I happen to like him. Unfortunately, he is about the Green new scam because he believes
in that, and a lot of people don't. They want to see our country become rich and wealthy and strong and powerful and lots of other things, and not waste money doing something that nobody wants and everybody knows doesn't work. I guess that would mean that RFK Junior is going to be taken away votes from Crooked Joe Biden, and he should because he's actually better than Biden. He's much better than Biden. If I were a Democrat, I'd vote for RFK Jr. Every single time over Biden because he's
frankly more in line with Democrats. RFK Junior's running mate, Nicole Shanahan is also a very liberal person, but that's okay. She's got plenty of money from her ex husband. Kennedy is a radical left Democrat and always will be. But he's a better man than Joe Biden that I can tell you.
So yeah, there was a lot going on there.
Nicole Chanahan got a lot of money from her ex husband.
He's been trying to sew dissension.
Ryan and I were talking about this yesterday in terms of Trump endorsing the genocide Joe Chant and he's like, they're not wrong, they're not wrong. Everything for him is about calibration, trying to exploit some of this chaos inside the Democratic coalition.
Go ahead.
I don't really think this approaches that intelligent though.
Because because transparent, not.
Because it's transparent. But if he actually wanted Democrats to vote for RFK Junior, he wouldn't say anything nice about him. Like the fact that Trump says something nice about you is not a point in your favor if you are at all on like you know, left of center or somewhere in the potential old Biden voter universe. So if Trump was I think his smartest move would be to just aggressively attack him as you know, liberal and loves
Nancy Pelosi and voter for Hillary Clinton whatever. That would probably be the smarter move because you know, so much of a politics it's just vibes. It's like which treat team are you on, and Trump is the central figure, and it's all about just how do you feel about Donald Trump?
And how does Donald Trump feel about you.
So if you're an enemy of Trump, regardless of where you may have positioned yourself in things that you might have said that Republicans may have at some point agreed with, you're on the wrong side of Donald Trump. That's all that matters. And conversely, for the quote unquote anti Trump coalition, you know, it's exactly the opposite of Trump hates you, then we like you. So I'm not sure that it's his smartest play.
Frankly, absolutely, I know. I don't disagree necessarily. I just look, I don't know if any of this is going to have an impact. It's more just it's interesting and it's funny to just see how he is trying to calibrate with respect to RFK. Whether it's serious or not. Maybe it's just, you know, unfiltered what he actually thinks. But here's what Kennedy had to say, and actually pretty explosive claim. Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
He says, President Trump calls me an ultra left radical. I'm so liberal that his emissaries asked me to be his VP. I respectfully declined the offer. I am against President Trump and President Biden can't win. Judging by his new website, it looks like President Trump knows who can actually beat him, So that is kind.
Of interesting website.
Yeah, it's like looking into this, let's see Donald Trump. Let's go to actually the Donald Trump campaign and see exactly what he's talking about in terms of what I have though in front of me, it's just a donation button. I don't see anything about I'll never stop fighting for you. And if you're able to click out of that, it just says they're not after me, they're after you. I'm just the one who's standing in the way. So I'm not exactly sure what he's referring to. Maybe he's talking
about er there RK Junior. Regardless, he says here that he turned down the VP at least from his emissary that I don't know. I mean, the Trump campaign hasn't responded. They haven't denied that it happened. So if it weren't true, you would assume that they would come out and say it.
I predicted at the time that they were at least going to try, just because I knew how much Trump would relish having the Kennedy name, and of course it would have a lot of it would garner a lot of media attention and possibly could to unite two of these kind of more disparate groups of voters and bring them together. But the issue was always Trump has got other institutional people he's got to worry about. That's why we were talking previously. Who was it that they said
would Trump would pick as his VP? And we were like, there's no way, Oh, Tulsi Galla think that's what it was. I was like, there's no way he's going to pick her because he's got like actual party people and donors and all these folks to please. He's got to pick somebody who's already an elected GOP person. Anybody more outside of the box is too risky, and it's just it would endanger some of the machinery. What I've been reading
right now is Trump needs tons of money. He does not want to input any of his own personal money a lot. It's already going to legal bills and all these other issues. He's relying on big, big dollar donors. And one of the things he's looking for in a VP right now is somebody who can raise tons of money from bundlers and others.
That's not somebody.
That's not a reason to pick RFK Junior Tulsa Gabbard in Yeah, folks.
The other thing I saw with his VP pick is that he is souring on any of the like governors from states that have extreme abortion policies.
Well he should so like christin Noam.
You know, I think they have a heartbeat bill in South Dakota, Dakota. So that's a bad fact for her in terms of you know, getting the Republican VP nod understandably because then you know, that becomes a center of focus of conversation. Trump understands how bad that issue is for him, So they've kind of slid down the list with regard to this.
Kennedy tweet.
Okay, I'm probably parsing this too much, but there were a couple of things that I found noteworthy. First of all, with regard to how he phrases the VP offer, saying that his emissaries ask me, I find that credible. That's a little bit different than like, all right, the man himself was like, I've made my decision, and it's you will you join me? That's more of like a trial balloon. I can imagine Trump falling in love with the idea of.
Having a Kennedy on it, you know, Trump Kennedy, Like you.
Know, he's he's got that old man sensibility and like love of the Kennedys, is this political royalty and whatever. So I can definitely imagine him toying with the idea of having RFK Junior on the ticket and what that would mean for him and like how that would raise his esteem And so much of Trump's like modus operendies comes out of his own personal grievance about not being treated in the dignified way and fitting in with like
the fancy people and whatever. And so if he's got a Kennedy on the ticket, like how can you deny how legit he is and his claim to political prowess. So I can definitely imagine them floating the idea, testing the waters with RFK to see if he was receptive. So that's number one. The other thing I noticed about this tweet is he says I am against President Trump and President Biden can't win. So it's not I'm against Biden,
it's he can't win, which was interesting to me. That's almost like the Dean Phillips positioning right of like, well, actually, I love I love Joe. Biden's great, but I just don't think he can win, or like, you know, even that's the way like Jan Kueger talked about it a lot, not he didn't do that. I love President Biden, but he was like, we have to win. President Biden can't win,
so I'm the guy. So I did find that notable that that's the way that he chose to phrase that tweet when he certainly hasn't held a fire in terms of being directly critical of Biden. But it made me feel like because he softened that language, perhaps he does see his best lane in terms of accumulating the you know, the most votes as being a little bit friendly towards the Biden people and like trying to pick up more of the disaffected Biden voters.
But I also could be way too much, no, no enough.
I think there is something to it where he says, you know, President Biden can't win. That's kind of like whenever he was running in the Democratic primary. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This is important for ballot Access News from RFK Junior. He is
ruling out a libertarian run. Kennedy says currently facing obstacles to get on the ballot in all fifty states, Getting on the libertarian ballot would have been an easy way to circuit this, but he says, we are not going to have problems getting on the ballot ourselves, so we are not going to be running as libertarian. This is something he confirmed to ABC News on Saturday when he was asked specifically about this. So currently we know that
he has qualified right now for the ballot in Utah. Officially, there are other states where he has enough signatures, but they're currently in being contested.
But this was a move of confidence on the.
Campaign part where they are saying definitively we are going to be.
On the ballot in all fifty states.
Now, I remained skeptical of that, and it's not a denigration of his campaign. It's just that I know how rigged that the process is and how difficult it will be to get on all fifty. But clearly, maybe with Nicole Shanahan's money, they believe that they do actually have a very good shot at being on the ballot in the vast majority of states. That's the only reason that you would deny the Libertarian Party or.
The Libertarians were like didn't want him.
Like there was a lot of it.
There was some consternation, say, you wouldn't have won, but actually I think he might have won.
I'm not sure.
I don't know either, but I'm just saying That's the other alternative explanation is it became clear that at least it wouldn't be a clear cut path to Libertarian nomination. They weren't going to just anoint him, so it ends up being sort of too messy and distracting from the rest of his campaign goals. I think that's entirely possible as well. Listen, I continue to be skeptical about how many ballots he's going to be able to get on, because even in the places where he appears to have
met the criteria, there remain question marks. I mean that he appears to have met the criteria, yet there's some question about what did you have a VP on this ticket at that point? So does that one count? He just announced that they qualified for Iowa ballot access. They had to hold some kind of a convention in the state. So they're saying, okay, well we did that, we checked that box, but it's still got to be certified by Iowa's Secretary of State.
Are they going to find some kind.
Of a little loophole of oh, well, you didn't check X, Y and Z on the form twenty seventeen and by the way, we just changed the rules anyway, so sorry, it doesn't count. There's so many tricks that they use and lawfair that they use also to try to block candidates from the ballot. I just it's not a slam dunk thing. It's not a slam dunk thing to get on and even a majority of states, let alone all fifty states, so they certainly have their work cut out for them. And I think this is one of the
most important in terms of the horse race. I think this is one of the most important things to watch because we know that there's oftentimes double digit support for Bobby Kennedy. So does he make it on the ballot? Who is he pulling more from? You know, who are the more disaffected voters who are migrating to him.
I think these things.
Could all be actually determinative in terms of the next president is. And by the way, I continue to be a little agnostic about what the answer is as to which side he pulls more from, because he still does have a much higher favorability with Republicans and so I'm just looking at that and I can't help but think that must mean something because it's not even close, like a majority of Republicans like him and overwhelmed like seventy
five percent of Democrats hate him. So that has to mean something at the end of the day, is my guest. But you know, the pulling so far has been a little bit mixed as to what the impact is.
Absolutely no, very true. All right, let's move on to the next part. This is where we wanted to continue to stay on top of this story. Just a quick update here with some pretty extraordinary news. Let's put it up there on the screen. There is now a Federal FBI investing gates into the Key Bridge crash from Baltimore. So what they are looking at is whether the crew left the port knowing that their vessel had serious system problems. This is after an initial review of the case.
Quote.
Authorities are reviewing the events leading up to the moment when the singing parent Poorian flagship lost power, leaving the Port of Baltimore, slamming into one of the bridge's support pillars, collapsing the entire bridge. Just after dawn on Monday, Actually, dozens of FBI officials, addressed in all black all began storming the ship, where the crew has actually remained since the crash, quote, pulling up to the ship's bow in
numerous boats, climbing aboard using a ladder. The FBI now confirming that the agents are on board and authorities are conducting a quote court approved search. The criminal investigation, which is important here, is being handled by currently a US Attorney office in Maryland. Same day that quote, multiple private law firms have separately announced they are been retained to represent the Mayor's office and seven of the men who
were working construction on the bridge when it collapsed. The signal an effort to seek accountability and determine what caused the crash that left six of the eight men who were on the bridge that were dead. Now, what's important also is that this came immediately after a report surface around the condition of the ship immediately after it left.
Let's put it up there please on the screen. It says that the bridge collapse had the ship apparently had electrical issues while it was still docked hours before leaving the port. The container ship experienced electrical problems according to those who are officials who were involved in the process, that came out at the same time that the FBI
actually boarded the ship. Now, what they say is that when the DOLLI the ship departed Baltimore early in the morning with its with all of its cargo and slammed into the bridge, it almost immediately experienced a similar electrical issue. So the criminal investigation that will take place here is did they know that the ship was experiencing electrical problems? Were they aware that or did they cover up either
that had happened. Did they put some sort of shoddy fix that ended up shorting the entire ship that eventually led to the collapse and to the crash. So there's gonna be a lot of investigation, not just in the crew, but you know, possibly the higher ups, yeah, that were involved in telling them, Hey, you need to get out of there. We got to fix this as soon as possible.
That's what I would really because that was the big question I had too, is Okay, if that all happened and they're hearing these alarms on the refrigerator unit saying okay, you've got this intermittent power supply, there's something wrong here.
What sort of pressure may the crew have been under to proceed even under those very risky circumstances, Because obviously, I mean the people that it posed a great risk to as well was themselves being aboard a ship that may not have been seaworthy, and that apparently is the legal standard that they have to meet. So according to the law, you, uh, the dolly was, you have to indicate whether or not it was reasonably fit for the
intended voyage. You may not send a vessel to see in a known unseaworthy condition.
So that'll be the question.
I'm sure that'll be you know, debated likely in court over whether or not it was in a known unseaworthy condition, and then you know, potential accountability flows from there. Something else that our friends over at lever News have been reporting on is the fact that the owner of this ship has been in court trying to limit their liability using this eighteen fifty one maritime law. It allows them to seek to limit that liability to the value of
the vessel's remains after a casualty. So that would mean that their liability would be limited to something like forty three point six million dollars, which I mean, considering the damage that was caused and the lives that were lost, this is really peanuts. And that's one of the things that the victims lawyers, the lawyers for the families, and the one individual who actually survived amazingly incredibly the fall off this bridge, that they're really taking issue with that.
One of the lawyers said, imagine telling that to grieving families that while they're planning a funeral, the owner of the boat is in court trying to stop the city, state and victims from being able to file claims. There was also a detail in this because I've been wondering, how did that one man survive?
Oh yeah, unbelievable.
Apparently he escaped drowning, but he was inside of his work truck, and he was able to roll down his vehicle's window and fight through the frigid water, I mean it was cold that day, when the water is even colder, despite being unable to swim, and then he was able
to cling to debris until he was rescued. So survived this huge fall inside of his work truck, is able to swim out through the window in spite of the fact that he can't swim and survive these you know, ice cold waters as really unbelievable miracle that he was able to survive.
Yeah, it's an amazing story and it's one of those where again remember this is one of the worst you know, industrial accidents here in a long time in the United States, and a criminal investigation. Really, what it will reveal is what I had seen previously. I remember during the whole Captain Phillips thing, we were reading about why exactly that
this kept happening. And part of the reason is because the shipping companies didn't want to spend money on the extra fuel that would have cost to go outside of pirate areas, so they're like cheaper to just pay the ransom and to risk it. You're like, wait what, And apparently that's the thing. You know, you if you're part of like I think, if you're a ship captain, you're held within a set amount of fuel that you're allowed
to use. You need to call up and you need to get permission from authorities to burn extra fuel because it just costs a ton of money a certain point. Business wise, I do get it. I can understand to a certain extent. But sometimes these types of pressures, you know, to save money or to make make deadline and all that, it's going to run up against it's going to run up against safety, and it's going to lead to a catastrophic incident.
Like we see this all the time, like in the mining industry, for example, line operators, especially the shadier ones, just skimping on safety at you know, cutting corners every step of the way, and you know games that the regulators play to give them heads up when they're coming to inspect the mine. And we've had a number of you know, deadly mine accidents because this unscrupulous owner wanted to save money at the risk of their workers' lives.
And so we'll see what the details are here.
You know, what was going on with the crew, with the crew, what they knew and what sort of pressure they may have been under from the higher ups. But will certainly certainly continue to pay attention to this story because it is so significant in terms of the collapse of this infrastructure and what it means for the entire sort of Eastern Seaboard going forward. Absolutely, all right, guys, At the same time, we have an incredible Ryan Grimm and Jeremy Scahill scoop. We can put this up on
the screen. They were able to get their hands on a leaked memo from the New York Times that instructed journalists covering Israel's war on Gaza to restrict the use of the terms genocide, ethnic cleansing, and to avoid using the phrases occupied territory when describing Palestinian land. According to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept by the Way Soccer, the New York Times apparently just
wrapped up their previous investigation into previous leaks to the Intercepts. Yes, right as they wrap that up, the Intercept gets this new, very revelatory leak. The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine except in very rare cases. That's a specific language from this memo to steer clear of the term refugee camps to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by internally displaced Palestinians who fled from other parts
of Palestine during previous wars. The areas, of course, are recognized by the UN as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees. You know that one is really significant because this is just such Israeli framing. You know that this is part of why Israel hates UNRA so much, is because it gives them the designation of refugees. And you know, Israel really hates that because they see this as continuing a justified Palestinian claim to the land.
So really sort of buying into the Israeli framing here. The time memo goes on to outline guidance on a range of phrases in terms they say the nature of the conflict has led to inflammatory language and incendiary accusations on all sides. We should be very cautious about using such language, even in quotations, and they specifically talk about words like slaughter, massacre, and carnage, which they say often convey more emotions and information think hard before using them
in our own voice. Which is funny because the intercepted previously published an analysis showing that they exclusively use that type of language when it comes to attacks on Israelis. So they found the intercept analysis, which we covered here I think I did a monologue on it, actually showed that major newspapers reserved terms like slaughter, massacre, and horrific almost exclusively for Israeli civilians. New York Times had described Israeli deaths as a massacre on fifty three occasions, and
those of Palestinians just once. The ratio for the use of slaughter was twenty two to one, even as the documented number of Palestinians at that time was around fifteen thousands.
They also go on to talk about the use of the word terrorism, so they don't characterize Israel's repeated attacks on Palestinian civilians as terrorism, but go on at great length to explain how it is appropriate to call hamas militi since on October seventh, terrorists, but the same similar attacks on civilians from the israelis not terrorism, you know, it's just very uh it's very illustrative of the double
standards that are applied throughout the news media. And to see it all written out like this is pretty shordinary, right.
And this is here's the thing. If you don't ever want to use a claim genocide, fine, don't use it. But when I google Russia genocide Ukraine NYT one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, stories just in the last year that have been published by The New York pop right.
Up on your first Google search results.
Very first thing, right, And if I read about terrorism and Russia, what's the same thing. This is again like if you want to say, well, it's terrorism because a non state actor, okay, cool, But whenever here we have an actual nation state, Russia, they're accusing them quote of terrorism inside of Ukraine. Now, it's all subjective, and it's editorial, and it's based upon the foreign policy views of the owners of the New York Times or the people who work at the New York Times, And that is why
it's egregious and why it's stupid. Now, if you are a political person and you are trying to make these points, that's one thing. But if you're supposedly newspaper record and an a credible news organization that is actually trying to present some sort of picture of the truth that's a totally different one. And it is very clear here that for some reason they have decided to commit themselves entirely
to presenting a view of the conflict. And at a certain point I think it's okay, But then they need to just be honest about where they are and not pretend that they don't have a massive bias, especially consider how this entire Intercept thing went down. They were revealed that their October seventh rape story was complete bullshit, like absolutely did not rise to the editorial standards something that we would publish here, let alone over at the New
York Times. Well, they then launch an investigation into who leaked all of the background of their terrible reporting, And as Ryan has talked about here, part of the reason he believes that they won't retract it is because they want to win a Pulitzer Prize for the story they fully believe that they will do, And how insane would that be.
I think they're also just they're like afraid of the fallout from it.
They just I mean, even though remember.
And we've covered this pretty extensively, but their own reporters at The New York Times had to write a story about how one of the central claims of their own Hamas rape story was not true, and yet they have not retracted the story. They put in a you know, a little bit of a like parenthetical after that part of the story, but they didn't even take that.
Part of the story.
I mean, it's just it's what and that's just the tip of the iceberg with the problems of that story. But yeah, this gives you some real insight. And I'm not surprised that they said, don't use genocide. I'm not surprised that they'd say don't use ethnic but banning. You can't say refugee camps, you can't say Palestine, you can't
say occupied territories. Like this is flying in the face of really standard acknowledged reality around the world, and they're censoring their own journalists to try to craft a view of the world that is the most friendly possible to the Israeli position.
Like that comes across this could.
Have been written by one of you know, Bebi's spokespeople, grules that we see across media. This is exactly how they would want this to be framed and so it was fine back in the immediate aftermath of October seventh for New York Times reporters to be talking about a massacre or a slaughter, et cetera, et cetera. But suddenly when the slaughter was all on the other side, is well, this language, this is too emotional. Why are we using
these words? Well, why'd you use them back then? If you're going to not use the word massacre at all or slaughter at all? Why was it fine when it was Israeli's being slaughtered? But now there's Palestinians being slaughtered. Suddenly those words are too emotional and we should really think twice before we use them.
Look, the Buka massacre, all right, and I'm not I'm not putting, I'm not trying to minimize what happened there.
That's four hundred and fifty eight people who were killed.
I mean the death toll and Gaza is what minimum thirty k What are we doing here? Yeah, Buka is supposed to be one of those massive turning points of the that is what a day of fighting in Gaza?
And I mean, let's okay, flip it around.
Buka massacre October seven, that's about a third of the death toll on October seven. It's well, which one is a masker? And what's not is you know what's the cutoff? Is it indiscriminate killing?
Is it not?
You know what's this is just ludicrous the way that and again look think about the way that Buka Buka is literally the justification that they say for quote unquote committing genocide and why America should be you know, back the Ukraine means to the hills and shows sort of savages the Russians are and all this is just nothing compared to the scale of world events. I'm not minimizing
what happened there. I'm just saying you have to put it in a context of broader like broader conflict and about what the barriers and what for US policy should be in response to certain events. And it's just some things are granted master status, some are not. Sometimes embassies are embassies sometimes are not.
That that's the problem that.
We un it's a genocide sometimes.
Oh and let's be clear, like the case that this is a genocide is much more further advanced and much more grounded than the case against Russia in terms of you know, the ICJ finding it plausible you and Special Rappertoire saying reasonable grounds. Even in terms of public sentiment within the US, you have large and increasing majorities, almost a super majority at this point of Democrats who say yes, yes,
it's a genocide. You have a plurality of independence, and you even have some number of republic especially judging by the ones who were chanting at Trump's rally the other day, who say it's a genocide. So yeah, you're right, Sara, if you don't like that word and you just don't want to use it anywhere. Okay, but that hasn't been the standard of your coverage at any point anywhere else
that we can really point to. There was a really good point that was made by staffer who spoke to the Intercept about this memo about banning the use of the term occupied territories, and the staffer was particularly upset about that because they said, this obscures the reality of the conflict, feeding into the US and Israeli insistence that the conflict began on October seventh, and nothing prior to that context mattered whatsoever.
Here's the quote. You are basically.
Taking the occupation out of the coverage, which is the actual core of the conflict. It's like, oh, let's not say occupation because it might make it look like we're justifying a terrorist attack.
So they're so fearful of.
Giving any credence to legitimate palestine A grievances prior to October seve that they just obscure the reality of what this conflict is actually about at its core, and that means that they are failing as a news organization. If you are not able to make your readers understand what is actually happening here, why this is all unfolding, That this didn't just come out of nowhere, you know, it didn't fall on what Kami said, didn't fall on the poconut tree, that this exists in the context of all
that came before. If you aren't able to talk to your readers honestly about that, like what are you even doing as a news organization?
The whole thing is silly.
Either treated fairly or don't or you know, declare your bias up front and then just tell people but trying to shape it and behind it all your.
Israel coverage under the opinion section. How about that?
Or publish a memo, publish your guidance seriously. Yeah, that actually that's a real justice.
Be Like, listen, this is the way that we refer to stuff on the conflict period and the story, and you can read all of our stories and another editorial, but it has to leak to somebody else about the way that they cover it. That's actually what I find the most objectional about the entire thing.
They have so disgraced themselves in their coverage. I mean, it really is like WMD Caliphate level of failures from the New York Times. It really is where they have a narrative that they want and then they fill in the facts to match that narrative.
That's what we've seen, you know.
Not one hundred percent of the time, but pretty consistently, and especially when you see the analysis of the different language that was used and this memo that provides the guidance of how reporters have to talk about this this conflict.
It just is all about hiding the ball.
All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you.
Thanks for helping us with the gold plaque. It was very very kind of you guys to help us get to one million, even though it was quite a long time ago. Chris will be in on Counterpoints tomorrow and I will see you guys on Thursday.