4/17/24: Congress Pushes Billions For Israel And Ukraine, Israel Blocks Oct 7 UN Investigation, USC Cancels Pro-Palestine Valedictorian Speech, Tom Cotton Calls For Violence On Protesters, SCOTUS To Rescue Trump On Jan 6 Charges, Biden To Sue Ticketmaster, Bill Maher Flames CNN'

And on one side you're going to have Jane Huger and Dave Smith. On the other side you're going to have Batya Angar Saga and Dennis Praeger. So I'm personally looking forward to tuning into that and seeing how it goes. But that'll be on our channel tonight at seven pm, so make sure you don't miss that. We got a lot though in the show to get to this morning. We've got major speaker drama, We've got new sanctions being announced against a Ron, We've got a whole bunch of

free speech issues. We want to get to some very consequential SCOTUS oral arguments that happened yesterday that could be very significant for a lot of J six defendants and also for Donald Trump himself. Looks like the DOJ is going to sue Live Nation and Bill Maher making some interesting comments and also comes in the context of this whole NPR liberal whatever's going on at NPR. You can help me understand that as well, Emily, and.

They still need to do the parliamentary procedure privileging the motion to vacate if you want to get really nerdy to actually force a vote on the motion to vacate the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson over his foreign aid package. This time, Thomas Massey actually called on him to resign. We're going to break all down all the details, but let's start with a clip of Mike Johnson talking to reporters yesterday in the Capitol. Here's what he had

to say about the possibility of him resigning. What is your response to Republicans who say this move should cost you your job and that if.

without a GOP speaker. Christy who might remember that reference to what John Bayner did as the writing kind of ended up on the wall with Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan all the way back in like twenty fifteen. That's

what Thomas Massey is referencing there. And this all over a bill, the text of which actually has not yet been released, but Mike Johnson has signaled will include half the aid to U Ukraine, to Israel, to Taiwan with none of the border security measures that his fellow Republicans, especially the sort of Freedom Caucus and Freedom Coccus adjacent people like Thomas Massin, like Marjorie Taylor Green who was

ousted from the Freedom Caucus. But we don't need to get into all of that have demanded it be paired with border security or some other offsets, and they are furious with Mike Johnson for essentially working with Democrats, who, as Politico is reported, seem to be open to potentially saving Mike Johnson from this motion to vacate in order to get their aid to Ukraine, their aid to Israel. This is a three A tweet from Jake Sherman over

at punch Bowl. He broke some of this down. He said, House Republicans plan to try to pass four bills this week to send aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. According to four sources familiar with the plan, maybe he had.

and Crystal'll toss it to you. But let's first take this tweet from Matt Stoller, which is aimed actually at Democrats. He said, this move is responding to Jake Sherman, will require Democratic support and as a move to create a de facto war party caucus that is beyond partisan reach.

TikTok stuff I also am opposed to. But just to explain the legislative machinations here and why someone like Thomas Massey, who I have plenty of disagreements with but I consider to be a genuinely principled and actually courageous actor in the United States Congress, why I think he's correct to

be very upset about this maneuver. So they've long been trying to push through more Ukraine AID, more Israel AID, more Taiwan AID, and you know, there's will put the border security piece from the Republicans to the side for

a moment. And it's been difficult because you've got Republicans who some number of whom are opposed to Ukraine AID, You've got Democrats, some number of whom are now opposed to the Israel AID, and so you know, the thing that passed through the Senate, which pushed all these things together, was unlikely to pass through the House. What Mike Johnson is doing is basically a sort of legislative trick where

he's saying, okay, well, let's break these pieces apart. We have enough pro war bipartisan consensus on Ukraine to pass just Ukraine through the House. We have enough pro war bipartisan consensus on Israel to just pass Israel through the House. So if we do those two things and these other pieces separately, and then after the fact, combine them together so that it resembles basically what got through the Senate, then there you go. We get our uniparty bipartisan pro

war consensus funded all across the board. And so what Thomas Massey is saying is, basically, this is the polar opposite of what was promised to us when you were you know, when you were elected Speaker of the House, You're to be honest with you, Emily, some of the previous speaker machinations back when it was Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gates and whatever, didn't really make a lot of sense to me, and seem to be more performative on the part of Matt Gates here, my understanding at least,

was one of the key reasons that McCarthy was ousted in favor of Mike Johnson was Mike Johnson's supposed opposition to Ukraine aid. You also had the specter of him completely folding and reversing with regard to Faiza and you know, the deep state and surveilling Americans. So I actually, you know, to me, Thomas Massey stand here makes sense. Is entirely principled, and I am certainly cheering for the whole thing to fail. I'm not all that helpful that it's going to fail.

But to Stoler's point, what he's referring to here is for these bills to even get to the floor, they have to pass this, you know, the rules through committee. Typically Democrats don't vote for Republican rules through those committees. That's sort of like the traditional way, but it would require Democrats in order to accomplish that. So that's why if Democrat that's decided they wanted to block this, they could.

It doesn't seem to me entirely likely that that is going to happen, though at this point it seems like once again we're on track, very likely for the pro war consensus to get their money, as they seem to always be able to accomplish.

blacklash from people like Thomas Massey. I couldn't agree more with you, Crystel that he is courageous and genuinely is committed to the principles on this question to prevent from happening exactly what Stolar is predicting. And I feel like Crystal, that is a it's something that if I had to bet, I would probably say won't happened because the politics of it for Democrats are so difficult right now. But then again, the margin here is so small that it wouldn't take

that many Democrats to break away. If you have Jim Hymes already putting on a statement.

way to get this type of money through. And it's it's almost a cliche at this point, like there isn't all this legislative maneuvering and pressure and repeated attempts to get the minimum wage lifted, or to get healthcare to more Americans, or to get you know, affordable childcare, or

any other number of things that would benefit us. But when it comes to making sure that their donors, many of you know, plenty of whom come from the defence industry, are going to get paid or their future jobs in the defense industry are going to be locked up, or you know that APAK is satisfied with, you know, with their return on investment for their donations. When it comes

to those things, they figure out some way. And even people who like Mike Johnson, who claim to be opposed to some of these things, suddenly when the pressure's on, he flips on a dime and he's right there standing alongside, you know, Mitch mccondell and Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden and all of the worst warhawks in the entire country.

So you know, I'm so you actually think though, that there's a chance that these things will fail because of the consternation on the Republican and the Democratic side this time.

a tool to keep having these conversations. But to put a fine point on what you just said, Crystal about Mike Johnson, it's like he said, he went into the skiff where you know, you get those confidential briefings and of classified information, and on section seven of two Phizer Reform last week said, you know, he wanted to prevent another nine to eleven from what he heard in the skiff.

flip flop on Fiza, and that's exactly what happened. And it's funny because that's the language that Mike Turner and Jim Heimesi in that joint statement that we got a classified briefing today about the urgency for passing Ukraine Aid this week I mean, it is always the same thing, and that FAISA reform is now looking to be an even worse bill that within you know, just a couple of days between when everyone saw it when it was passed that it already looked.

press about these Russian news. Yeah, like that was the you know, Oh, we've got to find the scariest thing we can possibly sell to the American people about why we are, you know, taking away their right to privacy here and going to continue surveilling them with a without a warrant. So yeah, it's a classic tactic to use fear. Frankly,

it works all too often. But at this point, you know, there is at least some bipartisan skepticism of the you know, surveillance state, and so there's a little bit more of a roadblock to just you know, rolling everybody with their Russian space nuke you're mongering or whatever else they're going

to roll out. But yes, it's a classic tactic and it has worked plenty of times, and ultimately, you know, they do all kinds of things that don't really have the backing of the American people, they find a way, and I think this latest gambit which weaponizes the fact that there's so much support for you know, just constantly unconditional support for Israel, uh, you know, sufficient amounts amongst both the parties, and sufficient amounts to continue the Ukraine

war indefinitely in spite of the fact that there's no real plan at this point. I genuinely don't know what the plan is at this point to help secure victory for the Ukrainians. It seems like we're just going to

kick the can down the road. Brian made a comment that I thought was really important, which is we've covered the fact that the Ukrainians are struggling to find people to fight this war, are pulling men off the street, including men who are disabled physically and mentally disabled to send to the front lines, and we're using our tax dollars to put guns in the hands of people who have no desire to fight. I mean, it's it's frankly unconsfortable and moral at this point, especially with no plan

of what's going to happen. So so in any case, it's you know, it's a disgusting consensus that exists in Washington, and I figured at some point they would they would come up with the legislative mechanism to get their way and to you know, fulfill the fondest wishes of the all the folks who live inside the Beltway who make millions off of continuing these conflicts.

And that's where I think it is really like room for there's plenty of room for pessimism because if even somebody like him, who you know, was sort of against all of these like obvious uniparty priorities, gets into office, there's no question he's in a really difficult spot. I mean, I think, big picture, it's clear that Austin Kevin McCarthy, while I have no tears for Kevin McCarthy, was tactically

in error. You know, we don't have to roll the clip, but Kevin McCarthy basically said recently that he's not in he's not speaker because of Matt Gates, and McCarthy was way more sympathetic in style to that sort of wing of his party that he needs to get these bills across than Mike Johnson is. And Mike Johnson is friends with those guys. So it just feels to them like

a slap in the face. And I think they're right to have that feeling, because he's someone who understood them, who spent time with them, who said the right things to them. And again, he's in a difficult spot. He's got a one vote margin, he doesn't have George Santos anymore.

that they could oust Mike Johnson. So could be some really big changes to foreign policy and Congress in the days ahead.

be stupid enough to think otherwise. So there's that. The other thing just with regard to the philosophy of Mike Johnson, and this was why I was always skeptical of him in this position, you know, apart from other major ideological differences I have, but of course I'm going to have those with any Republican. At this point, he is a true believer when it comes to Zionism and comes to Israel,

and it comes from this religious, evangelical place. So I can't even say it's like the money or the corruption, like I think he is a fervent believer in we got to support Israel no matter what they do, no matter what the cost, no matter how many people are killed. And so the minute you have that on someone, then it's basically all right, well, if you want so badly to ship that aid to Israel, what are you going to be able to do for us on these other

pieces in terms of Ukraine. And so I think that for him is a big part of the reason why he flipped so quickly on some of these items.

Israel attack. If you read his report, he says Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen preparing fresh sanctions for Iran, vowing that the US will not hesitate to inflict economic punishment in response to the Islamic Republic's unprecedented attack on ISRAELI goes on to say, why it matters present Biden is urging bb to exercise military restraint, but in the economic sphere, the administration is demonstrating a willingness to retaliate against Iran.

You know, one of the things obviously that has absolutely enraged me in the discussion of this, you know, Iran Israel incredibly dangerous escalation is the attacks on Israel were described by many as quote unquote unprovoked, when of course they were not unprovoked. They were very directly and by the way, very intentionally provoked by net Yahoo with that

attack on the Iranian consular building in Damascus. So the US to avoid having to condemn Israel over that attack on the embassy, which you know is very clear cut violation of Vienna Conventions, violation of international law, just complete warding of all sorts of international norms, and by the way, makes our own embassy officials and consular employees less safe because it opens up this door to any state actor

around the world. So to avoid condemning them, but also to avoid signing on to the notion that embassies are just like open season and fair game. At this point, the administration has been playing this game of pretending like they don't really know whether or not this was actually an Iranian consular building. Matthew Miller was pressed on this by the incomparable Matt Lee. Let's take a listen how that went down.

said so. But the fact that they're dragging their feet, Oh, we're doing an investigation, we promise, we'll get back to you, tells you everything that you need to know, and is yet another instance of how they completely ignore or dispatch with any sort of the previous norms that they claim

to care about when it comes to Israel. So no sanctions forthcoming on Israel or their incredible provocation here that any country would be rightly outraged by, but they are going to apparently retaliate against Iran or responding to that provocation.

it's not serious. It's publicly very sanctimonious. But they know that they're using international law, that sort of shield of international law as a tool as a political weapon when it suits them, and then they drop it when it's inconvenient. And there are serious geopolitical implications for doing that, which is why they do it in fact. Actually, but I don't think that they've you know, even after all of these decades reckoned with how seriously it hurts the credibility of the United States.

like absolute hypocrites. And same thing with the language that was previously used about Ukraine, you know, the humanitarian language, language about international law, about atrocities, about genocide, eve and suddenly we don't hear anything about that because they know how hypocritical they sound. And how you know when it comes to Israel, Oh, is was it a war crime? Well, we don't know. We need to get a lawyer. I'm

not a lawyer who can really say. When it was Russia, they could say right away and they knew right away what was going on. The Other thing I wanted to mention about that Matt Miller interaction is that is such a classic tactic of oh, we're doing an investigation, but you never hear the results of these investigations, right, they never come so and you know, there was an investigation into the murder of the young girl Hinn who was

assassinated by the way. Washing Post has a new report on this while she was in a car waiting for medics to come rescue her. Also, her would be medic rescuers were also targeted and assassinated, even though they were coordinating directly with IDF deconflicted, giving them their coordinates, telling them, waited hours to respond, telling them where they moved. These investigations are apparently you launched by the State Department and

never come to any sort of conclusion. Something else that by the way, matt Lee has pressed Matthew Miller on all these variety of you know, massacres and atrocities that supposedly they're looking into. That. Oh, we never get the results of those, We never hear anything more about it,

and we just move on to the next outrage. Speaking of investigations into atrocities, the UN has been attempting to conduct an investigation into atrocities committed against Israelis on October seventh, and somewhat shocking, Lamb and I guess I shouldn't be completely surprised, but Israel has actually blocked and obstructed them, according to that UN panel, in their attempt to investigate the acts that occurred on October seventh. Let's put this

up on the screen. So this is from the Jerusalem Posts. They say un Commission accuses Israel of obstructing in October seventh probe, one of the members of the commission said they saw active obstruction by Israel of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims. And I'll read

you the quote from this individual, Chris Sadati. He says, so far as the government of Israel is concerned, we've not only seen a lack of cooperation, but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims the events that occurred in southern Israel. And he said, we have contact with many, but we would like to

have contact with more. The Israeli's claim they say, oh, well, victims would never get any justice or the dignified treatment they deserve from the Commission of Inquiry and its members, which they describe as having a track record of anti Semitic and anti israel statements. Obviously the go to anytime you want to smear someone and you don't like what they had to say about you in the past, just

throughout that they must be anti Semitic. But I think it's pretty extraordinary Emily that basically they've instructed witnesses and survivors inside of Israel not to cooperate with this investigation, not into Israel's actions now in the Gaza Strip, but into the atrocities that were committed by Hamas and other Islamic militant groups on October seventh, and Israel apparently doesn't want the details of that day to come out. I think there's a lot of logical conclusions as to why,

or speculation that you could get into. One is that the Israeli IDF response was pathetic. You had many people who were desperately waiting for hours and hours for anyone to come and help them, and that help was not forthcoming. So that's a very unflattering light. And then we do have some of these instances which have been documented by the New York Times and Haratz and other outlets at this point where some of the victims, not a majority,

not all. I'm not trying to downplay the atrocites of Hamas on that day, but some of the victims did come from quote unquote friendly fire from the Israelis on that day, and I'm sure they don't want a light shone on that either.

I want to, you know, hand over all of this information, et cetera, et cetera.

parts of the UN. But that's not consistent with the approach towards the UN. And I think it is, you know, in some ways more political, but it's it's an unfortunate situation all around because what we do want our answers on what happened about what happened on October seventh, that might make the Israeli government look pretty bad, yeah, or might make anybody you know look pretty bad. And we can't get that information from an investigation in a way

that we can trust, because nobody trusts the investigators. So we're not getting any closer to the truth. And what we really need is the truth, but we're not in a position to get it right now.

very happy to embrace. When it comes to this report, which they expect would shine an unflattering light on them in a variety of ways, well, we're not going to cooperate. What's and we're going to claim that you're anti Semitic.

same way that they once did. Because at this point even Joe Biden has been smeared as like pro Hamas. It's just ridiculous the number of things that have been labeled anti Semitic, pro hamas, pro terrorist, et cetera. So it starts to fall on deaf years, and that's a real loss because anti Semitism is a real problem, it

is a real scourge. And when you casually throw around this language anti Semitism blood libel about accurately describing what happening in Gaza or about accurate or legitimate criticism of the Israeli government, the term becomes meaningless, and then it helps to fuel an actual, you know, legitimate rise in anti Semitism as well, it makes people more skeptical of that claim being made in every instance, speaking of you know, some of the mythology around October seventh that we know

there were horrific atrocities. Those atrocities should be condemned by any decent person where they were committed against civilians. Yet we know there were some stories that were fabricated in order to serve as a real justification or barbarism against Palestinians in Gaza. You know, the beheaded babies, the baby baked in the oven. We've got a new example of that, although this one got shot down almost immediately. Put this

up on the screen. So you had a number of outlets reporting that among survivors the Nova Music Festival, which was one of the worst scenes of carnage on October seventh, there was a claim made that there had been almost fifty suicides among those survivors. Now, this claim on its face seems fairly outrageous and outlandish, but a number of outlets,

including the Daily Beasts here report this just uncritically. Well, this was so sort of out there of a claim emily that it was almost immediately shot down, even by the Israeli health ministers. Put this up on the screen. Head of the Israeli Health Ministry was asked about this and said directly that this was not true. He said, based on an examination connected with the Nova Community Association as well as with other parties, it emerged such data

is unknown. But he also said directly that the rumors

about number of suicides and hospitalizations are not true. So another attempt to you know, again, the atrocity on that day were enough, they were horrifying enough, but there's this constant desire to create the most horrifying, you know, visual imagery and notion of what occurred on that day in an attempt very directly to justify things that are even under the worst circumstances, not justifiable, being done against children and women and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza strip.

is media is actually focusing on it. I think that's worth noting too, that there's you know, a real again, I think, thirst for the truth on these questions, because you know, for Israelis, they're so sensitive and rightfully so, about the truth and about what really happened and about

the victims here. And so I feel like, actually, Crystal, it's interesting even to see places like the Jerusalem Post looking critically at claims like this and as they should be and as all of us should be, and this particular one based on the Health Ministry, which I can't imagine. I'm trying to think of what reason they would have to sort of actively push back on this if it were you know, plausible, if it were true. This narrative really had holes poked in it just about right away.

And you know, to your point earlier about how there's a lot of a lot more skepticism than maybe there was in the past, I think this really goes along with that. With that argument, This totally confirms that.

to starve, You have northern Gaza in famine. You had people that we covered yesterday trying to return to their homes in northern Gaza who were shot at The very latest report out of Gaza is that you had eleven children who were killed as they were playing at a playground in Rafa, of course being the place where there is a planned invasion where more than a million Palestinians have been pushed in are sheltering in imporrent conditions at

this point. So they had built this playground for the children to help take their mind off of the horrors and the trauma that they've all experienced, and they came under fire and were killed by Israelis. Let's take a listen to a little bit of this report from Anjazira.

negative energy in them. Because right now, displaced families have the hardest time inside tents or inside other people's residential homes trying to stay protected and save, but it's as necessary as also stay in safe just to give space to those children. So eleven children have been killed in this attack, and just one wonder what spread these children have opposed to have the Israeli military fire and missilely drawn on them. Eleven reported killed, with more with dozens

of injuries in the area. Those who had the scene of the attack describe horrific scenes of children torn apart by the massive explosion caused by the missiles.

these sorts of stories out of the news. They're starting to be, you know, a little bit of different language being used, especially after the World Central Kitchen Aid workers had been killed. That really structure the heart of a lot of liberals who personally know Jose Andres and you know, now a story such as this is not going to really get airtime much of anywhere, as everyone just focuses on and understandably the you know, the situation where Iran

is very grave, we're obviously covering it here. But I think there was an intentional decision to try to push these stories out of the news and focus on something where you be felt he would be on stronger ground with the world community, and also to continue his grip on power in Israel, where he's deeply unpopular.

that recipe of broader conflict are coming together. And I don't think anybody feels confident that the Abiden administration or that Yahoo are just firmly in control of mitigating any potential explosions. In fact, the Damascus to what happened in Damascus underlines that probably for a lot of people, Crystal and such a fragile geopolitical ecosystem right now.

avoid this broader war. Well, even without this direct Iranian escalation, we had already seen this conflict spread beyond Gaza, talking about Yemen, a rack, Syria ra and troops coming under fire and in some instances being killed, So that cat is already out of the bag. Now what we're staring down is something even more terrifying, which you know, there

was a report. I don't know if you saw this, I mean, I don't know if this is true because it's from a new sources that I'm not particularly familiar with, But there was this report that the Biden administration got in touch with Iran after the you know, Iranian attack on Israel and said, hey, how about you just let Israel respond just like a little response and don't do anything like can you imagine can you imagine another country asking us like, hey, if they directly attack your country,

could you just like not really care about that? Would that be fine with you? And according to the report, which again I don't know if this is accurate, but it was reported by a few different news sources, the Iranians will of course like piss off, like no, we're not going to listen to you, and just be fine if Israel directly attacks us back after they were the ones again with this initial provocation attacking our embassy and killing our people.

creepy and disturbing. How reports suggests that there's this almost stage managing of the conflict and saying you're allowed to know the reports are with Iran, with Israel, you're allowed to do something you know at this like that is proportional to this, and then they're allowed to do something that's proportional to that, as though this is going to totally mitigate the possibility of an explosion in this conflict, which, by the way, the safety of Israelis and Netanyah, who's

popularity in israel I think speaks to this, or lack of popularity or his difficulty with his political coalition speaks to this. Obviously, israel Is we're not safer under net Nyahu because of October seventh. That's not to blame him for the actions of Hamas, but that is to say that he was in charge of the country and there are a lot of serious questions that need to be asked about the security of the Israeli people on October seventh, on October sixth, before October seventh, and going.

moment on the right being officially dead and gone. But it brings me back to that quote that was leaked to an Israeli news station where someone who's in the room said, you know, if Israelis were privy to the conversations that are going on in the war cabinet right now about how to potentially respond to Iran, there would be four million Israelis rushing to the airport trying to

get out of this country. So shows you some of the insanity that is at least being contemplated from the Israelis right now, and which obviously directly implicates all of us in a way that should leave a genuinely fearful and quite wary of where this is all headed.

or something like that. There are also people like in Iran that don't want Israel to exist and in fact don't want Jews to exist. So the possibility for something that jeopardizes the safety of Jews in Israel, of Jews around the world is not nil. And you know, obviously not Yah who knows that. Obviously supporters of Netanyaho.

intense history, there no doubt about it. Let's go ahead and move on to some of the things that the Congress is up to so in addition to passing yet another resolution on anti semitism, this one condemning the protest chant from the River to the Sea as being anti semit No word on whether it's the anti semitic when it comes from b B himself or from the LACUD

party charter, from his son or whatever. Anyway. They also are convening yet another panel and calling forth yet another university president to speak on their actions to combat anti Semitism on campus. The Columbia University president is set to testify to that same Congressional panel that caused the whole uproar last time around, which we of course covered here and led to a number of them losing their jobs.

That president is out with a Wall Street journal at ed to try to sort of set the stage for what they're going to say. The headline here at Columbia University President, what I plan to tell Congress tomorrow. Anti Semitism and calls for genocide have no place at a university. My priority has been the safety and security of our community, but at leaves plenty of room for robust disagreement and debate.

Let me read you a little bit of this. Also, her notes were leaked about how she plans to talk about this issue, and very similar to what's laid out in the op ed here. But the op ed reads, while disagreement and debate are to be welcomed at a university, that should happen within specific parameters, calling for the genocide of a people, whether they are Israeli or Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, or anyone else, has no place in a university community.

Such words are outside the balance of legitimate debate and unimaginably harmful. Second, well, there may be some easy cases, drawing the line between permissible and impermissible campus speech is enormously difficult, And then she continues and thinking about these boundaries of permissible speech. One idea we have adopted at

Columbia is to define a designated space for protests. This approach allows for fewer limits on speech, usually a desirable value at a university because those who don't want to hear what is being said need not listen. It also means the core functions of university teaching and learning can

continue uninterrupted. There's a few things about this. There's actually a lot to say about the SAP ed. First of all, on the alleged calls for genocide, and this came up in the context of the initial congressional hearings that caused such a fuss on this. There's no specifics, there's no specific examples of students actually doing this. And so are you talking about just a call for equal rights from the river to the sea, are you calling about you know,

talking about the chance to globalize the Intifada? What are you referring to tiers specifically? Because there's been this pretense that there's some outbreak of outright genocidal language occurring on college campuses. And I'm not going to say there's not a single instance or there isn't genuine anti semitism out there. I think that'd be a ridiculous thing to say. But we never seem to see these instances of this supposed call for genocide against the Jews happening on college campuses,

So it's left very vague. And then in addition, what you've actually seen in terms of Colombia is a real crackdown on the rights of students, and in a very one sided way. Colombia is being sued actually right now

for unlawfully banning multiple pro Palestine groups. So the New York Civil Liberties Union and a Palestinian rights organization filed a lawsuit against Columbia University so that you had Justice and Students for Justice in Palestine and Columbia barn Are Jewish Boys for Peace both banned and Columbia administrator previously said the group's repeatedly violated college policies like holding unauthorized events and that the gathering included threatening rhetoric and intimidation.

But once again, there's no specifics given about what that rhetoric or what that intimidation is. They just sort of came in over the top and shut down these two groups. And you also have an incident which was pretty horrif buying where a number of pro Palestine activists were sprayed

by some sort of a chemical irritant. There was a recent Al Jazeera documentary about what happened, and the investigation, which from the university side has basically gone nowhere into what was effectively a chemical attack against pro Palestinian demonstrators. Let's watch a little bit of that kind of got oh my gosh, it smells like someone is dying.

And I doubt, at least from the Republicans side, we're going to hear much in terms of questioning about the cancelation, the banning of these activist groups and the investigation into what happened to these students.

an interesting report, they say. During a January fifth interview with socialist podcast Revolutionary Left Radio, Islamic scholar Mohammad Abdu declared his support for Hamas and the quote resistance the terror groups quote dedicated few. He said admiringly worked in quote stealth mode on October seventh to defeat a larger

enemy in Israel. Just days later, on January sixteenth, Columbia University's Middle East Institute extended a quote warm welcome to Abdu, the Ivy League School's latest visiting professor in Modern Arab studies, and it goes on later in the article to quote him four days after October seventh, saying, yes, I'm with the resistance be it Hamas and Hesbalah and Islamic jihad, and he talked about false reports accusing Arabs and Muslims of decapitating the heads of children and being rapists, and

he said, I might be with Hamas and support the resistance absolutely.

you know, being a visiting professor of Arab studies. You know, I think it's entirely an ideological disagreement. People can can talk about Hamas and Hezbollah in the context of being the resistance. I personally find that to be abhorrent. But it's, you know, something that should be debated obviously, out in the open and not sort of relegated to these corners

where it festers. I don't think that's healthy, whether it's happening on the fringes of the outright or the sort of fringes in this situation.

But this is a I actually think this is a really helpful example for Republicans that it is really difficult to stand up for free speech on campus when it's you know, somebody like this, as opposed to when it's you know, your own speakers.

on all of this has flipped. You know, all these concerns about like student safety, You see that in this instance of the Columbia University president being called to testify about protecting Jewish student making sure they don't feel unsafe on campus, not because they're physically threatened, but because they might hear something at a protest that makes them feel unsafe. You also had that same safety language being used by USC. And let's put this up on the screen. I find

this so disgraceful. So they announced that their valedictorian, Asna Tobasom's commencement speech has been canceled. The reason is they said, oh, it was necessary to maintain the safety of our campus and students. So Asna was selected valedictorian. She happened to minor in genocide studies, and apparently the university was very fearful that she, as someone who has expressed pro Palestinian views, might use some of what she learned at their university

about genocide and discussed that in her commencement speech. So they just canceled the whole thing altogether. And just so you know that the whole you know, Oh, we're worried about kids safety and safety at graduation, etc. Is complete nonsense. When she spoke to them, they couldn't give her any specific examples of credible threats or other legitimate safety issues

that they could identify. But they came under all kinds of pressure from the right and from Jewish groups, in particular who pro Israel groups, I should say, because there are plenty of anti Zionist Jewish groups at this point as well. They came under a lot of pressure from pro Israel groups to cancel this speech on a fear for what this accomplished young lady may have to say. She wrote quite an extraordinary response. She said, I'm surprised

my own university has abandoned me. She went on to say that she's student of history and chose to minor and resistance to genocide, and had learned that ordinary people are capable of unspeakable acts of violence when they are taught hate fueled by fear, and due to widespread fear, I was hoping to use my commencement speech to inspire my classmates with a message of hope. By canceling my speech,

USC is only caving to fear and rewarding hatred. Matt Tybee had a notable responses as well that we can put up on the screen. He says, all sorts of people are blamed for undermining confidence in institutions, but it's usually the institution itself that does the most damage, as

in this case. And you know, not hearing a lot from the usual suspects who used to be all about free speech and against cancel culture, etc. At the valedictorian of the school being blocked for speaking because she might say something that they're uncomfortable with.

in this context. The point is that speech is speech, and as long as it's not outright incitement, especially at public universities, but at universities in general.

the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. There's Hanoy Jane, you know, talking about people like Jane Fonda that were a supportive of the other side in the Vietnam War that was killing American soldiers and just making this argument intellectually, building this case that it was morally necessary to support this force of violence because in their perception, they were pushing back on a bigger threat of violence.

we think about these things. So I mean, I agree, Crystal, I think that you know, there's way too little appetite for true, genuine freedom of expression, the exchange of ideas in the interest of the common good, in the interest of understanding each other. So I don't disagree that this is a real challenge for conservatives. I still think it's a real challenge for the left, and you know, constantly

deal with that all the time. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and I don't see as much of that as I think we should.

a political adversary right now. But you know, I'm a leftist, and no one has been more censored throughout American history than the left. So you can see very clearly like these tools may be used again them in this particular instance, but they can be used against my ideology. And by the way, that's not really the point anyway. It's about having a commitment to this bedrock principle, whether it's about

your side or their side, or something in between. So it's just it has always been clear to me because there was never any willing to speak out a pro palestining people have been getting canceled, you know, long before October seven. You're gonna ask Mark Lamont Hill and any number of other folks, Norman Finkelstein how their careers fared when they stepped out of the bipartisan consensus with regards to Israel, and there was never any sort of solidarity

with those individuals from the right. So as underno illusions here, but it's certainly never been more clear that any purported like right wing free speech moment is outside of some notable exceptions yourself included, is officially over. I've got another example where you hear the aforementioned Senator Tom Cotton, who had put out a tweet regarding some of the protests that have propal Simee protests that have shut down roadways,

including the Golden Gate Bridge for some five hours. He called on people to quote take matters into their own hands with regard to these protesters, and then when asked to clarify whether he was serious about violence directly against protesters exercising their First Amendment speech rights, he doubled down. In an interview with Fox News, Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

In fact, one of my favorite images from the last year is all of these like working class DC residents of all different stripes, all different backgrounds, all different you know, ethnicities, all of that just like pulling these protesters off one of the major roads in DC. But they were climate protesters because you know, nothing violent, but just like moving them because I just think it is one of the

worst possible ways to protest. I think it is you know, illegal, and it's not the best use of civil disobedience.

about the inconveniencing of people, et cetera, et cetera. When we were talking about this convoy in Canada. What was it called? I can't remember freedom kN What was the thing that shut down an entire Canadian city? This was celebrated. They weren't criminals, they weren't you know, being called for them to throw thrown off a bridge and their skin ripped off and whatever. So it's only when it's protests that Tom Cotton disagrees with. But certainly suddenly we hear

this language, and you know, he is. I think he is very credibly the most authoritarian and one of certainly the most pro war senators, which is pretty extraordinary thing to say. I think pretty consistently, you know, his instincts are incredibly authoritarian, crack down police, date, call in the military to crush Black Lives Matter protesters, et cetera. But that he can say this on Fox News, which is a very the largest cable news network and you know,

very mainstream in terms of conservatism, with zero pushback. In some ways, I find that to be the most disturbing part of all of this, that the idea that people should who are people who are trying to get a ceasefire and end a genocide, deserve to be thrown off a bridge because you disagree with their protest tactics. Yeah, I've got a problem with that.

People have real reasons to do what they're doing that are rooted in principles, and we might disagree with them, and we might find them, you know, abhorrent, or we might you know, disagree with the sort of ends or the way people justify those ends, but you kind of understand that people have their principles, just like by the way the warmongers have had their principles of supporting the

contras in the nineteen eighties. You know, there's the people have deeply held beliefs and they act on those deeply held beliefs. And the best way to come to consensus that serves everyone and to seek justice is to debate it, to debate it, and to have a country that allows for that debate to be aired out. So, yeah, really

unfortunate decision, I think from Don Cotton yesterday. And you know, Crystal, there's more more bad news really for the fate of protesters around the country, just coming out of the Supreme Court yesterday.

That would be Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. So basically, the Supreme Court decided to allow a lower court decision to stand, and that lower court decision stood with a Texas law that criminalized a Black Lives Matter protest organizer because something illegal happened at his protest that he helped to lead and organize. This is de Ray mcasson, who very well

known Black Lives Matter organizer and activist leader. So the idea here isn't that Deray himself did anything illegal, or even that he incited anyone to do a anything illegal. The idea is that he created by even hosting this protest where something illegal and violent happened, that he himself is culpable and can be found criminally liable or those

acts of these random people at the protest. I mean, this is insane and the reason that the Box article I think rightly says this effectively bans protest in these three states as long as this decision holds. And like I said, it's not that the Supreme Court made a decision they allowed this to stand. So there may be there may be a decision down the line that overturns it.

But you can imagine if you are responsible for the actions of every single random person who happens to show up at your protest, you could also have bad actors who just want to like get you legally in trouble, who show up and cause mischief knowing that it can

be pinned the blame can be pinned on you. So who's going to want to risk that that type of criminal liability when the stakes are so extraordinarily high as you know, Currently, this Fifth Circuit decision is the law in much of the American South.

for any violence that happens. And the argument is that Duran McKesson was organizing what was you know from it's from the outset by design in illegal protest. But we're talking about then civil disobedience, and that doesn't mean, you know, you can't have civil disobedience without the violation of laws, which means you know, there are laws that you're violating.

Civil disobedience is that's the concept of it. And so if we're going to virtually make it completely impossible by holding people liable for things that others do, that's a sad day. But I actually expect that as a ping pellings through the lower courts, someone's going to figure out that a law needs to be changed. Maybe I just have more faith in the system. But I think both sides obviously benefit from protests at this point.

part of the argument. But can you imagine the reaction of Donald Trump was found liable in some ways for people who did assault police officers, not because he incited it, but just by being involved in the organization of the protests. I think the right would probably have something negative to say about that.

sound like they're on the side of the defense. If they sided with the defense here, it guts Jack Smith's DC case against Donald Trump. So let's break down a little bit about why that is. There's this tear schuet here from scotus Blog. They write, the Supreme Court heard that oral argument in the case of a former police officer from Pennsylvania who entered the Capitol during the January sixth,

twenty twenty one attacks. Joseph Fisher, who was charged with, among other things, assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct in the capital, and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, has asked the justices to throw out the charge that he obstructed an official proceeding, arguing that the law that he was charged with violating was only intended to apply to evidence tampering.

More than three hundred other JA six defendants have been charged with violating the law, which, and this is very interesting, was enacted as part of the Sarpines Oxley Act in the wake of the n Run scandal, and I guess people can understand why and then also sort of understand why it's narrowly been interpreted in the past to talk specifically about that question of evidence tampering Scotis blog rights.

It's also at the center of two of the charges brought by Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump and Washington d C. That is the same case in which the justices will hear argument on guess what. April twenty fifth, so coming right up right around the corner regarding Donald

Trump's claims of immunity. So Fisher had sent some text messages in which he indicated to acquaintances Scotis Blog Rights that members of Congress can't vote if they can't breathe dot dot dot lol, and that he might need his police chief to post my bail it might get violent. On January sixth, prosecutors say Fisher urged rioters to charge

and hold the line. In a message on social media on January seventh, Fisher wrote that he had been pepperbald and pepper sprayed, but entry into the capital was needed to send a message that we the people hold the

real power. So the reason it's important to note those quotes is because you can see that Fisher saw, according to these messages, at least his entrance into the capitol, his sort of violent entrance into the Capitol as an intentional act of obstruction of the proceeding of certifying the electors. So that's the I think relevant context in that case. But if the statute can be interpreted as something that goes beyond evidence tampering is actually at the heart of

the question. That's it's sort of like what we're talking about in the last block, Crystal, like two things can be true. It can be true that he clearly intended to obstruct the proceed without this charge specifically being applicable, this post end run charge specifically being implicable. I believe Scotis Blog actually has in this article. I'll find the exact quote that it's true. This hasn't been interpreted in

the past. There's not precedent for interpreting this to go beyond that narrow question of evidence tampering.

Where's the limiting principle? So if you have protesters who pull a fire alarm during a you know, congressional vote, is does that count? Do you can you get thrown in prison for that? Now, in reality, none of the January sixth protesters who were charged with this, it wasn't the only charge they were faced with. So, in other words, if you just had someone who you know, trespassed and wasn't hit with any other charges, there was no one

who this is the only thing. It was used as a way to sort of up the ante in terms of what the government, what sort of sentences the government could obtain here in the language, First of all, you do have the context of this was about Enron and sarbainez Oxley and all of that, And the language is very vague and honestly bakes me pretty uncomfortable. It says impeded. One of the words is if you impeded a government proceeding.

So again, what's the limiting principle there? And how do you make sure that in applying this law you are not taking a sledgehammer to other protected speech and other sort of protest activities that any of us could easily imagine. You even had Katanji Brown Jackson in these arguments expressing reservations about what the government is arguing here. She said the court should not lose sight of the backdrop of a real world context, which I think is what I'm

speaking to here. And Emily, I think we have some of the clips of some of the conservative justices asking these critical questions.

had the intent evidence. Now, as I mentioned before, even with respect to the riot that happened, which was a

much more serious breach. We don't have that evidence of intent for everyone, but if we had, for example, organizers where it was absolutely clear that they were the ring leaders who had intended to obstruct and undertook the action with that specific intent and did so knowing it was wrongful, and especially if they went you know, I'm assuming you're saying they're in the unauthorized area right outside the capitol.

That is unlawful conduct committed with consciousness of wrongdoing, if we have the proof of it.

that sort of thing. I mean, can I be comfortable with the breadth if that's what I think.

we're talking about in the campus speech block. It kind of you can easily see how when you have interpretations like that, they can be applied wildly to just protests in general, because in essence, every protest is trying to quote unquote obstruct maybe not a technical, narrow constitutional proceeding as is in this case, but in a lot of cases they're trying to obstruct some type of proceeding. There is some type of like legislative proceeding that they don't

want to happen. So you can see how language like obstruct and proceeding being interpreted in this way could get really really out of control for you know, government sensors or would be government sensors and people who want to crack down on legitimate protest.

he was charged. Of course, he's got a whole wrapped of charges that he's facing, including the hush money situation that he's dealing with in court in Manhattan as we speak. He's got the Document's case, he's got the Georgia case. But in terms of the federal January sixth case, he was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the

United States. That's about his efforts to spread false claims about November twenty twenty election, knowing they weren't true, tempting to illegally discount legitimate votes, all with the goal of

overturning the twenty twenty election. According to prosecutors, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, that's the one we're talking about here, due to the alleged organized planning by Trump and his allies to disrupt the electoral vote certification in January twenty twenty one, another count of obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, which has to do specifically with those elections vacation efforts that we've

been talking about. And one count of conspiracy against rights referring to Trump and his co conspirators allegedly attempting to oppress, thread and intimidate people in their right to vote in an election. So you've got four different counts that are related to January sixth. So if the official preceding one is out the window, then you're left with two counts, this conspiracy or fraud the US and this conspiracy against rights that Jack Smith is left with in terms of

the January sixth case. So it is definitely quite consequential in terms of Trump's legal jeopardy in that particular, in that particular situation that he is in legal jeopardy.

of escalating tit for tat. You can easily see actually how Joe Biden. You know, you have a bunch of uh, liberal activists, progressive activists protesting something like the voting rights legislation in Georgia and Joe Biden, you know, giving the saying something that you know aligns with them, trying to influence the official proceeding of.

from Jeffrey. He says, in the most credible of sources here anyway, put that aside in oral argument today, Justice Thomas is minimizing the severity of the January sixth insurrection at the Capital. Perhaps that's because his wife was part of the conspiracy. What a disgrace that he's sitting on this case. I actually do think it's inappropriate for Thomas to be involved in this case. His wife, as you referenced earlier, Emily was involved in some of the organizing

for that day. There were a bunch of infamous, you know, tweets, sorry texts between her and then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about the stop the Steal conspiracy in which she was incredibly encouraging, et cetera. And so I do think

that it's inappropriate that he's involved here. But and it just speaks to you know, there's any number of cases that he and other justices, by the way, should have recused themselves from if we're upholding a high standards of ethics, where even the appearance of a conflict of interest should be enough for you to recuse yourself. But the Supreme Court doesn't have an official code of ethics, which is insane.

They're just left to like make their own decisions about whether they or not they feel conflicted and feel like they want to recuse, and so Justice Thomas doesn't ever feel like he needs to recuse himself, even from cases that in which he has a direct financial interest. That's always also been an issue in the past.

like we could spend a whole show on this. But I from my perspective, I think there's been a decades long effort to discredit Clarence Thomas, specifically because he is a black sort of conservative jurist, and that he's gotten a lot of racism frankly because of all of that, and so that lack of consistency is what has allowed for I think some of these conflicts of interest to fester.

It's once I, you know, really learned about his ideology is actually a little different than what I thought he is. Probably he is just as cynical about the possibility of sort of racial co existence and reconciliation as like a Nicole Hannah Jones. I mean they actually share. There's a weird horseshoe there in terms of racial pessimism. We'll put

that ideology aside for another day. But I think part of that cynicism from him is his willingness to accept like these large monetary gifts and monetary assistance and you know, the trips and the helping to pay for the r V and his mother's house and all of these things, because first of all, that is completely corrupt, and he is an outlier in terms of how much he appears

to have accepted these types of gifts. Not that he's the only one who's done it, but the frequency, the amounts, the unwillingness to disclose, etc. I do think is at another level with Clarence Thomas. So in that way, the additional scrutiny of him is very justified, and I think it comes from this deeply cynical place of his view of politics, which is like, yeah, rich people have their way. It's a corrupt system, and I'm part of that corrupt system.

I think he's just sort of especially attractive for them because he grew up like speaking Gulla dialect and like the most rural place that you could imagine in the United States and had this like weird like you said, he was basically in college, he was basically like a left wing black nationalist and then had this interesting evolution.

There's a good documentary called Clarence Thomas Created Equal that was done by people who are favorable to Thomas, but it's still just him kind of telling his life story, and you get a different glimpse than.

evolution as a jurist to be inspiring. It does it's impossible to see how that wouldn't weigh on their minds or be something that you know, is present in their minds as they're thinking about these cases.

sue them for anti trust violations. We don't have a lot of details about what the specifics of that case are going to be, as it has not come to light yet, but just as a reminder about the history here, So back in twenty ten, Live Nation acquires Ticketmaster, the Obama DOJ Anti Trust Division does very little about it, you know, even though some of the concerns which would later become manifest were already quite predictable at that point.

But you know, there were decades in which Democrats and Republicans joined together to basically stop enforcing anti trust violations. This was Reagan, this was you know, first Bush, this was Clinton, this was second Bush, this was Obama, all of them very similar approach, and the Biden DOJ has taken a markedly more aggressive and I would say a return to you know, more true application of the law

when it comes to anti trust. This article reminds that there was a ten year consent decree when they were allowed to acquire Ticketmaster in twenty ten, which was meant to keep them from abusing their market dominance, like to punish artists that don't use their services, etc. To punish venues that don't want to partner with them for ticket sales.

That consent decree has really not been enforced, which is pretty typical, which is why it's more important to block these things to begin with, because the enforcement after the fact is very, very difficult. And they go on to say artists have long spoken out about Ticketmaster's practices, but those murmurs turned into rallying cries after Ticketmaster's site crashed for thousands of Tailor Swift fans in twenty twenty two. So we also have ilhan Omar celebrating this action, calling

for them to be broken up. We can put this up on the screen. We also have She says, let's go, I've said it before and I'll say it again, break up Ticketmaster in Live Nation. You've got more perfect union talking a little bit more about this suit and that they're being accused of running an illegal monopoly over the

ticketing industry. The corporate monopoly charges too much for tickets, exploits venues, hurts fans and artists so effectively, Emily, what you have is this industry giant that as someone who's put on these you know, little live performances can attest to, they give you no other choice. They can charge whatever they want. Not only do they control the ticket sales, but then through Live Nation, they control you know, the concert promotion. They can in fact, you know, punished venues,

punish artists who don't want to work with them. They also own the ticket resale platforms. So not only was a fee charge on the front end to ticket Master when the tickets initially purchased, but then if it's resold and there's indications they encourage people who are reselling to you know, really gouge the final consumer. When it's resold, they get another fee on top of the one that

you that was already paid in for this ticket. So they really have control over a bunch of pieces of this ecosystem and have weaponized it against everyone who is a consumer of music or the artists, the fans, the venues, et cetera in a way that I think is very clearly abusive, and some of this has really been hidden. I want to get your reaction. And then Matt Stoller,

our great partners, who's you know, anti trust expert. He also did a breakdown of some of the specifics of the way that they have been cooking the books to try to avoid the very clear implications of the way that they're overcharging people. But first, your reaction to this, you know, this new action that is being reported by the DJ.

no competition. And that's one thing I wanted to toss back to you, Crystal, because you guys, when you've you've gone out into different cities all over the country and hosted these events, the ability to find competition to Ticketmaster first of all, to like how Ticketmaster wields its power as a virtual monopoly is one thing, but then also if you want to find some way to bypass Ticketmaster, it is virtually impossible.

time Ariana Grande's coming to town. Nothing, we're playing same venues.

a justice. But there was some discovery in this case that was very interesting because effectively, you had some sort of a festival that wanted to you know, local New Jersey festival. They wanted to hire, they wanted to put on a music show. They hired these established concert promoters to you know, do that work for them. And ticket Master just basically came in like a bully over the top and was like, no, no, no, you're going to have to deal with us. So that was number one,

number two. And this gets to the argument that Ticketmaster makes about how no, no, we're not gouging, we're not exploiting. They claim they actually, we really don't make that much, but we don't charge that much money on the tickets. We don't make that much money. Here's our books. Look at this money that we're losing in terms of tickets. Okay, well you look at that. Well, I guess it's not

a monopoly if they're not charging these monopoly fees. But what comes out in this case is that what they would do is they would contract with these different vendors with regards to this concert, and they would have these secret deals where okay, Ticketmaster and the local concert promoter, they're going to equally share the cost seems even steven

fifty to fifty, et cetera. But they would have these secret deals with the vendors where they wanted the vendors to overcharge on the front end, but then give a secret rebate just to Ticketmaster on the back end that the artists, the venue, and the concert promoter had no

idea about. And they actually went so far as to keep two sets of books, one that showed this purported loss on oh see, we're not even making that much money in this industry, and the other one that reflected these secret deals that they were making with vendors, which were hugely profitable, you know, throughout the entire country, the tune of hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars. That's one of the things that maybe will come out in discovery.

Let's listen to a little bit of how that Stoler described this approach.

discovery secret. The court ruled like, okay, yeah, you can keep the stuff secret, and then Live Nation accidentally posted it online themselves so that we could all know what they're up to. And again it will be very revealing, I think, to have more of these accounting practices and tricks that they use to wield their monopoly power revealed to the public.

it's an increase. So to that question of competition in the marketplace, to your point, Crystal, if you are a small intended competitor, want to be competitor to help the state of quote consumer welfare, to borrow the phrase from Robert Bork and that sort of standard that people, you know, whether it was during the Obama administration or the Bush

administrations or even right now, who defend this. If you want to bring consumers a better state of welfare, if you want to help bring prices down, and you're a competitor, not only is the bar already so high because Ticketmaster Live Nation, they're all established, but they're also then spending more than a million dollars lobbying to keep themselves that way.

So the barrier to entry for a competitor is it's like almost impossible, and there is no consumer welfare here, which, as Lina Kahn said, you know, the Taylor Swift Ticketmaster thing that you guys covered so well turned gen Z, like tons of gen Z people into monopolists, so anti

monopolists overnight. I think it is the quote from Lena Khan at the time, and again that's because the consumer welfare is harmed by this particular situation, and you just hear no conservatives talking about it, even though it was something that happened under the Obama administration and Chuck Schumer was like against it at the time, but it happened under Barack Obama, and it is harming consumers, and it is the most anti free market conduct unless you are

a full iron rand like let everyone just be monopolists and monopolies are good. Unless you're sort of on the libertarian fringe. This is not a competitive marketplace anymore. It's a classic case of anti competitive behavior, and there's just so little Republican concern about it, despite the fact that it's clearly a populist cause.

It's also the reason why like the Wall Street journal man they hate Lena Khan, they hate this new antitrust enforcement. It's why you see, you know, even liberal Wall Street figures like Jamie Diamond being like, yeah, maybe they aren't so bad with Trump, like maybe he was okay. Because you also have to remember a lot of sort of like rank and file Wall streeters, their bonuses come from

these big merger and acquisition deals. So to the extent that the Biden administration and they have significantly has sort of like put a freeze on those deals happening, they're all waiting it out and hoping Trump comes back and there's less scrutiny over their actions. That has really put a hit on the wallets of a lot of denizens of Wall Street. And so there's a real CNBC Wall Street journal hatred of Lena Khan Jonathan Canter in this

whole direction of the Biden administration. But if you are not a Wall Street denizen, if you are an ordinary person out there who would like to go see a concert or comedian or whatever it is that you're into and not be completely gouged at every turn. You should be very pleased with this lawsuit.

much about Israel. We wanted to ask him actually about he wrote a whole book that he was here to promote about big Tech and how big tech is too big and it is anti competitive, but he's super postedly to con So it's a genuine dilemma I think for a lot of conservatives, kind of like the speech questions we were talking about earlier, Crystal.

their their bias in different directions. And there are a lot of cases selection bias, what they choose to talk about versus what they don't choose to talk about, and all of that good stuff. But it was an interesting conversation. So let's roll this clip of Bill Maher and Katie Kuric on Club Random this Sunday.

more dangerous because it's very closer to home. My kid is coming home from school and he thinks he's a racist. He's five. What have you been telling him? You know, my son thinks maybe he's not a boy, and maybe that's true. That happens, but you know, those kind of things are what they say. That's why I'm voting for Trump.

There's like thirty percent of the hardcore magabase that actually loves him, and there's a lot of polling that puts that number around twenty to thirty percent of that sort of hardcore, diehard maga, the people who are at rallies versus the average Republican voter or Republican leaning independent that sort of tolerates Trump.

Trump because they think four years of Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden is worse.

air a conversation like that. I think that's what he's

talking about. There's nobody on the panel to represent that perspective, even though it's coming from a huge chunk of the electorate, you know, north of what sixty million people voting for Trump in twenty twenty, and there's no representation in that in CNN because there's no tolerance for it, because you know, a lot of the younger staffers there see it as being an enabler of racism, that it's necessarily sort of bigotry, racism, transphobia, homophobia, etc.

So you can't even have that conversation, you can't even hear it out, and I just kind of monologued there. But I do find it frustrating that, like he's having this conversation while smoking a joint in a shadowy sort of podcast venue, when that's the conversation that should be had by the so called mainstream press, but everyone's too afraid to even talk about it.

So in that venous commentary, it's not like surprising to me at all that seems to be where Bill Maher is at this point. That's number one. Number two with regard to the comments about trying to put yourself in the show shoes and give the most charitable reading of ordinary Americans and their motivations. Obviously, that's something I have advocated for very strongly for a long time, very consistently.

I will just say Bill Maher does not show that charity when it comes to many other groups, specifically young people who he has nothing but unbridled contemp for, and the left, which he also has nothing but unbridled contemp for. So where is this supposed empathy for differing perspectives when it comes to, you know, the young people who are overwhelmingly protesting the atrocities in Gaza, or who just have

a different view of the world than he does. He has no problem very consistently smearing any and all young people as stupid and foolish and lazy and ill informed

and whatever else. So if it was a consistent principle, like I like to hear people out, I like to try to understand their perspective, think about where they're coming from, et cetera, these comments might land a little differently with me than coming from Bill Maher, who, as I said, is happy to smear people who he at this point sees as his biggest ideological opponents, which is those on

the left. You know, he feels very comfortable doing that on a very very regular basis, who probably did it in this same interview with Katie Kerr if I had to guess the other thing. And this ties into the we're about to talk about like some updates with with NPR, and that ties into this conversation. As a leftist, I find it offensive when people assume that I'm being represented somehow in CNN or the New York Times or at NPR.

There is no ideological group that is more shut out of any sort of mainstream news outlet than actual class first leftist Like it's like we don't exist, and we're supposed to pretend like Jake Tapper is our ideological ally or somehow our worldview is it all reflected in these corporate neoliberal spaces and there's never any crying about where's that diversity of viewpoint?

At least conservatives have Fox News and it's bigger than CNN the other The last thing I'm saying, and this really does transitions to that NPR conversation, is like, let's just be serious about where we are in the medio media ecosystem. At this point. These places are not trying to play to a general audience. Their corporate they need advertiser money. They have a specific audience that they're super serving. It's a business model. It's not news, that's what it is.

So we shouldn't be surprised when CNN doesn't platform my ideology or your ideology, because we aren't for the audience that they have and that they want to keep and that they're trying to super serve. We aren't for the

advertisers that they want to keep buying ads. So the more that we're clear about what's actually happening here, and I think drop the pretense that this is some like neutral journalistic endeavor, I think the more easily we'll understand what's actually unfolding before our eyes at all of these various outlets.

And I'm not saying all that reporting deserves credibility, but just that you know, there are people that are doing some good work that the critics of media aren't doing, mostly because they don't have, you know, the funding or the institutional infrastructure to do it. But you know, that's

the number one thing that should start happening. CNN says, we don't have people on that make that perspective of Republican voters or that will give that perspective that amplify that perspective and give it anywhere near proportionality because we disagree with both sides is because we're mostly cultural progressives. And that chan key argument that has been around for decades is important.

screen speaking of class. I mean, it's just so interesting.

girl boss sanctimony. Matt Tayibi did a hilarious piece running down all of the time Katherine Marr, the new CEO of NPR, was just like destroying all of the fun in holidays by just doing this like virtue signaling political correctness. It was a really wonderful sort of journey through her

political arc. But she used to be at Wikimedia. I think she's like had some like fellowships with World Economic Forum in those places, and Wikimedia is Wikipedia is a place that a lot of people see as being sort of unbiased and neutral.

leak conspiracy theory and discrediting it immediately. Now he was suspended yesterday, and so this happened as all of these posts from Catherine Marr were circulating.

week used to be. People have a lot of nostalgia for different eras of MPR, even if it used to be kind of slanted left.

of contract agreement. So I kind of get that, But I do find it somewhat interesting that you have this breathless sort of defense of mar or protection over mar or whatever in the media and then this like, well this Berlin or guy like he's getting suspended while the media is sort of defending her, rushing to her defense. It's just like, come on, guys, like both sites can be wrong here. It's pretty clear that NPR has gone in one direction over the other.

To me, she seems like a fit for what NPR is today. And if you consider those the views that you put up there, you know, like I'm on your canvassing for Biden and I love Hillary, and you know, the like language PC language obsession stuff. How safe is that for rich people, corporate donors as that are.

that context, the CEO is an absolutely perfect fit. So I know, ironically, a lot of the response to the right of NPR's you know, intense identitarian liberal turn is well, we should defund them. The defunding is actually part of the problem, because the fact that the business model now is reliant on these like rich donors and advertisers is a big part of the story of how they've become what they are. You know, the original concept, if you go back to the seventies, it was this very like

populist public access. We're going to talk to Mississippi about what's going on with his soybean crop or whatever. We're going to hear from regular Americans all around the country. I think that's very valuable. I appreciate that, like, you know, public access. I think about remember Bernie those like TV shows he used to do from the local mall or whatever. Yes, like that's kind of a vibe, but it's not super profitable.

So if you have to actually like make money on this thing, and you can't be reliant on federal government just backing you to do this thing that's genuinely like an educational or public search, then you're going to end up acting like the rest of corporate media. And we really see this. You know, we really see this turnaround Trump where he is this very divisive figure, and some media outlets go in the direction of We're going to be the Trump people, and others go in the direction

we're gonna be the anti Trump people. George Floyd is another Fisher in American society. And so no one should be surprised since NPR really is basically like a corporate media outlet at this point, that they follow the same trajectory of every other corporate media outlet.

in the along the lines of what Catherine Mahr is just displaying so clearly when she stop using the language of quote boys and girls posts that to her Twitter page, Yeah, I mean, that's it. It's hard to even have these conversations now because the terms have been scrambled because of that culture war embrace just in the last decade or so. That, by the way, stems from real class biases in ways that have been uniting to both the left and the right.

And that's not to say the left and the right have found common cause on like medicare for all so much as it is to say, when you pull working class people on some of these cultural issues, like using the word Latin X for example, you find a very different position from what the corporate media has. And I think that's one of the openings in the marketplace that you and Sager.

was good. There was this touchstone culturally in NPR that a lot of people listen to and could talk about it as a water cooler, the proverberal water cooler, and that was important, I think to just a lot of our shared values.

of an audience in a bubble, et cetera. So definitely need a whole whole media rethink because I don't think these outlets are serving the American.

these things. Too, on a more serious note about the way everybody's thinking about it, new historical facts and new things for me to personally grapple with two in terms of how I'm viewing the conflict.

I've come to know and love. Of course, Ryan, Grimm and Emily get much more famous, uh and iconic duo, but we name.