4/7/23: Mehdi Hasan Debates Matt Taibbi, Ukraine War Plans Leak, Blackrock Paris Stormed By Protests, TN Dems Expelled, RFK Jr, Taiwan and Kevin McCarthy, China Saudi Arabia Deal, Trump Indictment

Welcome back to Counterpoints. I'm Ryan Graham here with Emily Jashinski. Good morning, Emily, Good morning, Ryan. How are you. I'm good. We've got some job numbers out. So the economy added two hundred and thirty six thousand jobs, which is less than people were hoping for, And so CNBC and the

Fed and all these people are celebrating. But to put that in context, if they were expecting four hundred thousand jobs, then about one hundred and fifty thousand people that were that applied for job and we're hoping to get it didn't get it. Or or companies who felt like they were growing at a particular pace now have realized that they're not growing as much as they were, so they actually pulled that job opening, So lots of misery spreading

throughout the economy. So congratulations to the fed into Wall Street. I was going to say, there are human beings behind those metrics, and in this case, tens of thousands of them affected by it. There's also new Title nine regulations, a proposed new rule in Title nine that we'll get to actually next week. It's like one hundred and fifty pages long, and this is around transgender transgender competition sports. Right.

It had nothing to do with the kind of kangaroo court question of how sexual assault claims are adjudicated, but around transgender sport participation. It's really long, and we wanted to make sure that we had the best take on it possible and not Russian to judgment. So we'll certainly cover that next week. I hope. Meanwhile, we've got a

war breaking out. You had, so if you've been following the conflict in Israel, you had Israeli forces raided the Aloxa Mosque several times, might have seen the visuals of the beatings of people during Ramadan prayers there. You've had so far, I think Summer League, Corey Bush and Rashida Talib have denounced it, but that's kind of it out of the United States Congress. Since then, Lebanon launched a couple of strikes towards Israel. Seems like they were all intercepted.

Israel responded not just by striking Lebanon, but I also bombing Gaza, which is like, wait, how does that work? Lebanon sends missiles your way and you are going to bomb Gaza as a result. So that's where we are now. We're probably going to see some retaliation now from Gaza, if I can imagine. We've also seen more Palestinians killed in the occupied territories in the first four months than

we've seen in decades. Big escalation this week. And on that note, we have big news out of Ukraine as well. We're going to get to that in just a bit. We're going to really dive into some breaking news that transpired yesterday. But before we do that, we wanted to take a look at feud that's brewing between Meddi Hassen and Matt Taibi Ran. Did you get a chance to sort of pick through this? Yeah, and so my rule for life is always do not debate Meddi, and that

rule remains undefeated. But we can get into some of the nuances of it. Let's so basically Matt ty So a couple of weeks ago, Meddi went after Matt Tayibi saying, look, look what Elon Musk's Twitter is doing to critics of Modi in India. Why won't you speak out on that? Tayebe responded, why don't you have me on the show and we'll hash this out. So it was a couple of weeks ago. So now Tayibi went on Meddi's show. So let's play a couple of clips from from that exchange.

You said the EP was founded in response to the government dropping its proposal for disinformation governments with there you are, were quoting you on screen. It wasn't It was formed two years earlier. You suggested it was government funded, even though during the twenty election twenty twenty election that you're covering, it wasn't you say they labeled twenty two million tweets as misinformation in the run up to the twenty twenty vote.

They didn't. They got They flagged three thousand election misinformation tweets for labeling. So you were only twenty one million, nine hundred and ninety seven thousand off You also claim the ep was partnered with the government Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency SISSA to sensor Twitter, But you mix up SISSA, CISA, a homeland security agency with the Center for Internet Security, the CIS, which is a nonprofit And it's just error after error map on just this one hundred, but the

other the other ones aren't. No, No, twenty two million from their own report. Yeah, it came from a report in March. Twitter. Do you know what twenty two million number is? Mat Can you tell me? Because we checked. Twenty two million is the number of tweets about election misinformation that were just that they just mapped. How many tweets were they the ones they actually flagged to Twitter before the election? Twenty two million came after the election.

It wasn't in the runoup They flagged three thousand, So you were off by twenty one million, nine hundred and ninety seven a lot of things. I stand by my story, you stand by what's do you stand by? Twenty two million were flagged in the run up to the election, even though that number came in March twenty twenty one, which was after the election. No, that's this came in there report after the election. Okay, so Matt responded on Twitter, I think we have some of that that we can

put up on the screen here. But someone told him to take the L. And this is a different quote. He said, you know, part of the job is facing critics, and I went on medi's show today and basically I was open to the criticism. I made corrections where they were warranted. He also said, no, I will not take the L. A misplaced acronym and a wrong date don't

invalidate the months of important work. Nearly doesnen journalists, including Michael Schellenberger, Bery Wiss myself put in so that the public could see the breadth of state censorship, of the state censorship program. Reaction to that exchange, Yes, the whole thing's kind of disappointing on so many different levels because they don't end up having a conversation about the substance. Like it's people just moving into their camps and they're

still kind of fighting about this twenty two million. Matt has said, no, my reading of this is that there was twenty two that were flagged before the election. The folks who did the report have said no, that you're misreading it. It was the twenty two million, we flagged after the election. But even if that, even if that's true, three thousand is also a lot. Yes, it's a little.

Thousand is a ton, and flagging twenty two million after the election shows you what they want to do in the next election, right, right, So it would be nice if they would kind of debate the substance, like is this how we want various government agencies interacting with social media organizations or not? And to Matt's credit, on the other two pieces where Mehdi caught him with errors, he said,

I'm going to correct those errors. Those are errors, but they don't they kind of even change the fundamental thrust of the story. The other disappointing thing was that Matt actually hadn't read up on the Modi thing. I thought that was interesting, which was like that was the reason that he said, invite me on the show and I'll talk about it, right, And he had two weeks to talk about to brush up on it. It looked like,

and I do this all the time. You go on a show, You're like, oh God, I'm supposed to be on this show thirty seconds like that is that's the only way I appear on shows, including this one. I'm kidding. I know ahead of time when I'm supposed to be on this one, It's like Maddy'll be like, Hey, can you come on and talk about this thing? Sure? And then I'm always asking the producers what are we talking about?

So and it felt that way. It's like, oh, but it's like, because Matt had said, I'll come on the show to talk about this, right, then at least check into what Musk is doing in India. And it would be so easy to be like, you know what, yeah, I'm I do. Musk is not my employee. I am not Musk's employee. I disagree with Musk's decision on this particular issue, or I agree with Musk's decision on this particular issue, It's fine, Like it's not going to hurt

him one way or the other. And so you know, we could We'll reach out to him and see what his take is when he gets a chance to actually look into the and my read my read on this was a little different in that I think what Matt was trying to do is make a point that I'm not playing this game. That's my assumption of what he was doing. Because what Matti's doing is nitpicking errors. A couple of them were actual errors. I think one of them is definitely more questionable, and Matt was happy to

correct them. The breadth of what he's been doing with the Twitter files, I mean it is it's a lot of reporting and a lot of writing, so it's you know, of course there are mistakes in there. As much as he may try to mitigate them, and I'm sure he does, nobody wants to be corrected, knowing the whole world is out there and every you know, established center of power is out there looking to discredit you. So I mean

it's in his own interest to mitigate the errors. That said, Matti is nitpicking instead of really dealing with the central question of state censorship. To your point, like, why are we debating threeenty twenty two million the date? You know it's it's definitely worth a correction, but why are we getting hung up and yelling at each other over that when Matt has exposed rightfully, is this huge operation to censor and target heterodox American thought. That's a real problem.

And the way I read him was, I'm not getting into this. I don't know. Maybe this is a charitable read on the situation, but I'm not getting into this because I'm not going to play the game where you deflect from this much larger question. Even if that wasn't his intention, I think that was the most disappointing part of this is the deflection from the larger question. I don't think that's there's a journalistic high ground or a

moral high ground in deflecting on that point. I wish matt had an answer to the Modi question, and maybe you will. I'm sure you'll check in with him on that. But this is the bigger question here is obvious, right, and it gives the kind of anti Musk and anti Twitter files although I'm kind I'm kind of like Twitter files and anti Musk weird kind of Uh, there's no overlap other than me in that in that category. But it gives people who want to dismiss it. They now

they're going to say, oh, that was debunked by Mattie. Yes. Reporting to Metti would say, May would say no, no no, no, I didn't debunk the entire thing. What I did is I identified some errors. It brought them to his attention, and he has agreed to correct those errors. But he's not going to say that the entire thing was as a result debunked. But the viewers are going to take

that away. The viewer. You'll watch watch Matt's mentions and replies on Twitter over the next couple of weeks, It'll just be people throwing like the medi interview Adam saying, is the whole, the whole Twitter the whole Twitter file thing is completely discredited now, which is just a way for people to not kind of grapple with these these issues and instead do the easier thing, which is retreat

into tribes. Yeah. I agree, And my big takeaway from it, honestly was how hard it is to have good faith

conversations in the cable format. It's interesting because you're looking at the screen and you see Matt with his podcast Mike because he's got his SM seven B, and you see Mehdi in the Tony MSNBC studio, and it's just like such a perfect juxtaposition of Matt, who I think is more used to these days the podcast format because MSNBC, as he explained on his substat last night, stopped having him after he threw some cold water on like Malcolm

Nance's weird rantings and ratings about Russia collusion. But it's just really hard to have a good faith exchange and not retreat into camps and to really get to the substance. It's very difficult to do that in the cable news setting, and I think that's why people, especially younger people, are pulling away from it. Yeah. Right, there's so much more

time to breathe than to think. Right, Although if I wonder if if Matt had strategically gone in and been like, look, I'm with you on MODI, if that would have opened up space for that conversation to breathe more. It's interesting maybe not like Meddi is a knife fighter's like I interviewed him for my podcast a couple of weeks ago, his career in debating. He's just an absolutely extraordinary debater, even if he's wrong. Like I've said, I wouldn't debate

him about whether the world is round. It's too dangerous. Yeah, forget it. I'd come out and be like, maybe it's flat. It's hard to say. Who can say. Well, big news out of Ukraine Yesterday The New York Times revealed that classified war documents. This is per their report detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russia, were posted on

social media channels. According to senior Biden administration officials, the Pentagon doesn't know who's behind the leak of this document. The New York Times was reporting that military analysts look at it. They say the documents seem to have been modified in certain parts, overstating American estimates of how many Ukrainians have died, and then understating our estimates of how many Russian troops have been killed. Now that they say could point to this being a disinformation effort on behalf

of Russia. Ryan, what do you make of this? Ukraine was already hesitant to share intelligence with the United States, to the point where some of our military officials were saying we would know more about Russia's battle plans than Ukraine's at certain points in this war. This has to

almost totally disrupt that once again. Yeah, and so even though there are some figures that they're saying are inaccurate in here, the US intelligence is also clearly basically authenticating what's out there circulating mostly on telegram at this point. And what's important for Russia in there is that it's given a lot of details about American and Ukrainian capacity that they didn't have before. For instance, it lists, according to the Times, how long it takes basically a Hymar's

unit to get worn down. That these are those missiles that you see that are quite mobile and good at hitting those AMMO depots or other locations, and then they could quickly move around. Russia didn't know how long, how long they would last, how quickly they could be replenished. Now they have that kind of information, They have information on the size of the trained battalions that are going

to be coming. It looks like something like sixty thousand, mostly US trained Ukrainian troops will be ready, half of them roughly by March first, the other half by like April towards the end of April, sorry April first or the end of April, which also then gives a signal that this offensive that they've been talking about launching is coming that or at least certainly the equipment, material and

the manpower is going to be delivered there. So it does give Russia some advantage, and it gives, like you said, some psychological advantage because it'll end up disrupting intelligence sharing further between Ukraine Russia, Ukraine and the United States. But it does seem like we are looking for another expansion

acceleration of the war over the next coming weeks and months. Absolutely, yeah, And to your point, timetables for the delivery of weapons and troops according to the Times Ukrainian troop build up numbers. And to be fair, this is a snapshot of intelligence from a few weeks ago in March first, so things obviously could have changed. But military analysts and military officials are obviously nervous about this. That's the implication of their

reaction is authenticating. Essentially, they've essentially authenticated it by their reaction, and they've also telegraphed I think some real concerns about the potential here. I wanted to ask you, in this broader context of how we've been expecting an offensive this spring, what does this look like in terms of how that

now might play out. Does this, you know, is this really like severely hampering what the United States and NATO was expecting to be an offensive that could put putin on his heels and change the trajectory of the war. I don't think so, because this has been a war where much much has been out in the open. Now there's also been a lot of deflection. Like with the last offensive that Ukraine successfully pulled off, they had been signaling that they were headed toward a particular spot down south.

Instead they went up Hire and caught Russia off guard there. So, but everybody knew there was an offensive that was brewing. So that's still own. That's still all that. You basically know that there is a there is a very well equipped, well trained offensive that's going to be on its way.

But anybody reading the New York Times, you know, could have told you that or just following what's going on in Congress, like those billions of dollars are going somewhere, like the all the weapons that were shipping over there are for a purpose. And you could also look at the United States reactions to like China floating a peace plan like like absolutely not. And so if if there wasn't some type offensive planned, which were publicly saying there is,

they would have embraced peace plans. So yeah, I the I think the best hope that people can have at this point is that this offensive will be the last one. What's the so it says this is from the Times.

The modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow, the analyst said, But the disclosures in the original documents, which appear as photographs of charts of anticipated weapons deliveries, troop and battalion strengths, and other plans, represents a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine when these get posted online with those alleged Russian modifications, other than some of the obvious things we've already listed,

you know, psychological disruption of the intelligence relationship between the United States and Ukraine. What is if it's Russia, what is the benefit of posting this to telegram and other social media channels. But that's a that's a that's a good question. I would I would say that it is kind of morale at this point. They they presumably real knew that the United States was aware of the breach.

You know, it's March first, it happened, so it's you know, by now people have figured that out, and so the intel had been so one sided on this war that I think Russia was kind of embarrassed and felt like

a JV power. And they've been called the JV power repeatedly, and the United States calling their shot like saying like, look, you're going to remember there were The US was like, you're going to invade on February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, and they're saying this in Lake January or something or December, and they're like, no, we're not. These are just training exercises. And then they moved there like invasion date by like twelve hours, so that the US wouldn't have like nailed

the exact date that they invaded. Plus they keep locating these generals that then get blown up along with all sorts of other intelligence coups that the United States then very kind of subtly sort of takes credit for, but not really. And so I would guess that after they had kind of sopped up as much of the intelligence as they could, the goal was then to kind of embarrass the United States and show that Russia is actually still in the game. They're still able to purloin some

some classified information out of this. And also you want Ukraine and this may be the best reason. You want Ukraine United States to know publicly that you had somebody in there, so that it creates the animosity and the suspicion, like that's you know, the benefit of a mole inside an organization is almost you know, the benefit is blowing the organization up and getting everybody pointing fingers at each other almost more than it is getting the information out.

And so this will lead to a lot of finger pointing and probably yeah, it probably already did before we realized. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, over in France. Yeah, another part of Europe. Yeah, black Rock getting its headquarters. Sack, I should be laughing at the barricade. It's let's put this u V one up here. Yeah, that's Blackrock headquarters. I can I so I'm telling me if this is this is correct. But I'm imagining the right pack in the United States being like, see the French are with

us on woke capitalism and ESG. They're furious about whatever the French Blackrock is doing when it comes to like it's it's like DEI programming and they're burning it down just like we would. Was that the reaction among the right here when they saw Blackrock. Blackrock is not going up in flames. It's kind of some deceptive reporting there because you see the flames, you see black Rock headquarters.

But actually it was a couple hundred Union people were able to get into the building and led some chance and then basically left. So they did not burn down black Rocks. No, they actually yeah, they didn't actually even not yet. Right, they didn't even get to Blackrock're lobby or whatever. Right. And it's funny because in the Reuters report, Reuters had to disclose the like we have an office,

same building. That's how we broke this news. Yeah, really looked down in the lobby, like, oh, well, to your point though, about black Rock becoming this absolute lightning rod in the realignment that's happening in the West. I think, you know, the the kind of new right looks at this and says, it's not just about de I and ESG, it's about austerity combined with DEI and ESG. And that's

actually you know, when you have JD. Vance and Donald Trump saying we're not touching entitlements, we're not touching Medica, we're not touching Medicaid, we're not touching you know, social security in the near future, that's that actually goes kind of perfectly with what they're seeing unfold in France right now. Two year retirement age bump very very unpopular and polling I saw one that was like fifty eight percent of people disapproved of I think it was mccrone's move to

sort of jam it through. That's also bypassed the legislature because he didn't have the votes. Yeah, that's part of what's extremely contentious in this entire question is that, yeah, didn't have the votes. He bypassed the legislator legislature. We're expecting a decision from the courts in France next week, I think on the fourteenth. Who will say whether or not what Macron did was what constitutional? Is that the right word in They have like one hundred constitutions, right,

they do a new constitution every couple of years. And this is so yesterday it was like the eleventh day of the protests. This is all about Macron's proposal to go from sixty two to sixty four. He lost his majority in parliament last year, so as part of the reason he did campaign on all of this. It's not like this was a secret plan of his, but wasn't able to get it through the legislature. And so I think when you combine the potential for Blackrock and it's

been going on for years. You can go and read reports for years the suspicion that Blackrock is going to capitalize on something like and actually in one second, we'll play the clip, but that Blackrock is going to capitalize on privaization of pensions, that you have this American company that's going to implement that American austerity and not the robust protection system that France hasn't really proud of. Yeah,

in America. When you combine it with the fact that you know, this is a company that is led by elites, cultural leftist elites, it's a recipe for getting the right on board with leaving pensions alone. There you go, all right, let's leave alone. Yeah, let's play this, uh, this clip

that we've got from more Perfect Union. So my favorite sign in the protests so far explaining why they were protesting the increase in the retirement age was we're French for a reason, which to me, actually that's perfect, that makes perfect sense. Like you're fighting for a way of life. You are French for a reason, and so why why give that up? If you if you want to be German, be German. If you want to be something else, be

something else. But they're French and they're fighting for their identity and it's weird also to see the push towards austerity and towards working longer hours and working longer in your life at the same time that we have all this talk about UBI and the productivity gains that are going to come from AI, and they're going to just lead to this apocaly job apocalypse that's going to put

everybody out of work. So which is it, like we are, do we have too few jobs or do we not have old people working long enough like we need to. We need to line up which way we're headed. And to me, if we're going to have fewer jobs in the future because the robots are going to take them all, then what do we need these old frenchmen and French women, you know, working until their sixty three years old. Let them have their French retirement. That sounds like a Wes

Anderson movie. But the French retirement. Yeah, let somebody enjoy this life, you know. That's the thing also Occurren said, you know the proposal. I think at some point he wants to be able to have carve outs for people who can't work until they're sixty four something like that.

And again, it's just this idea that you have firms like Blackrock, that have an obscene amount of capital and that are exploiting it by the way, that are exploiting people, and all of these myriad fashions around the world, not just in America, not just in France, that you would not be able to have a sixty two year old retirement when you're in a country that prides itself on

having that net and working towards that net. It's very different, I think than in the United States, where we have a different culture, and the question of whether that's moral or not is different, but the culture is a different place, and that's part of what they're Part of why black Rock is a lightning rod in France is because of that, is because they see it as this exportation of American values on individualism, and it's definitely different. And good for them,

I mean, you are French for a reason. Not good for them storming the headquarters, good for them, Good for them doing that, I met. I'm good for them for saying we're French for a reason, because I think that's a really healthy way to have consensus on what your country stands for and what your laws should reflect. And if you don't have that's one of the biggest problems we have in America right now, as we don't have consensus on the values our laws should reflect, and that's

a huge problem for any country. So over in Tennessee, meanwhile, just a wild night last night in the legislature. We could put up C one here, so for people who haven't been following along here. Basically, three Democrats in the Tennessee House participated in a protest inside the capital for gun legislation. The Democratic lawmakers kind of chanted along with the protesters who had come in. Some of them were leading.

They have megaphones and we're leading the clients and so right, and the charge that they're getting hit with is speaking from the floor without recognition basically. And so the Republicans said that they're going to go ahead and expel these three Democrats. They held the votes, they expelled two of them. They did not have the votes to expel the third one. I will let the viewers guess which ones of those are black, which ones of those are white. She hung on by one vote is I think they had sixty

six and she gets sixty five. Yeah, And so that was Gloria Johnson who survived. I think we have a clip of her. Here's Gloria, who's still representative Johnson right here? Actually, yes, and we're going to fight hard to get him back. I will answer your question. I might have to do with the color of our skin. And so let's roll one more clip too. Here. This is from Phil Lewis, my old colleague at huff posts on from his Twitter feed, Role C three here after that vote was held, but

before the Johnson and Pearson votes. So what's your reaction to this? Yeah, it's interesting because I think on the right there's a lot of conversation now about whether to fight fire with fire, and then you get into this hole like who started it checking her egg, conversation about who actually ratched it up, who broke the norm first? And I don't know that there's really any satisfying answer

to that question in different cases. But the right has I think, been cheering this expulsion, saying you would do it to us. We all know how the media would react if a bunch of conservatives, you know, in opposition to abortion did that. We all know how the media would depict it. So get them the heck out of here. And I mean, sixty five people voted to expel Gloria

Johnson too. I mean, that's not a small number. That's a lot of votes for expulsion of three people, and they actually all had different final tallies of how many people voted to expel them. The argument is that the two gentlemen were using megaphones, they're part of the people. I've seen that argument circulated by Tennessee Republicans, that they were the people that were actually leading chance with megaphones and extra disruptive. That said, I never liked the idea

of finding fire with fire. It's never don't. I don't love it constitutionally, and you know I don't love it legally in the system. I'm not a huge fan of it. Yeah, and my objection is that it's not the same fire. So I've seen a lot of people saying like these are insurrectionists and therefore you know they need to be expelled clearly making January sixth references. But no members of Congress were expelled as a result of January sixth. No

members of Congress faced even a center vote. Although members of Congress weren't leading January six I mean, like the picture of Josh Hawley even is completely misleading. It was they weren't they weren't like out there with megaphones, And there's a complete argument that it was ginned up by reckless statements by members of Congress. I'm not disputing that, but I think it's different. Granted, I agree with you it's not apples to apples, but it is different when

you're leading what is a disruptive protest. I don't think what happened in the Tennessee State House was an insurrection, right because so, and to back up a little bit, I remember when January sixth happened, thinking that this was going to change the way that protest was going to be either done or responded to around the US Capitol and other state capitals. Because you know, you and I

covered the response to the Kavanaugh hearings. You had the Heart Building, which is one of the Senate office buildings right down the street from here, just completely filled with protesters every single day. And those protesters would go into the hallways and they would kind of buttonhole members of

Congress and sometimes yell at them it's civil disobedience. Yes, And there was that viral moment with Jeff Flake where he's like they're basically blocking his elevator from leaving and pouring their hearts out about these sexual assaults that they had gone through the two women, and you can see Flake listening to them. It was this really this moment where civil disobedience had kind of transformed itself into civil society,

into an actual conversation. And then Flake goes to the hearing and says, I'm not actually ready to vote for Kavanaugh. I want a one week delay so that the FBI can investigate this. This really really historic moment of people pressuring the Senate. And I remember thinking, I don't think there's any sincerity behind that decision, but yes, no, but

like he felt pressure, definitely does. And so after January sixth, I was I started thinking, like that type of thing is going to be treated much differently because nobody, none of the Capitol police I spoke to, none of the senators, thought that any of the people that were protesting Kavanaugh were going to hurt anybody, or we're going to kind of disobey the Capitol police like they would often get arrested, but it would be that be that kind of ceremonial

arrest where it's like, all right, everybody line up and do your civil disobedience arrest now, and they would all put their hands behind their back or they would get carried out. But you didn't have people swinging giant American flags. You didn't have people who had bare spray. You didn't have people you know, poke, you know, poking with ba you know, you know, the bats were not flying, and and you know, the January sixth protesters were not like

there to commit civil disobedience to make a point. Oh yeah it was a riot. Yes, yeah it was a riot. But I assume that I think Tennessee shows that they're going to respond to even civil disobedience protests as if they're insurrections. Well that's a really interesting point because one of the arguments here is that they had censure available, they could have shared all of these lawmakers, and they broke the rules, broke the korum, shouldn't have done this.

You have a center vote like that, they're exactly and you even kick them off committees, like there are things you can do short of telling this these voters that your person can no longer represent you, you know. And the thing that with civil disobedience is that it is always this idea that you're going to get punished, you expect to get punished when the laws are broken, because we do have the rule of law, and when people

break laws even in pursuit of a righteous cause. It's not as though people are in every case of civil disipate. There's some cases where people don't deserve to be arrested, so they're not actually breaking laws. But in cases where you do actually break laws, even in pursuit of a noble cause, you expect the rule of law to be

applied to. That's why you you a letter from the Birmingham jail and not letter from the hotel room I went to after the protest was over, and that's what you use, that particular mechanism of protest, and that's one thing. So the pundament. Then there's this question of whether the punishment fits the crime. The expulsion pundament punishment fits the breach of deporum when there's a censure option available. I just think right now we're at a time when we're

all like people. I mean, I'm on the right, people are right now absolutely furious by the way that they are treated. There was a really interesting exchange between one of the guys that got expelled and one of the Republican members of the House who said you called me a brown face to one of the guys that ended up getting expelled, and he said, well, I said you put a brown face, a brown mask or something on

white supremacy. This is really nasty. I mean, that's a level of that is an accusation that I think you can understand why it is pushing so deep and pushing on people so deeply. And that is a really vitriolic and nasty thing to say. And I'm not saying it doesn't come from both sides. I am those saying that the I think sympathy for people who are also behaving in really I think abhorrent ways in certain cases that

I don't like. And that's the double standard is exactly what has pushed Republicans to the point where they're like, script, we're expelling them. And the tit for that, tit for tat then raises the question of well, what else should people be expelled for? And you've got Representative Jones here making this speech, which stick around for the end of this one. You're going to be shocked where it goes for years. One of your colleagues, who with an admitted

child molestor sat in this chamber No expulsion. One member sits in this chamber was bound guilty of domestic violence, no expulsion. We had a former speaker sit in this chamber who is now under federal investigation, no expulsion. We have a member still under federal investigation, no expulsion. We had a member pee in another member's chair in this chamber,

no expulsion. In fact, they're in leadership. Yeah, so if you've got to talk about decorum and the rules of the House floor, maybe they never bothered to write down you cannot pee in another member's chair. It's not enumerated, but I think that it is understood. It's common a common rule you shouldn't do. But you shouldn't do that. And this was Republican on Republican violence, it turned out I researched this incident. You shouldn't be expelled for doing that.

I mean kind of yes, But his point is they weren't, and you you have because Republicans control the House right now, or control the legislature right now, right And then he also mentions domestic violence, the pedophilia, et cetera, and those You know, you could go to the House of Representatives. You've got a guy who's just completely made up everything about himself not expelled. So that raises a question who

gets expelled, why and when? And I still think though that the question, Yeah, I don't I don't obviously disagree with any of that. If you pee in someone's chair, you should be expelled. That's so obvious. And that rule applies to both of us, Ryan, and to you Sager. Warning you first, you first, you get a warn, you get three strikes. I was gonna just finish the I say. The double standard thing is a real problem, not just for the right but also for the left, because it's

what creates more. And this is a serious point, it's what creates more January six is people feel like they're just getting trampled on over and over again. They're going to start justifying their protes of bad behavior. They're going to start justifying bad behavior as a protest of bad behavior. And you can go all the way down, and you can always pull back more layers and do the chicken and egg thing. This person started it, Well, it goes

back to New Gingrich. No, it goes back to Barry Goldwater. No, it goes back to FDR. Like you can keep saying, who broke the first norm? It goes back to Abraham Lincoln. You know, they might keep going, but at the end of the day, you're just going to get more bad behavior the more that we're incapable of controlling ourselves. So I think that applies in both cases here, and this

is an over now. In order to fill these seats, the people who are responsible for filling them have reportedly are going to send back Representatives Pearson and Jones as the yes special election. Well, I think the first there'll be appointments. We'll see exactly what the details are. But certain like you haven't heard the last of these guys, Like you can kick them out, but the voters and the local officials can send them back. And Republicans just

elevated their profile to the next level. I mean, these are now national political figures because of all of those right, and they elevated him to hero status. People will remember that legendary and horrifying story where Preston Brooks, the South Carolina congressman, almost beat Charles Sumner abolitionist, to death, broke his cane. A bunch of people mailed him canes. He gets they were about to boot him out of Congress. He quit. They held a special election. He ran for

that special election, and he won. Voters sent him back to Congress. There you go. It doesn't end. No, speaking of people lashing out at the establishment with increasingly questionable means that are nevertheless somewhat understandable. Robert F. Kennedy Junior has announced that he is a candidate. He actually filed papers to run for the Democratic nomination for presidency in twenty twenty four. He joins Maryan Williamson and President Joe

Biden in that race. So three declared candidates now, two of whom are RFK Junior and Marianne Williamson. Now, RFK Junior has really always been a figure of the kind of fringe left, I would say, And by the way, if what happened to my if what happened to him happened to my family, I'd probably be on the fringes of politics. You would have zero, zero trust of anybody or anything. That said, he's really always been a figure

of the left. He's made a lot of relationships with more people on the right, and I guess the right and maybe sort of the establishment center to the extent that exists over vaccines, over COVID, over all of that. But he's sort of new to those circles. I imagine you followed him for a while because he is he has been a figure of the left. What do you make of this? And he kind of represents the evolution of the left to the right or a giant segment

of the left that has gone the hippie to Q pipeline. Yeah, the hippie to Q pipeline. Absolutely, he is kind of the personification of the hippie to Q pipeline. Uh. Yeah, Like you said, he in the in the two thousands he became kind of a leading kind of anti vaxxer but also environmentalist. Oh you know that. That's the thing with with rfk Jr. You were always going to get a ton of a ton of great positions and then a ton of ones where you're just like, whoa, Yeah,

that's what. He's not cute? Where'd he come up? Where did he come up with that one? No, he's not c Although although his brother is not his brother, his cousin jfk Jr. Is right, isn't Isn't he the guy at the center, like he's going to come back to life or something. They believe. There are still Q theories that he is still alive. Yeah, well then Q is going to be there. I'm sure they're going to be all over the fact that he's running for president, that

his cousin's running for president. I don't know, maybe they're like, oh, wait, maybe we were wrong. It wasn't JFK Jr. Was R that's going to come back and save the country. But yeah, like there was that there was that left wing anti vaccine movement back in the two thousands. Yeah, that, uh, and you know he like you said, his father assassinated. You know, he doesn't believe sarahin and did it. And there's plenty of people, you know who who agree with him and think that this was that there was a

conspiracy around that. Obviously there was some type of conspiracy around his uncle getting killed. And so to watch that, to live to live with that, and also all of the trauma that that a Kennedy goes through, Like there's so many his cousin died in the plan, so many Kennedy's you know, dying before his own wife. The time, brutal, But he kind of gone around the bend at this point to the point where when he's right, you're like,

that's awesome. He's right, but then you're like, is he right because he got lucky this time because the other Because in order to embrace him when he's right, you have to really work hard to ignore a lot of the things where he's so obviously wrong that stuff. I wonder if this actually really gets establishment democrats nervous now that you have both Mary Williamson and RFK Junior, people who are charismatic and interesting who staked out populist positions.

I think in really it's sometimes very interesting ways. That's to your point about RFK Junior, sometimes just so horribly off base, other times really on target, and like with research that you aren't going to read anywhere else, and eventually some people will cover it, but you really have a hard time finding a lot of that information. And that's not to say it's always right, but sometimes it's

definitely worth taking a look at. And I wonder then if Joe Biden, when instead of Careine Jean Pierre, you know, laughing off Mary and Williamson with her condescending crystal ball thing, I wonder if they start to say, hey, these people are going to be traveling around South Carolina and New Hampshire, does that make our life easier, or does that make the president really have to start answering some some tougher questions than he'd like. I don't know the answer to that.

I think it is still early, because he just filed papers yesterday. I was really surprised that he filed papers. I don't know where he's I was actually a surprised he filed as a Democrat. Were you like when I mean, even though the Counties are obviously the most democratic family in the country. When I heard he was running, I was like, which party it would have made? It would have made a lot more sense to me if he was going if he did the Tulsi where he came over.

And he's like, I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me kind of thing. He might be less of a Democrat than Tulsi at this point he probably is, Yet he's running the Democratic prime And and I actually think that that hurts Maryanne Williamson because she she's going to get lumped in with him. That's true, as these like two loopy people. What he's kind of

a loopy dude. She's not right, Like she gets mocked like that by the White House and buy a lot of them a lot of the corporate media, But if you actually listen to what she's saying, it's the kind of thing that appeals to like eighty percent of the country and it is not actually the kind of orbs

and crystal stuff that is her caricature. But having RFK in the race is going to further allow the media to paint like the opponents of Biden as these as these circus people, anti vac crazy people, right, but mean, which she isn't though, but right, although I think she was skeptical in the two thousands, right, like I we'll look that up, but that will be the Biden line no matter what that'll be that you're absolutely right, they'll just try to But again, like I don't know if

that's entirely helpful for them to just because RFK Jr. Is going to get media, Mary Anne is getting media, Like, it's not going to be entirely helpful for them to just brush it all aside. And the other question is is it is it good for for Mary and Williamson and for RFK Junior that they're both in the race, because does that force Biden to debate now that there's two of them and one of them, by the way, is a Kennedy. I don't know it, Like, if they

can get to the debate stage, they're not. I mean there, Joe Biden is going to be the nominee unless he drops out. But if they get he'll skip the debates unless he's under a lot of pressure. And exactly Williamson is if you if you look at poles among when I was talking to Crystal about this the other day, if you look at poles among young people, she's doing extraordinarily well. And is it insanely popular on TikTok? Actually, yeah, she really is. Yeah, Like if the election were held

on TikTok, should beat Biden two to one. That's why I think it, Like, yeah, if I were Biden, I wouldn't want to be on a debate stage if I don't have to run the sitting president, and I wouldn't want to put up with us. From a tactical perspective, it's not it's always going to be more helpful to not confront criticism publicly. Just from a strictly strategic perspective. That said, at a certain point, if people start really catching traction, because nobody is into Joe Biden and that's true.

It's not like people are like, oh, I can't wait for Joe Biden's second term. Like Democratic voters are just super stoked about Joe Biden's second term. Then there's energy out there that can be captured by people who are putting in the time and going to different states, talking to different voters and talking about issues that Joe Biden

doesn't want to talk about. Yeah, and so I just googled, and you know, so she was not at all a kind of anti vax campaign or back in the two thousands, but CNN had found in twenty twelve she had said she could see both sides of the issue and agonized as a mother over the decision to vaccinate her children.

Her guests said she knew a lot of people who had vaccinated and then gotten all, which she said, yes, absolutely, that was a big debate back in the two thousands among and you read so much about it, You heard so much about it that there were a lot of parents who were like, who were genuinely concerned, like is

this something I should worry about? So much so that the Pediatric Association actually created this kind of timetable instead of giving people, you know, giving kids back all the vaccines like at these certain times they would stretch them out, And the Pediatric Association was basically, we don't have any evidence that this is necessary, but there's so much skepticism among parents that we're doing this to make them feel

better about it. See that is a great place to camp out on in this point, because nobody would do that today. It is today they would just be dug in. If you're you're crazy, right nuts, get all your jabs right now. And there's less trust and media now, and there's less trust in institutions now. And so I like, both of us are vaccinated, and I've always said I hope my family gets vaccinated too, But people may disagree

with that. The point is if you live in a low trust environment and you just lump everybody in and say I'm not dealing with you because you're a conspiracy theorist, you're a crazy person. When they have good faith questions that they just want answers to, and instead of meeting them where they are and saying we're going to work this out, how can we make you feel more comfortable,

it's just you're an idiot. You should be ostracized from society and that has really pushed us to dangerous places, and I think now we're more likely to see that dynamic play out in the Democratic primer. Well, let's check in on speaker Kevin McCarthy. That's right on his way in. He was saying he was going to do just like Nancy Pelosi did. He's going to parachute into Taiwan if he had to, and he's going to meet with the Taiwanese leader. China freaked out and said, you better not.

So what do we what do you do? So? What do we have instead? Yeah, So he ended up doing a meeting one at the Reagan Library with the Taiwanese president instead of actually going to Taiwan. Now there's an argument that that's actually a really smart move because the threat of escalation has mounted since Pelosi took her visit

to Taiwan, which was already quite risky. You know, I'm, of course somebody who thinks we need to be much tougher in China that the threat to Taiwan is greater and more immediate than most of the media is telling us or is willing to admit, even though the media is generally in favor of military intervention in this case,

the China connections I think are a complicating factor. But Nancy Pelosi then comes out and says she supports Kevin McCarthy's meeting at the Reagan Library with the Taiwanese president, who's made some different stops in the United States on this trip. I think it was at the Hudson Institute here in the district and then went out to the

Reagan Library and had this meeting with Kevin McCarthy. It pretty much proceeded as you would expect it to, but there's an interesting note by partisanship when you have Nancy Pelosi actually offering active support to Kevin McCarthy. And we saw a similar measure by partisanship when it came to the TikTok hearings against China. By partisanship against China, we're starting to see this coalescing of bipartisan anger directed at China, and that could be channeled in some really bad ways.

That could be channeled in some potentially important ways, but it could definitely be channeled in bad ways. We've already seen an example of this with the restrict Act that we covered here last week, a bill with support from Mark Warner and ten other Democrats along with eleven Republicans,

including John Thune. That is just an incredible Patriot Act style power grab in the interest of curtailing TikTok's influence, but doesn't actually mention TikTok once in the bill, and that was proposed and started gaining traction just the fact that there were a couple of clean TikTok band bills actually on the floor. And so we see where some

of that bipartisan stuff can start to snowball. As this starts to as people start to coalesce in their opposition to China for different reasons, you can start going in some really counterproductive directions. Now, this is one layer of a dynamic that's playing out on Capitol Hill right now that is really really interesting. This is one layer of sort of establishment by partisanship. Let's turn to the anti establishment bipartisanship that's coalescing right now as well. Politico has

a super interesting article out this week. He too here. Yeah, this is a this is a good article about how the Freedom Caucus and Justice Dems are starting to talk more about the war power, curtailing war powers, get rid of getting rid of the AMF. But it doesn't stop there. I think that's what's really important about this political article. It's really framed as the right left. It says it right there on the screen, the right left alliance on

a rock war powers. And then they go on to say, but House liberals and conservatives are linking up on other issues too. That's an important point. It's not just war powers. You're seeing this anti establishment by partisanship coalesce in opposition to things like the restrict Act, like these heavy handed efforts to delegate tons of power over the Commerce and the Secretary of Commerce in an effort allegedly to ban TikTok, which is about so much more than banning TikTok. And

also it gets super interesting, I believe you should. Talib is working with some Republicans on surveillance and that is we've covered that here a couple of times. There's a reauthorization that will be coming up. It's later this year, right Ryan, It's like December September or something like that. Reauthorization of surveillance powers that absolutely demands from the perspective of a conservative attention from republicans. It's a very easy

case from progressives. And so when you see that happening.

If you're Kevin McCarthy, you're going to be really nervous about that slim, slim majority that you have and the slim majority of support that you were able to get among your Republican colleagues, precisely because if they have the numbers to stick together with Justice Democrats and with progressives in the House, they can throw their weight around in a way that makes Kevin McCarthy, for instance, change his position and give way in the establishment position on war powers,

to give way in the establishment position on surveillance. There are some really big issues, and this is the democracy and action that so many people claim to champion. They love democracy, Well, this is it, this is actual. This is the beauty of our design. Is that when you have divide a government like this, you are finding reasons to collaborate. And that's going to put a lot of pressure on Kevin McCarthy. And I don't think he's blind to that. I think he understands completely that he now

has a lot of pressure. I'm sure this Politico article circulated in McCarthy's office because it makes a really serious point that in the months ahead, he could find himself really negotiating playing hardball with people who don't have much incentive to get along with him after a certain point and have more incentive, for instance, on an issue like there are rock war powers that are still in the books, and an issue like surveillance that's extremely easy to take

to Republican voters and talk a populist narrative to and rightfully so, because these are bad policies, they have a lot of insight, they've no incentive to just settle down and cooperate and collaborate. Now, Kevin McCarthy is very skilled at negotiating with people that he may sort of ideologically be on the other side of in his own party.

This makes life, I think, really difficult for him. Ran you may know more about what's happening or what could happen on the left in this issue, and I know just we sort of swerved from the point on Taiwan. But I think it's an interesting sort of combination here we have the establishment bipartisanship and the anti establishment bi partisanship crossing each other kind of at the same time.

I was really surprised in the political article that some justice stems were saying, hey, we can agree on things, because for a while, both on the left and the right, it was toxic to even acknowledge that you might have

things to work together on. And it represents a thaw that's set in on January sixth, that they were the kind left, the activists who had been trying to create some of these coalitions over the last several years, and had successfully created them on, like you said, some civil liberties issues, some surveillance stuff, some more powers issues, were deeply nervous that in the wake of January sixth, most of their interlocertors that they've been effectively able to work

with on say war powers or civil liberties also were the ones who are the most vocal or among the most vocal that stopped the steal and voting or at least not certifying right vote and voting not to certify the election, and which, by the way, is something that

sort of fringe people have. It's always it's kind of like a tradition in the last twenty years, like you have Jamie Raskin doing it in twenty sixteen, and so I think Republicans didn't realize how serious what they were doing, that's true, But the vote was held after the riot. At that point they can be like, Okay, we're stepping over blood and glass to get to the chamber. We

could not cast this vote. But politics were what they were, and they did what they did, and that made it so that it was very difficult to get any Democrats to say, Okay, yes, I'll co sponsor a bill with

this guy. But the fact that they're able to do it now, I think represents the distance that we've come since January sixth, and that people are now able to say, you know what, I disagreed with that strongly, as strongly as you could possibly disagree with anything, but we agree on this particular issue and sore that's more important and we're going to push ahead on it. And Roy put it well in this political article. He says, this is

Chip Roy from a Texas Freedom Caucus member. He says, sometimes the political spectrum is more of a circle than a line. At some point, you might have sometimes differing motives or different ranges, but you end up at the same conclusion and that's okay. That's kind of how our system works. And if you can get back to that, then yes, that can create headaches for McCarthy, especially when he has just a couple vote margin, these headaches would

be good for the American people. So that's the positive news. This is a good headaches. All right, Ryan, you're gonna be talking about China and Saudi Arabia. What have you got? Yes, and we've got we actually have some breaking news out of out of this entire so yes. So yesterday China and nowounced that they had reached a further deal with

Saudi and Iran embassies are opening up. Uh. There there was a press conference with the kind of Saudi foreign minister and the Iranian foreign minister in China where they invited each other. They're opening up direct flights now between ryod And and Tehran. It's a real step forward. And at the same time that they were making these announcement, you started hearing word that there that there was going to be a ceasefire extended in the in the Yemen War.

And this is all tied in because the Houthis are talked about in the US media as basically a cat's paw for Iran, but they're not. They're they're an independent actor, but they're only independent in the sense that they could continue to get you weapons and supplies mostly from Iran. And so if Iran were to cut that off, that has an influence over the Houthis. So Iran can influence the Hoothis even though they can't basically order them around.

At the same time, the Saudi's Uh and the and the Amoradies are basically running the war on on the other side of that. Now there has been there a cease fire kind of collapsed or expired in October of last year, but hostilities hadn't hadn't picked up again. The reporting that we were getting yesterday and now now breaking news is that the war may actually be coming to an end, which would uh be, would just be a huge kind of gift to humanity. Uh next would be

the rebuilding of Yemen. But you know, the people of Yemen have faced just unspeakable horrors over the over the last seven years or so since Saudi Uh Saudi Rabi launched launched this war after the Houthis took over Sana. But so this is this is from the u Or news organization Al al Maya Dean, which is basically a kind of Lebanese pro Hothy organization. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal, and we can put this Wall Street Journal clip up here.

Wall Street Journal was reporting that there was that Saudi officials were saying that they were going to extend the cease fire to the end of twenty twenty three. Hoo. The officials in this article were denying that that was the case, but you could see that things were moving in the right direction. So to have a pro hoy

organization putting this news up now is extraordinarily hopeful. And so at the same time that you're you're having the Wall Street Journal report that you're there there, the blockade is going to be lifted, You're going to be able to get they simply said, batteries, fertilizer, like the basics of life, like light, life in Sanaw, life across the controlled Yemut has just been mad style because of the inability to import basic goods, just just a horrifying existence.

And so like to see this lifted and then to see kind of a pro Hoothy news outlet to say that yes, there actually is almost an agreement UH to end the war UH represents a huge step forward. And it is truly remarkable that the United States is only involved in this in the sense that it's been supporting Saudia's war effort like China comes out of this as as the peacemaker, as as the one who is who

is responsible for finally finishing this off. And the United States couldn't because they were such a part as in belligerent in the war. They can't. How are they going to take a role in kind of in kind of mediating this situation, And so great news if it holds, that's that's great news, but also a real kind of chink in the in the US imperial armor. If China is starting to be seen around the world as somebody that can end conflicts and and end conflicts that are

fueled by the United States, this is huge. Yeah, I mean it is absolutely huge in that question of the geopolitical positioning of the United States. Obviously the first and foremost concerns for the people of Yemen, as you say, have suffered immensely, But second to that the geopolitical positioning of the United States is China knows exactly what If you listen to the way Hi Jinping talks about his ambitions for China's role in the world stage, this is

exactly it. This is exactly what they want to do is replace the United States as the global leader, as the one nation that everybody is looking to for leadership and guidance on the world stage because of our obviously our military and our money and our economy and all of that. Yeah, I mean, that's when you have them stepping into the vacuum that we are now leaving in the way that I mean Afghanistan was huge news in

the White House briefing room yesterday. What happened in Afghanistan is because we no longer can do basic tasks of governing, whether it's in the military, whether it's in social services. We can't do it because we are hampered. And this is an argument by the way that China makes We are hampered by our divisions. Our divisions and our sort of corporate capture to your point about support for Saudi Arabia make it really difficult for us to come in. Now.

It's much easier for China to come in because they don't have some of these pre existing deals, relationships, et cetera, which is both a I think a blessing and a curse, but in some way makes it easier to just sort of step into that vacuum. That said, our differences are surmountable. We don't have to be this divided. We can come out of it. Think our divisions are much better than unity brought about by censorship in the countries that are purporting to have the moral high ground here, and I'm

talking of course about China. I'd rather have our division than their censorship and ostensible unity behind that censorship regime. But I think if they start becoming they've also tried to negotiate peace deals in Ukraine. The more that this is successful, I mean, the more that this is successful, the more that the exact sort of plans of Shi Jinping are starting to really be set in motion. And so and we're still digesting exactly what this news means

and will mean for Yemen. But just to read from a little bit of al ma Yudin and this is their this is their English versions. It's not perfect, but the sources pointed The sources pointed out that the Saudi vision for the solution welcomes extending the Truth in Yemen for another year in agreement with Sana, adding that the vision provides for extending the truce in exchange for handing over employee salaries, unifying the currency, and opening the port

of alhu data completely. And those were the big sticking points that the who these wanted like they want their government officials to be able to be paid. The teachers have been going for years without without getting paid. The Saudi was saying, okay, fine, we'll do that, but we're not paying kind of your military and your police because we're at war with you. But our military and our police are are part of our government and this is

our money. And so this seems to be a complete capitulation from Saudi Arabia, saying because I've seen elsewhere reported that military and police salaries would be included in this. Also,

opening up this port completely is crucial. It's the it's the main port of entry into Yemen, and like with our baggage, we would not have been able to Oh no, no way, and it says the sources explained that an extension of the truce with these new conditions will be followed by an official Saudi announce of the end of the war and the cessation of its interference in Yemen, which means though that there will still be kind of some forces that Saudi Arabia had been supporting in Yemen

that will likely continue to fight, what you know, where they're going to get the arms of the ammunition remains to be seen. How long that fight lasts also remains to be seen. There will have to be negotiations there to work that out. We'll see if the Amaradis want to get involved in that. So it's not completely over.

But if Saudi Arabia gets out, that's like that's it, Like there's there isn't there is no path for this kind of rump faction that that Saudi was supporting without just Saudi Arabia constantly funneling money their way that there's like the official Yemeni government as recognized by Saudi Arabia. It's basically like in a hotel in Riad and so, and what Saudi Arabia is saying is like, yeah, you guys are no longer the government. We're done with this.

I mean China, Iran, Russia. That is an alliance that I think is we're seeing in real time start to tighten and grow. And peace is great. There's just no If you're upset about this peace, that's a think well, you know, have a supper conversation about that. But peace is should be the ultimate goal of is the goal

of international relations is peace. But you know behind this peace I think is a dark growing alliance that's not good for the world at large, right, which you know, if we didn't want the world turning against us, maybe we could have not been so you know, hostile and cynical towards the rest of the world. There's one one other line in this story I want to read because it's it shows just the fundamental lack of legitimacy of the quote unquote Many government that Saudi Arabia was supporting.

They RTE. The sources stated that Saudi Arabia informed the Presidential Leadership Council. That's the fake kind of you Many government in Riod of its decision to end the war and and conclude the Many file permanently. So they walked over to the hotel. Yeah, the war's over and your files closed. Yeah. Check out to ten Ryan. We have a really good guest in this week, and you'll you'll be introducing the listeners to her and the viewers to her in just a little bit too. But maybe tell

us a bit about what we're going to talk about. Yeah, this is exciting. Eliza Orleans will be joining us. She ran against Alvin Bragg as an aggressive man of the Week and as man of the week in the election, in which, you know, the big kind of campaign issue. One of the campaign issues was are you going to get Trump? How are you going to get Trump? Now? Because it was for the people who actually live in Manhattan.

A lot of it was about crime and criminal justice reform, and you know who who is better on criminal justice reform. But so you know, Eliza's a public defender. She's still a public defender. She's you know, known Brag for a long time. Obviously, you know, got to know him pretty well during the campaigns. We're gonna ask her for her take on the charges. It's for her take on Brag and the As a side note, her previous career was

as a reality TV star. People who were like my age would remember her from the early two thousands because she was like on the cover of all the magazines because she was like winning Survivor or like the Top and Survivor, and then she got brought back for like the Survivor Reunion or whatever. So if you're in if you were in that two thousands kind of reality world, you'll be like, do I recognize her? Like, yes, you do,

you do recognize her. But so after her reality TV star turn, she went to become a public defender would have been quite wild if you had a former if she'd have won and you had a former reality TV star prosecuting a former reality TV star I was president, that would have been something. So stick around for Eliza next, Eliza, thanks for joining us. You're joining us from Italy? Is that right? Get taking a rare vacation? It is? What

are week to be away? Huh? For sure? So what's it been like for you to follow to follow this case? As there's the anticipation. Let's start with the anticipation. What was your guess that the prosecutor Bragg was going to bring forward? And did what he actually brought forward kind

of match with what you expected? Well, I mean, if you think back to when he took office and palmerance and done very loudly quit that office because Alvin wasn't pursuing the Trump prosecution, I think if we're rewinding that far back, our anticipation a lot of us and myself included, was that Trump might not be prosecuting Donald Trump at all.

So that was that was interesting. And then when it seemed as though he was starting to bring in witnesses, it really did seem as though this was all going to stem from the Stormy Daniels hush money payments by Michael Cohen, and so was surprising to see the Karen McDougall and Doorman incidents included within the falsefying business records in the first degree indictment. Remind us about that because that was that's sort of been memory hold a little bit.

But I remember that incident that you know, some of the top prosecutors said, this guy is just not serious about going after Trump, so we're out of here. So were they wrong or did did he change his mind or did their quitting kind of pressure him? What's what's what's the sense among kind of the lawyer legal community in Manhattan about how you went from that moment to

the moment that we saw this week. Well, I think people who know Mark Pomerance and what he did, it was pretty clear how sanctemonious and obnoxious and frankly racist he was being in his criticisms of Alvin, and he decided that if he didn't get to run the show, if anyone was going to have any oversight into what he was doing, especially a black man, he was not going to stand by and take that and then he basically decided to do this self promotional book tour, jeopardizing

the investigation and now facing the repercussions of that in that he was just I believe and is going to have to deal with that. But I think that Alvin was always very serious about this. But he took the case very seriously and he wasn't going to rush into it. And I think that, you know, we may never know what the exactly had gone on prior to his taking office in terms of when Sybance was in charge, but it doesn't seem as though the prosecution was seriously going

to go forward until Alvin book office. And so I think Alvin took his time, was measured and careful and really considered which charges he would be able to bring and prove the unreasonable doubt, And that is why we're seeing the indictment that we see. What do you make of how Bragg has sort of led all of this or like, as the leader of his office and as somebody who was looking into this office, who ran for

this office. What do you make of how he's conducted himself as a leader over the course of the last I mean, I don't know, not just several days, but several weeks, several months. You know, do you think he's handled all of this well? Do you think you know there were unnecessarily do you think there were any blunders along the way, Like if you had to grade him in terms of the Trump indictment, where would you land. Well, if we're only talking about the Trump indictment, you know

that I think remains to be seen. But I think he made some massive blunders in taking office and certainly has not run that office in the way that I

would have. I think that the fact that he did not clean house at all, that the only people who have left that office are people who up and quit, and he did not fire a single person, means that if he even was serious about making real changes, he's had a really uphill battle in doing so, given that the entire administration has basically remained the same as it

was under Sybans. So I have a lot of gripes with how Alvin is running that office, but not necessarily with regards to the Trump administration, and I mean the Trump prosecution. The Trump and Diamond has gotten come in for a lot of criticism from people who say that the attempt to raise it from a misdemeanor into a felony by saying that it's you know, in furtherance of an additional crime runs into all sorts of problems, one of them being that one of the crimes is you know,

an FEC violation which wasn't actually charged. The other that it might not be even in the federal jurisdiction. And for people who really wanted to see Trump, you know, hit was something that was a slam dunk? Is this really the best that could have been done? Was you know, was there more criminal behavior from that that could have been charged? As you were running for office and you were contemplating like, Okay, how would I set up a prosecution? What kind of holes do you think you would have

dug that might have been left here? Well, the interesting thing about bringing forward to prosecution is that you're the person who has all of the evidence. So even when being asked about it, will campaigning, I could say, listen, if I believe Trump committed crimes in Manhattan, I will prosecute him. I will not be afraid to go after him,

to cite his power and everything else. But I don't think that anyone aside from the people within that office, know what the exact evidence is at this point, So I think that are there other crimes that were committed. I don't know, maybe, but these are clearly the ones that Alvin feels are the strongest to go forward on. And I don't think that he would have gone forward on these charges if he didn't feel he had a very strong case because of how thoughtful and measured and

cautious he is as a person. I think that in terms of whether or not there are some of these legal arguments that are being made by attorneys who've never practiced in New York State or who feel like weighing in on this, saying that, oh, well, some of the underlying crimes might be federal, he might have the preemption doctrine might apply. That is not at all fired me. I think that, first of all, Alvin hasn't had to nor has he said, exactly what those underlying crimes are.

Could they be New York state tax offenses, yes. Could they be state election law violations yes? Could they be federal campaign finance violation also yes? And I don't think that there will be any issue having heard some of the arguments on the other side that those are valid underlying crimes to go forward on again. This will be up to a jury. This will be a question of

fact for a jury to determine. And if the jurors feel that the misdemeanor conduct was proven but the underlying crime wasn't, they could still convict on what's called a lesser included offense, And so they could convict on the misdemeanor even though the top charges are felonies. The big thing that we've heard from the right and Emily might have more thoughts on this, has been around George Soros

backed prosecutor. But I want to unpack that a little bit from the because as you remember, I covered this campaign as well, and I do remember when the Color of Change Pack was the that's the organization. I think it's spent about four million dollars in the entire year, and about a million of that was from Soros. They did eventually endorse Alvin brag they did spend on his behalf. So as as an opponent of him, what was your sense of a kind of how important was the Color

of Change pack? And b did people understand that as oh, this is the Soros kind of world getting behind him, or was this Color of Change which had Soros some Sorows money. So if I remember correctly, all of that kind of happened at once. It was the New York Times endorsement, the Color of Change endorsement, which was going to include that pack spending, and a couple of other things that fell into Alvan's favor, and it felt like

a domino effect. So it's hard to say that there was any one thing that really determined the course of the election. But I think that in that moment, when all of that perfect storm of endorsements raining down and therefore a ton of spending along with it, that it certainly helped Alvin get elected. But I don't really remember people saying, oh, this is Soros money. I think it was more okay, he got the Color of Change endorsement in the New York Times endorsement, and all these other

things simultaneously. And I think that most of the attacks calling him this Sorows backed prosecutor are frankly anti Semitism, and we should disregard them as just completely disingenuous. So you have an op ed out in the Daily Beast this week called stopping Trump from running for office again is bad for democracy? Could you just sort of flesh

out the argument you make. We've actually already touched on some of the points, but could you flesh out some of the points that you make in this this really interesting piece. Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I did not choose the headline, although it is something that I said in the piece. Basically I heard, i think, on MSNBC this week people saying, oh, well, if he's convicted of a felony, we should bar him from running

for president. It should be a bar. You know, this is a bar on voting in many states, it should be a bar on running for office. And that led me to kind of just shooting off a tweet saying that this would be bad for democracy because of the way the criminal legal system operates, the way that it disenfranchises and marginalizes, you know, people of color, low income folks,

you know, other marginalized groups. If we are to bar those people from running for office, preventing people with felony convictions, it would be very bad for democracy. It would be something that would be problematic. It would be you know,

weaponizing something that is not that. It's not good. And so, yes, a lot of people are salivating at this over you know, the idea that it would apply to Trump, But the reality is we should be evaluating candidates based on their bios, their backgrounds, their histories, and individual voters should do that. And if they're convicted of a felony and that makes someone not want to vote for them, then that's fine.

But due to the way our criminal legal system disproportionately disenfranchises and stigmatizes people of color and poor, vulnerable people, we should not be pushing for this as a overarching thing. If you had to put a number on it, what would you say? What portion of the campaign was about Trump and holding Trump accountable? And what portion of it was about local issues local to Manhattan voters. Oh gosh, I would say Trump came up in most of our

forums or debates. It was certainly an issue that was brought up time and time again. There were pieces about what each of us had said with regards to a Trump prosecution, and so maybe I would say it encompassed twenty percent or less. I mean, I think the majority of the campaign was still about local issues, about bail, about criminal justice, about public safety, about other things that the DA's office would do. But I do think Trump was a huge a huge factor. How do you feel

watching this unfolded? What's your portion of fomo and what's your portion of like, Man, I'm glad I'm not in the middle of this. It's funny. I've had a lot of people reach out to me saying, Hey, selfishly, I am glad that you are not the person doing this, because you would be the one getting these death threats. You would be the one whose family would be being put on blast, whose life would potentially be in danger from all of these people who are so angry about

this prosecution. But that's not all how I feel. I certainly still very much wish that I were the person running the Manhattan DA's office, And yes, with regards to this one prosecution, but mostly with regards to how that office is still you know, destroying families, ruining lives, especially the lives of my clients. And so I see on a daily basis the ways in which my clients are hurt by that office, the way their prosecutions are still

more of the same, and in many ways. Alvin is Cybance two point zero, and so I I very much regret not having won that election, right Sivan's two point zero, But prosecuted Trump like that seems to be kind of the distinction that we're exactly working with here. Uh well, Elizah Orleans, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it, of course anytime. That was really interesting. Yeah, I actually thought your last question was one of the more interesting ones, just in that it was a It

was a great interview. But when you at the end asked the question about whether she was more whether she had FOMO, that was a great answer just saying yes, because I think the office could be run better. Yeah, And I love people who want to be in the ring. Yeah, because if you're going to try to throw your hat in the ring, you've got to be you gotta want it. And the amount of misogyny that a former reality TV star like her would be dealing with, yeah, would be

just absolutely extraordinary. Would it would? The country is having a difficult enough with the racism getting you know, thrown at Alvin Bragg as a result of this, It would. It would be such a spectacle, and it is such a spectacle. If we were destined for a spectacle, no matter what, that's the story of the United States of America. We're always destined for a spectacle. I hope she runs

again for dad be interesting to follow him. And you know, if if this falls apart and Brag's hands, then certainly that makes it much more difficult for Brag to run for reelection. Yeah, and he's gotten a lot of criticism even just since we were on the air. At at the Federals, we published a list of twelve I think it was like liberals and anti Trump pundits who have questioned Bragg's indictment. And it goes from like Andy McCabe, Like Andy McCabe. A few people are like hungrier for

you know, Trump to be in prison than him. Has anybody gotten Comy on the record? Comy tweeted, I think he tweeted like today is a good day, something stupid like that. I know, right, but yeah, Brag is really you know, there have been New York Times, New Yorker op eds and support of what he did, but then there's also been a chorus of establishment voices questioning it, which is when you're anti Trump, you're not used to that. No,

the Great Brag Drag. Anyway, thanks everybody for joining us, and we'll see you next week.