Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Krystal?
Indeed, we do so. Ryan and Emilin yesterday hosted a big old debate on Israel, Palestine, campus protests, free speech and all the rest. It was Omar Badar and Destiny or Stephen Banell or mister.
Barelli Itelli Binell, Okay Banell, all right.
We'll go with that.
I hope I'm not screwing that up anyway. I watched the rough cut of it last night. We're gonna have it for premium subscribers tonight for everybody else tomorrow, and Ryan and Amla are going to join us to break down some of the highlights from that debate and give us a little sneak peek, so definitely want to tune in for that. At the same time, we have some absolutely unhinged media reaction to the campus protests and the
also unhinged crackdown on those protests. You are not going to believe some of the things that were said, some of the things that were claimed. I am losing my mind over all of this. And we have a completely unhinged congressional reaction to all of this, by the way, as well, as they seek to codify and ban certain criticisms of Israel. Foreign government not allowed to criticize that, so insanity all the way around. The White House handling this in the worst possible way, of course, So break
all of that down for you. At the same time, we have a lot of news coming out of Israel as ces fire talks continue, more screw us from bb towards Biden as his humiliation toward continues. So we've got that for you. We also have Trump World panicking over RFK Junior as they realized this could actually be a problem for them. He's on a lot of conservative media. There's also some new poll numbers about his vaccine views that could be challenging for Trump and his positioning with
his own base. That we'll talk about that. We also have Marjorie Taylor Green apparently still looking to follow through on her threat to try to oust Mike Johnson, even as Democrats say that they will save the speakers since they love him now, since he got them their Ukraine aid. And that's all kumbaya apparently with the bipartist and war machine. And then finally we had to add this in last night. I can't even believe I'm saying these words. Another Boeing whistleblower is now dead.
He's a forty five year old healthy man. We'll tell it was a forty five year old healthy man.
Some illness. We'll tell a two weeks later he's dead. So there you go. But let's go ahead and start with this big debate with Ryan and Emily. We've pulled a couple of the highlights. Like I said, I watched it last night. It really was extraordinary. I'm super excited for you guys to be able to see it. Ryan and Emily did a phenomenal job. We're going to go ahead and bring them in now into the studio so
they can give us a breakdown of their experience. So, as we just mentioned, Ryan and Emily hosted kind of a major debate yesterday between streamer Destiny real name Stephen Banel and Omar Batter, who is a fantastic expert on the least in Israel Palastine specifically, I got to watch the whole rough cut last night. First of all, kudos to both of you, because it's not easy. It's almost harder when you're a duo. Saga and I have experienced to know when to jump in, how to manage it.
It's a difficult balance to keep things on the rails but also to make sure that they're able to engage with each other. I thought you guys both to a fantastic job with that. Before we've got a couple of like little highlight clips that we want to share with the audience. But before I do that, I mean, what was your kind of like, what was the vibe, what was your sense of how all.
Questions, FIBs were good, vibes were goodactly what you would expect. Yeah, that conversation, Now I hadn't watched previously they did a debate.
I didn't know.
That before we had booked them.
Yeah, so we kind of had to go back and figure out what their dynamic was. They had met before, and then they'd continued to exchange these barbs online nasty stuff to us.
We were not actually trying to go around keep yourself right grudge match.
It just kind of yeah, yeah, but we also wanted to make sure that it didn't go down a rabbit hole of just personal because you know, the YouTube beef, sometimes it's like it's it's inseparable. Sometimes you're just like, well, you said this on this stream month, this day. So we wanted to make sure that didn't happen.
And I think that worked.
Yeah, Yeah, it actually was pretty substantive. Yeah, because it's like, on the one hand, it's kind of embarrassing, you're like, really, you're gonna have a streamer on you just kind of only learned in October, like said, like she says, like I learned in October about this issue.
I didn't care about it before.
But he is an extremely sharp guy, and he makes a lot of the arguments that you see being made from people in his camp.
Yeah, and he makes them very effectively.
Okay, so I think it's useful to see how those can and can't be you know, combat had counteracted, and I think, uh, we also brought it to a little bit of a higher level where we ask questions about kind of broader issues like racism, islamophobia, anti Semitism, like root causes and root solutions to the conflict which can't which which you can't really take those down a rabbit hole and and kind of get distracted. And I thought that was the most enlightening part.
The only other thing I would add to that is the value of the way Destiny approaches it is he says things that people on his side think but probably would just tiptoe around, wouldn't actually actually gets out of exactly and then right, and then Omar can respond to that instead of like, you know, tiptoeing around it.
It's useful to have the actual position laid out because when you get into the well I didn't say that, it's like, yeah, but you freaking mean it. We all know what you mean to say, so that is helpful when you actually like, just say it. Just say that they're using cookies to make rockets, for example, is one thing that came up.
In the debated one.
In any case, the first clip we have for you is an exchange about safe soans in the context of like, okay, like if you're a palacetint in Gaza, what do you do. Let's take a listen to how that went down.
Look, they've destroyed eighty percent of the building, they've displayed it, They've displayed.
Through they've displaced ninety percent of the population.
Can you name any other conflict in which you displaced ninety percent of the civilian pop.
Nation, because usually they just destroyed them. Do you think it dressden they told the civilians to flee? Do you think in the Tokyo fire bombs Saki Hairoshima and we tell the civilians to leave? Can you can you acknowledge what he just was incredibly fucking stupid that, No, they don't sell civilians to leave first.
Normally they just kill.
Them ycause.
Because because he thinks, because he thinks that that's a clever line, let me explain something to you.
He's not going to I'm going to acknowledge.
I'm going to acknowledge that, yes, they told civilians to leave and then they dropped massive two thousand bombs on the safe zones.
That they told the civilians.
Just want to say, no, the beach or whatever.
There have been countless incidents of them dropping.
Now you're just lying.
I looked it up, like all the data on all the same four hours of roads make Safe York. They Guarantee Travels investigation that attackers.
A New York Times investigation, and there's an NBC investigation. Both of them document the fact that Israel is bombing safe zones where they tell civilians to flee.
And real investigations hold on it.
It's really admitted at CNN that intelligence indication that these places were safe houses for commanders of the Row of a brigade of the Hamas Terra organization. This is back in December about bombing areas that were supposed to be evacuation routes.
Evacuation routes are not safe zones.
There's been one official declared they shouldn't Hams not operate from there.
I mean, we're talking again, that's a good question question.
Okay, So they're talking about Al Malassie. Is what he I think is referring to there? And I want to get your reaction, which is so I was gonna say.
I asked him if that's what he was referring to. I like wrote it down on a piece of paper. Because we had it fact checked and I handed it over.
To him and he said, yes, yes, that's it a Malasi, So we covered when they at first we're like, go to Al Malassie. There's like nothing, there's no infrastructure, there's not sufficient sanitation, water, food, it's or the idea that millions of Palestinians could shelter in this area is preposterous. But he's kind of getting this technicality of like, well, this is the official safe zone, so no, no, no
safe roots, evacuation roots, that doesn't count. I'm talking about specifically this one safe zone.
And I think this was I think why it's useful for people to see this. This was the most kind of bitchy, nasty back and forth, whereas I think everything else was a little bit calmer and more reason might not be the word, but reason like that that was the.
Kind of it was. I mean, you were kind of bad. There wasn't a bitchiness, which I don't mind.
Right, I thought this was the height of it.
This was one of the more like tense you know, and sort of message.
It wasn't that bad.
I've seen it, you know, ten times worse, and it is more you know, a shout out to your guys's moderation. How was it with Omar as well, Like, in terms of the challenging questions, did you throw it to him?
More?
Was Destiny throwing things to him? How is it handling that?
Uh?
Destiny was actually I thought respectful in this of Omar's time, and in a way that I was worried he might not be like when we would come in and be like, look, just look enough, let him respond, he would actually he would actually let him respond. Omar was very good at not taking the bait. There he called him what effing stupid? Yeah,
that's right. At another time he said, I think you're probably more anti Semitic than than we even know, or something like just just a nasty personal attack that was completely baseless, And he didn't really take the bait. And because I think he understood that Destiny was going to try to steal Destiny.
I had Kyle and I interviewed Omar shortly after his last debate with Destiny, and a debate that he found to be extremely frustrating. And he's he's not a YouTuber like we are, right, he didn't know who Destiny was, and he consumed his content so we didn't really want he agreed to the debate. I think he didn't initially, like the first one, really know what he was getting. And so I think between then and this one, I think he was able to develop better strategies for handling
some of the tactics that were thrown out. I mean, Destney is is like, obviously he has assimilated a large amount of information about this conflict in a very short period of time, a large amount of propaganda talking points in my opinion, in a very short period of time. He's able to roll them out very effectively. There was nothing you guys asked him about that he wasn't ready with an answer that he hadn't thought through, that he
wasn't able to do. And I mean his whole thing and why he's popular and successful where he's a debate bro. So he's good at this. And so it seemed to me like Omar was able to kind of come up with some better strategies than the first time that he met up with Destiny that created the initial like you know, whatever you too, beef situation.
Kind of meta identifying what Destiny was doing, yes, saying like okay, in this moment, what you are doing trying.
To get me to chase this right so that you can avoid.
Answering yeah, because he would say, okay, wait to raise a totally irrelevant rabbit hole point that's going to like distract me in this direction. But I'm going to focus on yes, that's that he did do again.
Otherwise you'll say, well, you're avoiding answer At this point, it's like, well, the reason I'm avoiding is because it's just a distraction.
Well, we have a second clips here that we can play about the March of Return. This was another interesting moment that we wanted highlight for everybody. Let's take a listen and we'll get the reaction on the other side.
Towards the end of the Great Marshal Return, there were people that were throwing stones, that were setting over incendiary balloons that were causing like fires to spread on the other side of the fence. All this is documented even by the UN and that was when the majority of
the firing from the Israeli police happened. If you want to say that they shouldn't be shooting at people who were close to the fence because you don't like that policy or whatever, that's fine, But characterizing that is like just open firing into a bunch of innocent people that are standing there with the goal of just maiming people for no reason. Is the most unbelievable retelling of what happenedwar to the end of that event, that's exactly what happened.
Actually, just to characterize it, just you know, get an even more complete pick.
Sure.
Israeli policy is people in Gaza have no right to go in and out of the cage that they've been placed into, their complete siege, their economies and shambles because Israel does not allow them to trade with the outside world. They can't have an airport because Israel doesn't feel like they are entitled to an airport, can't have a seaport.
You know, when you look at the rates of unemployment over fifty percent in Gaza at the time, And if those people who are trapped in this cage come a little too close to the border, then we open fire at them and kill them, even when they're unarmed, because that's border policy.
If this is something that more than If this is something.
It's more than six thousand.
According to the un quote unquote, more than six thousand unarmed demonstrators were shot by military snipers week after week at the protest sites and the separation fence.
There's no denying that.
Yes, some people try to open up, and some people send insidiary balloons over the border and so on, but by and large, when you look at the cases, human rights organizations have been clear about the fact that people were targeted when they posed absolutely no threat to Israeli soldiers.
So Israeli soldiers open fire on.
People and targeted specifically metics journalists and children that is, and.
People who are game that's being played when we say posed no threat to Israeli soldiers. There was one un report that came out that analyzed it the claim that every single shooting except for one was unjustified. But the way that they got that is they didn't analyze that as an armed conflict.
They analyzed that as a policing event.
And when you analyze things internationally as a policing event, typically police aren't allowed to shootor kill anybod unless they pose a direct threat to the individual.
Why would why would they analyzed as an armed conflict If one side wasn't dark.
Because Hamas was present, it doesn't matter if they were shooting. If you've got an enemy. If you've got an enemy military that is present amongst people that are that are there was no ammas, is considered oppositional force.
And if you've got people that are participating and you.
Don't have guns not of course nothing to do with a clear about the fact that the situation. You can only kill combatants if they're in combat and they're armed.
You can't somebody, absolutely not.
You do not become yster combat You do not.
You not do you not all of a sudden gain the protections of a civilian if you're an enemy combatant without a gun.
If you have to google l let's do that. Just to go back to a point that you made earlier about sort of I just.
Wanted just so you're saying that like if if there's a military and you're fighting the enemy, you guys going to if you just drop your guns, you can just like run back and nobody can.
If you drop your guns and raise your arms, you can't know that surrendering.
That's different than running away.
You can't drop your guns and just run away, and you can't get shock because you're no firef.
Okay, that exchanged my meal and saying Ryan was your reaction after this, and I.
Thought the whole March of Return conversation was was interesting from beginning to end because he just kind of mentioned the March of Return as something that you as an example of something that Hamas had done that had kind of triggered Israel to like attack it, and Omar and I pointed out it was a civil society led non violent action, and that that later led into I thought the most useful conversation, which was that you know, Hamas was pressured by the non violent civil society led March
of Return into eventually supporting it. They didn't want to because it takes away from their argument, which is that only armed resistance is appropriate against Israel. And it made our point that the way to dismantle the ideology of Hamas is through non violence, is through peace, is through reaching a deal with the Palestinians.
It is the violence by.
The Israelis towards the Palestinians that actually supports the ideology of Hamas, and that I thought was the most interesting part of the debate to tackle that broader subject.
Because that was really important. I thought that you brought up a couple of times Ryan that if you look at Hamas popularity. It plummets when there's an actual possibility of negotiated peace and when there's not, and when it feels to Palestinians like my only chance is armed, like nothing else is working. We do the Great March of Return, it's overwhelmingly non violent, and we get snipers firing at us, like what the hell are we supposed to do here?
That's one support predictably, and also when your mom and your brother and your sister are being slaughtered, guess what, that's probably going to create a lot more commitment to you.
And Destiny understands that on the other side, because he's he's very quick to say, look, the second reason, the reason Israeli is one of the genocide the Palestinians is because of the second and they fought in the suicide bombings.
Why doesn't it work.
The other way?
Well, of course it does.
I also thought that exchange, though, was very illustrative of a technique that he uses very effective, which is it got bogged down in this question about like you know, arms comeback and dropping your weapons or whatever.
It's like international did you and whether it was a.
Police action or military action. It takes you away from the basic facts that because this is what people well, if if you know, Palestinians had their own gandhi, if they had their own non violent it could be over so quickly. And it's like, well, they tried that, and so you get away from these basic facts of they tried that and thousands of them were with sniper bullets and intentionally maimed, and medics and journalists target All of
this is accurate document and by human rights organizations. It gets you away from those very uncomfortable facts and arguing about some little minor technicality that he's educated himself on and everyone's else like I don't really know about it.
There's a strategic and moral question of whether it is good for either cause to kill unarmed protesters, right, and then there's the legal question of whether or not they are engaged, you know, whether or not they're allowed to kill them, because hamas count is police or hamas count as combatants who are somewhere within the vicinity, and so they're like, right, So we kept trying to push it back to the strategic and moral and ethical questions and keep it away from these rabbit holes.
Any last thoughts, simile, Well.
You know, I think to the extent that you can have a spoiler for a debate. What Crystal just mentioned about Ryan's point on peace support for peace declining in those particular moments is the devastating that I felt like, and that comes towards the end. I felt like that was clearly a moment where we all sort of looked around and we're like, this is but he kind of, I don't want to say he changed the terms, but then he said, but you know, we're talking about peace
from a Western perspective. What both sides really want is justice, and that is again like coming to that later in the debate. We just sort of looked around, We're.
Like, you know, and then he dips into weird oriental stuff.
Okay, well so as we as we already it's a two hour debate, literally two hours to the mark.
It was actually hard to wrap.
Yeah, I've been there.
Yeah, no, we were getting the messages in real time our max like, you know, you could probably wrap up now. And then it goes into the whole conversation about human shields, which is another interesting moment. Human shields. Okay, when the idf uses them based on again some you know, legalies whatever cookies being used to build rockets. That's another interesting moment.
Yes, and it's also I just wanted it's not a total pileon, and we maybe made it sound like that, but like, there are some things that I agree with Destiny, and there were some moments where we pushed Omar and he was a good faith willing to engage it.
I think, so I think people, I think people who watch it, even if you you know, if you share Destiny's view, if you share Omar's view, I think you're gonna feel like your view was well represented, right.
I mean, and that's all we can ask for.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. You guys did a really effective job, like I said, moderating it, creating that climate, I think, making everybody feel like they had a chance. I also will just say, as like, having watched so many of these Israel debates at this point, one on one is so much better. It's so then when you have the panel for four people andever you try, it's so much better to have had Omar and Destiny have it well moderated.
That to me is like the best model. I think that's why you were able to get to so much, so many interesting substantive conversations I'm very excited for people to watch that. I'm really excited about you guys doing the Friday show because I think this is just a great preview of things to come.
This is an awesome proof of cons.
Ryan's getting fashion tips from Don, Ryan's getting better.
Just what else could we have?
The record I had this last spring, which that's all.
That's right, Don's ready describe to breaking points.
If you want to watch it early drop tonight for our premium subscribers, we publicly available tomorrow. Support us there if you want to be able to support Friday shows like this. It's a great proof of concept for what we're all about. And I guess with that, let's get to the show.
So, as you guys likely know, and Ryan and nominally covered very ably yesterday there was a massive police crackdown across New York City colleges, including at Columbia University, and the next day morning, Joe, of course, ready to manufacture consent, they brought on the Deputy Commissioner of Police to make some extraordinary claims about some of the tools that these protesters were using at what Hamilton Hall, what they named Hins Hall. Let's take a listen, tell us about this change.
Yeah, so when we will.
This is not what students bring to school, okayshals bring to campuses and universities. These are heavy industrial chains that were locked with Bilock bike locks. And this is what we encountered on every door inside a Hamilton hall and so in order for our emergency services group to into the building, they had to first cut through these chains.
Heavy industrial chains. This saga is what professionals bring. This isn't what students would have access to, which plays into this whole trope that was being pushed relentlessly on CNN and other places that oh it was actually this isn't even students. This is outside agitators to make this like super extra scary. It didn't take long for people to pull up. This is literally a bikelock that is sold by Columbia University.
At the Columbia University gift shop, literally the exact same one, which is very likely where they bought it from. It is really hilarious and it's also one of those where just this morning, Crystal mayor Eric Adams actually was asked on MSNBC how many people who were not Columbia University
students were arrested. Approximately three hundred of the people who were arrested, he's only able to name two so far that we're there, which is actually far below the average at University of Texas, Austin and others where you actually saw a majority of the people at some of those
protests which were arrested, which were not students. But in this particular case, it does seem that the absolute vast majority two hundred and ninety eight out of three hundred so far confirmed to have been students at Columbia University.
Yeah, and I mean, just how you understand why this was like an important propaganda point, and Anderson Cooper was pushing this, the police department was pushing this whole narrative of like, we don't even think this is students. We
think this is outside agitators. Is because outside agitator sounds like crazy, scary, violent radicals, whereas college kids, you're like, these are college students who've been camping out, who are engaging in the sort of protest techniques that we've seen, you know, for decades that are sort of tried and true.
Even if you don't like them or agree with them, or disagree with them, whatever, it's a very different valence when you're crafting this narrative about these Gary radical outside agitators coming in with professional, industrial grade chains, then college students who have bikelocks that they bought at the campus bookstore.
Yeah, it's just totally ridiculous what we've seen from a lot of the NYPD, I.
Will say, the outside agitator.
Like I said, I initially I was skeptical but willing to believe some of it because of the UT Austin numbers that had previously come out. The other thing is that Columbia University and the NYPD put together an entire presentation before the raid somewhere around eight pm where they specifically highlighted students or people who were wearing ski masks and others that were entering the building, specifically saying that
these individuals were from outside of the university. And it's like, well, okay, and again, if you'll remember when we were all talking about this live, I said, this will be a great claim to check after the arrests have been made, whether they were telling the truth or not. And I think people should also understand this is a key pretext for
the launch of the raid on Columbia University. Yes, there was Hamilton Hall being keep hied, the property damage and all of that, but the actual pretext, if you look at the letter that was sent by Columbia University to NYPD very specifically highlights that it claims that were non students that were inside of the hall.
That's really important. And I also want to point out because you know, the windows that were broken and the occupation of Hamilton Hall was used as a pretext for this. Like I mean, you saw how many police and riot gear and the heavy yell artillery and all of this. Okay, but it didn't just happen at Columbia University. You know, at City College, which is just up the street about twenty blocks that I actually used to live right there
in that neighborhood in Northern Manhattan. There were by all accounts, entirely peaceful protests far as I know, there were no was no even property damage, no buildings occupied or anything. And they still had this overwhelming police crackdown of the sort that we've seen, you know, on campuses across the country. So and also obviously this is not the normal response for broken windows and trespassing. I think we get all see very clearly the reason for their response is because
They don't want the dissent. They want to make sure this entire movement is completely crushed. It's all a method of avoiding the conversation about what these students are actually protesting and whether or not their cause is actually just. But we've got more for you from the NYPD. This is Rebecca Winer, head of the NYPD counter Terrorism Bureau, talking about why this response was necessary. Take a lesson.
This is not about students expressing ideas. It is about a change in tactics that presents a concern, and a normalization and mainstreaming of rhetoric. And I'm not just talking about language. I'm now talking about tactics and that's what shifted our response yesterday. But a normalization and mainstreaming of rhetoric associated with terrorism that has now become pretty common on college campuses.
Right.
You see people wearing headbands associated with foreign terrorist organizations. This happened in October when you had a viral TikTok reissuing of Osama bin Laden's two thousand and two letter to America.
So that's a larger concern.
It's separate from what happened yesterday, but they're related. We do not want ideas. We do not want campuses, which are where people are supposed to be learning and being in a conducive environment for all of the things that we do in schools being turned into places where people are committing vandalism, property damage, and committing crimes.
I like the part where she says we don't want ideas. That's very clear. I mean, this is Listen. You can hate their cause, you can hate their speech, you can think that it's, you know, the same thing that a terrorist. It doesn't matter. There is no car mount in the First Amendment for hate speech or ideas you don't like. And that's what's so ridiculous about this and the whole of government and whole of media effort to censor, crush, and criminalize certain speech critical of Israel.
It's insane, and that's what's happening right now.
I mean, we're got to get to it in terms of the House of Representative's passage of its anti semitism while I mean, this is one of the biggest fringe infringes upon the First Amendment since World War One. If you go back and you look at some of the anti war acts that were imposed at that time on Americans who were trying to dissent from the war machine of that time about one hundred years ago. So this is an extraordinary moment. And it's not even for a
war where American troops are dying. Isn't that a little interesting in terms of the war powers willing to basically insert and totalitarianize our democracy on behalf of a foreign power which is prosecuting a war. Similarly, Crystal, I think it's very important. I realized we haven't even had a chance to react to some of the things going on
at Columbia. And I think people can say, you know, I'm not like a pro Kefia person or any of this, but I did a lot of research and I have to be honest so tact fact, when we looked previously at Hamilton Hall and the occupation, I said, I think the line because in property damage of vandalism and trespassing. However, I do think and again, and this is kind of where the discourse breaks apart.
People are like, well, what would you expect?
And I don't have any problem with arresting those individuals, but we have to come back to some of the original response to January sixth. So immediately in the aftermath of January sixth, Crystal, you and I were sitting here in our studio. I'll never forget, not here but over at the hill, and I'll never forget, you know, having to go through Bagdad like checkpoints, you know, to get
to our office. Yeah, a full federalization. So again we were talking there about Okay, so the people should be prosecuted, certainly, right, people who entered the capital unlawfully. But does it mean that we should be prosecuting this domestic terrorists? Does it mean that we should have spent half a billion dollars, you know, locking down our entire capital, deploying the National Guard,
trying to institute a Patriot Act two point zero. And that's where I would really urge people, where, even if you are skeptical or even outright oppositional to some of these protesters, I would urge proportionality in a response. And watching one thousand and NYPD police officers basically walk into Colombia, it's one of the most insane things I've ever seen. You know, Again, we can arrest people, and we can have the situation handled in a proportional manner relative to
the crime that is being committed. Another thing is and I'll be honest, I didn't actually know this is I went back and did some research. So back in nineteen eighty five, I talked previously about how protesters had occupied Hamilton Hall previously. Protesters actually occupied Hamilton Hall for three weeks in nineteen eighty five, and actually it led to a Columbia University vote of divestment from apartheid South Africa
at the time. So I have to be real, I have a lot more sympathy now for the people who did this, because the university itself has a long history of both, you know, allowing these types of things to happen and also even following through with their demands. I don't even necessarily agree with the fact that you should be able to trespass on a hall and then your university three weeks later is going to you know, bout your demands, but you did it already in the past.
So not only that, based upon all of their recruiting materials, they have consistently said Columbia is a state of social justice action. They brag about the Hamilton Hall occupation of nineteen sixty eight and nineteen eighty five. They talk specifically about how their student body is like highly socially engaged. So it is very clear here that we are acting
in a different manner as opposed to Israel. So I think then that and I want people to hear this from somebody like me, who's not necessarily the most sympathetic person. I want them to understand that, Look, a thousand people coming in to a private university under these pretexts and basically, you know, occupying this campus. Whenever you have a long history of allowing such behavior in the past and bragging about it, that is very, very different, you know, this
time around. So we can have law and order, and we can have proportionality, and we can also understand, I think where there is a clear exception being made now here in the case of Israel, and in that you know, I have to object as an American citizen for what's happening.
Amen to all of that, And I mean, listen, just ask yourself, right, like I said before, what is the normal response to a broken window and trespassing? Is it a thousand police in rya gear. I'm pretty sure there's some other criminal activities happening in New York City where those cups might be useful. The smearing of these students as actual terrorists by the NYPD, by you know, the mourning Joe. It's so I really am losing my mind over this because we're about to get into what happened
at UCLA as well. In terms of a protest movement, like we can debate tactics, we've debated tactics. Even within the movement. There's debates about what tactics work, and what's going to win people over and what's not going to be effective, et cetera. That's all fine and good, But in terms of a protest movement, which is massive in scale and size and nationwide, et cetera, they've been about
as perfect as you could get. There have been so few instances of even property damage that it's actually incredible when you have this many human beings, some of whom are gonna be a loll out there that doesn't undermine the justice of their cause in this particular instance. But you're gonna have radicals, you're gonna have weirdos, you're gonna have freed that's human beings. Okay. The fact that you've had so few instances that are even colorably violent is
actually astonishing. And when you look at what happened at UCLA, the one instance where we had genuine violence. It is now very clear that it was nearly, if not entirely, one sided pro Israel counterprotesters coming in, shooting fireworks at them, busting down their encampment, assaulting them for hours, with the police nowhere to be seen. So we're gonna talk about
student safety. Dozens of anti war protesters, some of whom may well have been Jewish, since this is the concern of the day, which listen, I think old people, including Jewish people, should be safe. You had dozens of students sent to the hospital. Where's a media concern about those students' safety. Clearly, this risk to student safety has been in the crackdown and has been from these counter protesters who are again were allowed to assault them and run wild for hours.
Where were the riot cops then, in their gear with their heavy artillery to protect students when they actually were needed. They were nowhere to be found. And the UCLA rent a cop, security guards or whatever they had. They were treated in hidden and building and were such cowards they locked out the student journalists who had been given agreement that they could retreat into that building if their safety was under threat, and by the way, their safety was
under threat. Four of them were assaulted, according to the LA Time this morning, were assaulted by those pro Israel counterprotesters. Where's the media outrage about that? Where's the concern about Jewish student safety about any of that? Instead you get this completely insane commentary from Dana Bash. She Dana or Dana, We'll go with both. Whoever. Dana Bash, who is supposedly first of all, she's a congression christ but she's not foreign affairs, she's not opinion, and yet she had the
most insane take on this whole situation. I can scarcely even believe it. Take a listen to what this lady had to say.
Many of these protests started peacefully with legitimate questions about the war, but in many cases they lost the plot. They're calling for a ceasefire, Well there was a ceasefire on October sixth, the day before Hamas terrorists brutally murdered more than one thousand people inside Israel and took hundreds more as hostages. Making Jewish students I feel unsafe at their own schools is unacceptable and it is happening way too much right now.
I'm a Ucile A student.
I deserve to go here.
We pay tuition, this is our school, and they're not letting me walk in my classes over there. I want to use that entrance.
Why can't Will you let me go in? This could be over in a second.
Just let me and my friends go in.
Again.
What you just saw is twenty twenty four in Los Angeles. Hearkening back to the nineteen thirties in Europe. And I do not say that lightly. The fear among Jews in this country is palpable right now.
So one video of someone claiming, which how many of these freaking hoaxes have we seen at this point? That they're being blocked from going to class, and it's nineteen thirties in Europe. It's the equivalent to the Holocaust and millions of Jews being being murdered on an industrial scale. This is so completely insane, especially Saga, given the fact that we know the bulk of the violence. Violence has been perpetrated against the anti war protesters.
And this is a look, I believe very strongly an equal application of the law. And I think that those protesters you know, who were having it took four hours for the LAPD to come in.
I think it's outrageous.
It's very clearly that they just didn't feel like getting involved. Their excuse was that what that they didn't have enough troops or something like that, which I just simply don't believe honestly, because they had campus security there as well. The other thing is, you know, time for a little history lesson there, Dana. I believe it is Dana, by the way, I just looked it up. So for the nineteen thirties Germany, do people really want to know what happened?
There were thousands of actual street brawls in the street between the Nazis, between the center right parties, the socialists, the communists. I mean, it was an absolute bloodbath. Thousands, tens of thousands of people were killed in street violence. There wasn't an actually state violence necessarily, and in fact, the vacuum of power and all of that at the time the chaos is eventually what led to some of
the rise of the Nazi Party. And that's exactly why so many of our brain dead comparisons to the nineteen thirties are frankly insulting, you know, to people who lived through the period of wy Mar Germany and saw what happened at that time of violence perpetrated against Jews. I mean, every once in a while I'll see somebody, for example, you know, I said here, I said, I think it
crosses the line to break into Hamilton Hall. And then I go online and people are like, this is Christalnacht because there's some broken glass, and I'm like, oh again again, Okay, it is deeply insulting to these survivors of Christalnacht to compare the occupation and the breaking into Hamilton Hall to what happened in nineteen thirties Germany.
But this is in a.
Consistent Holocaust denial, honestly acts as being anything like the acts that led.
Up to that.
Of course, I mean, it'd be like saying that any time that you detain some that they're like slaves, or you know, any time that you have you know, even if you have a I don't know, Like it's like comparing affirmative action to Jim Crow or something. Right, you could say it is a policy like Jim Crow, or like a policy that has the echoes of something, But even then I think it's outrageous and frankly insulting. So
here again, like everybody, calm down. You know, I even pulled the numbers and went back Hamilton Hall this time around was roughly half the number, actually less than half of the number of people who were arrested in nineteen sixty eight. There were over seven hundred people were arrested and had a lot.
Of other buildings.
They occupied quite a lot of other buildings. There was actually a shitload more violence than also at the time, And that's part of why I'm just like, look, guys, everybody, just take a chill pill. It is not nineteen thirties Germany. We've gotten through ten times worse in our country, not even you know, a lot that long ago. It's everybody's fine. And yet for some reason, you know, everything is just
getting ratcheted up. Where these you know, a CNN anchor who that let's be honest, he probably has personal security or something like that. You know, mal time millionaire, longtime denizen of Washington. You're not unsafe, your kids aren't unsafe. Everybody's fine. If you are unsafe, it's because there's what shitload of crime here in DC. Four people got shot yesterday here in our city. I don't hear them complaining about that. That's not nineteen thirties Germany.
It's not because it's like protesters and GW twos.
Because of protesters at GWA, exactly right. It's that's the big problem that we have.
I would love to take a shill pill Soccer, because I'm losing my mind over this.
Point, over the media reaction.
I'm saying, you're not saying, like I am physically unsafe now at this moment, and that's what I'm talking.
No, I know, I know, I just yeah, I can't believe what a bunch of liars these people are. Like I can't believe how fake this all is. I can't believe how manufactured it is that now you have. I mean, we just showed you a little slice of a completely
insane media reaction. Now College, they're Nazis, they're terrorists, they're hummus, they deserve or you know, the equivalent to nineteen thirties Germany, when again, the one violent protest, it was entirely because and caused by and perpetrated by pro Israel protesters assaulting anti war protesters. And it is so clear what the game is. It's so clear what the game is. Look at our poll, look at any polling out there. These college kids and other members of this protest movement have
won the debate. The numbers in favor of a ceasefire are overwhelming. Among people who voted for Joe Biden, the numbers are even more overwhelming, and so to distract from the clear righteousness of their cause, which, by the way, all of these people ten years from now will be pretending that they were on their side, or they'll be covering their ass about why it was understandable at the
time that they compared them to Nazis and all this crap. Okay, it's all to distract from what the kids are actually protesting about and the clear justice of their cause. When they say I don't want my tax dollars going to bomb babies. I also think it's important, and Sager brought this up a number of times and other segments as well, to keep in mind their specific asks and to make
the comparison. So at Brown University, they had protests, they had an encampment, and the administration met with them said, you know what, we're not going to commit to divesting, which is the specific ass from like Lockey Martin or whoever they invest in. We're but we are going to schedule a vote and it's going to be taken up and we're taking your concerns seriously. Guess what they the protests Okay, we're going to disband the encampment were also all fine.
It also then if they rejected that, then they would look a lot worse if they were like if they were like, okay, we'll have a vote and you can what Brown agreed to, like you said, is not just a vote, but they said that you can come and you can present your case to the Board of Governors, which I think I'm actually totally fine with because that means that the Bord of Governors will ultimately make an independentency.
It still gets to, I mean, some of the critique that you have sometimes with these institutions, which is like why is why are your investments so dear to you, like your particular investments, But you're right right exactly, Well, yeah, and we see too, you know, Robert Kraft and these other large donors in the way they're willing to say, hey, we're not going to play goodball if you deal with
these if you don't crack down on these protesters. So then that's how you end up in this utterly absurd situation. Just so you know too, Washington Posts had a great graphic of the way that these protests have spread like wildfire since that initial Columbia University crackdown, which you'll recall President of Columbia University gets summoned Capitol Hill to talk about anti Semitism on campus and basically she pledges to
quote unquote do more. In the very next day, the cops are brought in and you know, there's a massive crackdown and that has sparked a huge uptick in terms of the number of these protests across college campuses and kids are getting arrested to coast to coast in you know, universities, small schools, like I said before, the Ivy League and the elite institutions get a lot of the attention Columbia does because they're in New York City, but any manner
and variety small, large, more working class, more upscale of schools across the country now are seeing these protest movements and attendant crackdowns and arrests. Let's take a look at these graphics that the Washington Posts pulled together, so you can see there on the left they have the protests that amror protests, the size of the protests at the
week beginning April tenth. Then you have the crackdown at Columbia that was on April twenty third, you can see how they grew, and then after that you can see how it really just explodes. And that's when you're talking about you know, any number of schools, coast to coast, types of schools, you know, elite, normal state institutions, and everything in between. So if your goal was to actually diminished the energy of this protest movement, congratulations, you've done
exactly exactly the opposite. And if you think these students are going to stop now because of what they've seen, I've got another thing coming for you. Let's go ahead and move on to the White House response, which has also been pissed. Poor Korean. John Pierre was asked specifically about those UCLA counter protesters pro Israel counter protesters assaulting the anti war activists. Didn't have a lot to say about that. Let's take a listen.
I'm wondering if the White House has any response to the reports of violent clashes on UCLA's campus last night that there was a group of counter protesters that tried to fortunately dismantle the pro Pala sign encampment and the clash that resulted afterwards.
So, look what I can say more broadly, any form of violence we are going to denounce. We're going to call out violent rhetoric, any type of violence we have to call out. That doesn't change anything.
We're going to continue to do that, and that could quin on the communications with protests and people related to protests. Has the President spoken to Mayor Adams since the NYPD became involved in dealing.
With them, You know, understand the question. Don't have anything to read out as far as a conversation with the mayor from the President, but I think we've been very very clear about what we're seeing on the ground. I've been answering these questions for the past couple of days.
Go ahead, thanks.
So, I think it's really important to understand the role that the Biden administration has played in green lighting these unhinged crackdowns. And you know, Biden put out multiple statements smearing the kids as these college students, as terrorists, effectively
anti Semitic, et cetera. And very soon after this, you know, specifically with regards to Columbia, put down a statement and that's when you see all the heavy artillery broad in in one thousand member police response, and so funny how when you get asked specifically about actual violence that happened, the language is very well, in general, we condemn violence, but you're not going to have this specific violence. You don't actually have anything to say about this specifically at all.
You're just vaguely Yeah, of course we theoretically condemn violence if that happened. It's just it's so clear the bias here and how differently these two groups are treated.
I would like to live in a world with White House doesn't have an opinion on all this stuff.
I've said this before.
I don't think they really should be weighing in on local matters at UCLA and everywhere else. But if we're going to live in a world where we're going to take you a single transperson or whatever is like allegedly assaulted somewhere and that's a national demanding of a white House statement, or here in the Columbia case, it's like
anti semitism is deplorable. But then we're going to ignore like violence over here on this side and just issue like no statement, then yeah, you look like an idiot and a hypocrite, and I think it is very obvious what is happening here now, and that's part of the dishonesty in this is honestly driving me really crazy because what we're watching again is that we basically have a fake moral panic which is being used to construct the biggest expansion of the DEI regime in let's say, since
the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act. What we are watching today is our Congress past a piece of legislation that declares and expands the definition of anti semitism to opposition of the State of Israel, codifying that into the Civil Rights Act, and then empowering the Office of the Civil Rights Act in the Department of Justice to prosecute universities and potentially Christal even you or I as commentators,
as American citizens. And I can tell you this, like, maybe they won't come after us, but they very well could under the text of that legislation. And I've warned about this from the very beginning against Bill Ackman and all these other folks, is that they don't want Jews to be considered like everybody else. They want them included as marginal a bipoc, LGBTQ and all this other stuff.
This is a liberal expansion of the regime being used to try and crush speech in the future, and you know, we have to speak out.
We have to stand against.
This absolutely, absolutely, and listen. It's another thing that drives me insane is it's really not about protecting Jewish students. That's bullshit, because there are so many Jewish students who are you know, being assaulted and arrested and you know, assaulted by pro Israel protesters. In fact, you mentioned Bill Acne. Can put this next piece up on the screen. He
helped to fund. I think it was one of the top funders, if not the top funder of that violent pro Israel counter protest that assaulted many students at UCLA, included among them, probably since so many Jewish students are involved in the anti war protest Jewish students, so they
don't actually care about Jewish students safety. And Jessica Seinfeld, by the way, Jerry Seinfeld's wife also so kicked in a number of thousands of dollars to these violent thugs who rampaged and shot rockets and assaulted anti word demonstrators for hours before the cops showed up. So it's nonsense that they even care about Jewish student safety. No, they care about this ideology of Zionism. That's what they care about, and that's fine. They're allowed to care about that. That's fine.
But don't conflate it like this is a religious sectarian conflict. It's not. And certainly do not go and ban Americans from having a critique of a foreign government. You know, I a couple things cyber and response to what you were saying. I was actually talking to Kyle about this last night. I remember how when Trump was first elected, there was like some resistance lived journalist who would post
every day like it's day number whatever. And I'm still afraid, like they thought they were going to be like rounded up and arrested by Trump, which, listening as his own authoritarian in stings, I'm not gonna like whatever is certainly the case. We have never been more actually a danger of being arrested, criminalized whatever for our views.
Then right now, oh, absolutely, especially here on the show that you're absolutely right.
And it's because it's because of the bipartisan consensus around this. I mean, this is we've talked about this a lot in other context, like the times when you should really be scared are when you have the elites of both parties agreeing on a pro censorship regime or a security state expansion. We've seen this many times. We saw it
during the Iraq War. The other thing that I've been thinking about is like, you know, obviously it's easiest for me to compare to my own historical experience because we live through it and I have a very fine grasp on what the climate was like. There was a lot of hysteria around the anti war movement during the Iraq War and build up to the Iraq War as well, but people were smeared as being traders and how you stand, You got to stand with the president, blah blah blah.
But there was never any effort to actually like criminalize or say you can't even say these things in that way. This is it really is extraordinary different. And it also harkens back to I mean, we've had laws on the books in many states now for years that's anti BDS laws that's codify exactly the same thing of like you are not allowed to boycott or divest, or you're not allowed to participate in this boycott movement against a foreign government.
You can boycott our own government, but you can boycott this random foreign government. It's complete infringement on our rights. It is absolutely a gateway to if you're cool with this particular expansion, what you think it's going to stop there? Give me a break. This the expansion of the censorship regime here is truly astonishing. And I can't not that anyone you know, changes their mind because they're called a hypocrite.
But we had a whole movement of people who claimed that campus free speech was like the biggest issue of their time and that they really deeply cared about it. And now you have an actual House vote to codify censorship and ban criticism of a foreign government. And they're on board with it. It's not even that you don't hear about you just they're by and large they're on board with it.
Yeah.
No, you are absolutely right, Crystal, And let's get to some of that.
Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen as well, because this is what stage is that quote unquote democrats enter panic mode as the Gaza protests erupt.
So you basically have two options. Whenever you're in panic mode.
You can continue to go after or you can pull back, and you can try to understand what is going on.
Well, what do we think all happened.
Well, we had the introduction and now the passage of a quote unquote anti semitism piece of legislation now through our Congress.
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Shout out to Representative Thomas Massey, a genuine hero on this subject, who says, today the House will vote on a bill to define anti Semitism with the intent to increase prosecutions of activity on campus. This bill has a problem beyond violating the First Amendment. The definition of anti
Semitism appears nowhere in the bill. What they see is that they are going to codify into law definition of anti Semitism that was introduced by the International Holocaust Museum and Remembrance Organization.
Now it's very clear, because.
I want to read examples of what we'll be called anti Semitic quote unquote making accusing Jews as people being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even acts were committed by non Jews, denying the fact, scope, mechanisms, or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazi Party. So basically, Holocaust denile is now illegal under US law.
If this is where to.
Pass, Dana Bass, I don't sorry about you downplaying the events leading up to I.
Do not support Holocaust denile, obviously, but I think people should have the right to say it.
And if you don't disagree. If you disagree with me, you can.
Go and look at the speech of Mark Zuckerberg in twenty eighteen where he specifically defended holocaust de isle on the Facebook platform under well established First Amendment law. For this is my other personal favorite. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel or to the alleged priorities of use worldwide to the interests of their own nation. Again, once again dual loyalty accusations. They can be tricky. I'll
be honest, This conflict has actually convinced me. It's more of a real problem than I ever thought before, and I believe it is my right as an American citizen to accuse somebody of having dual loyalty if I suspect so. Similarly, it says applying double standards by requiring a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, so that means directly criticizing the standards of the State of Israel and their prosecution of this war would then be considered
anti Semitic under US law. And who wants to guess that this law passed the House of Representatives with over three hundred votes just last night. It is stunning, it's astounding. Put this up there, please, just to show everybody look at this. I mean, one hundred and eighty seven Republicans voted yes, one hundred and three Democrats, only twenty one
Republicans and seventy Democrats voted No. Crystal three one hundred and twenty to ninety one to mandate that the Education Department use this definition when enforcing federal anti discrimination law, meaning that campus is any organization subject to the Civil Rights Act which all of us are, either as employers, as educations, and others, will then be liable to prosecution under this. It's just insane, it's outrageous.
And you know what another item in this definition of anti semitism says you're not allowed to draw comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. And again it's not like like no matter what they do, like they can actually do a full on genocide, and you're not allowed to say the word Nazi in comparison because some of the ideology is very reminiscent. Sorry it is, and that what I just said is now apparently that's that's criminal as illegal according to this vote in the House.
And the other one, which is ironic to me is quote holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel. Well, actually it's these Zionists who I see doing that by and large, who I see making an aggressive attempt to conflate Judaism and all Jewish people with the actions of the State of Israel. That happens almost
exclusively on that side of the Ledger. But you know when they do it, when they say, you know, we want the Jews of the future to be able to look back and say that's what we did in our destruction of Goz or whatever the quote was from some Israeli minister, then that's not anti Semitic. When they demand that every single Jew in the world be conflated and associated with the State of Israel, when Joe Biden says no Jews will be safe without the State of Israel.
When they do it, oh, that's not anti Semitic, but I don't even hear. In fact, the overwhelming number of people on the anti war side are at pains to say Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing. And that's so clear because you you have so many Zionists who are not Jewish, and we have very clearly in this movement so many anti Zionists who are Jewish, So they're not two the same things. Zionism is a political ideology. Israel is a nation state that, by the way, doesn't
only contain Jewish people. So it's just if you look at this, it's very clearly an effort to make it so that you cannot criticize the State of Israel without being tarred as an officially by the government, tarred as an anti semi. This is the fondest wish of you know, the ADL, the State of Israel. They were pushing this view for years and years and years, and now you have overwhelming majorities in the House voting in favor. You can bet there will be similarly overwhelming margins of the Senate,
if not more so. You can bet Joe Biden will certainly sign this into law. And it's it's complete insanity, and it doesn't end here. By the way, it doesn't end here. Once you open the door to hey, we can codify what is hate speech. We can you know, make it official at the Department of Education, and your federal funding can be revoked if we feel that you're you know, questioning the state of Israel in a way that we don't like. It does not stop there. It's so outrageous.
I could scarcely wrote my head it's crazy, and I just want to again flip it around. This is what drives me crazy, is you know, Okay, I'm Indian, so and we're by the way, we're the richest people in America. We could if we wanted to exert this amount of political power. What if we had a highly funded lobby to make the government pass a law disputing territorial claims on Kashmir and said that you could, you would be that basically would criminalize the speech, let's say, of Pakistani Americans.
Do you think that would be acceptable or would you think that that's an outrageous abuse by a foreign power who has been, you know, propping up our diaspora community to enforce outside norms. Now, listen, I'm Indian but I would speak out against that. But why do they get a special carve out and why do they you know, they want the US government to enforce their territorial acquisitional dreams on the speech of US citizens on college campuses. But you're right, the ground for this was laid in
the BDS laws. They've always been on. Our only hope in this case is the Supreme Court. I pray, I pray you know that something like this actually would make it up to SCOTUS. But to be honest, you know, with the current makeup, we don't know for sure.
Typically in most instances where the ANTIBEDS laws have been challenged, they've been struck down.
Yeah, that's it's a state court level. It's never made it to SCOTUS.
So I mean that is somewhat hopeful. But yeah, I mean that is our only hope because the bipartisan consensus is in favor of using the full force of the federal government to tell people how, how and when they are allowed to criticize the state of Israel, and every American who cares about their free speech rights, I don't care where you are on the you know, on the spectrum of opinion about this particular conflict. It really doesn't matter because it's about so it's about a core right
as an American citizen, a cherished right. And if you happen to be on the right side of elite opinion on this one, okay, but it will come for you. There will be some opinion that you have that is deemed outside of acceptability, and now these same powers can be used against you as well. You know, free speech First Amendment rights are about protecting speech that is challenging to elite consensus, that is can be outright offensive at times. As I said before, there is no hate speech carve
out in the First Amendment, you know. I mean the Skokie case. You had literal neo Nazis mark marching through a predominantly Jewish town. Okay, that's offensive as it could possibly be. We had literal neo Nazis marching through Charleston, West Virginia. I think they're disgusting, but I think they have a right to do it. You know, I was on the side of allowing the Charlottesville ultimately like neo Nazi rioters to have what should have been a piece.
If they had just march piece, I would have supported their right to do it.
I didn't know that they tried to block it. Oh that's crazy.
There was. Actually it was a whole fall out of the ACLU because the ACL you backed their permit to have this march. And then this is part of what led to the ACL you get a little squishy and their free speech principles because they had raised a lot of money in the trump eras, like you know, resistance organization, So those are the types of people they had on board. So it caused big schism there. But in any case, this is all just to say, like offensive speech also
is protected. Hate speech, sorry, it also is protected. I don't think that that's what these anti war protesters have been doing. I wildly disagree with the mischaracterization of like their rally chants and whatever. But listen, if you're offended by it, that's your right, you can be. That's okay. That doesn't mean that it should be criminalized. And that's exactly the path that we're moving towards.
Agree one hundred percent.
All right, guys, So have some updates for you coming out of Israel's specially with regards to these ongoing potential ceasefire negotiations, so we can put this up on the screen. Another big screw you from bib to the US. He told Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln he will not agree to end the war on Hamas as part of the hostage deal. Of course it's been we're on the entire Gaza strip, but put that aside for a moment. He told him he wouldn't accept an end to the war.
He said, we are interested in reaching a deal and determined to topple Hamas. Israel conveys latest offerreed amaster Egyptian mediators late last week, expecting response Wednesday evening. We don't have an update for you this morning, and Israeli official told The Times of Israel. He also told Blincoln that a hostage deal with Hamas does not mean an invasion
of Rafa would be avoided. Details of this deal, sager, such as we know them is that you know Israel wants just a forty day ceasefire is basically what they have floated. Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire. The way this has been painted in Western media is basically Hamas is
the whole obstacle to any sort of a deal. But in reality, this is a negotiation and Israel's saying basically like, yeah, we'll pause for forty days, but then we promise we are going to still do our full on assault on Rafa, including the reporting that we provided earlier in the week, or that we shared with you earlier in the week about how the Israelis are setting up checkpoints to make sure that all military age men are stopped and kept in Rafa as that assault on that city, that planned
assault and ground invasion on that city proceeds. And you know, one thing I realized after we talked about that saga, which is really incredibly sick, is the way that the death numbers have been reported in the media and the way that Israel has interpreted the death numbers is basically, any man is deemed and assumed to be a Hamas fighter.
That's right.
So if you want to improve what the media is claiming to be your ratio of civilian to militant deaths, you just murder a lot of men. Innocent men, non innocent men. Any men are just characterized as some ass militants. So it's a great way to improve your supposed proportional death rate and be able to say, oh, all these men, they're all Hamas fighters, if you just massively slaughter thousands
and thousands of men. So I think that's part of the part of the strategy here in terms of what they're planning for Rafa.
No, yeah, it's very possible.
And again this is why the death numbers can't really be trusted on all sides. We really have no idea if unall likely, it's probably much higher than at whatever it is, what the proportion is, maybe ten years from now will be lucky if we ever find out. But you flagged this crystal there. It was a development with this Israeli minister smow Tritch.
I know you wanted to get to that.
Yeah, so you actually had an op ed in Haratz even calling for Smotrich to step down. He's the Israeli finance minister. So his word's a little bit more important than what some random nineteen year old may or may not have said on a college campus somewhere. That's just my personal opinion. On the media doesn't seem to see it that way. We can put some of his latest comments here up on the screen. He says, moments before redemption,
we must not hesitate, we must just destroy Rafa. Nuserret and dear al Balah wipe out the memory of Amelek. There's no half measure Rafa dear al balas absolute destruction. So just not even it's not even colorable. It's just out and out genocidal rhetoric from a top and very influential minister within the Netanyahu government. And you know why these statements matter is not just because they say, you know, this is what I always say. Oh, it's just you know,
it's heated rhetoric or it's populoust rhetoric or whatever. But it's also consistent and commeasure it with the actions that the government is actually taking. So it's not just that it's words. As you know, if you don't like a rally channel on a college campus, those are just words. Those college students don't have any actual ability to effectuate
the policies that they want to see and acted. This man, on the other hand, does, and so that's why it's important to pay attention to things that he's saying and the way that they match up with the reality of the way that they are prosecuting this onslaught. Let's go ahead onto the next one. So apparently Biden is really pinning a lot on these ceasefire talks, which don't frankly, seem to be going all that well because Israel is so insistent on no, we want to continue bombing your
children after the ceasefire ends. Let us put this up on the screen. This is Barack revied. He was just honored at the White House Corresponds dinner. By the way, Israel Hamas deal is the only hope for Biden's Middle East strategy. So in this report, he says, President Biden's been personally involved in intense efforts in recent days to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel Jimas, which he sees as a crucial element of a much wider
strategy at home and abroad. President's senior advisers say the deal on the table right now is the only conceivable path to a ceasefire in Gaza, possibly ending a war that has drawn sharp criticism of Biden among some of his key supporters ahead of the presidential election. Even White House spokesperson John Kirby admitted as much on Tuesday, saying he Biden's putting all his focus on the hostage deal. Quote.
There just has to be a deal, he said when asked about a Plan B. If negotiations aren't successful, temporary seaesfare could also turn into a permanent one, although Bobe's pretty clear he doesn't want that. That could allow the Biden administration to return in negotiations for a consequential mega deal with Saudi Arabia that the US was working on before October seventh. I'd love to hear your thoughts on
this supposed Saudi Arabia mega deal. This has been like the Biden Administration's fantasy from the beginning of this, and I think it's utterly absurd. The Saudis have come out multiple times and said there's no way we're doing this deal, and that's there's actually for real a Palestinian state, and yet the US keeps claiming that this is still like
somehow on the table. And the idea is that you'd have a ceasefire, ultimately a permanent ceasefire, and then Saudi would agree to normalization with Israel and exchange for a pathway to two state solution. Problem is Bibi Netanyahu's whole raison deetra is to prevent such a two state solution number one, and the Saudis have been, like I said, very clear that that's a non starter for them.
The other problem with that is that, yes, it's contingent on it two state solutions, contingent on Saudi recognition of Israel. Whenever nobody tells you, there's also contingent on a massive weapons transfer from the United States to Saudi Arabia.
Like defense guarantee.
For defense guarantee from US as well, which would put US even further into de facto war state if Iran were to ever attack them. That's the other thing. Do we all need another treaty alliance with Saudi Arabia? I don't think so, especially not you know, formalized in this manner, So it would only be an expansion of the US security umbrella. And even and here's the thing, I'm may be willing to trade it if we were actually going to get a two state solution, but I don't think
that that's on the table. So then what's the point of this entire thing, And that most likely would lead to the mega deal being instituted first prior to to state, then the Israelis would just never do it, and now we have to sell a bunch of arms in Saudi Arabia. Israel continues to get to do what they want, we continue to sell you know, all the weapons there.
So the whole thing is ridiculous.
Face, it's not hard to figure out what you would have to do to get to force some sort of a two state solution. Would have to completely withdraw their support for Israel and the weapons I mean, because the reason Israel acts with such insane like impunity and like the bullies that they are, and like you know, going around assassinating Iranian generals and embassies and doing whatever the hell they want to do is because they know we where their backstop. If we weren't there enabling all of this,
Suddenly the power balance is a little different. Suddenly their behavior is a little constrained. Suddenly there is some incentive to have to like, yeah, I guess we're going to have to figure this thing out and resolve it because we no longer have our you know, big buddies down the block to back us up and ship us our weapons and provide us with diplomatic cover and all of that. Like it's so clear that's the only way that this dynamic ultimately changes, not going to come through some like
fantasy deal that's never going to happen. With Saudi Arabia, and it's certainly not going to happen. By asking bb Nanya, who pretty please will you change your mind about something you've been adamant about for literally decades at this point not going to happen. Something that could have an impact in terms of maybe bringing this word and at some point in the future is Israeli domestic political opinion is very much in favor of some sort of a ceasefire
hostage deal right now. To put this up on the screen, this was a little surprising to me, Zagar. Over half of even right wing voters in Israel support a hostage deal, even at risk of having elections, which you know, understanding is bbe and that coalition could very much be at risk if they did have elections right now, So fifty one percent of center right and right wing voter support the signing of a deal to release the hostages being held by Hamas, even at the risk of disbanding the
coalition and going to elections. Overall, sixty six percent of the Israeli public supports signing such a hostage deal even if it leads to elections. Additionally, fifty seven percent of Israelis think that correctly. By the way, Mabe is the laying efforts to reach a hostage deal, with thirty eight percent of center right and right wing voters holding that same view. So even a sizable minority chunk of Bebe's
own voters believe he is blocking a hostage deal. And listen, the hostages have been used by Bibe and by his allies throughout this conflict to say, you know, anytime there's a call for ceasefire or whatever, it's like, why don't you call on them to release the hostage. Well, by the way, I haven't, many other people have as well, but it's also very clear they don't give a shit
about the hostages. Like they've killed more hostages than they've been able to rescue, so many of the hostages are probably dead now, which is unbelievably tragic because they've been in a war zone for seven months. They've been subject to the same starvation conditions. Now Israel's threatening to bomb the city where they claim their own hostages are likely held in Rafa, How do you think that is going
to be for the safety and security of hostages. So these really public which actually does care about the hostages, is seeing very clearly through this attempt to claim that the hostages are their number one priority when obviously obviously they're not. The only time when there was a significant release of hostages was when there was a ceasefire deal.
And yet we see Bebe delaying and dragging Speen and doing everything he can to avoid such a ceasefire deal because he is worried about his own political position of power.
And that's very clear, right, and let's go put the next one and please up there on the screen.
That's also very important.
This is incredible.
What the Israelis are basically saying is that if there is an ICC warrant that is issued against them, they will then punish the Palestinian authority and basically make it inoperable, which would lead to basically a collapse of the West Bank and any semblance of Palestinian governing authority which is already there and has remained shaky. And there's all this violence that continues there. So just to show you that they are willing to very much to flex their muscles,
you know, on their behalf. And there's a last thing here that I wanted to get in because this is further evidence of the biden A ministry complete subservience to the State of Israel, where they have now confirmed and are now discussing plans to bring refugees from Gaza to the United States.
Here's the White House talking about it as.
The administration considers bringing Palestinians here to the US as refugees. Do you know how many people that the US hopes to reocate? And secondly, given the challenges getting in and out of Gaza, will the US assist in physically bringing Palestinians.
Here besides of course getting the hostages home, but also creating an opportunity to get that more additional humanitarian aid in and would lead to a ceasefire. Now, in terms of the refugee admissions program, which is what I believe you're asking me about, we are constantly evaluating policy proposals to further support Palestinians who are family members of American citizens and may want to come to the United States. So we're evaluating it. I don't have anything to announces.
Here's why this is wrong, Cristel.
They just like the PEER, are assisting the Israelis in their project. What did the Israelis say whenever we built the Keer If any Peer, if anyone wants to leave, they can leave too, So we are building the peer and then they're like, oh, by the way, if they want to leave and get the hell out of this land, we're gonna want be the ones assisting and basically displacement from.
Their land to our land. The whole thing is utterly insane.
It only opens the door further to the Israelis being like, yeah.
Please take them. They've already said it.
Members of the Kanesset wrote in The Wall Street Journal November twenty twenty three, West should take all of the people from Gaza. Whenever they say what are you going to do the day after, they're like, we don't worry about that. That's America's problem. Us peacekeepers are the ones that should govern, So I think, listen to what they are trying to and we're assisting them. That's the most
outrageous part of this. This is under active consideration. Who knows how many thousands of these peop people going to come here? If they do, we know you and I know they're never going to leave. And this is one of those where it is a clear it is a benefit to the Israelis. It is a direct you know, playing into their hands of what they want to happen in this case, and that's what just drives me so nuts about this entire thing.
Yeah, I mean, this is where this Biden plan is guaranteed to piss off everyone across the political spectrum because on the you know, the right wing doesn't want refugees, doesn't want more brown refugees coming to the country.
Just brown any refugees. Well, so I'll say that at least some.
Yeah, some, it's very specifically brown refugees. The Ukrainian ones would be fine, but anyway, we'll go aside that debate for another day. The right doesn't want more refugees, and the left is like, oh, so you just are going to help Israel with their ethnic cleansing.
Ya yo, Yeah, that's what's happened.
Cool, Yeah, because I mean this is the same thing with you know, with regard to Egypt, there's always this put well, why doesn't Egypt just take people in? And it's like, well, okay, so first of all, they have, yeah, their own domestic concerns and their own economic at all that stuff, right, but also they don't want to help Israel with their ethnic cleansing plan. Listen, I'm happy to have Palestinians here, but that's not what Palestinians want. They
want their own home. They want to live in their home and be free. That's what they want, Okay. So this floating of we're gonna actually our humanitarian plan is to do that ethnic cleansing is just it's just astonishing that they would think that this is okay, that they think that this is something that the American people would be like favorable towards. Its incredible tone deafness. And then I just have to reflect also on that ICC news briefly,
which is also insane. If you if arresta warrants are issued, you're going to punish the Palestinian authority, which listen, I have no love for the Palestinian authority, and Palestinians have no love for the Palestinian authority because they're basically just like collaborators with the occupation regime. And you know, you can talk to Palestinis in West Bank about how they
feel about that. But how are these things connected. The claim is that the PA is like using all of their incredible might to pressure the ICC to issue these arrest warrants and the other thing that you know, I mean, it does sort of serve a Pea's interest because the thought is that it would likely be both Israeli figures and Hamas leaders, which I support in both directions by the way, But you know, I've come to realize that it's not just the threat against like bb and Yoov
Galant and whoever the other dude is that they floated that may be facing these arrest warrants that will constrain their international travel. I'm sure they don't like that idea, but it also raises the prospect of if you are an IDF soldier, anytime you travel abroad, which many Israelis hold, you know, dual citizenship, or travel you know frequently around the world, they may be getting asked when they're entering a country that signs onto the ICC, hey did you
fight in Gaza. So it is hugely impactful and I think very psychologically impactful for Israelis if these arrests, these arrest warrants actually go through. Now I want to say, apparently there was some previous Net and Yahoo freaking out about potential arrest warrants I'm talking about years ago that never never came to fruition. There are some analysts who are saying Hey, these aren't as like imminent as it's
being portrayed. I have no idea, but it is pretty it's a pretty stunning development, and it's also pretty wild. The way that is, it's not wild, it's it's sensical that the Israelis use everything they have in their toolkit and throw their weight around in every way possible and use whatever leverage they possibly can to get their way in a way that the US never ever ever does.
And the reason that the PA is important in the US is because this is our fig leaf of like a plant a day after a plan is you know, supposedly the PA is going to ride in and be the leaders in Gaza, which also is you know, a sort of preposterous notion that they would have legitimacy in that context.
No, you're absolutely right. Okay, let's move on to RFK Junior and some of the domestic news. There's been some major developments with Donald Trump and very clearly seeing RFK Junior as a major threat. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This was leaked to Politico. They say that RFK junior quote is all over conservative media and Trump's camp is very concerned, increasingly his frequent appearances are raising alarms at mar Lago quote a sign
on the rising threat that Kennedy poses to Trump. Kennedy has become popular, they say on Fox News and Newsmax. They're getting very upset watching him be interviewed by Ben Shapiro, Glenn Beck, and Megan Kelly, and they especially don't want him on quote Trump's turf. This is directly from the
campaign manager. It is concerning and beyond logic. The conservative platforms continue to give you a voice to someone that is called the NRA, a terrorist group who believes eliminating gas powered engine, believes in a seventy percent tax bracket, and generally subscribes to the same thought as a school of thought as Carl Marx. So another big sign of how afraid they are of RFK Junior was actually this, This really blew my mind.
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Donald Trump will be speaking at the Libertarian National Convention later this month. Thank you, by the way to Dave Smith who flagged this for me. He put out a statement saying that Libertarians are some of the most independent, thoughtful thinkers in our country.
I'm honored to join them. In Washington, DC later this month.
We must all work together to advance freedom and liberty for every American.
We will work together and win.
This was the biggest sign to me of how dangerous they view the RFK Junior threat, because RFK Junior specifically has got a lot of resonance amongst more libertarian minded Americans, specifically on the issue of vaccines. Now, Libertarian Party previously only drew a couple of percent or so away from Republicans in twenty sixteen and in twenty twenty, but when Junior projected to get some thirteen percent of the vote, it's a fight to the death for every single margin.
And this is it's very clearly an attempt.
Another thing that really I saw flagged is that the MAGA Warring account, which is like the account by the Trump campaign to surface clips damaging to opponents, and started tweeting all kinds of stuff against RFK Junior. Here's one of their latest ones, a clip of RFK Junior from I Think It's back in the nineteen nineties going after Republicans.
Here's what they tweeted.
Out, red state people are more likely to murder you to impregnate your teenage daughter to commit a violent crime against you, to commit a nonviolent crime against you, to watch Desperate Housewives on TV, to buy pornography, to buy, you know, degenerate video games like Grand Theft Atto.
He's not wrong on Grand Theft Auto. On the rest of it, it's a little complicated.
But Chris, I mean, all of this just shows us that they are freaking out right now, absolutely losing it because they can read a poll just like we can, where everybody thought it was gonna be bad for Biden, but a lot of the evidence now shows it's bad for Trump. You know what's interesting too, Junior just put out a new video where he really is putting himself up against Trump. He put out a challenge and he's like,
President Biden can't win. I'm challenging him to drop out, and then I will be the one who goes up against Trump. And you're like, wow, you're really you know, you're bringing it to Donald Trump here on every level on social media, the campaign is really, you know, going after you.
So it's very interesting what's happened.
I'm just I'm very amused by it because it's such a monster of their own making. You know, one of the one of the things that they're specifically freaked out about is how much he is a fixture of the like right wing conservative podcast. He's gone on with Ben Shapierr, is going with Megan Kelly, he's on Newsmax, he's on Fox News. And the way this happened is very clear. Like when he was in the Democratic primary, they love this guy. They loved him, they built him up, he
was great. They had him on because he was a nice cudgel against the Democrats, and now because he is ideologically like the things he's leaned into now are very coated right wing. And they built up his favorability among Republicans by embracing him during that time period, and you know, really sort of made him code with the Republicans as opposed to the Democrats. You can see his approval rating with Democrats is in the toilet, and his approval rating
with Republicans is sky high. So they got to do something to bring that down. The other thing that's interesting is, you know, his specifically his like anti vax stances are the thing that at this point that previously would have coded as liberal right, but now it codes very much as Republican. And the more people learn about his views on vaccines. The more Republicans are open to him, and the more Democrats are, you know, pushed away from him.
We've had some pulling that the Washington Post highlighted that was interesting to that effect where effectively So the headline hear polls show how RFK juniors appeal to anti vaccine right could hurt Trump. And they asked people whether they were aware that Kennedy claims that autism is linked to vaccines and that he's floated a theory that COVID was targeted at certain races. About half of Republicans said they were aware about six and ten Democrats said they were aware.
After they made people aware of that, then they asked them again, with this knowledge, would they consider voting for him. Suddenly, the percentage of Republicans who said they would consider Kennedy rose by eight percentage points. The percentage of Democrats who
said they would consider Kennedy dropped by seven points. So that's the other challenge I think that Trump is perhaps realizing is that the more people actually focus on Kennedy, focus on the race, learn about his views, the more appealing he is to potential Trump voters versus potential Biden voters. And you know, the other thing, Sager, is that on the vaccine specifically, this is an area where Trump is
a little shaky. He's a little shaky because he's the guy who you know, Operation Warp speed and made it happen, and you know, he was in charge during COVID and this was something that DeSantis tried to capitalize in his primary run against Trump, and there wasn't enough constituency for it during a primary run. But you're not talking about
RFK having to out and out win. You're talking about are there a few percentage points of people who this is their number one issue and they feel like Trump kind of failed them there and RFK saying all the right things on this issue. I think that's entirely a plausive.
Absolutely, It's all a game of margins. That's where we're discussing. That's why Trump is going to the Libertarian Convention. RFK Junior is the biggest threat both to Biden and to Trump on the ballot that we've seen since Ross Puro and since nineteen sixty eight. So how all these individuals handle this is going to be really really interesting. Let's
move on to the housing section. We would drop this from our Tuesday show because we had to interview Jill Stein, but we didn't want to skip out on it because there's actually some good news we want to make sure we included in our show. Let's put it up there on the screen. Wall Street quote has spent billions buying homes. Now a crackdown is looming, so this is really good.
It says that Democrats in the House and in the Senate have now sponsored legislation that would specifically force large owners of single family homes to have to sell houses to family buyers. There's now a Republican bill also in Ohio to drive out institutional owners through very heavy taxation. Similar laws being considered in Nebraska, California, New York, Minnesota,
North Carolina. Homeowners associations right now are also trying to crack down on investors from buying and renting out houses in their neighborhood. And all of the legislative proposals quote represent a new effort by elected officials to regulate Wall
Street's appetite for single family housing. So, according to the Wall Street Journal, from the latest data that has come out, they have found that the highest level ever of single family homes were purchased by investors by portfolio size in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, and twenty twenty four, respectively, and in each case you're actually seeing a huge increase in the number of people who actually have over one
thousand homes inside of their company. From twenty twenty two on we've seen a massive expansion of that crystal and even people who own between one hundred and ninety nine houses. So what's happening right now is that you'll have smaller investor groups that dabble in this stuff, then they get rolled up into a larger private equity group, people like Blackstone, Blackrock and others. And the overall effect of this is that we have a huge housing shortage right now in
the country. This is driving up the house It also means that these people have tons of cash that they're disposally and come in with an all cash offer. But the danger is that when you gobble up all of the houses there in that market, you can stabilize the rent and increase it to wherever you want drop services. And then more importantly, you know, a single family landlord is somebody who at least usually lives in the same area.
Maybe you know, they can come over something if the if the dryer is broken, you know, something like that. But when you're dealing with the corporation, you know, good luck getting your services better, right, you know, and they're going to charge you double for something.
Yeah, and we've covered here the way that more and more of these companies are using algorithms to collude and you know, extract higher rent from individuals in these markets. So basically, this is a situation that's bad for renters. It's bad for would be homeowners who want to buy that first, that first home as they start a home, but starter homes aren't really a thing or given the average price tag is just insane, and and I think this is why this actually has a shot at getting through.
It's also bad for existing homeowners who don't like that their neighborhoods are being bought off and turned into rentals because they feel like, you know, renters are less committed to the area. And whether this is true or not, but it is true that you're less like exactly that's I mean. But that's the thing is Nimby's are extraordinarily powerful, like actual homeowners are extraordinarily powerful, and so I only think.
I think the reason why this has so much traction and actually has a shot at becoming something you have a little bit of bipartisan interest in support, is because you've pissed off homeowners. They don't they don't like this direction. So it's you know, they don't like it for like I said, you know, sort of questionable Nimmi reasons, but it is what it is. And then it's bad for would be home owners? Is it bad for renters? So
you put that up against you. On the other side, you have very powerful interest in terms of these like Wall Street firms that are buying up all this real estate, and it becomes an actual battle where you do have some powerful interests on both sides.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And the reason why this matters is that right now housing affordability again is at near record low level.
So let's go put this up there on the screen.
I wanted everybody to see specifically at what's happening right now with mortgage rates, where we have seen a stabilization at seven percent, which is incredibly high historically, may have dropped a little bit over the last couple of months, but only by point one or two percent. So we're now in a situation where if you have an eight hundred credit score, the best credit score that exists, you're still more getting a mortgage rate of some seven point
one percent. And if you are in the average credit score, let's say under eight six eighty or something like that, you're getting what seven point three at seven twenty or get seven point two. I mean, these are very very high interest rates. And just to normalize that, I mean, if put a twenty percent down payment and you do an average, you know, thirty year mortgage, the vast majority of your payments for the first several years are just
gonna be interesting. You're basically just renting your house from the bank and building up like tiny little slivers of home equity, as opposed to if you have a two or a three percent mortgage rate like they had in
the past. So this is the danger is that right now, not only are you gonna need that's twenty percent or whatever to avoid PMI if you're trying to put down something like that, but that your mortgage payment is gonna be so high even with a very very good credit score, that it reduces the overall top line number of what is even accessible to you, making those banks even more competitive whenever they are working in this and there is no sign of anybody coming to save you.
Let's put this up there please on the screen.
The Federal Reserve just announced yesterday that they will be holding interest rates steady. No sign that it will cut soon as the quote inflation fight stalls.
That's questionable in terms of what all that means.
But the bottom line is that the expected election day cuts that we're supposed to come between now and November, yeah, it's not happening. Jerome Powell from basically what Fed Walkers and all those have shown Crystal, they're not cutting until November, until after election day. So, by the way, whoever wins the election is going to be a lucky sob because the economy is going to do super well.
After Biden was really hoping for these.
Rate cuts, hoping and praying, yeah, that's what they needed.
That's why it was really important these last couple of inflation numbers that came in hotter than expected and showed their you know, were still issues there. And instantly a lot of analysts had been thinking that the Fed may well cut rates at the next session, and instantly that was basically off the table. And even the prospect of them raising rates came into into you know, plausible reality.
But what we see here is their holding rate study that means no relief for mortgage interest rates, you know, no sort of like fueling the economy and the way that Biden would hope going in to election day, and
I do it. You know, it's obviously it's extremely important politically because as much as the abortion is incredibly critical and you know, very understandably emotional for a lot of people and very motivating for a lot of people, as much as the unconditional support for Israel is for young voters especially, you know, significant issue and probably going to drive a lot of voting behavior. Still overwhelming with the issue that you know, many people say is their number
one is the economy. I mean, this is classic politics, one on one. So the assumption that had been made here for at least a little while so that the economy was going to continue to improve leading up to election day, and now that's a lot that picture is a lot fuzzier and a lot more challenging for Biden.
So I'm sure he's not happy about this news. But you know, the mortgage indust rates being the mortgage rates being what they are is pretty pretty astonishing, and typically when you have this sort of situation, you'll see prices drop to reflect that in creased costs. But because you have such a limited supply and you know, partly driven by some of the Wall Street acquisitions, but also just overall picture, it's meant that you haven't gotten that break.
So it really is sort of worst of all worlds in terms of housing market.
For it's bad, it's also it's just dry. Borrowing costs are so high right now.
You know, good luck to anybody who's trying to get a loan or anything like that, even a car loan. I mean, I think car loan's out there are like thirteen fourteen percent right now, which is wild. Yeah, some of the Texans who were paying you know, the average car payment in Texas is like twelve hundred dollars. Yeah, you guys need to stop buying such expensive trucks. Do you really need the big Dot dram or whatever it's
is it the raptor? I see a life, oh thet I was just down in Texas and I was looking around. I'm like, why do you end up in my parents' suburban neighborhood. I'm like what do all you people need a truck for no offense? Like, I know that it's fun and probably is, you know, fun to drive, But what do we do when it's been in seventy grand truck when you're not all in anything. If you actually need it, that's a different story. But my point is just that it's making fun in life right now.
It's it's a little bit too telling.
Most people who actually need it aren't getting like the fancy luxury ones.
I've always have the same you now, Yeah, every time I see actual ranchers, all them, they're driving like a Toyota, the Coma or something that is unbreakable.
But one fifty one school, I think it looks cool.
It certainly does, but I've only driven a truck a couple of times.
I'm not sure it's for me. Let's move on to Congress.
This is the most important segment I think in terms of what matters for Washington. As you can all see the uniparty, it rewards those who do their bidding, and so there has been a motion to vacate effort against Speaker Mike Johnson by Marjorie Taylor Green and by Thomas Massey in retaliation for passing the aid to Ukraine and to Israel. However, Marjorie is now actually being attacked by even pro Maga Republicans who are like, hey, hold on a second, and she's getting an assist by the Democrats.
So here she is asked by CNN, why are you going against Donald Trump's wishes and doing a motion to vacate against Speaker Mike Johnson.
And here's what she had to say.
Former President Trump has said positive things about the speaker and has said he doesn't favor a motion to vacate.
Aren't you defying the former president's wishes?
Absolutely not. I'm the biggest supporter of President Trump, and that's why I probably wear this Maga hat. I fight for his agenda every single day, and that's why I'm fighting here against my own Republican conference to fight harder against the Democrats.
Mike Johnson has fully funded.
The Department of Justice that wants to put President Trump in jail.
So, as you guys can see right there, I mean, Marjorie is fighting. But this really doesn't matter now because the Democrats have basically made it a moot point, and Mike Johnson is actually in the most powerful position that he's been in in a long time, ever since that Ukraine and Israeli had passed. Here he is in responding to Marjorie Taylor Green in a recent interview, Let's take a listen.
Talk about your future. Yeah, Marjorie Taylor Green, H.
No fan of yours.
H that's herd.
Is she a serious lawmaker? I don't think she's proving to be.
No.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about her. I got to do my job, and we do the right thing, and we let the follow they may. And that's that's my philosophy. That's how we're governing. We're gonna we're going to keep the train on the tracks and show the American people that not just what we're against, but what we're for. That there's a conservative agenda that is necessary to get the country back on the right track. And the way to what for us to do that
is to keep and grow the House majority. Descending into chaos and closing the house down and vacating the chair again is exactly the opposite.
It's the opposite of what needs to happen, of course, because whenever you pay the piper, thenever you get rescued. Here is a friend of the show, Glenn Greenwald, flagged just how much of a double face you know, person Mike Johnson has turned out to be.
Here's what he used to sound like.
On the issue of PISA whenever he was interviewed by Glenn, and then recently he just passed the Pfizer reauthorization.
Here's what he sounded like. That is what keeps us up at night, Glenn.
We're worried about what has become of these agencies that have such broad and expensive powers.
Do you see what I mean.
He's not just saying he's going to vote yes or no. He's saying this issue, this concern is so pressing to me that it keeps me up at night. The secrecy of the FBI, the ability of the US Security State to spy on American citizens with no limits, it keeps him up at night. He said, just in July of twenty twenty three.
Bring legislative reforms to do our best to ensure that these abuses cannot happen again in the future.
He said.
The only thing we can do is bring legislative reform to ensure these abuses do not happen again. He becomes speaker, there's pending legislation to do exactly that, that has bipartisan support, to do exactly that, to reform the powers of the US Security States so they can no longer spy on us in a secret and abuse their spying powers and other powers for politicized domestic ends.
He said, that's the thing I'm to do. Sickening.
It's sickening, Crystal, It's incredible out face. And here's the best part. You know, it's before you weigh in. Let's put this up there on the screen. Democrats are going to save him. They've decided and they've announced that they will. They will rescue Mike Johnson when he faces that ousterro vote. Why Marjorie Taylor Green sometime next week. They got to pay him off in in you know, in exchange for that Ukraine Aid passage that just happened.
He wanted that Israel Aid to go through. I mean, that was his He made it really clear. He made it really clear as soon as he got in. First person called his baby at Niya who first thing he
passed with some resolution about anti Semitism or whatever. It's not only the the Fies apiece, but he also you know, his house just passed this bill codifying as hate speech criticism of the government of Israel, and so once they had that into him and it was like very clear that the only way to get it through was to package that with Ukraine Aid and all these other things. Guess what, That's what he was going to do. So it is astonishing to me that the Democrats are going
to save this guy. Like I I understand it from an ideological perspective, because the minute that he passed their Ukraine Aid they were like calling him Churchill literally Churchill.
Yeah, They're like, this is his nineteen thirty eight music moment.
I just can't selling weapons to Ukraine and bankrupting.
America absolutely incredible, absolutely incredible. So you know, ideologically they're very aligned. They got is. They also probably see him as easy to manipulate, because he probably is because he's very inexperienced. He came out of nowhere, and now they're like, you know, can take him into some classified briefing and scare the shit out them and get him to do whatever the hell they want him to do. Pretty much
from that perspective, I understand it. From another tactical perspectives, how I don't, because there were some rumors that if you did have a successful motion of vacate and you threw it back into this like previous chaos, there were some rumors that there were a couple of modern Republicans who were actually going to switch parties. Yeah, that were reported, so and that's all it would take to flip the House to the Democrats. So it's like, Okay, well, why
wouldn't she try? Wouldn't you try for that, just as you know, power exercise whatever. Not to mention the fact that these chaotic periods for the Republicans, for your average American who's not paying too much attention that ends announced, they just look at it and like, these people aren't serious, they can't government, like they're fighting with themselves constantly, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, personally, I think there should be more tension within these call because I think there
should be more of these battles, et cetera. But I think the way it reads the American people is just as chaos, and so I don't know also why they would want to rescue the Republicans from that. But hey, the ukraineate, I guess, is so important to them that now that they've got their guy in there who's willing to do whatever it takes to get it through. They're going to stick with that.
Yeah, this is what it looks like.
And it's just like, this is the most extraordinary thing that's happened in modern Congress in the last thirty forty years. I mean, you have a speaker who uses democratic votes when the majority of his party votes against something to pass aid. I mean, and this is you know, everybody talks about we can't norms and we got to worship norms and all that. They break it for one reason, not for aid for us, nothing to do with us. It's for aid to foreign powers, like this is the
altar of which they worship. So and they get rewarded for it, They get awarded applied. You know, Mike Johnson is stronger today than he has at any point in his speakership for two reasons. This anti Semitism bs that we started our show with. You know, he's united as caucus, he's got the Columbia Act, Richie Torres and Gotttheimer backing him. The Democrats got their Ukraine aid. The Republicans are backing their speaker standing up against campus protesters.
So this is what it looks like.
This is what actual like majority rule looks like, and it's not favorable. So I agree, let's go back to chaos. I think it's a more beneficial to the country. All right, last thing here, we put this in there at the last minute, and we'll do our best just to tell you the full story because this is absolutely nuts. Let's put this up there on the screen. Another Boeing whistleblower
has died. So whistle blower Josh Dean, he was a whistleblower from supplier Spirit Arrow Systems, died on Tuesday morning, according to them, after struggling with a fast spreading infection. So Josh Dean was forty five year old man. He was in good health quote noted for healthy lifestyle. According to them, he was admitted to the hospital two weeks ago where he became sick with pneumonia. He was intubated
and then suffered from MRSA. Now I agree MURSA is certainly, you know, a deadly thing and affects people in the hospital, but the circumstances are still a little bit fishy because literally just weeks ago he was actively involved in giving a deposition against Spirit shareholders in a lawsuit filed in a complaint against with the FAA alleging quote serious and gross misconduct by quality management on seven thirty seven at Spirit Error Systems. For people who don't know, Spirit Error
Systems is a separate company from Boeing. It was spun off from Boeing back in I think it was the nineties or some two thousands it was sold off, but it's the exclusive supplier of the Boeing wide body aircraft to Boeing. Now it's being rebought by Boeing. For all
intents and purposes, it's Boeing. So this is another whistleblower involved, you know, with the This is the company which directly was responsible for that door plug manufacture, and he's at the heart of FAA complaints and whistleblowing against the company. And then you know, just dies suddenly in just what a two week circumstance, after reaching the probably the highest level of prominence and Boeing whistleblowers have ever been in.
So it's very shocking and it's disturbing to see that some of.
This is happening.
Yeah, and obviously comes on the heels up right. Another consequential Boeing whistleblower killing himself. And you know, obviously that individual had told friends like if I turn up dead, I did not kill myself. So with regards to mister Dean, he had told Spirit managers about miss drilled holes in seven thirty seven fuselage components parts that were then sent to Boeing, and he claims that those supervisors knew about
those subpart parts and allowed them those unsafe products. And he also claims that he was directly retaliated against and
lost his job because of raising these concerns. He was very consequential as a whistleblower, not only because of how Spirit was, you know, at the heart of this door plug that blew out mid air, but as Sagar just referenced, he also was really critical to this shareholder lawsuit against Spirit, claiming that because of these sorts of you know, just commitment to nothing but the bottom line and not caring about safety, that they mismanaged the company in a way
that really damaged these shareholders. So his testimony was really critical to this massive shareholder lawsuit against the company. So this was a very significant individual, both in terms of the door plug issue specifically and also in terms of potential massive you know, financial legal consequences for the company because of the shareholders.
Yeah, exactly, and now he's dead and you know, look, it's just one of those where clearly there needs to be an actual investigation. You know, these people's lives possibly could be at risk, and these are very fishy circumstance is that last whistleblower. The South Carolina Police have not issued any new update.
Don't forget.
Boeing is one of the most important companies in the state of South Carolina where all of this happened. These people genuinely, you know, according to them, are at risk, suffered retaliation. One of the whistleblowers testifiable for Congress, and one of his managers said that if he had spoken that way, they would have had him killed in a meeting. So it's not outside the realm of possibility. There's billions of trillions of dollars, you know, possibly at stake care.
Possible well criminal liability depending on whatever the hell went down. We don't know what may be hidden here, certainly from the public eye. But all these Boeing whistleblowers that are out there, they need security, they need protection, they need people tasting their food and all the rest because for two of them to die in a short period of time raises a lot of eyebrows.
That's right.
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