4/30/25: Trump Bullies Bezos, GDP Shrinks, Trump MS13 Photoshop, US Jet Falls Into Sea & MORE!

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Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints Sentily.

How you doing.

I'm good. We've got Tager on deck.

Don't we Yes, We've got a great slate of guests today, Slash co host, So we've got Sager who's going to join us for about half of the show. After that, we're going to be joined by one of the two victims of the assault in Crown Heights last week. This woman was a random bystander who was just checking out the scene. Somebody started filming, so she put us kind of scarf over her face and Instantly, this crowd of pro Israel people is like, Oh, she must be anti Israel because she's got a scarf on.

Her face and.

A harrowing scene emerge. This will be her first on camera interview. Eric Adams has actually asked her to come forward so that he can press charges against the people who were involved with this. We have new video footage, and we have her video footage which has not been seen before, so you're going to see this mob kind of from her perspective. We're also going to talk to

Our politics before. There's just some it's just getting weird.

Didn't that happen in like twenty fifteen?

Yeah?

Ish, Well, well, when you start to hear Donald Trump talking, let's see if like these aren't even lies, these are just like this guy.

Okay, there are some particularly interesting moments actually in that context.

Also the influencer briefings.

We're going to do battle over the influencer briefings because I'm out numbered on this.

Ryan and Sager want to tear them apart.

And you know what the White House is bringing in social media influencers and hosting like parodies of press events.

Yeah, some of them definitely deserve to be torn apart. So we will get into all of that. Trump also held a rally last night in addition to this interview with Terry Moran. He's celebrating his first one hundred days in the style Ryan, So we have soundbites from that and the who the these you you want to give us an update on.

Going to do it, a wide update on the war in Yemen. A one of our seventy million dollars fighter jets fell off an aircraft carrier.

We'll talk about that.

B It appears that Scentcom is now taking targeting and information from random ocent people. Sager is going to like this one random ocent people on Twitter and just killing innocent people because they're not double checking the work of these amateurs from like Europe and Houston.

And along the way.

They bombed an African migrant detention center. So far, sixty eight people have been killed in this strike. They said it was some hooty base, it was actually actually a detention center.

A quick health update on the Grim family.

We can bring Sager in here because Sager will appreciate this. When there was the overhead cam a couple weeks ago, I noticed I was going bald and a lot of braking points.

Viewers said, you got to get this hymns monoxidil thing. I started doing it. Are you serious?

I don't know, Ryan, you got to You got to check your testosterol levels on that one.

You should watch out.

So that my tea levels are going to collapse.

The other the other health update, my wife's pathology report came back and no residual cancer.

Answer free.

There'll be some radiation and some other things, but uh, real light at the end of.

The tunnel and a big relief for yeah, all of you.

Fuller head of hair, no cancer like. Things are looking up.

Life couldn't be better for Ryan right now.

I'm so glad to hear it. Ryan, And thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it, Oh.

Appreciate appreciate you being here.

We're going to start by talking about, uh this the Amazon, the up and down with Amazon. Oh so, so Amazon begins the day with reporting and punch.

Bowl that there's going there.

They're going to start listing the extra price that you're paying based on the tariffs. The end of the day without that, and throughout the day. I think it's a lesson in our contemporary politics. But let's roll this first side.

So it was.

Reported this morning Amazon will soon display a little number next to the price of each product that shows how much the Trump tariffs are adding to the cost of each product. So isn't that a perfect crystal clear demonstration that it's the American consumer and not China who is going to have to pay for these policies.

I will take this since I just got off the phone with the President about Amazon's announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. Why did Amazon do this when the Biden administration height inflation to the highest level.

In forty years.

And I would also add that it's not a surprise because, as Reuters recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm. So this is another reason why Americans should buy American. It's another reason why we are on shoring critical supply chains here at home to shore up our own critical supply chain and boost our own manufacturing here.

Zo is still a Trump supporter.

Look, I will not speak to the President's relationships with Jeff Bezos, but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon.

All Right, So, this allegedly hostile act was first reported by punch Bowl after that White House interaction. You've moved now to A three very quickly. Here's Jeff Stein reporting on an Amazon statement. Quote, the team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Hall store has considered listing import charges on certain products. This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site, and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties. But wait, there's more. But wait, there

Great. Jeff Bezos was very nice, he was terrific.

He solved the.

Problem very quickly, and he did the right thing, and it's a good guy.

So when from punch bowl to the briefing, to Jeff Stine to Donald Trump himself, Sager, what did you make of that play by play in the I think all of that went from like eight am to one pm.

With Amazon stock moving as a result the whole time.

Yeah, I mean, I think my meta takeaway from all of this is just how different and how frankly a weak this is compared to the Chinese system. I want to remind everyone whenever we were covering this stuff last week on the Chinese version of Amazon, they are actually advertising state subsidized discounts. They're calling them patriotic discounts, saying, hey, Chinese people, if you are patriotic, stand up to the United States, buy Chinese. Here's a discount from the state.

I was just reading yesterday.

Amazon is demanding in the same way that Walmart, Target and all the other large retailers are. They are saying to their suppliers, you are eating the margin. We are not touching one dollar of this. They have the power of that because of the reliance of those platforms, of those suppliers on their platform. This is the problem. So Amazon, Target,

You know, who are the people who went bankrupt? Small business?

You have restaurants, you know, employees or five you know, contractors and others.

Those are the people that really suffer in something like this.

And so that's where I want to zoom out of even just Trump and Amazon, and like this is about meta high level strategy, and just watch at who's playing the game and who's actually winning that game.

And in the war with reality is this is a serious skirmish because think about what the administration is objecting to. If there are increases that are the direct result of the importers having to pay this tariff, they're saying, you cannot convey that reality to your consumers. We will not allow it. Yet reality exists, and so we can put up a five. So UPS announced that, despite having strong profits for the first quarter, it's planning in the future

But the excuse that they're.

Finding here is that their main client, Amazon isn't shipping as much stuff.

And so while Amazon is.

You're right going to be able to tell that its suppliers we will not be accepting price increases. I've seen some of those emails that have gone around. It's an amazing thing to read we will not be accepting price increases. How cool would that be to be able to walk into a store and be like, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just I don't accept price increases, So just gonna I'm just gonna pay what this used to cost.

Uh.

Despite that power, they're still shipping less stuff because they don't have complete absolute control over everything, and as a result, uh, there's less for UPS drivers to do. And so that's just that's just one of the many kind of to borrow a Reagan phrase, trickle down effects, that we're gonna that we're that we're going to see from this, uh the other uh you know reality uh interferences is best at getting asked about you know, where they are with China at this point.

So let's let's roll the Treasury secretary.

The Chinese continue to say that the US and are not engaged in any consultation or negotiation on tariffs.

You recently said you've talked to your counterpart, but.

It's more about quote traditional things like financial stability. So can you clarify is the administration talking to Beijing specifically about tariffs or not.

Well, we're not going to talk about who's talking to whom. But I think that over time we will see that the Chinese terraffts are unsustainable for China. I've seen some very large numbers over the past few days to show if these numbers stay on, Chinese could lose ten million jobs very quickly, and even if there is a drop in the tariffs that they could lose five million jobs.

Off these tariffs.

They're unsustainable for them, and they are saying, you guys are not talking about it, So is that true? They have a different form of government, They're playing to a different audience. So I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty again of who's talking to whom. But as I said, I believe or the Chinese, Uh, these terrorifts are unsustainable very.

Quickly two days ago that you didn't know if President Trump had spoken to Sheeting King.

Do you know?

Now?

Again, I would say, Caroline and I have a lot of jobs around the White House running the switchboard in one of them.

Did you still have switchboards switching?

That's actually a really good question.

Did she come to the switchboard?

I know?

God does she?

I know?

I meant to ask, did he talk to she?

Shoot?

I saw him, and I forgot to ask.

Yeah, Well let's interpret they're not talking. They're not talking at any at any level. It's not happening. Go ahead of one.

Well no, that's exactly what I'm just gonna say. Framing the whether they're.

Even talking to China as the quote unquote nitty gritty is completely wi. There's nothing nitty or gritty about that question. It's really the question for the entire global economy right now. And they don't have an answer to it, which is why they are framing it as the nitty gritty.

Anyone else went away, And before we go to Howard Lutnik.

I mean, I just think broadly again, like, this is why we've seen such wild market swings, is that the administration just is addicted to floating these things which are just not true. Like anybody with any expertise China launcher the Chinese fact. But this the other You don't need to speak Chinese. The Chinese Foreign Ministry puts out statements in English. We've never talked, we're not talking. We have nothing to discuss. Take the tariffs off and that's it.

You know?

Ninety nine percent By the way of kids toys, Ryan, as a parent, when do Kisney toys?

Actually, Mary, I.

Mean you can get the ones stuff in their mouth like almost immediately, like the little kankeys and stuff like pretty right.

Yeah, guess what over ninety five percent of that is made in China, right, you know, ninety five percent, So you know, I hope my kid there's a luddite, you know, just deal with the no toys, or maybe it's maybe they're better off, right, Maybe I should, you know, go back to hand whittling, and.

Yeah they're reasonable. My reusable diaper are good. They've gotten they've gotten a lot better. And they're probably made in China too, so you better.

Yeah, you're right, Yeah, those are also made. Go ahead.

Well, I was gonna say to Sager's point, We have a clip of Howard Lutnik. This is Sager's point about how the administration is addicted to floating things out into the public and maybe it is just the sort of online addling of the American mind where they love seeing the market shoot up, so they say stuff like this on CNBC. But Howard Lutnix apt for a long interview on CMBC yesterday, and we have some clips of that where he's talking. He's pushed on the question of these deals.

If we get a headline that we've signed some deal with China and whatever, you know, the markets are going to rip so or actually I.

Should say, would you say that well, Treasury Secretary Vestent is focused on China. That's his that's his portfolio. He's got to get something done with China. And my portfolio is the rest of the world's trade deals. So they are coming portfolio. Oh, it's it's the greatest thing because we have every country in the world, just like Donald Trump has said, wants to do a deal with us.

I'm not going to tell you what country.

Let the president.

It's just you and me here and have a couple of million people.

Hopefully I'll have the president decide so and then there are a country after country where we're just working through the details. But you have to remember they have prime ministers, they have parliament, they have to work through their process. But all of these are going to be coming, and what they're going to be is they're going to be incredibly smart. And key is where are you going to.

Find the people to work here? Right, you're north of Phoenix. Where are they're coming?

Does you go to the community colleges and you train people. So all the community colleges around here, Arizona State's on a Grand canyon. All these community colleges here are training people right now, technicians. And these are really good paying jobs. You started seventies eighties, ninety thousand dollars. These are trade craft. It's time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great jobs of

You take it.

So, who wants to take a guess at what Howard Lutnex deal that he referenced there is, because I don't think we.

Know, No, we don't know.

I mean, look, all the current reports are that it's India, and you know, I've even talked about this. Look the Indians, Yeah, they'll offer you some like fake tariffs and all these other things. But this is also the inconsistency that drives me crazy. India is one of the most protective developing economies in the entire world. We're talking about Japan non trade tariff barriers. That's a joke compared to what India does. I mean, listen, don't ask me. Go and ask anybody

That is just obvious.

And yet you know they're willing to take reciprocal tariffs maybe there, but they're not willing to take it over with Japan. The whole thing is just preposterous. And you know the level of uncertainty that they've injected now you know, into the small business supply chain, and honestly, even the pain that they are already. Listen, the tariffs go off tomorrow, it doesn't matter. That's still an entire what month, maybe

But that's that's a lot of stress. That's that's a heart attacks.

That's you know, people getting fired, having to ask people to take you know, okay, can I can I pay in sixty days?

You know that type of thing. You don't want to be doing that to your vendor.

That has all cascading effects all throughout the economy.

If you think about the blood, sweat and tears that has gone into so many of these businesses, when you talk about the pain, like that's the part that has really been been hitting me. And actually over at Dropside, I think we've seen a plateauing, you know, even though we're not like importing anything, but just just as people I think, are you know, pinching their pennies more because the consumer confidence has completely collapsed.

It's so hard to build.

A small or medium sized business, and people put their entire lives into it, and then their lives depend on it, and sometimes their own the rug just being ripped out from under them is just brutal.

Yeah, and sometimes small towns are revolving around these small businesses.

And to Howard Lutin's suggestion that we are bringing all these jah blah blah blah, this administration has no industrial policy to train these workers to augment changes in the market, to augment what might happen to small businesses.

They actually have nothing.

And so I think it's fairly audacious for Howard Lutink to come out and talk about all of these things that should happen that are going to happen, while the administration really it's a soccer.

Maybe I've missed something.

Are they doing literally, are they putting any policy forward that is helping workers and helping communities and helping the economy broadly shift to meet the changes that they're inducing.

Well, I mean, I've been off the grid last couple of days dealing with all this stuff, but lesson anything he's broken in the last four days.

You know, you can enlighten me.

I mean, the current position of the United States government is that you will be charged a massive surcharge if you do if you import anything of broad even if you build it here in the United States, and thus it is incumbent upon you to eat into your margin to invest here in America. Okay, I mean, look, we could talk numbers. Let's say ten for ten, as in I would take ten percent of my margin, and you give me a ten percent break on taxes. Everybody wins, right,

That's that's a whole other discussion.

But we're not even talking about tax breaks for people who are small businesses, or write offs or anything if anything. Actually, as I understand it, they want to take a lot of that away. It's called for it's like forty five acts. I think it is a manufacturing task credit, which was built into the Inflation Reduction Act. They want to get rid of that, okay, and that was one of the only things that got you know, some of these companies to actually build a fact Now listen, it's fine.

You know.

The objection from the Republicans is like, oh, that's all this green energy bs fine, Expand it for everything, make it for oil.

I don't care, you don't do whatever.

Just just make sure that it builds something here in America, if anything you'd like, Yeah, you're right, it shouldn't be totally restricted to renewables or whatever. Build it for everything, you know, for the entire you know, made in America. And then the green the green energy can get it. Everybody can get it. Fine, if that's what we want to do. But you don't even hear that, right because it's this is why it's just all it's it's just there's nothing to it beyond the service level.

And on your Medicaid point, oh no, on your Medicaid point real quickly, Bernie Moreno Ohio Republican new you know, Freshman Center just came out and told the House forget it with your Medicaid cuts, Like those are cuts you're.

Calling them, not cuts.

We see them as cuts, and we're not doing it. So you know, the nose always win Congress, So even that is struggling. I wanted to finish though with speaking of reality.

Usually we go.

To which have you put Chinese propaganda in the road?

Down?

Usually we go down honestly this time right, so, but usually when it comes when it comes to the US side, you're you can disagree or agree with him, but it's more likely to be based in reality.

Uh.

And the Chinese are the ones that are going to give you just flagrant nonsense propaganda.

Uh.

In this case, this is what the Chinese are putting out in English through their Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, basically in response so trying to buck up the entire world against us, but also in response to the claims from the United States government that there are some deals, you know, they're conversations happening there, getting down to the nitty gritty. So this is a much longer video, but

So let's let's roll this.

From the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The US has.

Stirred up a global tariff storm and deliberately targeted China, playing a ninety day pause game with other nations, forcing them to limitrade with China. This is just like the deadly trap of the eye of the storm. Bowing to a bully is like drinking poison to quench thirst. It only deepens the crisis. The US once accused Japan of dumping semiconductors and crushed companies like Toshiba. Later, it forced Japan to sign the Plaza Accord, pushing the economy into decades of anemic growth.

The US also used long arm.

Jurisdiction as a weapon, breaking up France's industrial giant Allstons, robbing the country of a national champion. History has proven compromise won't earn you mercy. Kneeling only invites more bullying.

China won't kneel downright, Sager.

So does that sound like a country that's taking Trump's calls right now?

Yeah, it's just not. I mean, and you're right, you know. The other final irony here is about TikTok. Like I didn't want to highlight that Donald Trump is trying to save TikTok, and the Chinese are like great, and so they are flooding TikTok with stuff like that and targeting America's I mean, I warned this, what happened.

We tried to ban it.

You were the one who decided you were a king and that you were just going to subvert you know, US law and say that I'm not going to ban it. It's like, you know what, I just feel like that scene in The Joker, I'm like, you get what you deserve. Man. You know, you have the entire population. You have the entire population, which is getting China pilled. I personally really like this guy, but we played him here on the show and he was like, hey, America, here's how many

You only have a house because of America though.

Yeah yeah, but you know he's he actually used to live here, and so he understands us. And he'll just constantly be hitting back and someone will be like, hey, what about nineteen eighty nine, and he's like, this is so he goes, you are so imbued with propaganda, and then he'll list off like Kent State and all these other and I was like, hey.

Listen, I mean, the guy has a point, you know what kind of saying.

Well as Trump says, now you think we're not killers?

Yeah, you think we're no what do you say? We think you're so innocent? You think we're so innocent? And there's something just refreshing. I think about watching that now Pervade, because look, I mean I don't even think it should be here, but Trump is actively as the person who wants to save it and is now you know, paying the price for the very thing that he that he that he's now.

Trying to do with respect to tariffs. It's just amazing. You know.

I wasn't able to join you guys for the one hundred Day episode, and it's like it's crazy, you know, to watch them in the same breath.

This is the most successful one hundred days ever.

You know, I have a great FDR one hundred day book behind me, and I'm like, this is a joke compared.

To I mean, what a joke.

All we have seen is just I mean, Doge is a massive listen We'll take their claim I like to take people's claims and take the take the subjectivity out of it, and just be like, Okay, you said you're gonna cut two trillion, Now it's gonna be like fifteen billion at best, right at best in terms of because they said one fifty and of that actually one hundred and thirty five is fake.

So fifteen billion.

Wow, congratulations, that's like maybe what less than a day of the overall.

I feel like I do that the budget?

Yeah, okay, so thanks, Then what mass deportation? Nope, numbers are exactly the same as Obama and okay, and does Bush instead, you know, even ignited all of this. Basically, you've had opened a massive credibility gap with the whole enemy's aliens Act. Trump is out there actually claiming that the MS thirteen things is real on a break a guard see his knuckles like that. That's the level of

Nothing there is currently happening.

I mean, honestly, the only I would say there are only two like a grades from my perspective, again in terms of what they said they were going to do. One is the Iran negotiations, which as you and I know, very tenuous and that could blow up at any time. And the border crossings they actually did accomplish that. Beyond that,

Now it's Trump. Can he come back?

Yeah?

You know, listen, you know you beat an idiot at this point to count him out entirely.

But I don't know. I don't really know where things go.

From here, and Trump seems to not be Usually Trump's genius is a tactile feel for where the American public is. He seems to have completely lost it and he seems to be in a bubble. And we'll talk about that more in this next segment. We'll have ADP jobs where we'll have GDP numbers, and we've got Trump's interview with Terry Murran.

Stick around for that.

GDP and job numbers are out and neither are looking very good. Let's put his first element up on the screen economists that expected something around one point four percent a year over year increase. Instead we got a zero point three percent dropped, the first contraction of the economy since the pandemic since the pandemic. ADP private payroll numbers also came out. They rose at only sixty two thousand jobs. Dow Jones and others had been expecting more like one hundred and fifty thousand.

Jobs added to the payrolls, So.

Only sixty two is being received by the markets as a huge problem now, Saga. The GDP is interesting in the way that it factors in imports. Obviously, the D stands for domestic, and so imports are kind of subtracted out. What you saw in March was this massive surge in purchasing of imports to get ready for Liberation Day because Trump said Liberation Day is coming, so everybody batten down the hatches. And so it's not supposed to count around GDP because you know it counts and then it gets

April Liberation Day was actually April.

April second, per second souse. They didn't want it to be the April Fool's Day.

That's right.

I want people to not pay attention to the top number and instead look at the trend. So the overall trend is that yes, it was because of good imports, but it was consumption slowed to just one point eight percent, down from four percent at the end of twenty twenty four. So that shows almost what is one hundred percent reduction in consumption that happened in just a three month period.

Women?

Oh? Oh really, you're just buying it?

Yeah, I mean honestly, I noticed I didn't include my wife.

Yeah, women be shopping women, all right?

Yeah? Is uh?

The point is that as that manifests across the economy, you see the ups you know style stuff, you see a few of the plants and these other things, layoffs began to happen. Consumer retail is going to start to get slowly dragged down. And that is when you see, you know things I always think about gift shops, candle shops in a nice tourist area.

You're dead.

If you see twenty percent, you know, reduction in overall visitors and the people who are visiting have like have you know, on a tighter budget, you're.

Done in your inventory?

Upstate New York, Yeah, You're inventory costs twice as much. If you're in upstate New York or in Washington and you're heavily reliant on Canadians, you're dead.

Are you guys seeing this stuff?

Out of Vegas about how Vegas is devastating right now, absolutely devastated. They're like, their occupancy rate is apparently low. I just thought Nate Silver, he was like, Oh, I'm booking my rooms for the WSOP that's coming up, and it's some of the lowest rates that I'd ever seen. A lot of it is from international travel and also just broad consumption.

And the tourism point is a key one because the biggest bright spot in the jobs report was in leisure and hospitality.

So that's March.

We know for a fact that in April the biggest bright spot turned very dark.

It is getting quite ugly.

And we can put up this chart, which I believe is B two, which goes exactly to Sager's point. This is a consumer confidence index. Obviously, sometimes there are material reasons for the number going from straight downward towards the floor. If you look at two thousand and seven, eight nine, we know why it crashed back. Then we look at twenty twenty, we know why it crashed. Then that's the pandemic.

Futures are sliding.

Dow is down about three hundred and fifty points since the news came out, and.

I would think that who knows how the market's going to handle it, But you would think that Trump's interview last night as well would not inspire much confidence in the markets.

Let's let's play just this this one.

Thought uh B three from Terry Moran and Donald Trump last night.

We basically have an embargo on China. Look to say, something's gonna happen. No, okay, well, thing's going to happen.

You know business. Now I want to ask you, I do no business.

And so one hundred and forty tariffs on China, and that is that basically an embargo. They it'll raise prices on everything from electronics to clothing to building houses.

You don't know that.

You don't know whether or not China's mathematics. China probably will eat those tariffs. But at one hundred and forty five. They basically can't do much business with the United States, and they were making from US a trillion dollars a year. They were ripping us off like nobody's ever ripped us off. And by the way, we have other countries that were just as bad. If you look at the European Union,

But they're not doing that anymore.

I want you to think that inspire any confidence.

Well, yeah, you're right, Ryan, I mean it's one of those where really what you're watching.

I mean what Trump.

Also says is he'll be like, oh, we're having all these jobs come back, and they're telling me it's amazing. It's like, there's not what that's not true. You literally listen to the CEO Walmart Target. They're like, we told

Exactly?

So we don't have exemptions, or actually we do. And by the way, the tariffs are also going to apply to Toyota if they build in America. So why would Toyota continue to build in America? Can anyone riddle me that one? If your toy if your Toyota, I just like screw it. You know, I'm done. Why would I even want to keep doing business here? It just it does it's preposterous and it doesn't really make a whole bunch of sense. And broadly that continues to shine through

The one that scared me was when he said that tourism is way up.

Yeah right, it's just us.

Terry moransay, Yeah, I'm sorry, what No, it's not it's way down. Like these are not differences of opinion here, like either Las Vegas is a ghost town or it's not.

Yeah, well in payroll, yeah, Brian, he should ask Steve wick Coough, the.

Developer, Well, tasty property in Vegas.

That's true. Yeah, check the Trump numbers in Vegas. Actually, honestly, someone should go and track where the room rates at the Trump International in Vegas and see how they have trended from November all the way until today. That'd be a good like chatchypt task or something. I mean, look, I could be wrong only because it is Trump and there's a lot of maga boomers out there that will pay a premium just to stay at a Trump property.

Yeah.

So ADP their report showed private payroll growth slowed in April to sixty two thousand. The Dow estimate for that was one hundred twenty thousand, So another negative indicator. But if you're worried about all of us, I have good news. We can roll the final stot Chuck Schumer is on the case.

Let's play before of.

All the crazy things the Republicans want to do. Now they want a car tax.

Hell no, hell no, to the contacts.

I'm inspired. I'm personally inspired.

I feel good.

John, there is done. Let's move on to the influence influencers.

Well, the White House started its influencer briefings this week. I think we're two influencer briefings in there.

There have been.

There was one on Monday, one on Tuesday. We'll see where they go going forward. Now, there are some moments from these briefings that are going massively viral because they are cringe inducing, painful, and nobody is wrong to cringe at them.

My very unpopular take is.

That the moments that aren't going viral have actually not been bad. So before I make my very unpopular argument and do battle with Ryan and Sager, let's roll I don't.

Even want to do it. Let's roll this cop see one of the influence in briefing at the White House with Caroline love It.

Over the first one hundred days, the majority of policies that we've seen from the Trump administration have been either targeted at foreign affairs, such as bringing the American hostages home or attempting to end the war between Ukraine and Russia, or long term goals such as cover cutting government spending

This in the first hundred days is that the White House is crawling with kids. You have a young, beautiful baby boy. There are babies everywhere. There's so many young folks on staff who have kids. But the last four years under Joe Biden, parents are really stressed and ravage. They had to take on two or three extra jobs. Depression rates were up, suicide rates were up. Very high profile young mother who seems to juggle and balance it

Yeah, well, it's a great question, and first to the heart of your premise, It's true the president has empowered not just me as a young mother in this role, but there are so many new moms and dads on our senior staff in the West Wing, but also across the entire administration.

Can't forget that there's one from the first briefing on Monday that we're going to roll. We've got some more information on this influencer. Let's go ahead and play see two here.

Thank you for having us here. I've noticed this is kind of like a repeat of twenty sixteen. The Legacy medy has gone back to not reporting anything on President Trump. At the beginning, we had them reporting everything that he was doing. Now they're kind of going back again to not reporting everything that he is actually doing. I'm kind of the nerd when it comes to reporting. I'm off the headline newsgirl. I'm the nuts and bolts. I'm the

Okay, guys, go ahead and react where.

We want to start.

That reminds me of Brian Stelter asking Jensaki, what can we as the media do better? And that was ridiculed then and it should be ridiculed now. And look, I think brought Emily.

This is the thing.

I'm not objecting to everybody in the briefing room. I am friends with a lot a lot of those people. I mean, my man pomp was there sitting in the background. But my point is not about that. It's actually a philosophical thing where the White House is just here's my main message to a lot of these influencers.

You are being used. They think you're a fucking joke.

I just wanted to be honest with you, because let's let's talk about this. Who did Donald Trump choose to give his one hundred day interviews to The Atlantic Time magazine and Terry Moran at ABC News for an oval office sit down. Yeah, they'll invite you to your city little briefing so you can glaze them about babies or whatever is going on. They don't respect you at all.

And what the.

Huffington Post expertly did under Barack Obama is they challenged Barack Obama from the left. And so the mission of conservative media should not be to glaze the Trump administration. It should be to challenge the Trump administration to say, why haven't you done these things that you promised on campaign traill? Why are you allowing this? Why are you not doing You should find internal contradictions. And I'm telling you this is the way that I operated in the

Part of the back and forth.

So Ryan, I think you should really go off on this a little bit because you had the experience.

Oh sorry, Emily too.

No, I just want to interject to say my entire argument is what the point that you are making here is that there actually were questions that didn't go viral from some of these influencers people I don't even know who were coming at it from the right, and actually Sean Spicer, of all people, ask Caroline Levitt why Donald Trump is sitting down with Jeffrey Goldberg and other people in the corporate press, which I meant to post this, but like I do a lot of like helping.

I was watching that, I was like, is that Sean Spicer? Yes, hell is he doing in there?

But this is the thing, like I have I don't know how many like young conservive journalists. I've said exactly what you just said, Sager too.

And I was meant to.

Send that from Sean Spicer and be like, he under he actually understands this. This is the only way that you get respect is asking serious questions. So there were questions about Trump's promise for national reciprocity for gun owners, a great example of something that nobody in the mainstream media would ask about, holding him to account for a promise from the right that nobody in the corporate press would ask about. Very legitimate question, newsy question, when would

So Ryan tell us, oh, yes, Sager has this exactly right. That if you are a journalist with a perspective, whether you know you guys on on the right me on the left, it's actually easier to do your job when uh,

Everything. But when it comes to somebody that.

You're a little bit closer with, you're able to earnestly say, hey, you ran on breaking up the big banks, and now we're hearing that Larry Summers is saying you can't break up.

The big banks.

You know, you ran on making sure that there is a public option for people who can't afford insurance.

We hear that you're.

Talking a big farm about getting you know, making sure that that's not even in the bill. And finding the gap between what they ran on and what they're actually doing is where is where the good good journalism is. You drive that wedge in there, and you can do it more effectively if you actually care.

And it's your value, right, because you're filling blind spots. The entire point of this, that's why I actually like the National Reciprocity for gun owners question. Was I thought such a good illustration, like this is your value in the briefing room is that you are bringing a perspective that is underrepresented in the media despite being represented more

Yes, yeah, And that's the thing they just don't understand. And again Trump understands this. That's why he at the end of the day, is not choosing any of these

It was even better, he said, He said, if I were if the huffingon posts were covering Abraham Lincoln when he did there and when he did the Emancipation Proclamation, they would have highlighted the fact that it didn't apply to a few counties and US Virginia and to other counties under Confederate.

By the way, that's actually fair. That is the Oberator and those people said, just so we're aware.

Mister yes, and we actually then wrote that article just for him, uh, because all of the radical Republican papers at the time said the same thing, why are you so late on this? And why doesn't this cover everybody? And that's the role of that press. So it's like, yes and yeah. He would call us out. He would call us out pretty regularly, and we ate it up. And what my favorite part time was when the New

You were very pro Larry Summers for FRED chair and uh, he.

Did not get He did not get it.

And in a private meeting with Democrats, Obama complained about us, uh and Larry Summers and not the New York Times because the New York Times at a total page wasn't moving the needle.

See.

That's very interesting, right.

That was what was crawl see and that's power and then that look, I mean, that's to your point.

These influencers think that they're going to get access by asking these glazing questions when in fact, as you found with Trump, it's being adversarial and building your own authority that then forces them to answer your questions and otherwise they're totally embarrassed. So it was the power that we built that forced them. They didn't love us, hated us, hated us more than they hated the Daily Caller, probably because they're like, oh, yeah they call.

Of course they're going to beat us up.

But god post they don't listen. And you know, Emily, like you said, I have been on the phone with half of these people. They don't listen. They're taking their advice from social media, and I just I think, not only is it going to age poorly, Like remember all of the stars of twenty seventeen in the briefing room April Ryan, Jim Acosta. How did it work out? You know, I mean these people are jokes. We remember it as

I think that's how most of these mega media.

People are going to look, they won't age and you know, look, I mean, will they get away with it? Yeah, they definitely will. I mean I've been watching to see the reception they get on social media. I think it's insane. I honestly, I don't really understand it.

Well, that's the point that I wanted to make because I think the distinction between influencers and journalism is quite interesting as well, because to the point you were making about whether this is audience capture, that's really interesting because I think with some of these influencers, it's not even audience capture.

It's that they want this access.

That's not about getting journalism right because they're not journalists, so they're not trying to like break stories and move the ball forward. What they want is more access for social and that's a very different set of incentives. You know, they want to be able to go with like Kai Trump and Don Junior and like be behind the scenes at all of these events.

Because that's just sort of where their bread is buttered. Right now.

They can get maybe sponsorships with it, and it's a it's a different I agree that it's a different set of incentives than breaking news. And obviously those incentives have crept into journalism itself too. But if you don't even think of yourself as a journalist, it's true that you have important, big audiences. So there's a there's theoretically a case for these influencer briefings, but they're not going to

We've just talked about. You don't go viral for asking a good question about sometimes.

You do, though you can actually sometimes you do. Yeah, right, right, what the That's what these other people don't get. It's like, if you want real fame or like success or any of the stuff. You can get it by doing kind of what you're trying to do. But it's just it's harder whatever, it's much harder. It takes a level of intellectualism and history and of knowledge, you know, to get there.

And from that point forward, like you got to.

Ask existential questions because look, all the warning signs were there, and they're just feeding into this mass hysteria at the moment.

So we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

Yeah, guys, so stop embarrassing yourself. So let's move on now to Donald Trump's rally last night.

By the way, guys, thank you, thank you very much for you know, dealing with my absences. There's a couple of just personal medical things going on. But everything is fine for right now, and we are anxiously awaiting our baby. The kid is already a pain in the ass and he's not even or he or she has not even been born yet, and so I'm sure that will manifest

So just thank you very much for bearing with me. I really appreciate you all, And back to Ryan and Emily.

President Trump went to Michigan yesterday, had a little encounter with Gretchen Whitmer. But he was doing a rally on the occasion of his one hundredth day in office, and the crowd was sort of a.

Typical Trump rally crowd.

But given what's happened over the course of the first one hundred days, there was one particularly interesting moment.

We have a couple that we're going to run. But let's play this first clip.

After Donald Trump showed video of the allegendbus thirteen members heading to Al Salvador ending up at Seacott.

This is what happened, and the worst.

Of the worst are being sent to a no nonsense prison in El Salvador.

Why don't you watch watch this, watch this, take a look.

So there were USA USA chants.

Now Donald Trump also floated well, he first said that he was going to serve two terms. Here's what's happened, Here's what happened after that. Let's roll this club.

It was so important to win because they used to say the fake is to be a great president, you have to serve two terms.

So now we're going to serve two terms.

Now they've taken that work of crush, right, right Oz?

Trust that one off?

Trust that one off.

No, they say it all the time.

When I was out, they say, well, then they.

Go, is it a fever dream?

When he says, right, doctor Oz, right, doctor Oz, what's happening? But the crowd was chanting three if you couldn't hear that, Then Trump said, thank you, we actually already served three.

Then one more clip, This one is he was elected in twenty twenty.

Is that what he means?

I think that's what he means. It's genuinely hard to say.

This is.

His part of his interview. So the rally is happening. He's also sitting gun.

For an interview with Terry Moran on ABC again to mark the one hundredth day of the administration. Let's roll this clip D three.

But the court has warned you to facilitate that you're not the one making this decision. We have lawyers.

I don't want to do this, but the buck stops eyes on now, No, no, no, I follow the law.

You want me to follow the law.

If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I'd probably keep them right where it says what the law is.

Listen.

I was elected to take care of a problem that was it was an unforced era that was made by a very incompetent man, A man that turned out to be incompetent that you always said was wonderful, great genius.

Right, and now you find out all of.

The media now they're saying, what a mistake they made. A man who was grossly incompetent allowed us to have open borders where millions of people float in. I campaigned on that issue. I wouldn't say it was my number one issue, but it was pretty clear I campaigned on that issue. I've done an amazing job. I have closed borders. He said you couldn't do it, and you wouldn't be able to do it, it would never happen.

Well, it happened, and it happened very quickly.

Wait a minute, when we have criminals, murderers, criminals in this country, we have to get him out, and we're doing it, and you'll pick out one man. But even the man that you picked out, he's got a key, said he wasn't a member of a gang.

And then they looked and on his knuckles.

He had MS thres there it Wait a minute, he had MS thirteen.

We had some tattoos that are interpreted that way. But let's move on. Wait a minute, I will tear it Terry, Terry, he did not have the letter MS one. It says MS one three. That was photoshop. So let me do his photoshop. Terry, you can't have that.

Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know you're doing the interview. I picked you because frankly, I never heard of you.

But that's okay. I picked to you, Terry. But you're not being very nice. He had MS thirteen texts will agree to disagree. I want to rive on to something else, Terry. Do you want me to show you the picture? I saw the picture. Well the photoshop. Here we go. Here we got photoshop, but go look at his hand he had. He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I'm not an expert on them. I want to turn to Ukraine, I.

Want to get to No, he had MS as clear as you can be, not interpreted. This is why people no longer believe well the news because when photogl.

In El Salvador, they aren't there. But let's just go they aren't there when he's in there now right, No, but they're in your picture.

Terry Ukraine sir, he's got MS thirteen on his knuckles.

All, okay, we'll take such a disservice. Will take a look. What did you just say it? Yes, he does so.

Donald Trump clearly believes that he deported someone with MS thirteen tattooed on his knuckles, the letters MS and then the numbers one three tattooed on his knuckles. That would be Kilmore Abrego Garcia, who does have tattoos that experts, some have said, resemble what gang members might have. But to be very clear, Trump thinks it's said MS one three on his knuckles. What actually happened is that the

That MS thirteen actually had been tattooed on his knuckles.

Donald Trump seems to have been maybe he was the tartop of this hoax, seriously.

Because there, I mean, there was this this actually somewhat interesting debate when that happened last week about whether or not people would actually believe the photoshop or that it was very clearly indicating that they were just enhancing the picture.

But I guess if you're a sorry boomers, but I guess if you're a social.

Media boom without your focals.

He was, he was duped by the photoshop and genuinely believes that Kilmer abrego Garcia, all of this uproar. I mean, that changes the story significantly that Donald Trump believes the man has MS thirteen tattooed on him, because that's a confirmation clear as day that he is MS thirteen. Meaning the Democrats that are fighting to keep him, the media that is fighting to keep him is coming from a very.

Different place right from Trump's addult perspective. He literally thinks that Abrego Garcia has has MS thirteen tattooed on his fingers. And then he's like, god, what is wrong with these democrats in the media right that are like fighting over this guy.

Publicans by the way, who were unhappy with the direction.

Twenty fifth Amendment time, Like.

Whoever is the marshal of the Supreme Court like from this first term, who never showed up to arrest Trump?

Like twenty fifth Amendment?

Man?

Like this is this man is utterly delusional?

Am I wrong? That that picture was very obvious?

It was obvious because I think if you can see it, I think I think maybe his eyes aren't good enough.

And Steven Miller just lied to him.

I mean, and somebody's lying to him, like and we'll talk about this that at the end of this clip with his answer on tourism, he's he's watching television and reading some things, so he has some like access to outside information. But clearly his circle of advisors are either afraid of him and or are just outright lying to

On his hand. And also it doesn't. The whole thing falls apart.

He has a marijuana leaf and then a smile, and then a smile like okay, well even in Spanish, you know you can that's there's an MS there. Then there's a cross, which is like okay, it's not a one, that's a cross. And then and then there's a skull, and that's where it's like, where do you have three out of a skull? And people are like, well, you can draw a three somewhere onto the skull.

All right.

Now you're just in fantasy land, like it's it's like, you know, smok smoking weed makes me happy, love the Lord till I die, Like that's a thing that's out there like that actually makes a little bit of sense.

Yeah, it makes a little bit of sense, but I'm not MS thirteen. Also tattoos either.

Also MS thirteen.

If you've seen go google image MS thirteen tattoos, they say MS thirteen on their face or on their back and.

Like, yeah, they're usually in like old timy old script, but it's clear.

It's clear.

But you'd be thrown out of the gang, Like, hey, you're supposed to tattoo MS thirteen on yourself, Kilmart and he's like, oh, yeah, I did this.

It's really fancy. See how the M s And.

Then this is sort of like a one and this is a skully be like you're you're you're afraid to announce your support, your your your membership in MS thirteen, So you're out like like that, that's not how it works anyway, that it matters, because none of this matters.

This was photoshop. He's wrong.

It was very obvious. It was like a USARAH font with it didn't look like it was natural on the skin, like a tattoo.

It was he's wrong put.

Onto the image in a way that is just mind blowing that you would interpret that as someone's actual MS thirteen tattoo. I'm not ready to rule out what's on Timar Arbrego Garcia's knuckles as being potentially gang related, but that's at this point, beside the point because Donald Trump thinks that an obvious photoshop is really, he clearly thinks that it's really.

Did you get the sense that he was lying to Terry Moran's face? I didn't. I think.

He seemed to, and he seemed to be like really frustrated at Terry Moran, for like, his ability to take in information seems gone.

And at the end he says, why won't you just say to me?

Yes?

He has MS thirteen on his knuckles, which is clearly that's what he wants his sick of fans around him to say, just tell me yes.

Let's skip ahead to D five.

This is going to be the thought about tourism because I think that is actually an interesting theme from some of the clips that we played, so the MS thirteen clip but also the two versus three terms clip.

Let's roll. Tourism is way up D five.

And Canadians, many of them, are really angry furious.

About your talk about We're going to take over Canada is going to become the fifty first state, and it kind of is of a piece.

A lot of travel is down into the United States from around the world. We're doing it's like there's been reputational team. He's doing great well.

Prices it down, not the touristling's down. Energy's down. Tourism is going to be way up. Wait do you see the numbers. The tourism is way up now now, Canada tourism is doing very well.

We're doing very well. We're doing very well.

Wait do you see the real numbers come out in about in six months from now?

Where do you see the numbers? But do you think we're gonna ask you?

So he's saying two things there, on the one hand that numbers are fine now and the other that the numbers will go up.

Wait wait, wait you see the numbers.

Well, this is.

According to c NBC, foreign visitors to the US by air fell nearly ten percent in March from the same month a year earlier, and nearly thirteen percent from before the pandemic to four point five four million people. That's what the that's where this information that we have as right now? Yeah, that's mark wait.

To see April. Yeah, so well, according to Trump, wait to see April like, who's lying to him? Like I don't.

I don't like Trump's judgment in general, but I would like his judgment to be acted upon reality, Like I want him to have accurate information and then and then I disagree with or agree with what he's doing. I'd rather his advisors tell them, hey, man, tourism's way down. Do we care or is this all part of the plan, rather than this, Hey boss, everything's great.

Tourism is up. Cheese on the phone.

That MS thirteen is tattooed on his fingers, like you're killing it, boss, So everybody loves you.

CNBC also says, including land work crossings, okay.

Yeah, and we're going to get the Fox News polster fired. That's what Steve Miller said yesterday.

Yeah, he said that.

I actually think that there are probably some legitimate questions about the accuracy of the.

Fox News pul They're in line with everybody else's plot right now.

They are.

Yeah, these if you look at all the polling aggregations, yes, so, including land border crossing. CNBC says inbound visitors to the US fell fourteen percent in March from last year. According to the US Travel Association, So an industry that's down trade group.

Yeah, that's very obviously down.

Now this clip, I want to say, Ryan, I think that sounded to me possibly just like regular Trump talking his way into success, like I hope, fluctuating between. They're fine now, but they're going to be fine, Like it just was. I felt like that was just Trump kind of bullshitting. The MS thirteen one is the one that really concerns me. Also, I don't know what he was talking about when he said two terms and then he

So it's all.

It's very it's a time traveler. I've never been on the you have this very like traditional understanding of time. Yes, whereas he moves about it freely, he's.

Sort of a higher plane. But no, I've never been on the bandwagon ever. Like up until this point of people who thought that Trump had some type of like medical mental aging condition, you know, that was something the Biden team tried to push. There's obviously something going on up there, whether or not it's aging. I've never been on that bandwagon, to be honest. But the MS thirteen one now that one has me really.

Idiocy and capacity.

Yeah, I could just be idiocylied to him.

To your point, I guess it is possible that somebody relied to him.

Now, to put that in stark relief, take a look at what Donald Trump said about negotiations with Vladimir Putin, just for a reminder that the man who believes his thirteen was tattooed on Kimora Bergo's Gerty's hands is negotiating the end of a potential.

Or of a war involving a nuclear power. So go ahead and roll D four.

He's willing to stop the fighting, don't you begin he wants You think Vladimir Putin wants peace?

I think he does. Yes, I think there is I think people's a reigning missiles. I think he really his dream was to take over the whole country. I think because of me, he's not going to do that. Do you trust him? I think? Do you trust him? I don't trust you. I don't trust I don't trust a lot of people. I don't trust you. Look at you.

You come in all shooting for bear, You're so happy to do the interview I am, and then you start hitting me with fake questions he saw telling me that a guy whose hand is covered with the tattoo doesn't have the tattoo.

You know, I mean you're being dishonest.

No, I'm not.

Lem is not so I trust. I don't trust a lot of people, but I do think this.

I think that he let's say, he respects me, and I believe because of me, he's not going to take over the whole, but his decision, his choice would be to take over all of Ukraine.

Okay, again, there's a charitable reading of this where he's said this before. He's not going to talk and Wikoff has said this, he's not going to talk trash about Putin in a way that would hamper his ability just to kind of virtue signal to American neo cons in a way that would hamper the actual peace process.

So on that part, I get not taking Terry Moran's bait.

On the other hand, Ryan, he's still going back to the MS thirteen tattoo.

So he's like, yeah, I can't trust you because you think that wasn't photoshop Yeah, or you think that was photoshopped.

Wow, things are fine. We're a hundred days in. Everything is preceding apace everyone's happy. Tourism is up.

It feels like a lifetime good lord.

Yeah, anything else on the Terry Moran Now, just twenty fifth Amendment and look I was I was for it with Biden, So you can't get me on.

Can't get me on that hypocrisy. So important now, President Vance, get ready, lace up Lisa.

All right, let's move on to the Housies, Ryan, because another quite an interesting l for the good old US of A here.

This week. And we can put this first element up on the screen.

An Fa eighteen fighter jet fell off the side of a US aircraft carrier.

And sunk to the bottom of the Red Sea.

What we know from reporting out of the US from the Navy is that or they claim this is what they claim.

We'll talk about this.

They claim that the aircraft carrier was making a sharp movement to avoid hoothy fire. Now we know from hooty officials that they did indeed say that they launched a

Who knows, what do I know?

All we know is that this seventy dollar fighter jet is now at the bottom of the Red Sea. So we don't have health care, yeah, but we do have now we raises sunken fighter jet. It raises a lot of questions. Do we have fighter jet insurance? And were we current on it?

Yes, that is one of the questions that comes to mind.

Was it paid off.

From Progressive?

What if we had just finished paying this thing off when it rolled off.

The side the all stick guys should start doing commercials.

And you know how you know, that's how it goes.

When you have a seventy million dollar fighter jet, the second you make your last payment, it rolls off the side of the aircraft carrier.

Many such cases.

Just for fun, let's put up E two here. This is the War Powers resolution.

It is not actually okay, constitutionally for this carrier group to even be in these waters. According to the Constitution, the Congress is vested with the power to declare war. According to the War Powers Act, you cannot enter into hostilities.

You can't do this. So beyond that, you can't do this, I'm just saying you can't do this. So and what they are entered into hostilities right now?

They are in a place where they know they're going to get shot at, and if they don't want to get shot at, they're able to leave that area like there's no reason they have to be there or Congress has not authorized it. Now, maybe that implicates the insurance policy. Insurance policy. You probably have to be current on your alignment with your constitutional war powers, and so the insurance policies, they're not paid. They're not paying for this FAA team. When All State gets the bill, do.

You say that this is they'll claim this under the umbrella of an AOMF, like a twenty plus year old AOMF.

I don't even know if they bother anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And our allies aren't there. So the au m F authorizes us to fight al Qaeda wherever we find them. The problem in Yemen is that our allies are al Qaeda. Al Qaeda are fighting the houthies. So that's not that's not going to fly either.

Well you'd think, did you just say that's not going to fly? Pretty good?

I did not even I did not even do that one on purpose, but wow, it really worked. Less amusing but even more disturbing perhaps development out of Yemen.

We can put this next element up on the screen.

So there are as you know, as everybody knows, a bunch of amateur ocent people out there who go around around monking with Google Earth, posting things that they find and declaring them to be interesting to the world. If that's your hobby, fine, enjoy yourself, you know, social media, go ahead. There are some people who have been going around, uh looking at Google Earth images of Yemen and claiming to have been able to spot hothy missile launch sites or hoothy bases.

Okay again, I guess.

Like, if that's how you want to spend your time, go ahead and do that. So a couple of accounts posted the the exact coordinates of what they said was a missile you know, some type of base slash missile launch situation in.

A quarry in Yemen. We can put this next element up on the screen, and the US struck that precise coordinate killed.

The reports are and uh Shuey al malwassee who's our reporter? And Sanas confirmed for us that this that this area just outside of Sana was was struck. A significant number of civilians were killed. The reporting is eight uh. And so we know that this person posted this image, post posted these coordinates and then the US struck these coordinates and that there was nothing there.

Like we all know this now.

What was the time lapse between the couple of weeks?

And so the question then is is this the strangest coincidence ever?

Or is sentcom pulling targets from random Twitter users? Weird're striking them?

Weirder possibility what if somebody at centcom has a burner that they're floating coordinates out onto.

I think this is a person that's in Holmn. They know who this person is. It's like a woman who's just interested in this stuff.

Like.

Also, they're wrong, like they blew it like this they killed civilians like they didn't they didn't get this right. So this person posted screenshots of donations that she made to Doctors Without Borders and a Yemeny charitable group as sorry. So to start, I have made two donations, one to MSF Meslan Frontier and one the Yemen Data Project, totaling five hundred euros, like as an apology basically for accidentally

This is a really weird account. I'm going through it right now. Yeah, lucky it han.

It's very strange.

It's very very weird.

It's like.

It's almost like a belling cat type.

But it's just a random person ish but who knows.

The response that mirrors the way I feel about it was from somebody who said, we don't want your donations, we don't need them. Just stop publishing false aerial photos. You're publishing civilian areas as military zones and causing the killing of our people. Even if we assume that they are military zones, Why are you hostile to us? What is your interest in this? And so that's actually the question I have too, It's like, why are you doing this? So I reached out to this account. They did not

Yeah?

It it certainly is the case. We know that at least for some of their and we know this from.

Sources around the Pentagon that they are pulling. We do know for sure they're pulling some of their damage assessment from Twitter, because that's that has circulated in the Pentagon. Like after a strike, there'll be some social media account like posts from that are not US you know, government or US military accounts, just random people. Some of these some of these are just strident, like anti houthy partisans and they'll say this is what happened in the strike and that and saidcom will.

Use that in there now.

So we do know that they are willing to use what they euphemistically call open source intel and whatever.

I mean, presumably whatever led this open source intel collector who interestingly has ceasefire now.

And I saw that, Yeah, fire aware in the bio, the bio of where do they want.

To seize fire?

Yeah, it's very odd ym So presumably obviously whatever led this account to that spot could potentially be leading sentcom to that spot. I mean, it wouldn't necessarily have to be a coincidence.

Except it was the total blunder, Like it was right, it was just a misreading.

It's very very weird. It's an incredibly deeply strange story. I'm glad that you asked the government about it, because.

If they're pulling this stuff and it's wrong from Twitter accounts, I mean, I guess it's one thing.

If it's right, it's still very odd.

If it's right, if they're actually getting it from Twitter and not just sort of following the same breadcrumbs, but a deeply deeply strange situation, and you can understand how it's going to land with people in Yemen. I mean, it's it looks to people in Yemen like complete casual destruction.

Yes, and it's also completely ineffectual. I mean, it's it's effective at killing innocent people, but when it comes to actually degrading the capacity of the Houthis to fire at ships, it's simply simply not effective.

We just they just.

Tilted an aircraft carrier and knocked a what do they call it a hornet whatever, to the bottom of the bottom of the Red Seas seventy million dollar seventy million dollar plane. Meanwhile, the houthis in an interview with shoe Abe, a top official there, was effectively responding to Trump and Hegseeth who said that if the Hoothies stopped shooting at

AID into Gaza.

So if Israel would just allow AID back in now at this point, they want Israel to return to the ceasefire terms that they had agreed to.

But that's it. Their beef is with Israel, not with us, and so they have accepted our offer.

Yet here we are bombing innocent people, trying to degrade their capacity, not doing it. And right now, it's just kind of funny that this ship, I mean's sort of funny that the ship fell off the aircraft carrier. Trump could get somebody killed. Also, that could have been a lot worse.

I just found at Vlecki Han sited in West Points a report from West Points Combating Terrorism Center.

So interesting, a reliable the quote ever resourceful analyst at Flecki Han.

This is a west Point paper.

Yeah, all right, well this is pretty confirmation that this account is considered credible. What was it called, it's ever reliable, ever reliable, ever reliable, well not ever resourceful, ever resourceful. Yes, okay, they're resourceful. They're using Google Earth.

This was in the case of it says the ever resourceful analyst at Lucky Han's use of purchased commercial satellite imagery. And this is from last year, so it's not like an old paper or anything. And it's cited actually in the footnotes of this report from West Point.

So yeah, so okay, they so they are they do actually think this person is credible that that ups the likelihood that they relied on this person's Google Earth imagery to launch this erroneous and deadly air strike close to one hundred percent.

So what this means is that the military is paying attention to this particular open source account, right, so it would make it that's much stronger.

I mean, yeah, exactly.

Separately and also relatedly, and we won't We were going to put up some of this video, but we decided we decided not to because even even blurring it it's just too it's just too graphic. But the hooth He's announced that one of the air strikes, and we don't know where they got the coordinates for this one that the US had said hit a Hoothy base actually hit an African African migrant detention center, and so far the

We did that.

I mean, the video is people, go pull it up.

You can find it.

Yeah, you can find it. Recommended viewing, unfortunately, in a very very tragic way. Recommended viewing.

So up next, protests and counter protests in Crown Heights in Brooklyn on Thursday night led to what became was becoming a national scandal, the way that a mob of pro Israel protesters assaulted two different women. One of them is going to do her first video interview and share some of her own footage that she captured while this

Us, Thank you for having me, Thank you for interest in that story.

Yeah for sure. So first of all, can you tell us, like how you wound up Thursday evening.

At this protest? How did you How did you know that there was a protest going on?

Sure? Yeah, so you know, kind of later in the evening, around ten ten thirty and a helicopter had been hovering over my building for around thirty minutes. So I went outside to see what was going on, and I encountered the aftermath of a protest when I arrived at Kingston Avenue in Eastern Parkway, right where the Chabat is.

And so, yeah, so what happened next?

Yeah, So I was standing on the sidewalk. There were tons of people, hundreds of people in the street and on the sidewalk pretty much only Orthodox Jewish people, mostly men, and then there were some other neighbors like myself standing on the sidewalk just watching, just watching the scene to see.

What was going on. And I want to say, that's an point because actually we had reported earlier that you were a pro Palestine demonstrator, and that's not the case. To be clear, you were just sort of a bystander who was watching the chaos unfold in your neighborhood, right.

That's right, and so.

I understand that, Well, why did they mistake you for somebody that needed to be assaulted?

Yeah, So what happened, and it happened really quickly, was that people near me began filming and I didn't want to be on anyone's camera rule, so I pulled up my scarf over my face. And I just want to be clear that it was not a cathea. It wouldn't matter if it was, but it wasn't, and that was really that just escalated things. Almost immediately a woman began screaming at me. She was already screaming at the police.

I want to play a little bit of the footage here if we can roll that control room.

See the fact that you guys, lets the fact.

You guys want.

You're again, I live here to be here, that you want someone to bend you over and like the dorn of the Jews in Palestine.

Guys, and you can see in that video the police standing there. You pay taxes to be protected by the police. They're standing there in that video, And so how did you end up getting out of the situation? Was anybody other than the police trying to help?

What happened? As you you tried to get away from uh that harassment?

Yeah, so asn't tried to leave the situation and to get away. Another officer from somewhere else on the street came over and he saw this mob following me, and he tried to escort me home, and so we walked in the direction of my home and this just this mob of men followed and as they followed, they were again saying go back to Palestine and in Hebrew, shouting death to Arabs. They were kicking me in the back repeatedly.

I realized that.

I couldn't leave this mob to my home, that that wouldn't be safe for me. And I turned on a different street in a way from the direction of my home, where they kind of cornered me and this one officer against a building, which is where they were started like throwing the trash can and the traffic cone at me, and I really just I didn't know what to do or where to go because they couldn't go home, and the police weren't there to stop. I mean, they were there,

So what were you thinking as you're kind of going down the street and the mob is around you, Because I'm reminded of this time where I got jumped by three guys in an alley behind my apartment, and I remember thinking, remember, don't go down. Don't go down, because if, like I knew that, if I went down onto the ground, then you know, then then you're dealing with feet rather than just rather than just fists. And I was eventually able to get away without actually going down onto the

Yeah. I mean, I will say I have a very strong fight instinct and I was fighting very hard to repress it in those moments because I knew that they wanted me to respond.

In that way.

They wanted me to fight back so that they could escalate things and have an excuse to hurt me further. And it was and it was just like I really had to have to rep us that the whole time and instead put my mind to keeping myself safe. And there wasn't a lot of conscious thought outside of don't don't react physically and don't leave them to your home, you know. Outside of that, it was just like a lot it was a lot of terror. It was just this feeling of terror that was that was there for me.

And what response have you received since all of this happened.

I know Eric Adams has sort of put out an attempt to get in contact.

Have the police followed up? What's what have you heard in the last several days.

Yeah, you know, I'm in such a tricky position here because I want to call out all of the all of the police in action and lies that they've been telling, and at the same time, I really want them to take action on my behalf and the people of New York's behalf and think those two, those two desires of mine are in conflict with each other. And so but I'm going to say anyway, like the police didn't do anything.

And so you did speak to a detective, would you testify if they were able to find you, know, able to identify these these men who did this?

I would Yeah. Yeah, it was.

It was interesting to see Eric Adams finally come out, because there's a it took a way. It took a significant amount of time for Adams to say anything publicly, and it seems like there's this attitude that if somebody is a kind of pro Palestine demonstrator, the kind of rules don't apply.

They can just get beaten up.

And I wonder if them finally realizing that you actually weren't you were just a person who lives in the neighborhood, if that played some role. Did you get any indication from the detective of how important kind of that his bosses see this case and what it was that moved them kind of to actually do something.

Yeah, So I think I talked to the detective on Monday afternoon and they seem to really be scrambling. He had told me that they had only just gotten the directive that they were going to be investigating this like a couple hours prior. So this all happened on Thursday night, where the police again watched it happen, and they didn't take any action until this video went viral over the weekend and the pressure and then there was pressure on the mayor and the NYPD.

And not that any of this matters because you were just you were just there. But I'm curious, are you Jewish? Are you Christian? And you atheist? Apathysts?

Like what's what? What's and do you have a view on the politics here.

Like I said, it doesn't matter, nobody should beaten up no matter what they think, any wherever they are on the spectrum, and you were just there.

But I'm also just curious.

Yeah, No, I'm not religious at all, and I do support the rights of Palestinians to live in a free state of their own. And I think, like you know, what happened to me, it really gave me a glimpse into the daily reality of Palestinians under occupation. Just they're subjected to violence, to humanization, abandonment, and and what happened to me isn't isolated. It's part of a broader system of violence, and that needs to be that needs to end.

My last question is about the situation in Crown Heights, and people are sort of familiar with the historical tensions that have simmered over in Crown Heights, and what's very frightening. One of the many things that's very frightening about your experience and about the video is how is this anger seems to be bubbling into something very very dangerous right now?

That it has to do with your safety.

So if you could speak to that and the situation in Crown Heights, whether you see it as something that's very dangerous right now, that would be much appreciated.

Yeah. Sure, Yeah, I'm absolutely afraid for my own safety in the neighborhood I lived in and have lived in for almost a decade. I'm afraid of being recognized. And yes, there's a long and fraught history of tensions involving this community in Crown Heights. I would say, like two weeks ago, members of the Orthodox Jewish community brutally beat an elderly black man in a wheelchair and threw him to the sidewalk.

As we saw Thursday, the event happened Thursday night in full view of all the police, and nothing happened until Monday until the you know, there's a spotlight put on it. So thank thank you so much for you know, sharing your your perspective, the videos and and your side of this this terrifying event.

Yeah, we really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you.

Joining us now is Turnobob, editor of the Africanist Press.

And also we can put this element up on the screen.

The author of the tremendous book The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa, Corporate gangsters, multinationals and rogue Politicians.

We spoke with Turno a year or two ago.

About the Abola outbreak in West Africa, and we can put a link to that interview that we did down in the down in the show notes. Embarrassed say, I hadn't read the full book by the time that we had you on then, because we were moving fairly quickly. But I've since read it. It's really a masterpiece. I would recommend it to every It's it's also a fairly short books. There was no excuse that I hadn't read

Yes, it's been ten years now.

Since I published that book, or since I wrote that book, and it's interesting to see that the conversation that we started ten years ago still is relevant today, especially when we talk about COVID and the pandemic. It was five years before COVID at the time when the outbreak happened. The official narrative was that the outbreak started in Guinea, and they identified Emily woman way two years old or less than two year old child an eighteen year old

So very few people were willing to have that kind of conversation.

So I travel around the world at the time, going to Europe, across the United States, and in some African countries.

To promote the book. You know, ten years down the line, I think now we.

Have some kind of a significant amount of people who are perhaps willing to listen to that kind of you know, the possibility that the outbreak that killed thousands of people in West Africa and still has a lingering socio economic impact and psychological impact on the population of West Africa. Talking about people who lived in Strira, Lian, in Liberia and Guinea, the epicenter of that epidemic, are still unaware of the causes and origin of that. We've had so

Africa, and it's it's relevant.

The conversation is relevant today, I think for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that here here in the West, the debate around what we call quote unquote foreign aid is that the Democrats will say, you know, kind of foreign aid is good and we should do it because it's it's it's good and also it helps the United States, you know, with our soft power, and

Well?

I think the problem here.

We entered into a problem because when these real conversations that affect people's lives. We're talking about women and men, you know, children who have suffered from dictators, from bad government, from corruption in Africa. And when we we have this kind of conversation, risk is that when it becomes partisan, we lose the importance of scrutinizing international relations. To what extent has international relations affected the lives of ordinary people.

In the case of Syralan, we've been raising these issues.

We've said clearly that we are not against what you might call for indirect investment or genuine solidarity and support that applics people. But what we've witnessed in the last sixty years is a kind of relations that has undermined the real development. Not only that that has imposed huge debts,

You know.

The same thing with the Millennium Challenge Corporation that claimed that they've signed a compact agreement with Relion to support the energy sectorance volume with one undred and eighty million dollars, and even as we speak today, more than ninety percent of the Saliny and population do not have access to electricity, They do not have access to safe and pure drinking water.

So this was a very problematic situation. It's not just the US.

You also look at organizations like the IMF, the World Bank who've been imposing debts, non transparent debts on these country. So we have millions of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars in debts and so called aid that has not changed the conditions Inure. It's more than sixty five years now. So youon just celebrated what the gos sixty four years independence and when you look at the country, the indices of povertier and the development are very stuck.

You know, you don't need to go too far.

You just need to have someone on the street and ask them how do you feel about what your government is doing. They will tell you the government is corrupt, the government is not responsive to their needs, and.

Lots of I was going to say, Turner, let's talk more about that, because a lot of people here in the United States. When USAID, for example, was on the sort of cutting table in the early days of Trump's second administration, the media portrayed this as the sky was falling in the United States. This was, you know, taking a racking ball to lowercase deed democracy in human rights.

Your experience speaks to that.

So can you tell our listeners and viewers a little bit about the reality behind the curtain of USA I, D and foreign aid.

Well, I think what what you call development as systems of foreign aid did in the case of Stalin. We take the last four or five years of the the current government in power, is that it emboldened them. It emboldened them to you know, ignore to violate human rights, to suppress citizens, including journalists, independent journalists like myself, with impunity because they believe that they were backed by an

And we've counted more than almost a billion.

Dollars in debts or loan or credit, whatever you might call it, that for the construction of a power plant that has never been built. And even as we speak, more than ninety percent of the population of Sweet Town, the capital of Syralon, do not have electricity. And we have it on the records that the MCC and the DFC has given Syrallon four hundred and eighty million in

Has never been provided. The service is not available.

So if you talk about it withdraw out of funding, in that case, people are not even going to be bot at because the money that was announced was not

And your workers and right, that's what I ask you about.

So the aid gets sent by let's say, USA, I, d MC, c DFC and some of these international development finance corporations or institutions, so that it gets sent out. In your experience, and you've done so much corruption reporting in your experience, how much of that money gets kind of stolen by African elites, the early on elites, and how much of it gets stolen by Western elites who so it never even arrives for it to be stolen by the elites in Africa.

Yeah, that is the question.

In fact, three years ago we've developed what we call it the African experce and Illicit Financial Fluids Project. Why you know, when we look at the corruption on the ground, the amount of money, whether as from the IMF and the World Bank that has been given and we don't

So we've been mapping and developing a database of these.

Movement of transnational fonts and how African governments themselves are just part of an auxiliary of points in this whole international cricketer in enterprise that has developed, you know, for at least in.

The last.

Sixty years or sixty five years, So we're looking at Africa from ninety seventy five to present. So it's difficult to even assign a percentage in this case, and we've been that's the troubling question. How much agency can we are signed through the African politicians themselves who are roped into these international corruption enterprise and this deals with sovereignty issues,

So this speaks to the.

Question is something that is that is new that people need to look into, inviting journalists now increasingly to you know, to reverse the scale and begin to look at transnationally, not just on the local African context.

How much money has been stolen.

You take the case of Ibula, much of the funds that went to roll back in Bula and West Africa was taken back by international organizations. Some of that is in my book the non source agreement that it's difficult to even compute them now.

Now, maybe that's something that we can work on together and real quickly. Last question for you. I don't know that Emily has anything else. My sense of how this plays out on the ground, and here's for your take on this is that the corruption that this produces ends up kind of crushing democracy in at least to two different major ways.

Uh.

One is the one that you've talked about, that the governments that are in power don't feel any obligation to respond to the will of the public and make reforms and improve their lives because they know that they have the backing of these US institutions whether they do it

And we had you on to talk about that at the time.

So is anything is that sense that I have roughly accurate and like, how would you characterize it?

Yeah?

Absolutely, It just empowers citizens because when you go to vote and you find out that your vote doesn't count and your voice doesn't count, it silences people.

It makes mockery of democracy.

It turns neo liberal democracy into a facade where people do not believe in the electoral process. And this is dangerous because it opens up ideas people begin to think about how to actualize their own citizenship, their right to have a say in government. The key to governance is trust.

It is a major problem.

And in the case of Africa, it's not just robbing African countries of their own sovereignity, their inability to have a say on the global stage, but also it empowers regular citizens, especially when countries like the United States back autopractical leaders in Africa who steal money, who steal votes, and also steal the lives of their own people. You know, people feel this empowered, they lose faith in government, they lose trust in their own leaders, and once that happens,

That do not care.

They serve the interests of foreign, foreign corporations and those are the people their account that they are worried about. They're worried about whether they will be on the good books of the United States. Right now, many of the African leaders are worried. They're constantly thinking about hiring lobbies to be on the good books of the current administration. Especially in the case of Australian the government that enjoyed

Yes, sounds sounds reasonable to Met Chernoba, journalist at the Africanist Press.

Editor.

I'm an author of the great book The Ebola Outbreak. Thank you so much for joining us very much, appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

All Right, that's it for us today. You in here tomorrow.

I don't know, we don't know. Actually Sager doesn't know what his schedule is.

That's true.

Nobody knows anything.

So just you have to you have to tune in to find out. Will definitely be here Friday.

It has been fun like having three people, then that one Friday we had four people. We're just mixing everything up, having a blast over here. First one hundred days. You never know what you're going to get from Breaking Points.

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So I love doing those.

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