5/7/24: Israel Launches Rafah Invasion, ICC Warns Senators After Threats, Trump Fined Over Gag Order, DeSantis Bans Lab Grown Meat, Columbia Cancels Commencement, Jerry Seinfeld Faceplants On PC Culture, Gaza Doc Details Rafah Horrors

about that. The long anticipated meet debate lab grown meat to hopefully we're getting to it today, Hopefully Sager and I will be able to avoid talking so much that we have to skip it once again, because I know you guys are very excited about our takes on lab grown meat. Columbia has officially canceled their commencement this after they claimed that one of the big reasons they were clearing out the encampment was to get ready for said commencement.

So we'll take a look at that as well as polling about how people feel about these protests, about the response to the protests, a lot of interesting stuff to get dig into. Their speaking of interesting saga, taking a look at some recent Jerry Seinfeld comments that seemed to be from like circa twenty fifteen, So that's going to

be a good one. I'm looking forward to that. And on a much more serious note, we are hoping to be able to speak with a doctor who just returned from Gaza to talk to us about the conditions on the ground there and what she saw in the context of trying her best to treat patients. So very much looking forward to speaking with.

on free speech. We won't get let give you away who the contestants are, but I think suffice to say you're going to know them, You're going to like it, and there's going to be some fiery moments. So go ahead and sign up, you guys get early access to that. On top of supporting all of our work here, we've got big plans now for the DNC. I think it is official. It is definitely going to be nineteen sixty eight ESK. We will all be on the ground there.

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sign and this was released by the IDF. I know it looks like a video game. To me, it looks like a video game, but this is official footage that the IDF released of the beginning of this invasion into Rafa. And these are more drone images that were also released by the IDF. So we don't know a lot at this point. We know that the ground invasion has obviously begun, We know there has been a significant increase in terms of air strikes, and we know there have been some

additional palastidian depths. We also know that the IDF has actually taken control of the Rafa crossing on the Palace to the inside. This is something that Egyptian officials are already expressing alarm about and has major implications not only in terms of military strategy, but most significantly in terms of humanitarian situation on the ground. That Rafa Crossing is one of the most significant entry points for aid into Gaza. We know that yesterday the Israelis had closed another entry

point into Gaza. This after Hamas rockets had hit a nearby military installation, and in retaliation they closed that crossing as well. This comes, of course, as the un IS saying they are Asidney McCain of the un IS officially saying, hey, northern Gaza is in full blown famine. This is creeping south. We also know in Rafa you have some six hundred thousand kids, all of whom are in bad shape, many

of whom are already malnourished. And yesterday, of course reported on the fact that the Israelis had asked one hundred thousand Palestinian sheltering in Rafa to leave. I read some accounts of some of those individuals Saga, and you know, many of these people they've already been forcibly displaced multiple times. They have literally no money, they have no idea where to go. There is nowhere that is actually safe. And

that's not according to me. That's according to New York Times and NPR and other analysts who have looked at the quote unquote safe zones that people have been told to move to in the past in fact, Rafa was one of these safe zones that people were originally told to move to. And now you have this long threatened invasion occurring. Let's go ahead and put this next element

up on the screen. Give you a little bit of background here, because this ground invasion came immediately after Hamas had actually accepted a ceasefire proposal, and the details of that proposal are very clear. The US was involved in helping to negotiate this along with Egypt and Katar, and you know, there's a lot of details about three different phases, et cetera, et cetera. The bottom line here is that Hamas wanted to release all of the hostages in order

to secure an end of the war. So all the reporting is that the Israelis, after Netanyahu, really went out of his way to try to scuttle this deal, to try to sabotage it, as we covered yesterday, by announcing after there was some indications Hamas might be favorable towards the deal, by announcing really clearly, no, no, no, We're going into Rafa no matter what, as an attempt to undercut it. Also by banning Al Jazeera that Al Jazeera obviously a

product of linked to the Katari government. That was an effort to piss off Gatar as well to try to undercut this deal, because Bebie's whole play is to pretend like he's opened to a ceasefire deal for the international audience, but to really do everything to block it, and of course exposes the lie that they you know this thing that we've heard a million times, Oh, if Hamas just

released the hostages, the war could be over tomorrow. Well here's Ama saying, hey, we'll release all the hostages, and isral Is like, no, we want to continue the war and we're going to go ahead right now with this invasion of Rafa. Let me just put the next piece up on the screen and I'm I get your reaction, Sager. So the Israeli media, after they were kind of stunned by this Hamas acceptance of the proposal, Israeli media started reporting that Israel was not likely to accept a ceasefire deal.

They claimed it was softened or one sided Egyptian version. But again, we actually we have all the details of what this deal entailed, and it is release of all the hostages, which is something that Israel demanded. The key sticking point is that the Hamas side wants the war to end and the Israeli side wants the war to continue. One side actually wants a ceasefire and the other doesn't. So that's kind of an irreconcilable difference.

consideration whenever Hamas accepted that deal. Another point against the Israelis is they didn't have anybody in Cairo, so it's their fault that they had nobody at the table with Hamas and with Egypt and all the other negotiators, despite the fact that the US has been begging them to come and to be available. Because Israel is not blaming the United States for being bamboozled into a situation where they, according to them, have been screwed because Hamas agreed to

a ceasefire deal that they view not as acceptable. There's also a sticking point right now around the number of hostage just to be released. The Hamas counteroffer was that they'll release thirty three hostages. That these thirty three, though are some are alive and some are dead. The Israelis say, no, we want forty hostages in the first deal, but they all have to be alive. I don't know, you know

exactly who is telling the truth. It obviously is conceivable that some of these hostages have sadly perish either from you know, malnutrition, from bombing.

tremendous mistake from the international community side. We can put this up there on the screen, for example, just if you look at the wording of their justification. The war cabinet has unanimously decided that Israel continues the operation to exert military pressure on Hamas in order to promote the release of our hostages and the other goals of the war.

the other side does not want to cease fire. He goes on to say, given this contradiction, the mediators could not incorporate explicit wording that either ended or failed to end the war and still clinched the deal. What appears to have happened is that a sufficiently vague formula was included in the proposal, paired with informal American assurances that if Hamas implemented the first stages of the three stage deal, Washington would guarantee an Israeli cessation of hostilities by the

end of its final stage. So Basically, the Americans were like, listen, we can't put into this deal that it will definitively end the war. But trust us, we're going to make

sure that there is a permanent cessation of hostilities. That we didn't even get to covering this because it happened on like Thursday, Friday, Saturday somewhere in that timeframe when we were off air, that actually leaked out that the Americans were telling Hamas like, no, this is actually going to end the war, even though the language doesn't explicitly say that in the deal. Then the Israelis come out.

That's when you get BB saying no, absolutely not, and we're still going into rafa et cetera, et cetera, which was an attempt basically to kill the deal because he doesn't actually want a deal. And just to be really clear about the hostage situation. So first of all, the Israelis are also holding thousands of Palestinians. We've covered here and many other news outlets have covered the abhorrent conditions they've been kept in under, including torture and sexual abuse.

You actually just recently had a doctor from Gaza who died from the torture that was from being tortured in Israeli custody. So those Palestinian hostages are also part of this deal. And while there are may be some quibbling about how many hostages in phase one, phase two, et cetera, very clear that Hamas has as part of this deal, accepted releasing all of the hostages and all of the remains of the hostages. Know one thing, Sager, that I've

been thinking about. I was talking to Yegor about this too.

He had the same thought, which is a really dark thought, which is is I don't actually think that bib Netnaho or the rest of the war cabinet wants these remaining hostages to be released and talk about what their experience was like, because basically their experience was having their lives risked by their own government, being left in a war zone for seven months god knows, and what conditions God knows what sort of injuries they sustained from, potentially IDF

bombing and starvation, And I'm not sure that that's a political reality that bib Netnaho wants to deal with.

unanimously of some of that opinion. I know some have come out with a different opinion as well, But you could also see there is a widespread celebration at the population level on both sides of this conflict at the idea of a ceasefire. Maybe not the Israeli government. Here, we have a video came out in the immediate aftermath that we can go ahead and play This was actually in Rafa the immediately after it was announced that a

ceasefire was agreed to. You know, obviously these people didn't know what was coming in the immediate aftermath, which was the invasion. But it's important just to point out there that there is obviously a widespread want, not just at the Palestinian level, but at the Israeli level for a cease fire.

He says that they'll pop up from under the ground. There are no uninvolved civilians. You have to go in and kill and kill and kill, and she says, okay, I got it. Will that bring back the hostages? And he says we will then kill them before they get us. And they say, well, are you going to get the hostages? And he says, at the end, we will try to get them. So again, this is the international arm of the Bevinis and Yahoo Party who is on Channel twelve

Israeli News Crystal. He's saying this out in the open. I think the hostage families at this point no and hear this, and that's why there's so much consternation in Israel.

unquote moderates, voted unanimously to invade Rapa. So you know they have their own political calculation, they're own ideology too. They are all now as being part of the war Cabinet. They are all responsible for the conduct of this war. They know they have not accomplished the purported objectives that they set out to accomplish. So they have just as much invested in keeping the brutality going as anyone else.

They have as much invested in making sure these hostages can never come out and tell their story, frankly, as anyone else. And that is at odds with the population. When we brought you some pulling that even right leaning members of Israeli society think that we should prioritize getting our hostages back, even if it means sending the word, even if it means new elections, we want our hostages home. And you see that sentiment certainly expressed in the street.

And you know, we're talking about huge protests, tons of thousands of people in the street saying okay, Hamas said, yes, they give us our hostages back. What the hell are you waiting for? And so, you know, a couple more things to say about this. First of all, Saga you said this was being framed as like a Hamas pr move.

I think that that's I think that's fair in a certain regard, because I think they had every expectation that BB's government and by the way, US officials also were leaking to this press that they weren't engaged in good faith in these negotiations, that they have no intention of taking the deal. And so I think in a sense they did say, Okay, we're going to call your pluff. We're to say yes even to this deal that doesn't

explicitly say the end of the war. We're going to take the American assurances for it, which you know, right I wouldn't recommend, but anyway, we're going to take America's word for it. This will actually result in a sensation of hostilities. We're going to say yes to a ceasefire and put the ball in your court. Bb Net, Yahoo, what are you going to do now? Because now it is exposed the entire world that all you're bullshit about concern for hostages and hey, if the if they return

the hostages, the war can end tomorrow. This was all complete and unor not. So this has been clear for a while, but now it's undeniable, and I think it's undeniable to the Israeli population as well. The last thing that's really important to say about this is Biden has been sounding the oppositional alarm to a ground invasion into Rafa for months now. He even sort of kind of said it was a red line before immediately saying I'll never leave Israel, but he sort of kind of said

Rafa was a red line. We've heard about these tough conversations from Blincoln just recently and Jake Sullivan and co. And these sort of vague threats that hey, we may even change US policy, we may not have unconditional support if you go into Rafa. If you especially if you go in a way that we don't like, well guess what they're doing it. So, Joe Biden, what are you going to say? What are you going to do? This

is a direct rebuke. This is bebe calling your bluff and saying, yeah, you expressed concern about some other things in the past either and at the end of the day, you did nothing. You did exactly what we wanted you to do, and that's exactly what we think is going to happen now. So in that manner, the ball is now in Joe Biden's court. Do your words of concern mean anything? Does your supposed red line doesn't mean anything

at all? Are you just going to let the Israelis get away with literally fit anything they want, anytime they want, till the end of time, unconditional support, no matter what, no matter how humiliating it is for you, no matter how awful it is for Palestinians. That's the real question that's on the table right now.

and threatening them. Let me read you some of this. They say. The Office of the Prosecutors where their significant public interest in its investigation. It welcomes comments communication of

concerns and engagement in its activities. But they go on to say independence and impartiality cannot be undermined, and they are when individuals threaten to retaliate against the Court or against court personnel should the Office and fulfillment of its mandate make decisions about investigations or cases falling within its jurisdiction. Such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offense against the administration of justice under Article seventy

of the Rome Statute. That provision explicitly prohibits both retaliating against an official of the Court on account of duties performed by that or another official, and impeding, intimidating, or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform or to perform them properly his or her duties. They conclude, the Office insists that all attempts to impede, intimidate, or

improperly influence its officials cease immediately. So they put this out and everyone was like, hmm, okay, what is what's going on? What is this about? Now we had some guesses because there had already been some reports about you know, these railies using all the tools they had about the US pressuring the ICC. But now we have these specific details of what this likely was in reference to, and this is really quite extraordinary. Let's put this up on

the screen. This scoop came courtesy of Zeteo, that's Maddie Hassen's new news outlet. He got a hold of a letter that was sent from a number of high profile Republican centers, including Mitch McConnell, that directly threatened the ICC prosecutor and threatened their family members. This is this is really crazy. Let me read you a little bit of this. They say in a terse one page letter obtained exclusively by Zeteo and signed by twelve GOP senators, including Tom Cotton,

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz Kahn. That's the prosecutor is informed that any attempt by the ICC to hold net in Yahoo and as colleagues to account for their actions in Gaza will be interpreted not only as a threat to israel sovereignty, but to the sovereignty of the United States. Quote target Israel, and we will target you, adding they will sanction your employees and associates and ban you and

your families from the United States. The letter concludes, quote you have been warned, so I mean direct threats being made against the ICC, their employees, their family members, direct

threats made by these twelve Republican senators. They got a statement response from Democratic Senator Chris mann Holland, who said, quote, it's fine to express opposition to possible judicial action, but it is absolutely wrong to interfere in a judicial manner by threatening judicial officers, their family members, their employees with retribution. This thuggery is something befitting the mafia, not US senators. So pretty wild this situation.

if it's one thing. If it's it's one thing, if the ICC is attacking and going after US service members, for US to exert extraordinary influence to prevent that, it's another thing to do so on behalf of a foreign nation who is not even a treaty ally who we have no obligation actually I legally to defend at all. It's just the quote unquote non but like, just so people understand, Israel has the same treaty designation or ally designation as Argentina, So you know, just so everybody understands

that in terms of our actual obligations the country. Now, as we can see here though very clearly, they are saying that this would constitute an attack on the US itself, where further evidence of dual loyalty and of exactly how much these people are willing to you know, basically expend extraordinary US effort and influence on behalf of the Israeli government.

for US too. And speaking of the Hague Invasion Act, they actually name check it has some other like sort of like Orwellian name like the service Member Protection Act or something like that, is the official name. The nickname for it is the Hague Invasion Act because it, as it indicates, authorizes military action in the event that you know, our service members were detained or any there was any sort of you know, threat to quote unquote US sovereignty.

So it authorizes extraordinary measures. And they're saying that this could be invoked. The Hague Invasion Act could be invoked even if there are just arrest warrants for Bibi Yahu yoav Goalan, et cetera. So this is this is wild, Like this is really wild. And I guess it also does speak to the fact that it's easy to dismiss like UN resolutions and whatever. Is like they don't have any you know, they don't have a police force. What do they gotta do. They're not going to actually arrest

net Nyahu or whatever. Clearly from the freakout from these individuals, the direct threats that are being issued in this letter and the freakount that's been reported on from the Israeli side, they clearly think it means something. They clearly feel like this is not a little nothing that they can just handwave by.

up on the screen. Please Yesterday was actually Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, and Netsan Yahu, in his message frankly, in a very insulting message to all of us, says, quote, Israel will defend itself even if it is forced to stand alone. Now, if this was a country that had not received more military aid than any other country literally in the world from the United States, it would be

one thing. But this is a country that owes not only its foundation and its existence, but every military development post nineteen seventy two to the United States taxpayer. So the idea that they're forced to stand alone and it's just them against the world is bullshit.

that their foundational myth is like we stand alone. We stand where the underdoge, where the undergo said, come on, man, like you know not whenever you've been we've been funding.

we get a free pass. That's number one. And number two this self conception, which you know, people like like Christian Zionists like Joe Biden others also buy into this like outdated notion of which was never really accurate. Of Israel as the underdog, as the you know, the David against the Goliath, which is a preposterous concept when you look at the power disparity between them and the Palestinians

at this point. So but he said, specifically in this message with regard to the ICC, he said, which also speaks to that dual like you know, victimhood and underdog situation. Issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials would leave an indelible stain on the edifice of international law and justice. He stressed, the ICC was founded as a consequence of the Holocaust and should not attempt to undermine Israel's fundamental right to self defense. So again, and the ideas like because of

the Holocaust, we can do no wrong. This institution isn't about making sure that the laws applied equally no matter who does it in making sure these whoors that were perpetrated against us that nothing like it can happen to anyone in the world. No, no, no, this was set up explicitly to like give us a pass and make sure that it's never done specifically to us. Which again I want to reiterate that the reporting is that the ic C of rust wots if they come, which is

a big if. The reporting is that they will likely be against Israeli officials and Hummas leaders. So keep that in mind as this is all unfolding.

would send him to jail. So obviously that is pretty significant because the thousand dollars in the exactly cracking the wallet of Donald Trump, he especially with all of his truth social stock. But this is kind of overtaken the fact that there have been some significant developments in the trial itself. The most significant testimony actually happened on Friday. I've been wanting to give everybody an update. Let's go

ahead and put this up there on the screen. It entails Hope Hicks wants his most closest advisor, his communications director in the White House. She was integral to the entire operation. She gave a tearful testimony at times over two hours quote with a behind the scenes glimpse into how his inner circle operated and responded to negative media stories.

So Hicks actually was testifying there about learning about the Access Hollywood tape, about what the inside of how they learned about the Karen McDougall story, who previously also alleged an affair with Donald Trump, and then also Michael Cohen's

role in the Stormy Daniel's hush money payment. So Hicks, despite being one of Trump's closest advisor's crystal called here to trial to try and offer evidence as to the fact that this was a payment given to Stormy Daniels motivated purely by the campaign and not as Trump is alleging that it was a personal expense that was done on his behalf.

from times. She was quite a young woman, you know, thrust into the spotlight and into this big national position, and really was especially in the early days of the Trump presidency, just at the heart of everything that was going on, and you know, in terms of what impact it has on the trial, I think it's significant her testifying to the nature of the campaign and how they operated from just a you know, interest remembering that time.

It was also really fascinating to hear her perspective on what happened the day that they got, you know, the media inquiry about hey, you want to respond to this whole Access Hollywood tape. They first got the transcript from the Washington Post. She's reading through it and is like, this is terrible. And her first thing that she sends

to everyone is we need to deny, deny. Very quickly, they also get the video and realize, okay, that's probably not going to be a workable strategy, and she takes you into the room where she's the person who has to talk to Trump about what is about to come out. She said in her testimony. I shared the email with mister Trump sort of verbally, and we were at the time, based on the conversation outside the conference room, trying to get a copy of the audio or the tape to

assess the situation further. We weren't sure yet how to respond. We were kind of just trying to gather more information. Everyone was observing the shock of it than She's asked. When you say you shared the content verbally, did you read mister Trump the email you receive from mister Farrenhold. He was the reporter who had asked for comment on this, She says, I write him in the email. I have a rag recollection of starting to read the transcript, and

then he finished reading it himself. I believe did you hand the email for him to read? Yes, that's my recollection. And what if anything did he said say? He said that it didn't sound like something he would say. Oh really, it definitely sounds like something you would say, and obviously it's on tape, but I mean it is. It's extraordinary. She says. She was stunned, hard to describe. It was

definitely concerning. I had, you know, a good sense this is going to be a massive story and sort of dominate the news cycle for the next several days at least,

And she indicates it was a damaging development. This is all the reason this is relevant to this case, because you might think, like, why are they talking to This isn't actually directly related to the Stormy Daniels thing is to provide insight into the way that they reacted to negative stories that would come out about Trump, especially with regards to any sort of like you know, sexual relationships or commentary, et cetera, and how much they understood these

things could be damaging to the campaign, because remember, the core this question is, okay, was this payment, these payments to Stormy Daniels, Should these have been a campaign expense or were there other reasons that Trump they have wanted to bury the story, like for example, his wife not you know, him not wanting his wife to find out. So that's why this piece is relevant, trying to provide

context of like, yes, this was all about the campaign. Yes, when these Neggat stories would come out, they realized they were really damaging, they moved you did whatever they could to try to mitigate that damage, et cetera, et cetera. And the speculation about why Hope was a much. I mean, anyone could kind of relate and understand. But this is someone she feels loyal to, and here she is testifying on the stand and feeling like she's providing information that's

likely damaging. I think that's probably why it was difficult for her on the stand.

that morning. And quote the former president really values his wife's opinion, so giving at least room possibly for reasonable doubt. One of the things you know, I want to prepare everybody for is that it is Remember you only need one person to declare a mistrial or a hung jury.

Like it's very possible to create reasonable doubt. I think he's actually presented despite all the craziness around it, you know, enough reasonable doubt for at least maybe one or two so called impartial people to say, yeah, maybe he did do it for you know, for personal reasons, and that's all you really need to actually win this. Let's put this up there on the screen. Trump is trying to turn this to really to his political advantage.

we had the mar A Lago raid. You already see evidence that Ron DeSantis is meeting with Donald Trump and doing campaign events set in the future on the schedule together. You haven't seen Nicky Haley or any of those others come. But he remembers how mar A Lago really saved him back and I was in November of twenty twenty two, and he believes you can recreate that if he was held in contempt and sent to jail and turn it into a free speech thing.

troops around him. In the context of Republican primary in general election, I think it's very different political dynamic. He's already got all Republicans on board. I don't think DeSantis, you know, coming on board as any surprise or has really anything to do with this trial. It's just like, yeah, he's the nominee, he's very possibly the next president. If I'm going to have a political future, I better make things right with this dude. So that was always going

to happen. So that piece I don't think is really connected. But yeah, the prospect of Trump actually getting thrown into jail, you know, it just brings this story to the forefront of the public. It provides images of him actually like in prison that I don't think are really great for him.

And then the other thing here too, is the reason why this latest fine was levied is he was like, you know, like smearing basically the jury, which I know they're supposed to be disconnected from the media and not know what's going on, but if you're out there just like repeatedly going after the jury or the ones that are responsible for your fate, or the judge who's very

important in terms of being responsible for your fate. It's not really a great legal strategy, I would say, and you're right that he has things to work with legally in this case. You know, I think, like you said, Hope Picks testified in particular with regard to the Karen McDougall story, which is relevant here, that's one of the catch and kill situations National Inquirer, that he was worried about what Malani would think and that that could be, you know, a real part of what was going on.

I don't think it's a huge requires a huge leap of imagination for people to imagine that he didn't want his wife to know about his affair with a porn star, so legally has things to work with here if he genuinely is like trying to get thrown in jail. First of all, I'm not sure it's going to work, because the judge did indicate that that might be required, but also expressed a lot of understandable reluctance about taking what

would be an absolutely extraordinary step. But I'm also not sure that that political analysis from Trump really holds up.

head to head matchup. But don't let that deceive you because as we see here in the graphic in front of us, this is ABC News IPSOS all adults, it shows Trump forty six Biden forty four, but if you go to registered voters you see forty six to forty five, and if you look at likely voters you actually get two.

because likely voters of the people were probably going to vote. Now, the same actual phenomenon comes out even clearer in our next piece. Let's put this up there please. This was from NPR. Maris just came out out again just a couple of days ago. The headline there on their poll was Democrats if your fascism, Republicans worry about a lack of values.

election analysis I've ever given. If it's a high turnout election, that's going to be really good for Donald Trump because it means low propensity voters are coming out to the polls. If it is a normal or low turnout election like let's say twenty twenty two or anything prior, then it's going to be very good for Joe Biden. Basically people who love to vote, like basically Democrats and highly educated and boomer if those are disproportionately the number of people

comprise the electorate, and Biden has a huge edge. Best said, I would never bet against Trump. He has a historic track record of always being able to bring out people who are very low propensity and have never voted in the past. So I have no idea. History says one thing. We have no idea if that's necessarily a good predictor.

really mean. But this dynamic of Biden doing better with the likely voter screen when the polling companies are trying to look at ari who's actually going to show up and vote versus the overall electorate is a dynamic we've been seeing for a while. It's basically remember how back in twenty sixteen, I think it was Schumer who famously said for every blue collar Democrat we lose in western Pa, we'll pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia.

Can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin. Basically, these poles are like, maybe that strategy is finally coming to fruition. Maybe that was actually going to work out for them this time. Maybe. If it is the case, I do think abortion is a significant part of that. And then also just like you know, the negative sentiment around Trump, you know, which one of these men do people find to be more distasteful. That's going to be a key question here as well. How to young people

factor into all of this. Who are you know, not only disgusted with Biden, but some number have actually shifted to Trump. Some number are just like I'm not going to vote at all. Some number are like, hey what about these third party candidates? That's the other big question mark is these numbers were showing you are just the head to head they don't have RFK Junior, they don't have Jill Stein, they don't have Cornell West. What ballots are those candidates going to be on? I just I

just don't know. I just don't know. Like it's seems to me that it is really fifty to fifty. Every day that I see a like, oh, Biden's doing okay, the next day I see a one that's like, oh, oh, Trump's winning every swing state. And I think that is another thing important thing to bring up, Zager, is it seems pretty consistent that the swing state polls appear to be better for Donald Trump than Joe Biden, whereas the national polls are more of a mixed BacT.

election only fifty two percent. That's actually quite high for a midterm election, but clearly the Democrats had a major performance advantage with fifty two percent of people come into the polls in twenty twenty two, So in presidentials they're usually higher, But is it going to be sixty or sixty three? There's actually quite a big difference between those numbers, and you know who they are. But like you said, two,

the swing voter stuff here really matters. At the same time, you're like, Okay, I see a poll Arizona ands say they're fed up with the economy, all that stuff. Well we saw all of that before twenty twenty two, and then what happened. They all came out on the elected bunch of Democrats, so I could see the exact same thing happening. Their state legislature has to try eight times to overturn a.

I could see it all going to Joe Biden, like all the swing states plus some outlier like Florida. I could see it going to the other direction and be in like a sweep for Trump, perhaps with some assists from third party candidates. I could see the third party Canid's cutting the other way. We see Trump freaking out about RFK Junior right now. I will say just in terms of anticipating turnout, I pulling indicates, and I think

the vibes indicate as well. And what we see in terms of response to the you know, horse race segments that we do here, people are way less engaged than they were in twenty twenty, twenty twenty. They're just completely apathetic. I don't blame them. I feel the same freakin way. I'm like, what kind of a choice is this that we have? Our great democracy and this is the choice we have. This is disgusting. So I think people a

lot of people are like, who really cares? Who cares which one of these like terrible people ends up being the next president of the United States.

insane because that's never supposed to happen. It didn't happen in twenty sixteen, didn't happen in twenty twenty. I mean, there was even more interest frankly in the twenty twelve election. You know, at that time, Obama being tested in all that. I mean, I remember, I'm sure you do too, that primary and Mitt Romney and everything.

Usually the idea is that ratings and interest and clicks and views and all of that really spike and are an outlier, you know, order magnitude higher in presidential election years. And now, I mean, listen, it's it's a little early, but it's may. It's not that early, and people like who cares? And I feel the same way. Frankly, I feel the same way.

very high approval rating. So let's say that you have more low propensity anti institutional folks who hate liberals or hate the Democrats, who want to stick it to somebody. Previously, they were just going to vote for Trump in twenty sixteen. This time around, they may come out and they may vote for RFK Junior if they do turn out to vote, So we cannot erase his role either in this election.

There's a lot of X factors, but I agree, I mean, all indicators are right now is a much lower turnout than twenty twenty that the interest in a lot of ways.

dial off. Mostly sports coverage, pop culture coverage and all of that is record highs, while political coverage is a very very.

they get excited about the elections. They've got some candidate, some horse on their side of the aisle that they're getting excited about, and then you know that starts to spark interest in the stakes of the election. And so you have that dynamic of on the Democratic side, they just literally basically canceled the primary and we're like, nope, we don't care, no dissent, we don't care that the majority of Democrats actually would like to have someone else.

We're just sticking with Joe. That's that. And on the Republican side, as I said, Trump didn't participate in the primaries, and he was massively ahead in the polls nearly once

they people actually engaged the entire time. So there's that, and then there's just the fact that you've cut a majority of Americans who say they don't like Biden and a majority of Americans who they don't like Trump, and the most unifying sentiment in the entire country is utter disgust at the nature of our choices for this election.

with you. I think factory meat is poison. I was telling you us meat is actually banned in one hundred and sixty countries because a lot of the additives that we put in there, many of the ways that we have are in our meat supply Tyson's foods and all of this is repulsive and discussing, and if you have the ability, I would genuinely urge you to not eat it and to try and either buy local meat, which is a pastur ray, organic grass fed, et cetera, from

people who actually both treat animals well, harvest them sustainably and responsibly.

longer it's been around, the better it is. And there is just something deeply dystopian and terrible to me about the ideas of like the future technology companies like these tech guys Jeff Bezos and others, not just owning land where food production actually happens, but synthesizing meat and then possibly I mean, who knows what you're even gonna put into it. I mean, just imagine, you know, our current

vegetables already are not even real vegetables. They're like genetically modified, and they have all this crap in them to make them last longer in the freezer car on the way.

and has potentially you can imagine the potential massive benefits because the meat that we consume, is Sager is actly pointing out, is actually really terrible. And industrial factory farming is also really horrifying and is bad obviously for the animals,

but it's also bad for people. You have this massive use of antibiotics, which has led to you know, straight antibiotic resistant strains of infections, and that being a problem you have even like right now, there's a bird flu situation that comes directly out of the result of the way that these factory farms operate in the close integration with humans, and these factory farms which are disgusting, dystopian places, these animals are tortured from birth until the time that

they are slaughtered. It's horrifying, horrifying situation. And that's before you even get into the climate impact. Okay, so that's number one. Number two, as I was beginning to say, the reason this is happening now is not because Ron DeSantis is deeply concerned about the quality of the food that our children consume. It's because number one, there's a lot of money in the factory farming industry that is

concerned about this. And number two, Republicans have made it into this like culture war thing where it's like, and even Desanta says in his bill, like the World Economic Forum elites want us to eat fake meat and bugs and who cares about climate change, et cetera. So it's this culture war issue that has the benefit of also

overlapping with a lot of big money interests. Fetterman, I think picking it up likely given his the demonstrated level of corruption and how influenced he is by money that is given or withheld from his campaign, I think it's very reasonable to assume that maybe a factor for him as well. But yeah, it's not like the rest of our food system is so pristine that it makes any

sense to single out this one potential innovation. And then the other thing to say is this is like, this is a long way from coming to fruition.

the genetic indications of being just basically like meat. So to have a hard ban on this, it's more culture war signaling than it is actual concern for anybody's health, because if you're concerned for anybody's health, you have a lot more critiques of our food system than you have.

I totally understand a huge portion of the public cannot afford that. So I am not saying that it is anywhere where it needs to be. But imagine if those people got the same federal subsidies that Tyson's Foods and Purdue Farm and all these other people are getting. I mean, that's a totally different type of food system which we could get to pro technology in the way that people could still get access to or even better buy something

locally which is properly raised. So I would just say this lab grown direction is one where look, there's something both in terms of the playing god, but second, I just really believe and we're gonna talk we have a guest later who we're going to be posting later on about ozempic and there is just there is this idea of hubris where we seem to believe that we can just synthesize amino acids and that there isn't something intangible over hundreds of millions or tens of millions of years

of evolution of an animal being grown from birth to wherever it is, and then us eating the animal protein that can just be synthesized through a tube into something that we're going to eat and is going to give us all the nutrients that we could ever possibly want. There's no you know, history of medical science that shows you that, like Western medicine itself right now, if you were to ask me to how to fix the bone, they know how to do that, but they don't know

what makes us tick. That's why nobody has ever solved depression or you know, why you can't just take vitamins instead of eating vegetables.

emissions come from its food delivery. It's very high. So okay, this is part of science solving the climate change crisis and making it so that we don't have to make some of the more dire trade offs that some of us fear that ultimately will have to make. So listen, study it, make sure it's safe. But to just have no evidence that it's a problem and be like I'm going to ban it because I want to own the World Economic Forum elites, it's just silly. It's just silly.

And like I said, it's so different than the way the entire rest of the food system is viewed. It's just this sort of like based on nothing, reactionary view that I believe, based on nothing, this is going to be a problem. When you know, it's nice that you can get like your organic whatever, small ranch raised beef, et cetera. Ninety nine percent that's the stat of animals consume for food production are factory farms and it's horrible.

It's horrible for the animals, it's horrible for human beings. But I don't see Santis or John Fetterman upset about that, of course not, because that's where they're getting the money from, that is being used to drive this position. And then also this just like culture war.

a direct you know, is not a direct substitute. Now, could it get there maybe, but they've been trying, you know, for what forty fifty years, So in this case, maybe they will get there. But it does seem like, just look, it makes me uncomfortable the idea that these people are trying to consolidate the food system such that the fake.

this other stuff. But we could go after the agricultural subsidies and Purdue and Tyson's and all these other companies, and you know, like lunchables, which is I don't even know if that doesn't even qualify in my head as meat or hot dogs or so many of these other things with all those disgusting additives and things like that.

security threat. Note that previously the justification for like bringing in the cops and clearing out in the encampment and all that was, Hey, we got to like, we got to get it together so we can host a commencement. Could put this up on the screen. This is part of the statement from the President of Columbias. It's going to take time to heal, but I know we can do that. I hope we can use the weeks that head to restore calm, all our students complete their academic

work and honor their achievements at commencement. But apparently, I mean, I don't think anyone should take their like security threat thing here seriously. They're worried about it being disrupted. They're worried about a show of you know how widely supported these protests are not only among the students, but among

the faculty. They're panicked about, you know, the donor class meltdown that they've already seen, and so like UCLA before them, they decided better just to cancel it all together so no one can see any potential exercises of free speech. Because I'm Cyer recovered yesterday. There have been graduation ceremonies that have had protests. It hasn't been a big deal. You know, some people stand up with flags, they you know,

get cheered or boot or whatever. They're scorted out and that's the end of the story and it really continues with their day. So you know, there's I guess two things to say. Number One, like I said, it's not about security, it's about they don't want to be embarrassed and they don't want to be out of control. And number two, you know, this has everything to do with the manufactured panic that has been created and they just want it to end and be able to, you know, silence everyone in move.

the next one, please up there on the screen. This kind of gets to some of what we previewed yesterday about where we were going to talk about. There's been some interesting new polling now about how Americans feel about these quote pro palest Indian college protests.

Democrats who support independence, twenty four Republicans sixteen. And then on the opposition you've got thirty one percent Democrats, forty four percent independence, sixty nine percent Republicans. Not a surprise, they've got a breakdown there by religion. But do you want to comment on this before we go through more of them.

support the protests. Given what I know about historic disapproval of protests, and given what I've seen in terms of being overwhelming media and political class manufacturing of consent around these protests, I'm actually surprised aren't worse, Like the fact that you still have eighteen to forty four year old's plurality of whom are in favor, the fact that the Democratic number, I mean, Joe Biden is really going against his own base, because there's a very clear plurality forty

six percent of Democrats who are in support specifically of the college campus protests and only thirty one percent who oppose. You know, the religion gap is also quite quite extraordinary, quite notable. But to be honest with you, these numbers are not as bad as I frankly feared.

who are saying it's about right or not sure. Twenty two percent say too harsh, sixteen percent not harsh enough. But again look at that older figure. Forty five percent and older forty five and older forty eight percent are saying not harsh enough.

and independence. Independence actually relatively split Republicans obviously saying it's not been harsh enough, and then a similar breakdown there amongst religion. Finally, let's go to the next part. This is just on the latest parts. This is about protecting free speech. This can be relatively grim as somebody who definitely supports a free speech do Americans think cologists would focus more on protecting free speech or stopping hate speech?

US adult citizens say both equally, even though stopping hate speech is a fake thing and is not real.

speech is good. Let's do both. So I don't know, even though from an ideological perspective, obviously I think protecting free speech is more important, but it doesn't I understand why they got these results.

be marginally important. But the reason why I actually don't pay attention to much as this as I do to there was a recent column we didn't cut it unfortunately that I just read this morning about why this is very different from Vietnam is that all of the polling that we have says that Israel Paleson is not number one or even top five, and if anything, is a fifteen out of sixteen issue for the vast majority of people, including for young people, whereas in Vietnam, Vietnam was top

five and in many cases was number one and number two.

this one, I mean, look, I've said this before. If you watch the show every single day, you're in like the top one to two percent of news consumers in this whole country. And yeah, you know, we cover the news in the same way. If you go to the front page of the New York Times Israel, white House, Trump tile trial and all that stuff, maybe five ten percent of the country you know, actually checks in every

single day. Because at that time, one point nine million Americans had been drafted into the armed forces fifty five thousand killed, the level of civic, like, the level of civic engagement around the issue was just so much higher that I just I don't really see it making all that much of a difference. Based on the polling, I would say I would probably be on the side, you know, polling just pure like popularity wise of either the about right figure or of the crackdown. That just seems to

be the more popular spot. I'm not saying I support that. I don't for free speech purposes, but I'm just telling you, like, for political purpose, that's probably where I would align if we're a politician.

vote in Michigan. There were a few states where the uncommitted vote itself in a Democratic primary was larger than the margin that Joe Biden won against Donald Trump. So you know, in that way, even if it's only a small percentage, you say this is my number one issue, you clearly have some part of the young population in particular, who were likely Biden voters who were like, no, not doing it. Can't vote for someone who is funding a Jen'm just not going to do it, And that's a

problem for him. The reason I disagree about his response goes back to the analysis. It's similar to the analysis of why I thought he made a big mistake in terms of how he handled immigration. Okay, And there's studies, especially of politicians in Europe that show when they try to move to the right and be like no, I'm actually an immigration hardliner as well, it demoralizes their base and divides their base, and it seeds ground to that

right wing perspective. So that if people are like, oh well, even this guy agrees with the the right on immigration, So why am I going to go for the water down version of that? If I want the law and order crackdown, dude, I'm going with Donald Trump all day long. So I think that's number one. Number two is that the thing that has caused the impression of like chaos is not actually the students who are in relatively small numbers on each of these campuses, like setting up tents.

It's the crackdown. It's the police response. It's the police coming in brutalizing these students. In fact, the initial crackdown at Columbia sparked a massive increase in these protests across the country. So I think the response itself has created this impression of chaos. That is a problem for Joe Biden with his like moderate suburban voters. Now, in my opinion, those moderate suburban voters are already voting for him, like they're not going back to Trump. They're voting for him.

Many of them very energized by jobs. As you're accurately pointing out, this issue is not important to them. They don't really care either way. So I think he has Number one divided his own basic coalition. We see that

in some of the numbers. Number two further alienated some potentially small but also potentially determinative number of young people who are like you just called me a Nazi, Like, no, I'm not voting for you, and there's nothing you can say it's going to change my mind at this point. And number three has created exactly the scenes of chaos that can lead to a conservative backlash that is not going to be like your law and order to do. They're going to be like Trump's law and order do.

That's own going man.

Joe Biden certainly didn't. But your point was assailient one, which is like, it doesn't really matter because they're associated with this thing, right, And Joe Biden was associated with that thing. He was, as I said rhetorically, much more sympathetic to the protesters, was very clear about yes, I condemn the violence, but let's not use that to distract from the core issues in these core concerns, which are legitimate. And you know, obviously he became president of the United States.

it was happening under him. So my point is that Joe Biden, by green lighting this crackdown, has created the very chaos that yes, is a problem for him, and that it sort of doesn't really matter what he says about it because the chaos is happening under him. And if his response is to be like, we need a crackdown and who we'll see what he says about college

student protesters today is giving some big speech on anti Semitism. Like, if you're looking for the if you were horrified by what you're seeing on college campuses and you want the law and order guy, that's never going to be Joe Biden. That's going to be Donald Trump.

still supporting it. So even though public sentiment at this point agreed with the protesters, there was this very like visceral reaction against the protests themselves, which is you know, it's just interesting that that can be two separate questions, so they could support the issue in general but also be like, you know, no to these protests.

war in Vietnam. The number of debts actually increased, we have the secret bombing of Cambodia. Vietnamization doesn't happen until later on in the nix In presidency, where US soldiers are still dying by the hundreds every week in Vietnam.

nineties when Bill Clinton was elected. Actually, this was an important thing in the ninety two election, when I think hw Bush called him a draft dodging bum or something because he got a college exemption for a Rhodes scholarship, and he had hair and he smoked weed at the Vietnam protests, and that was the first time it kind of didn't matter that somebody had opposed the Vietnam War.

the emancipation Proclamation. It's time the rabble rousers are gone. And Lincoln famously says, I would like to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky as in, we have to have the border slave states who stay within the Union.

you know in eighteen sixty. What were they correct, you know to try and to push him to do something that was very unpopular or was he correct to basically lie about his position and work within the political system at the time and force abolition and the emancipation through basically as a war aim lying to the American people and saying, well, we're doing it to win the Civil War. It has nothing to do actually with black liberation, even

though that's an end result. And I think that's a very important question, is like, you know, who is who is really responsible?

misreading of history. I think it's you have to have a confluence of factors, right. The social movements are critical, having like the labor movement, pressuring FDR. These things are critical for pressuring these people in power to make these steps in history that are important. So I just can't go along with the idea that protest never works, it always backfires, It's always fool hardy, you know, because when I look at the lunch counter sit in numbers, like

the conclusion is the exact opposite. It's not only do people disapprove, they found it disorderly, chaotic, etcetera, etcetera. Just like the reaction you know, among many to the protests. Now, not only that they said this is going to hard, this is going to create a backlash, just like you're saying this is going to be a problem, it's going to make it worse. And I don't think any reading of history can look at that and say that's accurate.

And so the fact that a protest movement is not accepted by NORMI Americans is you know, uncomfortable for them, rejected where they think it's going to be backlash, et cetera is not at all determined if you look at history of how successful those movements are ultimately going to be. So, you know, the apartheid movement eighties is like a great example of that, you had to say, And it's probably a more close example to Israel than Vietnam, because you're right,

there was much more focus on Vietnam. It was much longer period of time. You had Americans getting drafted, you had Americans dying. I mean, this was massive, right. The apartheid example, I think is a much more closely related one. But you still had the same like normy backlash. You still had I feel like freed Zakaria out there, you know, like what are you kids doing? And yeah, you was on the wrong side of that one. Yeah yeah, that got dug up recently in terms of context of it whatever. Anyway,

But they mattered, they helped. Were they the only thing? No, But they were part of a global movement combined with internal struggle with in South Africa itself that contributed to a climate that ended that racist regime. So I guess my question for you is, like, put yourself in the shoes of these college shoes and I don't know, you don't agree with their perspective, that's fine, but I think you are. I think you understand they're not doing this

for like clout. They genuinely feel very passionate that there is a genocide that is being conducted in their name with their dollars, and they want to do whatever they can think of to do to throw some sand into these gears and to desperately try to stop these horrors that they see unfolding in front of their eyes. Like, what would you tell them to do?

this ceasefire deal. Barack Ravine, who is you know, the White House whisperer, and all of this is saying like they see this as really important politically, because but Joe Biden obviously doesn't care about Palestinians, He's obviously committed Zionist. He is feeling political pressure from this protest movement. That

to me is very clear. And so since we don't really live in the kind of democracy where the majority like rules and just you get public sentiment on your side and that's it, that pressure that he feels from this movement is what counts way more than whether Normanis are upset about a campus building and a window broken and the you know, what's the encampments, the disruption itself is creating the pressure. That is the thing that could I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but that could change things.

very least didn't think it was their problem. It's only to say that I know that that was the reality, and so like, let's you know, the sit in thing is the perfect example. Like this person calls it the most effective protest, It's just not true. Nineteen sixty one was a time when the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, his Attorney General, support rhetorically the civil rights protesters. At the day that Kennedy died, the likelihood of a civil Rights Act being

passed zero percent. It was his death and LBJ that eventually the genius of LBJ ushers in the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act. But then even to say that you know that these people were wrong. I don't think they were wrong. The truth is that race politics then rules the Republican Party in the South for what nineteen sixty eight, race riots are basically the reason that Nixon

gets elected. Then Ronald Reagan, everybody seems to just forget this, happens to launch his nineteen eighty campaign in Mississippi at the very heart of like some serious segregationist sympathies. I mean, the year I was born, in nineteen ninety two in the in Texas, fifty percent of the public did not support interracial marriage, which is nuts.

to happen, it was still worth it. And so you're Like, if your argument to me is like, oh, now Democrats are going to lose elections, you think I fucking care about that. I don't care about.

problem for Democrats electorally. Their policy in Gaza is a problem for them electorally. The way they're treating them people is a problem for them electorally. The chaos that they themselves created is a problem for them electorally. And to that, I say, good, it should be. It should be a problem for you.

and it hasn't matter. So if this is your number one issue, if you cannot sleep at night, see like seeing these children starving to death, children being bombed, knowing these are tax dollars, Like what else are you going to do? This is the the only And they have been so disciplined, ninety nine percent nonviolent, Like the worst thing they've done is break a window and enter one

campus building. Okay, that's that is incredible discipline, very big contrast definitely with the seventies protests and with the Black Lives Matter protests as well, Like this is the this is not guaranteed to work, but at least it has a chance of working. And I think that's that's all you can That's all you can bet on, is that, like, I'm doing everything I can think to do. I'm being principled in my non violent tactics, which they really have been.

And even now, even with the I mean incredit, I've never seen a media propaganda campaign like what we're seeing with this. I genuinely this is beyond war and tearor whole of politics, congressional response banning, TikTok, Dana bash and you know Fox News making common cause with bab Net and ya whoever these kids are Nazis and Joe Biden, mcgrid, the whole bit, everybody in league. And you still have a clear plurality of Democrats who are like, no, I'm

with the protesters. I mean, that is kind of that is pretty extraordinary. Like the Democratic base is quite split with specifically regards to the protest tactics in spite of the most insane propaganda campaign I've ever seen, and American public is very clearly on the side of the protesters in terms of wanting to secure a ceasefire and the end and not supporting for their aid to Israel and saying that Israeli military has gone too far, like they're

on their side and that. So, yeah, I think this is the only thing that has even a chance of making a difference. And so I you know, I say, God bless these protesters, Thank God for them.

Like in the scheme culture, the gates are moving. Your job is to be agile and clever enough that wherever they put the gates, I'm going to make the gate.

same fan base as Kyle Rittenhouse Gronk. I'm happy you could take a break from writing Santa letters to be here today. I knew you were here when we were all out of chocolate milk backstage. You look like the final boss in George Floyd the video game. Jeff is so Jewish he only watches football for the coin toss. Nikki has such a bad eating disorder the industry keeps

shoving her down our throat. You might recognize over our podcast appearances, specials and winning the Triple Crown at Churchill Downs. You might recognize Kevin is the jockey that wrote her, and that's Churchill Downs the racetrack. Not to be confused with what Jeff Ross looks like when he smokes a cigar. Sam Jay in Obese African American lesbian. So by having here, Netflix checked off a lot of boxes. Andrew Schultz, I'm glad you took a break from watching YouTube videos on

how to tap up black dudes. Correctly, Schultz's mom is a professional ballroom dancer, which means she's a stripper that talks too much. Bert Kreischer is a king. He looks like at the Tiger King and the Liver King, only ate Burger King and had a liver that looked like Martin Luther.

of the late twenty tens. If anything, Shane Starr is even brighter, and he is hosting shows with Schultz directly for Netflix, selling out massive arenas. Now, I don't write any of this to say that political correctness and woke influences on comedy we're never a problem, only to say

that I don't think it's really a problem anymore. And that people who rely on the crutch for why it's ruining comedy, maybe they have another agenda that they're trying to push, like, I don't know, maybe the fact that Jerry is deciding to make these comments at the exact moment, that his wife is donating huge amounts of money to pro Israel protesters, and that he has been urging people to read Barry Weiss's The Free Press, and Broadley has decided to now enter the fray as a pro Israel

voice since October seventh, Camp help, But notice that Unfrosted co star Amy Schumer also been doing the exact same thing lately. If anything, they appear to be the new Snowflakes, crying about the fact that people disagree with them in public and then blaming their middling performance or their products on the very forces that they participated in when it

was something that was on their side. Now, as for why any of this matters, it's because I've always thought comedy is like a decade ahead of where a lot of the media ends up.

be here. Yeah, So first, just tell us the context in which you were in Gaza and a little bit of what you saw there.

at pain relief. Pain relief has been almost zero in Gaza during this last period, and I spent time yes in Alijar Hospital in fatimaal Zacha Hospital that's the oncology service that has been displaced three times already, and as well as neonatal hospitals and primary care hospitals in Rufa.

They had not been paid any salary for six months. The price of basic foodstuffs was sky high, making it impossible for their families. They were not sleeping any night. I was not sleeping any night, continually all night, drones and bombs, and yet they were still coming to work and doing the best they could. So that's the first thing I'd say. And it was a pleasure to see people that I've known. I've taught in the medical school,

so you know some of the young doctors. Would you believe I was teaching communication and ethics just last August, and that brought up many a conversation about what ethics looked like in healthcare. But it was a pleasure to see people doing there at most best. But I couldn't believe how exhausted they were. There was a little bit of teasing about how much weight everybody had lost, but the reality was minimum fifteen to twenty kilograms, and that was in a place that had some access to food.

I was only able to be in telephone contact with those in the north. So that's my first thing that struck me. The second is everywhere was full. The hospital on the shar a small district hospital. Over the years, RAFA has said, you don't give us a big hospital, but there was a big hospital just a few miles up the road in han Juniz, and then the major one obviously in North Gaza. That hospital should have had

sixty beds. It had anything between six hundred seven hundred patients coming through the hospital and even more than a thousand in the accident emergency. It was the first point of call for trauma, even though it only had a simple X ray machine and some ultrasound now. In fact, the doctors told me they felt they were working with their hands tied behind their back, and they told me stories of young people with diabetes coming in with very

dangerous blood tests something called potassium very very low. It's a known complication. Yet they couldn't test for that, and so the patient should have been an ICU, should have had blood tests. All the time they were still managing to care for those patients, and a one young doctor told me how we slept for forty eight hours next to the bed of a young man his age who was dying of diabetic keto acidosis, that's this complication of diabetes,

and actually managed somehow to help that patient survive. So exhausted healthcare staff, dreadful, dreadful circumstances, patients in huge trouble with their chronic illness and then their new illness such as a pneumonia or infection, and then maybe also a traumatic event with an injury, so all of those combined and still people trying to care with compassion.

If you are a patient who's suffering from a traumatic injury, if you are struggling with aggressive cancer, what does that actually look like, and what does it look like to try to care for these individuals who are in absolutely excruciating pain, because we've all seen the reports of even children having to undergo amputations with no anesthetic, women having to have cesareans with no anesthetic.

with that anesthetic. The children, the mothers with cesarean sections without anesthetic or with minimal or you get maybe one dose of a painkiller because that's all there, but nothing afterwards. Think of rehabilitating from your severe injury, all the dressings changes. Think of the burns patients. I spoke to some of my colleagues whose parents died of severe burns and they watched them cry as they died. And this is no criticism of my colleagues. And then you moved to the cancer.

I had just had the privilege of working with my GAZA colleagues to train twenty amazing multidisciplinary GAZA colleagues in pain and palliative care. They have the skills, we were about to graduate them. They were pharmacists and doctors and physios and nurses, and they were saying, you gave us the skill and we can't use it. And the stories they told of the cancer patients children as well as adults just crying, crying in pain was absolutely devastating. I

have to say. The day we were there, they had got a small donation through UNISEEF had arrived in fatimal Zacha. That was the clinic for the oncology hospital, beautiful oncology hospital called the Turkish Palestine Friendship Hospital in northern Gaza that had been displaced now the three times, and they got some and immediately my colleagues were coming to me and saying, you know, we know how to do this,

Let's get on and do this. But they also told me that every time they were displaced, they usually lost all their supplies. And yesterday that clinic was displaced again. And I have no idea whether where they've been displaced too. I mean, where can they be displaced too? We'll even have a drop of anaalgesia, and it's absolutely heartbreaking and unimaginable suffering.

two kilos of chicken. They haven't had any for months, arrived frozen from Egypt, and I think it was fifty or sixty dollars to buy enough for a family. And remember I said no one had been paid, so they were somehow managing. There was a few tins coming in and people were getting by, but were still lose weight. And of course, once you start losing below a certain level, you're using up all of your protein stores. You become liable to infections. I saw people dying of pressure sores.

Now that's a combination of untreated wounds, of not enough water, no hygiene because you're living in circumstances where there is either no toilet facilities or one share between hundreds, and can imagine hygiene. It's getting hot now, that kind of infections were rising. That's a result of malnutrition. But even worse I was hearing from Northern Gaza. I had two long calls with the very dear colleague I've worked with

a long time. A tomato was costing seven dollars. People were dying trying to catch the food coming from the sky. I think you've seen the and all of this is one hour from where I used to come into Asa when the area is crossing, So you know, it's not like an earthquake in a distant mountainous place. This is just beside where food and water are available. And I also attended the meeting where we got an update on

the nutritional status. And there's four stages before you get to famine, and each of those stages had been crossed and crossed, and now we were looking at moving Northern Gaza fully into famine. And that is not severe malnourishment. That is imminent death of thousands, and it hardly ever happens. We see malnutrition, but a man made famine is almost unheardle.

last night was just absolute panic. No one had fuel. They knew this might happen, but they'd nowhere to go. They're trying to get out the way. Where can they go? They say they're moving for peace, but there's nowhere to go, there's nowhere safe to go, and people are just trying

to desperately find a way to survive. I spoke to a colleague in northern Gaza, a very dear colleague working through the whole of this time, and he said to me, dear Moira, I'm so happy to hear you and Gaza, but we have lost hope in the international community, and our people are simply awaiting our fate. And that's the

sense I had last night. Number One is the international community to protect civilians, to protect healthcare, to protect the children and the sick, and also where is the humanity? I see humanity every time I go to Gaza, and I've described already what I've seen, but I felt a deep sense of shame that as an international community we have not we have not upheld the dignity and humanity of the Gadsen people.

et cetera. I just wanted to ask you if you saw any evidence that would lead you to believe that there were Hamas operatives in any of the hospitals where you were.

on any particularly productors. So I saw absolutely none of that. I only saw. I didn't see any military presence at all, And there has not been any credible evidence shared. And I would really again say, we need independent journalism. We need independent international colleagues who can investigate and look into any of those allegations, but also can document which, according to the evidence presented to the international criminal courts, are evidence of war crimes.