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.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent.
Coverage that is possible.
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.
All right, Good morning, wealthy counterpoints. Very little bit of housekeeping because most of you have figured this transition out by now. If you haven't, the email support at locals dot com is actually like, there are real people on the other side of it who are tasked with answering your questions.
Yes, they will answer them.
Yeah, Like, it's not just a black hole that you're going to send your complaints into, So be polite because it is going to go to a real person support.
At locals dot com. If you've had any issues, make sure to connect your email, check your inbox. Obviously we're doing the transition this week, but if you had any issues, there are real people on the end of support at locals dot com and we're working right now. On Spotify connectivity, but that problem should be fixed soon. I appreciate you guys all hanging in there with us during this little
transition period. But we're super excited and everything has been going well with Breaking Points this week because Ryan's been around with the Magic Tide Grow show. But welcome to Counterpoints. On that note, we have a great show. We actually have Gabriel Shipton coming in here and just a bit Julian Assange's brother because we're going to talk about the big updates in the Assage case. We're going to start
today with elections around the country. It's obviously an election year, which means primary results continue to trickle in on Tuesdays, some really interesting ones. Last night, we'll have updates from Israel. The Associated Press saga that played out yesterday with AP cameras.
Bill Maher was on the view for some reason.
And that's great. We're going to talk about that.
Yeah, love that for him, love that for them.
A really interesting poll on generational differences on some really key things from gen Z and the Baby. We're going to dive into all of that. We're going to talk about scar Joe, the Scarlett Johansson, Open Ai debacle basically, and then we'll close with Gabriel, who we're excited to have in studio, and.
I'll tell my story of partying with Scarlett Johansson back when I worked at the Huffington Post and used to be cool.
I didn't want to bring it up because I didn't know how off the record it was. But stay tuned for this because it actually is a good story. All right, But let's start with elections. A one up on the screen in Kentucky's fourth congressional district last night.
Thomas Massey.
Let's just call him a friend of the show, because I feel like there aren't many Republican congressmen that we can say that about.
But here at the Breaking.
Points universe from his universe and said he wants to come on the show. Said, of course, come on.
Good We admire Thomas Massey's If we admire Thomas Massey for one particular thing, it's his courage and standing up against political correctness, frankly, even when it's inconvenient for a Republican. So there was some to do made about Thomas Massey in his re election bid. He cleaned up last night about seventy six percent of the vote. You can see that on the screen here from the New York Times as of right now with ninety five percent of the votes.
And rent I looked it up.
He got sixty five percent of the vote back in twenty twenty two, so he actually did better better this go around, despite as you've reported, APAC targeting members of Congress, including him, because he's pushed back on some of the very broad language and bills that have been sort of symbolic bills, ones that you know, people on both sides have said are important symbolic bills on both sides of these bills, but about Israel and anti Zionism versus anti Semitism.
And Massy's been one of the few Republican voices of reason.
And you can tell how much they must hate Thomas Massey if they're willing to spend money to support a Scotch Irish guy ThEC Guinness down there. It was probably pretty hard to find a candidate in Kentucky who's not.
Scotchi, right, Yeah, that would be a real challenge.
Yeah, But so yeah, Thomas Massey with standing nowhere near the amount of a pack money that they're spending against squad members and squad aligned members. But you know, well into the six figures, like, yeah, nothing nothing to sneeze.
At a lower Republican primary, right, and you.
Know one extraordinarily convincingly.
So that should that should send a message in kind of Trump districts that you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or million dollars of a PAC money is not going to knock you off.
Take us up to Portlandia, Bryan, Really, to a very could be a port sketch this election.
A couple of million dollars can knock you off in Portland, Yes, all right, so we can put put this element up. So we've been following this for the last couple of weeks, and the climax here, Maxine Dexter, the APAC backed candidate in Portland's race, ends ended up beating Soushila Jaya Paul and Eddie Morales in kind of a three way race in a fairly convincing fashion. They're still counting the votes's mail in ballots, but the last I checked was over
fifty percent, almost beating Giapaul by two to one. Giapaul was considered, if you're just checking in on this race now, to be the front runner in this race a month ago, and then a month ago, millions of dollars of dark money started being spent through two superpacks, one called three fourteen Action Fund, which says it's a pro science superpack, and the other one called Americans for Responsive Government or Voters for a Responsive Government, which a brand new super
pac never existed before it was launched on April first, which meant that it doesn't didn't have to disclose its donors until May twentieth, it started spending. Collectively, they spent millions of dollars against Giapaul and for Dexter. In the entire time, Dexter was saying she had absolutely no idea where this money could possibly be coming from. And I've talked to people close to her, talk to people inside three fourteen, they all say everybody knew where.
This money was coming from. It was APAC.
We then know that from FEC records that she herself, I've got one hundred one thousand dollars from APACK donors, but yesterday on I guess no. Two days ago, on May twentieth, the day before the election was held, American Voters for Responsive Government was finally required to file with the FEC and this was when we expected that we would learn about their donors. And if you can put up this element here here it is they filed an
FEC report. Emily, take a look at that. Look, oh, you never seen anything like that.
No, just zero's I've never seen anything like When you tweated that, I was like.
Cash on hands, zero this, you know, zero zero zero zero.
And so what they're what they're clearly saying there is that whoever we got this money from would be too toxic even with one day before the race to disclose publicly.
Now explain to people, well, how they get away with that?
Yeah, So what they're basically going to do is they're going to file an amended return with the FEC, which will disclose who their donors are and say, whoops, you know, who could have seen how did this happens? We turned in the wrong paper, this this one was onto the couch.
This is our fault.
FEC will then find them and they will then peel off from their stack of bills and the FVC the money and even you know, probably throw a little tip at the regulator while they're at it, because they can, because who cares.
It's not criminal, right, it's.
Not falsifying business records, yes.
Well, and for campaign related purposes.
Can you write now, if there's a porn star involved somewhere, then then maybe the New York Attorney General will find a way to have some some type of jurisdiction over that.
Yeah. Uh so Yeah, basically they're just going to pay the.
Fine and not tell you, you know, where the money came from until after the election.
I don't think you can even just be clear enough about what you've reported here over the last couple of weeks when you have.
You have somebody who is this was a really close race.
It was like tightly packed even you know, I'm reading organ media and from organ public broadcasts. You know, like the policy differences were not you know, obvious between any.
Of these progressive Democrats, Right, Dexter.
Announced later than everyone else. Uh.
It just is crazy how the money swept in. It doesn't always happen this way, but when it does, it's so obvious, it's so clear exactly what happened.
Uh, and that's what happened here.
Yeah.
And what APAC discovered in a couple of other races Summer Leaves in particular, was that because a pack is primarily funded not exclusively but primarily funded by Republicans who also give money to Republicans Trump McCarthy whoever, that it's not necessarily the pro Israel money that hurts them in the Democratic primary among kind of normy Democratic voters, although I think it is in place like Portland right now that is a problem given what Israel is doing in Gaza.
But in general, what Summer Elite hit her opponent for was not taking pro Israel money, with not taking a pac money, but was for.
Taking Mega money.
Yeah, because it fits into the hyper polarized kind of partisan nature, because it's a democratic primary, Like the people voting in Democratic primaries are hardcore Democrats.
I was gonna say, speaking of which, this is a really deep blue district. So if you're wondering why this particular primary is a big deal, it's because that's basically who's won the general election. This is the race to replace Earl blumen Hour in that district.
So you could imagine that if it were reversed and let's say George Soros and a bunch of other like let's say Harvey Weinstein's not in jail and they are supporting a super pack, that is then playing in Republican primaries, spending millions of dollars against one Republican to pick up another one. Yeah, you would imagine the other Republican be like, this is just a bunch of Democrat money.
Yeah, absolutely, Hollywood money.
Yeah, absolutely, Yes, it's crazy, It's absolutely crazy. And on that note, let's move over to California's twentieth district.
That's Kevin McCarthy's was an interesting one.
Yes, while we're doing congressional districts, our last stop on this tour of American elections last night would be a California's twentieth district, where there's a huge spending advantage to Vince Fong, who was kind of handpicked.
By Kevin McCarthy.
People refer to him as Kevin McCarthy protege to take that seat in California's Central Valley.
It's a pretty interesting, heavily agricultural.
District, Bakersfield, Bakersfield rusty.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
And so he won handily sixty percent of the vote. He was endorsed by Donald Trump. People say there's really no daylight between Kevin McCarthy and him on most main issues.
But what's interesting is his opponent.
I think he's a sheriff and also a long time fixture in the area. He interestingly enough, was endorsed by Trump like figures, so Rick Gronell who served in the Trump administration. But Fong had McCarthy's backing. He had all the money and he had Trump's backing. So that's where that ended up in California Central Valley in the twentieth I.
Would think in that district, if you've got McCarthy and Trump else not going to push you over the time.
It's not going to be Rick Garnell.
But all this is say, yeah, it's not like he was some crazy, you know, fringe figure.
He did bring other.
You got over thirty percent, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, which is impressive enough for a primary. But Ryan, we've got to get back to Portland. We've got to get back to Portland because that DA race.
Yeah, so the other key race in Portland, and because it's a Democratic primary. This is basically it pitted the incumbent progressive district attorney named Mike Schmidt, not to be confused with the Hall of Fame Third Basement for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Well, do you know that it's always sunny in Philadelphia a bit about Mike Schmidt.
I don't think I've seen that.
You don't know who Mike Schmidt is, You'll have to watch it.
Oh, I think I have seen this. Mike Schmidt was my when I was a kid, was an absolute hero, like worshiped, absolutely worshiped Mike Schmidt. So it's very hard for me to see what happened to this other Mike Schmidt out in Portland, Oregon.
We might have just ruined it for you.
So basically, he was challenged from the right by another prosecutor who was a Republican right up until Trump was elected, and he switched parties and became a Democrat because you know, I guess a never Trump type Republican, but it's tough
on crime prosecutor. And he ran his race against Measure one ten, which was the that was the measure that decriminalized drugs and said, you know, treatment over incarceration in Moltnoma County and which a lot of people in Maltnoma County blame for not actually moving people into treatment and instead just kind of creating kind of open air drug markets and drug dens.
Basically all over Portland. People were also very.
Upset at policing, the police just not responding anymore.
Police strikes.
Plus you know, the protests continuing to this day, like the George Floyd protests basically in Portland have never stopped.
You got a hardcore group of people out there that are.
Like just their pastime is like smashing up the Bank of America. And at some point people like, okay.
We'll get it.
We'll get it with the Bank of America. And so this guy Vazquez ran against if we can put this next element element up here, this was Jon and Martin kind of uh, foreshadowing this this race.
He went out to do a.
Little fly into Portland and you know, correctly called that the wind the political wins in Portland are blowing to the right. Yes, and there was some backlash brewing here.
Those are the center, I guess maybe.
Well to the right of where they are. Yeah, they're certainly not going to the right yet in Portland. Uh. And so it looks like Mike Schmidt is going to lose.
Like, yes, I don't know if it's been absolutely called yet, but it's basically over down.
By fourteen thousand votes as of early this morning.
It's going to be very tough for him to make that up, and he gave a sort of concession last night.
Let's roll a little bit of Schmid's explanation for why he thinks he lost this race.
Well, I think, you know, I talked to a lot of voters, and I've heard a lot of frustration about long nine to one one wait times, about police officers not showing up, about when they see a case dismissed for lack of a public defense attorney. And I think if you're a community member, you just see things not working. And so I think, you know, that's probably what we've seen so far in the early results, and we'll still see more to come out, but we've seen so far
in the early results is probably a manifestation of that frustration. Well, I think what we saw was a rollout of Measure one ten that didn't really hit the mark.
You know.
I think when people voted, myself included, we wanted treatment to be there and available to people.
That's why we wanted to do that.
And obviously, at the same time, a pandemic hit our community in fentanyl on our streets, and the treatment wasn't there, and so I think people lost patients with that type of approach.
But you know, I'm hopeful that we stay with our.
Focus on helping people who are addicted get treat I think that's the key and that's how we're actually going to make progress on this fight.
You know, there's so many things that I look back and proud of.
Rebuilding the office, you know, bringing up the staffing. I'm very proud of that, helping rebuild the infrastructure, but also a lot of the disparity work with the Justice Integrity Unit. We've doubled, more than doubled the number of wrongful convictions
found in Waltmamont County. We've corrected those. You know, We're helping people get their records expunched so they can get jobs, they can get into housing, they can go to their kids basketball practice, you know, and those are the folks who have earned those expungements so the records can be clear.
So I'm very proud of a lot of the work that we've done with the as office.
So this ties into the Giapaul race in the sense that Giapaul was herself. She retired, resigned from the Moltnoma County Commission in order to run for Congress, and when the Apac back super PACs came in. The thing that they attacked her for was being on the Moltnomah County
Board and not solving the homelessness crisis. The homelessness crisis was a proxy for everything else going on in Portland, And what we learned in Summer les Race, for instance, is not only was she able to hammer her opponent for taking MAGA money, she was just utterly squeaky clean. There was nothing that they could hit her on, like no stray comment that it could even be taken out of context. They just had to basically use old racist tropes to try to go after her like they had nothing.
And so all the money in the world has a harder time breaking through if you don't have anything to cling onto. And with Giapaul, they basically tied the entire County Commission around her, and they said.
You don't like the ads were basically you don't like.
That the County Commission didn't fix homelessness, don't reward Giapaul with an elevation to Congress. And if people really loved what the County Commission was doing, dads wouldn't have worked quite as well as they did, even though they were filled with lies and saying like they literally said that she was abusing puppies and yeah cats.
Yeah, it was crazy over the top.
Step so really Christy Nome behavior.
Yeah, but it fit exactly, but it fit into a feeling of among Portlanders that that things.
Were not going well after the passage of this measure one ten.
And speaking of that connection, Blumenauer himself even criticized it
as malpractice. That's quoted in the implementation of the referendum, and the Jonathan Martin piece ties this into the big national story, which is you've had Kim Fox didn't run again in the Chicago area, would there have been all kinds of issues with crime since the pandemic and drugs and you know, just typical from what a lot of big cities, even right here, have dealt with in different ways, especially since twenty twenty and obviously for a long time,
but especially acute in the years after the pandemic and the pandemic itself. Jonathan Martin so mentioned George Gascone, who's facing a challenge in November. Chesatboudine obviously was recalled. The other person I would mention in all of this is London Breed. The mayor of San Francisco who did a similar see saw to what you're seeing in some places in Portland, where it's like we can run on this experiment with this and then when the public is unhappy with the results, you have to sometimes.
Take an out London. Breed definitely took the.
L Where I disagree with Jonathan on that is that and also Breed was the right wing candidate in that runoff in San Francisco. And so anything that she's a Democrat, yes, all are all Democrats out there unless they're green. So anything that she did, it was only because she was pressured to do it, and then she backed off the very second she could. When she had a chance to appoint people to the as supervisors, she appointed like the literally the spokesperson for the cops.
Like that's who she put on the on.
The board of supervisors when she had an opportunity. If you look at Dallas, Houston, you look at you look at a ton of other even small town DA races, they're doing really well.
Chase A. Boudin is like the outlier which and they were.
Trying to this is the San Francisco and they were trying to they were trying to yank him out of office before he was even sworn in, and spent millions to do it, and things have not gotten better, Like they're like all Chase his fault well and Karen Bath so much yeah Ca and so a bunch of progressive das have hung on. I think there's I wouldn't over read too much about what's going on in Portland. Portland, I don't think anybody would disagree is a unique city.
Yeah, I mean I agree with that.
Uh.
And what what what defenders of the policy will say is that and this sounds like, you know, true communism has never been tried. Was that they didn't actually ever
implement a policy. They talked about implementing a policy, and they passed half the laws, but then the Moltnoma County Commission and they deserve blame for this, This is not cope, just devolved into infighting and left money unspent, uh and engage in these little petty turf wars and so never actually came up with a coherent policy of what does the post George Floyd and post drug policy reform world
look like? Instead, they just kind of ended what they had been doing before, combined with a police strike and then didn't put anything in its place, and people are like, you know what, We'll just go back to.
The old thing. At least that was it. At least that was least that was something. And we're going to this on our Counterpoints.
Friday is going to be drug policy debate, focusing mostly on marijuana rescheduling. Yeah, so we can talk about this more later and on that show. So I'm sure Kevin Sabat, who's going to be who's going to be our anti guy in this debate, is going to be extraordinarily excited about Mike Schmid losing.
Final thought, just on this block would be going back to the point you made on London Breed, which is there was and I think your book even speaks to this, there was an enthusiasm about the public's response to some progressive fantasy bucket list items that started to surge at a different time, and then after the pandemic, the political winds have blown in another direction, and you've seen certain
Democrats respond to that in different ways. And I feel like that's this election season, we'll have some stuff that kind of shows us how different parts of the country are dealing.
With that excellent plug for the book, Oh you want for that? And meanwhile, crime is way down around the country, like the kind of what depends on the pandemic crime surge that we saw seeing that come down.
It depends on where, it depends on what kind of crime. But yes, it's not the media coverage is not exactly the true story and that shouldn't surprise anybody.
Yes, indeed, all.
Right, well we can actually go ahead and put this first headline from CNN up on the screen. It just says, Israel reverses on seizure of AP camera feed after intense backlash, and you know that pretty much sums it up, just reading from the lead of the CNN story. In a sharp reversal, Israel said Tuesday it would return camera and broadcast equipment it had ceased from the Associated Press in the southern Israeli city of How do I say that DA on Tuesday, after the action prompted swift backlash from
US officials and press groups. Swift backlash might be an understatement. What did you make actually of how the US responded.
When they seized Their pretext for seizing the AP camera was that Al Jazeera, which they have banned from operating in the occupied territories or in Israel has a subscription to the AP, as do most news organizations, and therefore that the AP is just the same as Al Jazeera and needs to be you know, rolled up just like them.
The White House, you know, expressed its concern, and it was a.
Rare case of the White House expressing concern. Love Kenny clips every time he makes fun of the White House for.
Expressing Ken Clippstein substacker, Ken Clippenstein, you can subscribe actually to kind of.
kN Clippenstein dot com.
So if you're just listening on the podcast, it's a Barack revw tweet, says breaking. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre told reporters that the Biden administration is concerned by reports that the Israeli government confiscated equipment of the AP.
She said journalists need to have the right and the ability to do their job, which Kennett's breaking. The White House is concerned.
But not only was the White House concerned, reporters throughout Israel were concerned, and across the world were concerned. And so it was a rare moment where Israel basically acknowledged an overstep.
Yeah, like, okay, are bad?
So they returned, They returned the equipment backing down a tiny.
Bit I was read actually the statement from the Israeli Communications Minister who said he has ordered the equipment be returned to the AP News agency because the Israeli Ministry of Defense requested to re examine the matter of broadcasts from sensitive locations and their effect on the.
Risk of our forces.
So when Israel is saying they're obviously the implicit reason for seizing the AP cameras is that this is putting your journalism, is putting the military at risk.
And actually there absolutely.
Are times when that's a real concern that journalists have to grapple with and that governments have to grapple with. But the rapid reversal here and saying from the statement, just well, we've decided to reconsider the entire matter of our approach, right because it felt like it was a bit of a kind of fabricated rationale post hoc once they were coming under fire for because for cracking down the AP because it.
Has a relationship with Al Jazeera, which is that's what AP does. They sell their feed, their wire service, the wire service like that, there's an association of the press and Aljazier is part of the press, whether Israel likes it or not. They have already banned basically any West journalists from getting into Gaza. What they're what they would be claiming now is that getting anywhere near Gaza is also something that they're not going to allow. But it
seems they did at least a backtrack on this. Yeah quickly, Yeah, speaking of press, uh, press freedoms, we can talk about this real quickly. At least seven Palestinians were killed in a raid in Janine recently. Janine has been the subject of intense IDF raids for years now.
Uh. And it was actually where shrin Abu Wakla was killed.
Yes, but obviously before October seventh. Palestinian media is saying that a fifty year old surgeon named doctor use Jabarin was was killed killed on his way to work, as was a child who was riding his bicycle. There are a lot of videos that you can find on social media just absolutely indiscriminated shooting from IDF forces. IDF says it is going to investigate itself to see if any of this indiscriminate shooting did did kill people that they allegedly did not intend to kill.
We'll see now on the other side of this talking about humanitarian concerns and potential famine.
And food shortages.
Let's put this element from Haratz up on the screen that begins with the quote spill it onto the road, and the headline proceeds to say, how right wing Israeli activists are organizing to block AID trucks to Gaza.
This is an.
Investigation and overview of some of the organized efforts to block some of these AID trucks. The next element hears from the Guardian. It suggests their reporting suggests that Israeli soldiers and police are tipping off some of those groups. So again, like the organization here, I think is important.
The coordination, right, I think is important because some people may say, well, this is just sort of organic gatherings of you know, people who are still raging from the raging, you know, happenings on October seventh, the tragedy, the killings, the slaughter on October seventh. But I think it's important here also to mention that this is an organized effort when it comes to the AID trucks. Absolutely, and that's
what the Guardian reporting suggests. And I think kind of confirms from the perspective of how is really law enforcement's handling it.
Yeah, all the way to the top. We can put up this next element from it. Timir ben Gavier, national security minister, who was like raging. He said, quote, why are my cops here? Because you've seen what you've seen, And basically what he's saying is why on earth are Israeli authorities defending the AID convoys that are going to Gaza from these protesters, Like he wants to support the protesters rather than the AID convoys.
What you're seeing here.
Is the same thing that happened with the AP camera. The world opinion is just so overwhelmingly against this idea that you're going to allow and organize with right wing protesters to block flower and other aid from getting into Gaza, that there has been some suppression of that internally. One of the lead organizations this happened last week, one of the lead organizations that was organizing these protests announced that it was going to pause them. It's not a good
time to do these Now. There's still some obviously people who are still continuing to do it, but the kind of viral videos of them smashing flower bags and destroying things right after Biden just had a temper tantrum in the United States about how breaking a window at Colombia is property violence and like the greatest crime that you could possibly imagine. You got all this property violence over
against the AID going in. And so this also coming at the same time as the icc arrest warrants being applied for and the ICJ moving forward with its accusation against the against the State of Israel that it is starving, deliberately starving this population.
That's absolutely critical.
By the way, the Guardian report that we had up on the screen about whether it's really police are tipping off some of the activists who are blocking the AID trucks, not merely protesting the AID trucks, but actively trying to block the AID trucks. That goes to whether this is a deliberate effort on behalf of the government itself as opposed to again, just some protests that they're working to contain, just some activists that they're working to contain. That's critical
to the question that the ic C is considering. And I think Ryan that's probably why we're seeing more about it in the media right now, because this has become a football in both sides of that battle. And I mean it's a tough thing for them to get around when you have Benavier to the point that you just made the quotes from Van Kavie, you have the statements and the way that he's approached all of this, and other people as well.
I think that's why.
This is becoming such a I mean, it's obvious, you don't even need my speculation. That's why this is becoming such a major conversation about how this is actually happening, what organization is behind this, what coordination is behind this. That's critical to the ICC proving that there's something deliberate happening on behalf of the Israeli government.
And since you know, glimmers of hope are so few in this, we should mention that a very cool organization in Israel called Standing Together, which is it's kind of a coexistence organization with both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians as members of it, as kind of co leaders of it. They've been now going down to these protests and standing together against the protesters and kind of defending the trucks that are trying to get in. Most of what they
do nowadays is basically criminal under Israeli law. And so we'll see what the reaction is to.
This organization being willing to stand up for these trucks.
Meanwhile, from what I'm hearing from people on the ground at the crossings, the number of trucks getting through yesterday and the day before is dangerously close to approaching like single digits, like Israel had been bragging about, say two hundred, you know, getting in a day where the UN was saying, no.
You need a thousand or more on a daily basis.
Getting down into double digits or single digits is bringing it to a place where distribution is stopping, like the UN announced, like a lot of AID distributions just stopped. Cupboards are bare, running out of fuel, can't because fuel is obviously essential for distributing the aid. You don't have fuel, you can't distribute the aid. And so all of this is happening in the context of real things on the ground, and the real things on the ground are Aid getting choked to a point of almost zero.
The RAFA is still not open.
You've got you know, Egypt refusing on its side to cooperate with Israel, Israel refusing to allow anything but fuel but Egypt not letting anything in and then everything having to go through Carara Shalom, but just an absolute trickle getting through there.
And they're not wrong that those the difficulties of having you know, a de facto Hamas government in these places makes it difficult in a war zone. That's not going to be a non issue anywhere that there's aid being distributed in.
A war zone.
But to you know, say that we are providing adequate aid is different than saying no, we're just outright starving everyone. And Israel is saying, you know, despite all of these challenges, there is no starvation, there is no famine. We are providing adequate aid. They're not a party to the ICC. Obviously, this is that's another issue entirely. But they are saying one thing, and that's you.
Know, the reality on the ground is different.
Yeah, And I think everyone understands that there are real challenges. Even in the best case scenario, there are real challenges here. But the difference between what's being publicly said and what's actually happening, I think is what's being sussed out in some of this reporting. Speaking of Rafa Ryan, we put this next element up on the screen. This is a tweet from Just Foreign Policy. This is kind of it was. I don't want to say buried, but it was in
a David Ignacious report in the Washington Post. Biden no longer opposing Israel's plan for final assault on Rafa's have Just Foreign Policy phrased it, but it was in this David Ignacious column. He writes, Israeli leaders have reached a consensus about a final assault hamasa's four remaining battalions in Rafa, instead of the heavy attack with two divisions that Israel
contemplated several weeks ago. Government and military leaders foresee a more limited assault that US officials think will result.
In fewer civilian casualties.
And for that reason, Biden won't oppose sort of a barred lead.
I don't know, right, No.
Biden won't oppose this quote limited assault, even though he was opposed to the Rafa incursion. Here and you get this very friendly to the national security state. David agnantius a report saying well, Biden won't approach won't oppose a quote more limited assault. The White House would never put on a statement to that.
Effect, but I guess they will leak it through David.
Ignacious rights ignacious. D is the kind of the CIA. Yes, like that's that's the go to source for.
Them, briefed the CIA in fact.
Yeah.
And so for anybody who believed the Biden insistence over the months that Rafa was a red line, it just makes a mockery of that naivete because here he's saying, oh, you know what, actually the way you're doing it, that's okay. There's four battalions. Just we thought it was going to be,
you know, much worse than this, But this, this seems fine. Meanwhile, the reports from the ground are often absolute bloodbath, in rough plus eight hundred thousand people so far migrating elsewhere in Gaza to places that have no sanitation, no hygiene, no water. The entire condition was Israel had to have some plan where they.
Were going to move people. They didn't come up with a plan.
Their plan basically was we're going to make it so violent when we invade that they're either going to die or they're going to just find somewhere to run to elsewhere. And Biden responds to that by saying, eh, okay, this is fine.
So let's put this next element up. This is from Prem Thacker, who was responding to Anthony Blincoln's testimony in from Congress yesterday. So he said he's happy to work with Congress unquote inappropriate response. This is Blincoln to the ICC prosecutor issuing warrants to Israeli leaders. Now prem then quote tweeted that original tweet and said, minutes later Senators Graham, Cardon, Bloomenthalsh, Shaheen, Fetterman,
Rish brit Thune. So that's a bipartisan coalition declare they'll work in quote a bipartisan manner to strenuously object to the ICC's actions against our ally Israel and take appropriate steps to help Israel and protect Americans from ICC action.
Ren That just brings us back to basically why these conversations and the reporting from the Guardian that we mentioned earlier is critical because the US now has this huge issue on its hands when it comes to the ICC, When it comes to the US's funding of what's happening in Israel, the US is sort of sanctioning of what the Israeli military does.
To the extent that that happens.
The central question of deliberate aid blocking, deliberate activism against aid blocking, that question becomes key in even what the US response to all of this is how far the US goes to defend what's happening. This bipartisan coalition obviously was eager to jump on them, and one.
Thing I forgot to put in the rundown, but I think it's worth mentioning before we move on to what we got Bill Maher, And.
We got Bill Maher coming right.
Don't worry, we'll get to Bill on Monday.
At the State Department, I asked about this, this deal that Hamas had agreed to, and asked the State Department what role did director William Burns play CIA director William Burn's play in this role, because there's reporting that he signed off on the thing. And Miller's answer was kind of interesting because it was like, there's been some good reporting on this, some not, but he didn't. He didn't just say no, Burns did not sign off on that.
It was. There was a much kind of a more open ended answer.
And then there was this fascinating report in CNN yesterday which I'm not sure if you saw it, that said that an Egyptian intelligence officer. So take all this with a grain of salt, but it's interesting that it's being reported and it might also be true.
An Egyptian intelligence.
Officer tweaked the proposal after the US cut through Egypt. Israel had all agreed to it before sending it to Hamas last week last week, and then Hamas agreed to the one that they had been delivered. So what we were being told was that Hamas changed it yes and then agreed to it and was and it was trying to get one over on everybody and fake agreeing to
a ceasefire. But what we're now being told is that they agreed to the exact deal that they were offered and were told that the Israelis were supportive of because the tweaks were minor. An Egyptian so one of the quotes in the article, Hamas was telling their people, we will have a deal in place tomorrow. In other words, that this was not a gimmick, like Hamas was not just playing pr and expecting a rough invasion, like they thought that they had agreed to the deal. They even
named the intern who made the changes. He's not an intern, but this is how CNN reports it. The three sources familiar with the matter told CNN that a senior Egyptian intelligence official named Ahmed Abdel Kalak was responsible for making the changes. Abdel Khalik is a senior deputy to the Egyptian intelligence chief of Bass Kamel, who has been Burns's
counterpart in leading Egypt's mediation in the ceasefire talks. One source familiar with the negotiation said Kalik told the Israelis one thing and Hamas another.
More of Hamas's.
Demands were inserted into the original framework that Israel had tacitly agreed to in order to secure Hamas's approval, the source said. So, one source is saying that Israel actually did agree to most of this, but the other mediators were not.
Informed, nor critically were the Israelis.
So giant mess and it's like they're trying to say it was this guy Kalik who tweaked the thing at the last minute, which, like I said, there's something happened here, and the fact that it's leaking out to CNN here suggests that there's some clean up going on on the part of the West and that it does appear from this reporting that Hamas was earnestly agreeing to a piece deal.
It's pretty interesting that's in CNN.
Yeah, Jeremy Diamonds, one of the reporters there. He's a very very strong reporter. He's done some really good work out of there. So because like you know, CNN contains multitudes, to put it generously, that's one win.
And Jeremy Diamond's done a lot of very good reporting.
So, Ryan, I just wanted to say before we move on, that was maybe we were approaching peek, Ryan Gram when you said, I forgot to put it in the rundown, but you know, it reminded me.
I was tying in the State.
Department this week about the CIA director. But you know, I'm glad you remembered it because it was quite relevant.
Yeah, well it becomes extra relevant when the CNN report came out later, So it was only It's like, whatever, it's an interesting answer, but I'm not sure what's going on here, But then when you pair it with this the CNN clip, I mean, the CNN report, it's kind of interesting.
Let's move on to Bill Maher's appearance on The View, where he talked about in fact, the conflict in the Middle East and how it has royaled American college campuses. If you're wondering, why do I need to hear what Bill Maher said on the View, I understand, but it's pretty it's a pretty interesting fiery exchange that I think
that leaves a lot to be discussed. So with that setup, please enjoy Bill Maher getting into a little bit of a fight with Sunny Austin Little Left on left violence here over quote wokeness on the View.
Well, I had a different question, but it struck me that in the first segment you used the term woke, and you said that woke is what was sort of ruining everything.
And I know that you're no.
I didn't say ruining everything. I said that's why Trump could get reelected.
That's why Trump could get reelected.
So I just the term woke has been, in my view, co opted by the right and weaponized and bastardized. And so I was surprised to hear you use the term because historically, as you know, because I think you're quite brilliant, that woke is a word used by the black community to note that we must be aware of social injustices. But why is that a bad thing?
It's not a bad thing, and originally that was absolutely a great thing, alert to injustice. Who's not for that? But words do migrate. Now, I'll use any term you want, because maybe that is a word that's triggering, and so we let's not use that word. I know I want to call it the super far left, but don't tell me the left had right we.
Talked out the left then, okay, but but.
We've talked about that. I mean, I think we agree about the danger of the super far right, and you know, I can't say it enough. I think they're the bigger threat. But don't tell me that the left hasn't changed. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when it was the conservatives who hated the Jews. Okay, that was a joke. Well
maybe it is, but it's true. I mean, you know, if I had any doubt that I was right about the change that's happened in the left, watching people protest for a terrorist organization like Hamas that straightened me up pretty quick. Yeah.
I wanted to ask you about that because I think you're almost a free speech absolutist. You believe totally in the right to say what you believe. But I think a lot of us were disturbed to see terrorist flags being waved on American college campuses and seeing this a generation that may some I think genuinely care about the play of the Palestinians.
I think most Americans do.
But some who seem to be embracing a terrorist organization over the nation of Israel.
What do you make at this moment?
What do you think it's a result of how do we fix it?
Well?
I mean it's just astounding to me that they can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. I mean just the morally. I mean, let me tell you, if you're for Hamas, just live in gossip for a day. And I'm not talking about while the war is on. I mean before the war, trust me, you would go running and screaming and begging to live and tell of ev a place that has your values. I mean, women have no I mean it's the show watched by a
lot of women. Women have no rights in this place and a lot of majority Muslim countries around the world. I mean, there is no equal rights as far as speech, dress, opportunities for education, reproductive rights, freedom from sexual violence, freedom from sexual harassment, that too. But you throw around the term apartheid. There is a gender apartheid in a lot of the world where women are second class citizens at best, are you.
At all concerned about the innocent civilians that have been collectively punished and murdered, largely children and women. And are you at all concerned about the fact that the International Criminal Court just today issued a subpoena for BBTA.
Well, that's ridiculous, But it's a war. It's a war because it's a war and they were attacked and they're defending themselves.
Okay, Well, where to start there?
I will say, exceptionally substantive discussion for the view, and I mean that in the literal sense. Exception is an exception to how those conversations normally go.
But we could start with his claim that if you lived in Gaza before October seventh, you would go running and screaming to say, let me out of here, and I want to go live in Tel Avivah. Isn't that what everybody in Gaza was doing? I mean, like that so strips all of the context out of the situation. Yes, it forgets the fact that nobody in Gaza could leave. Yeah, and no it's not. No, they weren't trapped in Gaza
because of Hamas. Like he's like, if you lived in Gaza, you'd want to leave, Okay, so to a lot of people and go to go visit their families in the West Bank, to visit their families elsewhere in the world, to get medical appointments, to do business, but they are not allowed to leave by Israel.
Like that.
That is kind of irrelevant detail. But this is this whole question when he's saying good guys and bad guys.
But that's where this becomes a cycle, because he would say, you know, in part of course, yes, they are being stopped from that by Hamas, because Hamas is the defecto government and there's.
This like what about before Hamas?
And that's what I was just going.
To say that that conversation, I think it loses it's worth when you're trying to have a broad discussion with no context for why there is extremism in Hamah in Hamas, of course in Hamas, but in Gaza and among so many people. And that's a reaction obviously to years and years of conflict that has put people in living conditions that you wouldn't wish on your own family. And so when you aren't talking about that, it's obviously an issue.
Yeah, and Bill Maher is just flat out islamophobic, and I wonder at this point if you would even like quibble with that claim, and you're seeing an expression of it there.
But even in.
Bill Maher's on Bill Maher's own terms, the Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian political structure, you know, back in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties up into the two thousands was much more secular.
Yeah, it's changed.
Until yeah, until this kind of militant, armed resistance element grew up because the Palestinian people believed that the Oslo Accords and the negotiating process with Lacud in power insisting that there would be no two states ever was a dead end and you needed a more militant direction to change the equation, like as talked about in that debate with with Destiny and Omar, anytime that peace was on
the horizon, support for Hamas would plummet. Any anytime that that that was taken off the table, support for Hamas would rise. And so if Bill Maher actually, you know, wants to strip Hamas and these longest elements, uh, that's that it kind of course through it. The way to do it would be supporting actual peace efforts, not by just tightening the occupation, and then and then and then complaining that about the resistance to the occupation.
And this is probably the rub for me and I think some people on the right, not a lot of people, not a lot of other people on the right. But that conversation about militant extreme Islamism, I think is an important one. We probably I don't know if we've ever even talked about that, but we probably disagree on some points of it. But I also probably share some of
Bill Maher's concerns in that respect. But if you were doubling down on the current strategy to quell extreme militant Islamism, if that's your strategy at this point, is to double down on the strategy that has failed for decades and in fact, arguably, even by their own argument, has exacerbated the conditions. You're not making anybody safer at this point. It's just clearly not working. You know, it doesn't excuse violence, you know that. I'm sure there are some people that
will make that argument, but just it doesn't. It does help explain it, right, It does help explain why nothing is changing.
Right, And also Ben Gavie and the rest of them when it comes when it comes to women's rights and women's place in society. That entire, growing, massive faction of Israeli society is not far from Amas and the other is loamist when it comes to kind of the religious fundamentalism. Bill Maher has this blind spot when it comes to that.
I mean, I'd rather live in Israel any day as a woman than.
For now, like on the current trajectory. See let's check in again in twenty years. You know that there are intense forces within Israel's political space that are trying to make sure that that's not the case in ten, twenty thirty years.
It's the conversations about this are so hamstrung by the aperture, you.
Know, like just not being able to zoom out.
I agree, I think not being able to zoom out and honestly a praise what's happening in the from the thirty thousand foot view is a really, really one of the biggest challenges I think we've had, like in the
media since October seventh. And I also think you're just people have turned a blind eye, like sort of willfully ignored a lot of the long term problems here because they've been told over and over again by American intelligence and you know, the Pentagon that there's one thing happening, and you know they trusted that for a long time and don't have as much trust in that anymore. Actually, that's what we're about to talk about, honestly in the polling block.
Yeah, let's move to that in a second. I can't find the essay.
Now, there's a really good essay that was that I read recently making the case that basically there are two Israels right now. There's the calling one Juday in Samaria and the other Israel. One one a kind of secular but ethno obviously at no religious, but more the Tel Aviv high tech like cosmopolitan uh. And the other the kind of fundamentalist Orthodox element that is increasingly powerful within the net Yahoo coalition.
And that and.
That those two Israels basically can't can't coexist.
Uh.
And and they're locked in a in a death struggle with each other.
And I think a lot of that poured into the streets when the judicial reform, which I think we actually disagreed on at the time, but when that was uh, you saw that It's it's kind of a culture clash. I mean, it absolutely is a culture clash. And so it's obviously going to be a huge whatever happens militarily, this is a huge front and center, like maybe the biggest political thing happening in Israel right now is increasingly that divide