6/5/24: Dem Revolt Over Border Shutdown, Bibi Gov Collapse Over Ceasefire, Gaetz Rips Garland On Trump Cases, Modi Setback In India, AMLO Ally Sweeps Mexico Elections

Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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But enough with that, Let's get to the show. All right, Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. Emily. How you doing.

I'm good. I've got a new job.

By the way, we should probably mention that I'm now the DC correspondent at Unheard, switched over from the Federalist after six awesome years, but a DC correspondent at Unheard. We're going to be doing some stuff on YouTube, actually, so subscribe to the Unheard YouTube. We'll be launching a show. I'll be co hosting it twice a week and am writing in the meantime. But make sure you stay tuned. Subscribe and we'll be there soon with more.

And congratulations on that. Unheard is kind of cool. It's it's not exactly left or right like, isn't it like? Kind of what is the contrarian or like or.

I think it trains a good way to put it publishes opinions that aren't you with het, yeah, heterodoxic, Like it really tries to not go in a direction either way. That's like, this is the consensus opinion. You're being pushed by the political establishment. So here's some takes that are kind of different on both sides.

Well, congrats, looking forward to your stuff.

There, Thanks so much. We have a big show to Actually we have two guests.

That's right, We're going to have a liberal Zionist, which is I'll be honest of you, that is probably lacking on this program. Now we have four hosts, probably none of them would consider themselves quote unquote liberal Zionists. So we're gonna have one who's really plugged in and is going to talk about the negotiations inside the Israeli cabinet to get to a place where they're going to be able to if they'll be able to accept a peace deal, if Hamas is going to be able to accept this this deal.

So we'll see about that.

And also twenty twenty four is a year that is going to go down in history as the kind of the most people voting. Ever, in one year, we've already seen hundreds of millions go to the polls in Pakistan, Indonesia.

That gets you know, over five hundred million right there.

And just in the last couple of days we had South Africa, Mexico, and India.

Yeah, they all went to the polls.

Fascinating developments out of all of those elections. I think, especially for people who watch this show and are unhappy with elites in the direction that they're taking this country, they might be pretty pleased to see the results in some of those countries as well.

We'll we'll unpack like why.

That is right, Yeah, you're going to become remotey. We have one w rosehas here from Compact. She's going to talk about the election of Claudia Shanebaum in Mexico. I think that's a much more interesting development than some people are giving it credit for, given that she's you just sort of Amlow's successors how she's being covered, but she's

Now some of the details of this.

Basically, as this went into effect at twelve oh one pm or twetal one am, I should say, last night, at twenty five hundred crossings illegal entries is how the New York Times says it. Seven day average for illegal entries hits twenty five hundred per day. That had already happened. So that's why the order went into effect at twelve one am.

So let's take a.

Listen actually to what Biden said when he signed the bill first or the executive order first.

Here he is, I've come here today to do what Republics in Congress refused to do, take the necessary steps to secure our border. Four months ago, after weeks of intense negotiation between my staff and Democrats Republicans, we came to a clear bipartisan deal. It was the strongest border security agreement in decades. Then Republicans in Congress not all

So a lot of that was untrue.

I'll just say the part about Donald Trump in particular, because in my own conversations with Republican sources, they say, we would have totally opposed that bipartisan border deal no matter what Donald Trump. If Donald Trump had supported it, we would have opposed it because our constituents would have been so opposed to it. The argument is that it allowed a lot of exemptions, and actually, in this case, Biden's executive order also allows for a lot of exemptions,

To go away.

Fifteen like unpack this for people Okay.

So it's interesting because a lot of what happens now is not the sort of stereotypical border crossing that a lot of people probably think about.

There are still peopeople running across the river and right.

And that the wall that does still happen.

Absolutely, it still still happens, But a lot of people will cross the river with cartel escorts and then just turn themselves in instead of trying to hide from border patrol, go through the desert and totally unnoticed all of that, they'll simply turn themselves in claim asylum. And that's why some of this is interesting in and of itself because the asylum process. You know, a lot of the reporting here is that it's just going to be asylum is simply going to be cut off with this Biden policy.

That's an orderly entry into like you get an appointment. This is when you're supposed to come to the border, show your app and then you get and then you move through the process.

Right, And the government provides mostly in the numbers for encounters at the border, which are so hard to know what that means. They actually provide do a really poor job providing numbers on asylum and so some of the reporting again has suggested that bends already reduced the number of daily encounters at the border, and that's true. But it's true because a lot of times those encounters are just the people who are crossing actually illegally, like swimming

We just know that a lot of people are showing up and.

There's also the Mexican roll right like over the last three months.

Yeah, for whatever reason, we don't know what what exact deal was cut or what domestic interest. Samlo had at the time A good point it could be, you know, could have been election or later we'll talk about that later. He helped to cut down the crossings by something like fifty percent by basically holding migrants who are coming through transiting through. These are not Mexicans. We're not seeing a surge of Mexicans across the border. We're going to talk

And he was holding a lot of those back.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I'm reading from the hill right now. Their headline is that he's limiting asylum at the southern border. That might turn out to be accurate. Again, though, what's one of the really interesting things. I looked up the definition and I actually read through the entire executive order and it relies on this definition in the US Code of Trafficking to exempt unaccompanied miners and people who have been trafficked from the limits. And you know, there

You can talk to people they pay the cartels.

It's maybe, I mean maybe ninety percent is the number. There are some people who you know paid to get up to the border, but like you said, they're coming from Argentina and Brazil.

Or if you don't pay, they break your legs, right.

They will. I talked to a family.

I looked at this little girl who had been held in captivity in a house in Renosa for ten days without much food or water. Dark safe house, basically safe house because they didn't realize they hadn't paid the cartel fee for that region. Hunter and family is just people would be shocked if they heard the story.

Right, So it's not necessarily that you need their assistance to get there. It's that if you try to do without their assistance, they're gonna make you pay. It's interesting because our understanding of trafficked is that you've basically our Hollywood version is a kidnapped exactly. Yeah, And this turns it on his head a little bit because you've actually paid. Sometimes paid you've paid out of extortion at the border. Other times you've paid out of desperation back at home.

But if you're trying to here, no borders guy, right, But.

If you're trying to stop people from coming, then it becomes a difficult one.

You want to move to the democratic.

Yeah, And I was going to say, that's what's interesting is because the Biden administration is not in favor openly of open borders, it's not like Joe Biden is out there making the libertarian and you're sort of progressive argument for open borders. He's making this argument as he attempts to look really hawkish, and this is something he could have done at any time, of course, and he's doing

That's Ja Johnson.

Jay Johnson in the Obama administration said that a thousand encounters a day was a quote christ So capping it there, I mean, we're we're on a different scale than people realize. And I guess that's where the Biden administration, heading into an election, decides to finally finally do something. We'll see what actually happens now. To the point about making the argument, honestly, here's how Greg Kassar, representative from Texas Reactive front of the show he was on back.

In December, I think and talking to immigration.

Yeah, talking immigration here's how he reacted to the news on MSNBC.

I have real disagreements and concerns with this executive action because I think it plays into the current Republican talking points. You see the Republican Party here in Congress tries to cover up its own failures by scapegoating immigrants. It's the oldest trick in the book, and they continue to advocate for closing legal pathways to migration and pointing at chaos

Right, I've seen a lot of pushback, actually more than usual, even I would say from just sort of justice Democrat or Justice Democrat adjacent adjacent type people.

Even more like Alex Padilla in the Senate, the entire Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which is which politically is very centrist or moderate, lashed out at this and when he was pressed when Kassar was president, what's your vision here, he said, well, we have to work on what's pushing people out. He said, start by relieving sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba, and our kind of hostile policy towards Central and South Americans, which is making it so that they want to leave, Like

Some people really are.

I mean, like when I talked to Haitian migrants at the border who were coming from Argentina and Brazil, they were like, you know, I was making a normal amount of money, wasn't in danger? And I said, well, why did you come? Was it the American dream? And they lit up and they were like the American dream, But they weren't in Cuba, right, And.

That also wasn't why they left Haiti. Like they left.

Those people left Haiti to go work basically, like to help build the Olympic structures and such in Brazil and if Haiti were a place where there could be a Haitian dream. No, most Haitians, I think would prefer the

They're like, we're going, m hmm, it's fine. I mean, America seems great, but it's great here too.

Is the consensus response?

Do you think so far from Democrats who are opposing the Biden policy a root causes kind of argument.

Yes, And as Beto you know, talked about in our discussion a couple of weeks ago, there really isn't a consensus kind of border policy yet that Democrats have settled on, and they're really being pulled in this kind of reactionary direction that Biden is leading him in, with others kind

That will work.

That's him, and it didn't work for anybody else who has ever tried it. So, setting aside the morale, the ethics, whether it works, whatever, just on a pure cynical political basis, what he's trying to do, which is be less Trump. And he even said in his speech, he said, this is going to see it sound similar to, well, you know what Trump did, but we do.

It with love.

You know.

He was basically saying, you know, we're not going to accompany this with the rhetoric that Trump used. He cited Trump's rhetoric that immigrants poison the blood of America. He's like, I would never say that, but I'm going to do the same policy but in a much gentler way, just

You know if it's their big issue, but I guess I wonder if there are independent voters around the country, this makes them feel moremfortable with Biden, even if they're not happy with Biden overall, it could factor in to

Is how you described it.

There's a way to interpret this that could still let I mean, first of all, it lets a lot of people in. If you're saying we're turning away those credible fear interviews. Once we hit twenty five twenty five hundred dollars, twenty five hundred people a day, which amounts to a crazy amount of dollars actually for cartels. When you do that, you're still letting in. I think it's one point five million people a year, which is a huge number compared to it. I mean that was around it's been about

A pull on what's right.

I have a hard time with Democrats who aren't openly saying we should be letting in, you know, at least one point five million a year, if not more. If that's your position, you should own it like you do Ryan, because it's perfectly it's perfectly defensible and reasonable.

It's not one that I agree with.

But if you're saying, you know, we want the border to be safe and orderly, and yet you're still allowing for these exemptions and all of these entries a year, basically you're not doing and not doing anything about the root cause. In the meanwhile, you know, I know they've made some overtures to you know, spending more on humanitarian aid in these countries and stationing more people to you know, tell them about CBPP one throughout South and Central America.

I don't know.

I mean it seems like it's sort of a half measure that could know, really not end up changing much.

Yeah, I mean that's how most of our policy has done, especially if you if you can't do anything through Congress. But yeah, we have a labor shortage, like people seem to hate it, like politically when you say it, but it's like the country that can attract young immigrants who

It's absolutely true by the way that we are an aging country.

Birth rates are declining, We're getting older, like that's just a fact. And so you can either have a lot more babies, or you can allow immigrants, or a combination of the two.

And immigration is really.

The part of that equation that is first well, obviously easier, it's pretty complicated, time consuming. Raise somebody to eighteen years old if that's your policy. So anyway, we'll see, Yeah, we'll see.

I mean, I'm not one of those people that's like, you know, we have to stop immigration, all immigration. I actually think, you know, a much more clear system would allow for actual, orderly, sensible, logical system that helps us be competitive and does increase productivity without hurting American workers.

There's a way to do it.

But to your point, it's not how our policy is done in these days whatsoever. Speaking of divides between Democrats and the Biden administration, let's move to this Israel block because if you see, we can put this up on the screen, this is b one. If you take a look at how Democrats are responding to Biden's comment. In this big Time magazine interview, he was asked by the interviewer, do you believe that na who's prolonging the war for

Then he goes and.

Comments on it and says there's every reason for people to draw that conclusion. And he goes on also to say, I would cite that before the war began, the blowback he was getting from the Israeli military for wanting to changed the constitution, changed the court. And so it's an

We can put this up on the screen.

Netan Yahoo was he was invited to address a joint session of Congress. There is no date for it. I think this happened actually back back in March, but more congressional progressives, this cites Jaya Paul even you know, you have people like Stenny Hoyer saying I'm not sure this is helpful for Yahu. They're actual like Apac people who are now trying to.

Distance themselves the trip every other year.

So it is real, Ryan, this is your bread and butter. Break down.

What's happening with the divide, the growing divide here between Biden who's trying to kind of have it both ways with Yahoo and his coalition here at home.

Right, So Biden, by saying it has not been helpful when he's talking about Yahoo sense of self preservation, is referring to a piece that doesn't get discussed enough. I think in American media that factors into the war, which is that.

Nenya who is facing.

Corruption charges, and if he leaves power, it's not just that he goes to become a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy Center. He could actually go to prison for these

An absolute horrific massacre over the course of the day.

And so the thing that's keeping him, you know, out of jail and in power is the fact that he's still prime minister.

And the thing that's keeping him prime minister is the war.

So that's that's exactly what Biden is referring to, that his sense of self preservation. So we talk about how Hamas is being asked to sign on a dotted line and under with Israel saying, by this agreement, you will all die. Like their condition is that Hamas must must dissolve and go away. Uh, And Hamas is I'm not

And so that's what Biden's referring to there.

Meanwhile, there's an invitation extended to him to come here and address a joint session of Congress, and you had when he came in twenty fifteen, it was this massive thumb in the nose of Obama, who very much did not want him to come. Painter invited him anyway, and he came to demand that the Iran nuclear deal, you.

Know, not get put together.

The audacity a foreign leader coming to our capital and telling our lawmakers not to do a deal with a different foreign country, it's.

Just kind of incredible.

You cannot imagine any other foreign leader who would come to the United States and tell us how to strike a treaty with some other country.

While we are sending tons of money and weapons, and at the invitation by the way of our leaders of John Bayner at the time. And also it looks like one of the big reasons that this invitation was originally extended to the Tanyahoo was as a kind of olive branch, right Ryan. At the time, this was back and I think this was a march ish it was earlier in

It was kind of an interesting move.

And now it seems like, while there's no date, this looming over Congress is really allowing for some of the big divides between progressive justice Democrat adjacent people and the Biden administration too. I don't know, I mean to become more pointed, more acute than I've seen over the course of the Biden administration. I actually think it's influenced the boldness and speaking out against the Biden border policy.

We talked about earlier that it's just there's a snowball.

Kind of rolling down the hill with people getting comfortable now openly criticizing Biden. Biden in a way that reminds me of how the Freedom Caucus typically treats you people like Mike Johnson, although there's a lot of agreement even in like the Democratic establishment that maybe the whole net Yaho joined address isn't a good thing, even for Netnahu himself.

And all of this is happening while the question is being called both to Israel and to Hamas, with Biden has elevated this offer that Israel made. Israel has now said that it's ratified of something very close to it that's gone through the Katari Foreign Minister to Hamas. There are multiple in multiple courts and politics within each of those different coalitions. Like you know, Hamas is a coalition, just like the Israeli government is a coalition. It's not

Joining us now is Child Ben a Frame.

He's the host of the podcast Israel Explained and also a history of the land of Israel. Child, Thanks for joining us. So can you walk us through your assessment of what where net Yahoo is now when it comes to this this offer that has been made and has has this actual offer been made? Let's actually before you answer, let's put this first. Let's put this element up. This

What have what has Israel given them? And what have it sent to Hamas?

So on May twenty ninth, the Israeli War Cabinet voted on an offer to give to Hamas. That offer was made at a very low moment for Israel, when a video of several female soldiers that had been taken by by Hamas who worked as observers had been revealed to the public, and there was a lot of pressure to get a deal right now. Nataniell was somewhat hesitant to make that offer, but he did, and because he was very hesitant to make that offer, he's been backtracking ever since.

Now.

That offer is very similar to the one that Biden referenced in his speech. Biden made no changes from the offer that Israel made, despite some claims to the contrary. There were some things that he omitted for sure, especially the number of prisoners things like that, but a lot of that is confidential and under Israeli military censorship to

So it's a three stage offer.

In the first stage, there'll be in exchange of humanitarian hostages in exchange for a release of prisoners and Israel stopping the war for forty six days.

Then there'll be negotiation over a second phase.

In the second phase, there's supposed to be complete cessation of the conflict permanently, a return of soldiers, and in the third phase there is going to be a rebuilding of Gaza that will take place over three to five years. So that's the full.

So Netna Who's initial response when Biden came out with that proposal was to say, well, you know, this is a non starter. This isn't really what I meant because it doesn't allow us to continue the war. Then there were leaks from his own office saying no, actually, this

Is it the same deal?

Yeah?

Yeah, So the trouble with what we're doing here is as as more rational people, is that we're trying to find continuity in Nathaniel's policy on a on a foreign policy level, in terms of the national interest, in terms of.

Getting a deal.

Uh, that's a mistake because Nathaniel is only working on the level of trying to maintain his coalition, and right now his coalition is ailing on both sides. He's got Ben Vereen smolt Rich on the right and they're saying that they're going to bolt if there.

Is an advance on this deal. Then you have.

Gance on the left say that he's going to bolt if there isn't advance on a deal or any kind of strategic vision towards the war, and you have immense international pressure from Biden, the lights of which if you ignore, there will be repercussions.

So what Nathaniel was trying to do is he's trying to avoid.

All these pitfalls by maneuvering left when he goes too far right, and maneuvering right when he goes too far left, to try to maintain his coalition, to try to beat the worst ramifications of having an open spat with with Biden, and to try to keep guns in the coalition for as long as possible. So as far as the actual offer is concerned, nothing has changed, because that offer is one that is Reel's made.

So the offer is locked in.

The US has already revealed it, and the reason they revealed it was because they knew that it Daniel might back away from it and to put pressure on Hamas to agree to it.

Too, because Hamas was probably going to say no without all.

This, so that the offer is the same offer, but the spin is going to constantly change according to Nataniao's political needs, and a lot of the things that he's saying are in there are not the most obvious ones. He's saying that the offer includes the Israeli right to destroy Hamas. But you're never going to give an offer to someone with saying I'm going to destroy you.

That is nonsensical.

But he's saying that for political reasons, and if we understand that, then we understand.

What he's doing. But the offer is the same offer, and so.

Let's talk about actually how Biden is navigating some of those challenges here. Matthew Miller was asked about this by a Nile Stange. I forget how to pronounce this last name. Sorry, Nile, but let's play this next clip and get you to react to it.

Chill.

You mentioned the present remarks, which included the idea that as long as a mask lives up to its commitment, there could be and I quote, the cessation of hostilities permanently. And you say that is an Issueli proposal. The government of the State of israel Is signed up to a proposal that there could be a permanent and true hostilities and a mass still in existence in a meaningful way.

No, they are signed up to an agreement that leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities, but with a number of provisions that have to be negotiated to get there at the.

End of the faith.

But it's a provision.

But I'm not going to negotiate all those provisions in public. I've talked about this a good deal yesterday, about the fact that one of the principles the Secretary outlined in Tokyo and November is that there cannot be continued rule of Hamas in Gaza after October seventh. I'm sorry, after the end of this conflict, and that's what we're committed to.

No, but I understand that. But if the provisions required would be the dissolution of Hamas, why would a mass sign up to get that ball willing.

Because they don't want to see continued conflict, continued Palestinian people dying. They don't want to see war in Gaza. They want to see reconstruction of Gaza. Now, look, I will say I will grant you one thing I said

And so that's why we'll continue to push for it.

And if Hamas really does represent the interests of the Palestine people, as they say over and over, it's without a doubt that they'll take this deal.

So Nile pushing Matthew Miller on some of the same questions that you guys were just talking about. Ryan and Schielle Hill, give us a little bit of reaction to that exchange. Not an easy question to answer for the Biden administration.

Yeah, so, you know, I hate to COVID but like this, But everything he's saying is completely erroneous and he knows it.

And it's not even a question.

What Miller is saying is that Hamas would accept an offer calling to remove them from power. Because I'm paraphrasing here, he cares about the Palestinian people. Sinwa cares about the Palestinian Sinwa does not care about the Palestinian people. Sinwar uses the Palestinian people as a tool in order to hurt Israel and increase the power of his organization. That's what he does. There's no other way to understand this war.

The Palestinian people are suffering terribly.

And neither leader here particularly cares about their people, and they certainly don't care about the people on the other side. And what that clip reveals is how ridiculous it is to pretend that this deal that Israel has offered is

The only way you can remove an enemy.

Organization like that is by defeating them in the battlefield.

Israel, for various reasons, has not done that. Hamas knows they haven't done that.

And more than that, Sinwar is very hesitant to take this deal to begin with. The only reason he's thinking about doing it is because of pressure from Qatar and from Egypt. He knows that the longer this war goes on, the more of a price he exacts from Israel on the international state age between the ICC and the ICJ and the Biden administration and the EU and the UK not sending arms and so on and so forth.

And that's just the beginning.

In two months, things will be worse, and sin of war showed in October seventh that his goal is not to help the Palestinian people. His goal is to hurt Israel as much as possible, as it says in the Hamas Charter, and also increase their political power. October seventh has done that. They're more popular now than ever. And with the amount of pain he's inflicting on Israel, we're talking about damage that no other actor has ever done to Israel in it's entire history.

And he knows that.

And to unpack this Matt Miller's kind of contradiction that he has here, it reminds me a little bit of the US and the Taliban. And you said, you know, the only way to defeat an enemy like that is militarily, And even in the case of the Taliban, we actually, the United States did actually completely to defeat the Taliban, and yet, because of the nature of counter terrorism in the way that it produces more enemies, the Taliban eventually

Yeah, So I'm going to push back on that a little bit because I think what we're seeing here is that the Biden.

Administration actually had a pretty good plan for what to do in Gaza.

Biden administration said to Nathaniel early on in the war, Listen, when you finished taking over Gaza, we're going to bring in the PA, We're going to reform the PA. We're going to do that with the help of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the eu et.

Cetera, et cetera, a whole plan for that.

Nathaniel did not accept that because that would require talking about a Palestinian state. That would require giving up on Nathaniel's policy of divide and conquer of the Palestinians. Where you have Hamas in Gaza and you have the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That way you're never going to have a Palestinian state because they're divided forever. And that way he can avoid losing ben Vere and Smotrich from his coalition.

So Biden had a plan, a pretty good one.

I don't know if it would have worked, but at least have had some realistic prospect, and Nathaniel rejected it. Not only did he reject the diplomatic element. This is the part that people miss. He rejected the military element. Nathaniel did not and has not, taken over all of Gaza, and he's avoided doing that by withdrawing from cities that he's already taken.

And then taking the next city.

Think about the fact that he's going into Rafach now but left Hanyunis. If he had Hanyunis and Rafa and Gaza city, he basically have the strip. He doesn't want that because once he has that, he owns the Gaza Strip, and then he has to decide what to do with it. If he just takes the city here, it takes a

And you mentioned competit to Afghanistan.

Of course Afghanistan was a disaster, but Afghanistan was so much more logical than this, because in Afghanistan, the United States took over the entire country and put in an alternate government. They cleared the enemy, and they rebuilt. The Israelis are unwilling to do either. They're unwilling to get rid of Hamas and they're unwilling to rebuild a new government.

I've got one more question, unless you know, no go So here in Washington, DC, yesterday the House of Representatives, we could put up B five here. The House of Representatives passed a bill basically sanctioning the International Criminal Court two hundred and five Republicans joined by forty two Democrats.

Here's my colleague at the Intercept, Prem Tucker.

Listing who the forty two Democrats are sanctioning the ICC for threatening to.

Issue arrest warrants.

Well, how does how does both the ic CS move originally but also then the US pushback against the ic C? How does that play into Utahu's calculations.

I don't think it plays into his calculations all that much.

I don't think the ICC at this.

Point is going to be bullied into dropping the chargers against Nitanyahu and Gallant. I have I've been talking to some people in the in the ic C.

I've been talking to some people in the Israeli justice ministry.

They feel and if anyone knows this, because he's getting advice from these people. They feel that the more the ICC is bullied, the more likely they are to go forward with with it.

What this is on on an I the level of.

The ICC and diplomatically speaking, is an attempt to shore up again the base. And also it helps divide and conquer Biden from the Republicans in the in the House and some Democrats as well, because Biden doesn't want to be sanctioning the ICC, nor should he. Honestly, the United

And that's why he doesn't want if he really doesn't want to be doing it.

But the reasons being done for Republicans and for Nataneo is completely political. It's to the Republicans to show that they're more pro Israel than Biden is, and for Nathaniel to show that he's standing up to Biden. The place that where Natelle feels the most comfortable in the world is in Washington, d C. Speaking before Congress, sticking a

Giving nice speeches in Congress is great and and like.

Everything else that Nathaniel does, this is not going to fix the problem with the ICC.

ICC is a legal organization, and.

What they asked is that Israel investigate what it's doing in Gaza. And that's the only way that you could get the ic C to do anything is by having valid internal investigations in Israel. And Nathaniel refuses to do that because that wouldn't play well with the base. So instead he's going to do a grand standing show actishly.

I did have one last question for you before before you go.

Yesterday were there were some reports that Hamas had already rejected this offer. Yet we also have reports that Hamas is engaged in these you know, detailed negotiations, which see those two things seem to be in contradiction. What's what's your understanding of who the final negotiators are and what what should people be watching for for signals of whether that not this is going to lead to a deal.

Yeah.

So the first thing I would question is that if you hear that someone accepted or didn't accept without a statement, ignore it.

There's a lot of spin right now.

From interested actors and people are trying to raise the price, lower the price, and they say, that's fine that.

They're doing that.

That's how you negotiate, like Israel's doing that, US is doing that, Hamas is doing that.

That's how you negotiate. That's just that's just how it's done. But as far as as.

The actual process and not the statements, there's meat in Doha under Bill Burns, Israeli delegation is going to be their Tattari delegation is going to be their Egyptian delegation is going to be there, and that's where they're going to have the talks.

What's going to happen there is two things.

Hamas is going to try to squeeze out some more concessions that they never accept an offer as is, They're just not wired that way, even though this offer is good, is very good for them, So they'll be doing that. But the most important thing that both sides will be doing there is they'll be trying to do what James Baker called leave the dead cat on the other side's doorstep.

He's the CIA is actually not they're not.

They don't specialize in negotiating, So that that's what we should be looking at, because I think both sides want us to fail. Not most Israelis, by the way, and not even most of the government but Nataniahu wants.

It to fail for his political reasons, and.

Sinwar wants it to fail for his mostly strategic reasons. And by the way, most of Tamas abroad wants it to succeed.

So they're both under.

Tons of pressure to accept it, but they don't want to.

So what we're going to be seeing is people trying to avoid that.

And also we know from the reaction of the last what look to be ceasfire from Gosen's just celebrations in the street. Palistinian people want this ten too, so hopefully Israeli people in the Palace, any people will get what they want.

These leaders won't.

We'll see, but like you said, slim chance since they all wanted to fail.

No, it's early shlle So thank you so much for waking up and briefing us with insights here.

Appreciate it so much.

Thank you again, Thank you so much, hev loove leaving.

Attorney General Merrit Garland testified before the House of Representatives. One of the first people to confront him was Republican Matt Gates.

Let's watch a little bit of that exchange.

You lodge this attack that it's a conspiracy theory that there is coordinated lawfair against Trump. And then when we say, fine, just give us the documents, give us the correspondence, and then if it's a conspiracy theory, that will be evident. But when you say, well, we'll take your request and then we'll sort of work it through the DOJ's accommodation process, then you're actually advancing the very dangerous conspiracy theory that you're concerned about. Now you're you were a judge once

No?

No, and you didn't because that would create the potential appearance of impropriety.

I didn't because there's a federal rule oh awing federal judges for making contributions.

Right, But under that same theory of attacks on the judicial process, like shouldn't someone be owed like a jury of their peers and a judge that's non biased, rather than getting a judge from your political opponent's donor.

File, I'm well aware that you're not asking hypothetical. You're asking me to comment on a verdict jury verdict in another jurisdiction, which has to be respected, so.

I was going to say ran more of that. That was basically the tone of the entire hearing. Back and forth. Merrick Garland started the hearing, we can put this up on the screen. I really enjoyed the ABC News headline, which is why I included this.

Particular tear sheet.

Their headline was Attorney General Merrit Garland blasts conspiracy theories about Trump criminal case and the FBI. So they write Garland is pushing back forcefully unquote false and quote extremely dangerous narratives he says are being spread about the Department of Justice. And that was in a hearing for the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, so just yesterday.

This one on for a long time.

Garland continued to say, certain members of this committee and the Oversight Committee are seeking contempt as a means of obtaining, for no legitimate purpose, sensitive law enforcement information that could harm it the integrity of future investigations. That was his line sort of throughout these questions, and Jim Jordan came out swinging. Matt Gates really went in on Merrik Garland.

You're the prosecutor here, what are you doing? This is not the way to prosecute your case.

So there are a lot of actual questions that aren't quote conspiracy theories. Of course, there are some conspiracy theories on the right, as there are in the left, But there are a lot of serious questions that aren't conspiracy theories. I thought the media coverage of this was sort of sneering and contemptuous of some relatively serious questions that Merrick Garland absolutely deserves to be peppered with. You'd think other journalists would be curious about some of them too.

But isn't it the case that Garland himself, I mean, most Democrats are furious at Merrick Garland for not prosecuting Trump with any aggressiveness, right Like he set up he dithered for years and then set up a special counsel and let and let the Special Council, which I guess we're not going to find out whether or not. Eileen Cannon thinks that the Special Council even was appointed properly

He didn't bring himself.

Just kind of feel like do they think that, look, what would be the conspiracy that like MARYK. Garland actually wanted to prosecute, but didn't feel like he could prosecute from directly from his office, So then he dethered for two years and then set up a special counsel that's not going to get it done in time before the election. Like, what a pitiful conspiracy if that's what if that's what the plan was.

And see I find the pitiful conspiracy to be entirely believable. It seems like a plausible theory actually, because Merrick Garland is someone and this is he's sort of the perfect pick for the Biden administration's DJ because it's this like symbolic.

Outrage by symbolism over actual effectiveness.

Right half measures, And in a way, that's really been the theme of today's show.

We start with this.

And I know you and I disagree on the executive action on the board of the executive order on the border, but whatever you think of it, it's not an honest, full throated embrace of any serious principled position. Same thing with his Israel policy. Not an honest, full throated defense

Yeah, I mean it's because Merrik Garland really is this kind of institutionalist who's like out of the cast of the West Wing like that, that really is who he is. Biden initially was going to appoint Doug Jones to be Attorney general. Jones was the Alabama senator who beat Roy Moore famously kind of prosecuted the Klan, and it is a much more aggressive prosecutor and probably would have been much more aggressive than Merrick Garland going after Trumps cronies.

Why, you know, he changed his mind at the last minute.

They went with Garland, I think mostly to like kind of own the Republicans, like haha, like you blocked him from being the Supreme Court justice, but now you know he gets to be an attorney general. Isn't it like a real like chef's kiss for like resistance liberals. That's

He's going to beat him up.

Ayway, We're interesting.

The establishment Democrats Jerry Nadler, for example, as a reaction to Matt Gates, are embracing the nineties era institutionalism. That's not exactly a popular with the Democratic base right now either, but that's how they react. I mean, it might be popular in Jerry Nadler's district. But one of the big points of contention in Garland's testimony yesterday is that he's refusing.

In public trust, right, But for Gates to expect that Garland's gonna be like, oh, yeah, you wanted all those emails, Yeah, I've got them right here.

Yeah.

Oh well, I mean, of course, I don't think he expected that.

It seems like he's saying, well, you say you have to go back and put it through the process.

Well yeah, what else.

You're saying?

Yeah, and like pull it up and hand it over.

I mean, I thought Gates knew he was like he was almost like reading off a script of like how he expected.

Golf course to and that whole that whole line of questioning is very easy to say. You know, it's it's your fault that I believe the things that I believe. Yeah, which the greatest kind of advent of the of the Twitter era was whenever somebody posts something that turns out to be completely wrong, what they will then respond with, if they actually take it down, will be But isn't

So the Wall Street Journal described Merritt Garland yesterday as a quote by the book play no favorites approach to investigations.

Or his Murdock agrees.

Murdoch agrees, right, But that's I mean, that's really going to start getting under the skin obviously not just of congressional Republicans but of also Democrats.

They don't they want him to play favorites, Like, yeah, favoritism the decation.

Want to be embraced the playing of favorite.

And yes, like say like, look, this is democracy verus fascism. What do you mean you don't have a favorite between democracy of fascism.

He kind of does that, but to your point, it's not in the same way where he's just like, we're not prosecuting Hunter Biden. You know, we're not gonna get into it because basically the statute of experts is a statue of limitations expiring meant that you couldn't prosecute him on the FARA charges.

Of course, PAULM.

Manafort was prosecuted stiffly unfair charges, you know, and then Tony Podesta didn't go to prison like and palmannifort was accused of more law breaking obviously than just the Faro.

Charges, But I think there's really serious questions.

It's though to your point, Ryan, the DOJ is not what it used to be, and neither no political parties president at this point expects the DOJ to be this like institution of true non partisan capital J justice that it used to be.

And let this be a tease for our Friday show. We're going to have.

Two.

We're gonna have a true blue liberal progressive defending the Locke Trump up perspective, and then true red Maga saying do not do it, Yeah, Brian Boiler.

And who's the mega guy, Will Chamberlain. Will Chamberlain. Yeah, so that'll that'll be Friday.

Let's move on for now over to a bunch of the elections around the world.

Let's start with India, because Brian, you've been following this one really closely where you're and Dramodi was reelected his party though surprising surprisingly poor performance basically across.

And interestingly, yeah, we can put this up on the screen.

We can't even necessarily say that he's going to get a third term, even though the press is saying set to win historic third term. That's that's how Reuters puts it here. He has to now cobble. He got his party got less than a majority. His coalition pushed over a majority. But his coalition is extremely fickle because it's got these kind of two political parties that joined him like two months ago, and you know could be you know, could.

You know, bounce at any second. So now he has to.

Go to them and gravel in order to get them to join his coalitions that he can become prime minister for the third time. The compared to you know, we've covered that incredible February eighth Pakistan election where they change the numbers like in plane view, like the most flagrant kind of major country rigging that we've maybe ever seen in like world history. So compared to that, the Indian election was free and fair. But the Indian election was

You know, it wasn't even close.

He deployed all of the kind of instruments of the government toward his electoral favor and the entire Indian media apparatus was lockstep behind Modi. So under those circumstances, to fall short of a majority really makes you ask, you know,

Which was fairly popular apparently on that.

Yeah, among yes, he I mean he had.

Massive electoral successes.

He was first elected went twenty fourteen, right, Yeah, so, I mean it was going well until it wasn't.

Yes, he had two resounding victories, and the opposition ran on basically economic justice, saying that you know, we're falling behind, the elites are taking over, and you know, we want better jobs, we want more power in the workplace, and that that message, that message resonated and Modi as all kind of authoritarians who are running on this kind of on this kind of platform trying to do is they want to divide people along cultural lines rather than kind

You know, suppresses the.

Amount of wealth that can be absorbed by the one percent. And so we see that here in the United States, we see that around the world. And this was people pushing back and saying, no, I don't your your racism is not enough, like I want I want a job.

Actually, so tell us a little bit more about and actually another interesting element of this is Modi's control of the press and information.

So it's you know, people would put two into together.

Unusual for someone who has a lot of control over the press and the flow of information to then be punished at the polls.

It sort of undermines the point of it.

But it also undermines the argument this would you know, just pure, unadult rated kind of fascism. Can you break that down a little bit like, actually, what Modi's control versus how voters responded and what that says about the control?

How does that play out here?

Yeah, and we can put up the second element here which is if you go google this headline when you're done with this. This is kind of a fun article to read because if you don't follow Indian politics close, so much of it is different, you know, parties and figures that are that will be completely obscure to you.

But the conclusion is pretty straightforward.

The coalition the opposite and coalition was cleverly called India.

That's their acronym, India.

The India parties have understood the significance of not only fair representation but also crucially issues of economic justice. Such an awareness has not only helped them correct their political course and learn from each other, but also question their

Able to overcome.

And it also shows the weakness of authoritarianism in one sense, and in this sense that all the all the media reported that this was going to be a landslide victory, even the exit polls reported that this was going to be a landslide.

Didn't upholster sort of cry on TV as a sort of yeah, like I said, it was really shocking to the industry, yea.

And but a lot of it, a lot of that was the media, even the Western media is so intimidated by Modi that they're like, it's it's one thing if you're like an intimidating boss and the people around you, you know, don't want to give you bad news, like we're all familiar exactly, it's just sorry, boss ratings down, nobody wants to give you know, He's the kind of

And to India's.

Electoral you know, structural credit. When people voted against Modi, those votes were counted and those votes were reported. So that's which is not what happened in Pakistan and it's not what happens in some other countries.

So good for India for that.

And just one last point I'm reading from the Reuter's report on all of this. Investors had cheered the prospects of another Modi term, expecting it to deliver further years of strong economic growth and pro business reforms, but the margin of victory emerged as a worry during the counting.

This quote is so interesting.

The key question is whether BJP can retain single party majority. If not, then would its coalition be able to deliver economic development, particularly infrastructure ran The person who asked that question in Routers is Ken Peng, head of Investment Strategy Asia at City Global Wealth in Singapore. So markets were really looking forward to another just sort of decisive Modi victory seemed to be following the polling.

I mean, I guess what else they could do? What else could they do? And are now wondering where the economy goes in India.

Yeah, And a good way to gauge whether or not you should be happy about the results of an election is if the market is upset about it, like whatever, whatever the opposite reaction of the market is. And we're going to talk about Mexico in a second. Markets very much did not like the results of the Mexican election. Needed to David from so it probably means it's probably a good thing for Mexico.

Where we get to that though.

Yeah, South Africa, for this is fascinating, curious for your take on this. So the the African National Congress A and C which led Africa out of apartheid, is you know, falling short of a majority for the first time in three decades. They'll probably be able to cobble together a coalition, uh, in order to stay in power.

We'll see how We'll see how that goes.

But what's what's interesting here is that I think you see a similar thing. The economy and in South Africa is a complete mess, just absolutely massive unemployment and.

You know, our outages are just.

Are are omni present and really rock the economy. And my take on you know, how this all happened basically is so after the after the ANC takes power, you have basically all of the wealth in white hands and which are also that's also the one percent. But it's kind of hard to extricate those two things in an immediately post apartheid society.

The ANC had was a.

Broad coalition of a lot of different kind of political interests, but was generally pretty left wing and had a lot of and you know, it's it's muscle was really communists and socialists, and so the the one percent was very concerned that the broader agenda of socialism was going to be accomplished in South Africa, which or even the modest agenda of you know, nationalizing you know, major major industries and then distributing the resources down down to the people.

And also these private companies, you.

Know, had to diversify their boards and diversify their ownership. And so what the companies very cleverly did is they went to these ANC power players and gave them shares effectively in these companies, and so they kind of bought the ANC leadership gradually into maintaining this this unequal economic system by bringing in just enough black South Africans so

It's really interesting.

You're really going to get it through the ballot box and through democratic socialism, or you're going to get it through pitchforks.

The New York Times are in a really interesting op ed on this, and they quoted a girl kind of talking about her own parents who grew up, as The Times reports, on the Eastern Cape, who voted for ANC. This girl said, I think they fear racism and apartheid more than they fear poverty. This woman continued, if the ANC had sorted out infrastructure, policing, education, the fundamentals, I probably would have voted for them. So that's the generational

Yeah, and so you know, in both India and South Africa you see people kind of standing up for their for their economic rights, and in Mexico you see people rewarding the party that delivered them economic uplift.

What's fascinating about them.

What happened in Mexico is that the economy there hasn't really been growing significantly. It has been growing and it hasn't been collapsing, yeah yet by taxing the rich and with an inclusive kind of social economic policy and what was able to lift a huge number of Mexicans out of poverty and raise wages and then his party is rewarded for it as a result.

Absolutely fascinating situation unfolding in Mexico. And we're going to talk to Juanda vid Rojas, who wrote about this for Compact magazine, just sort of breaking down Claudia Shanebaum's victory. And I'm excited to talk to talk to him Ryan because he was there in Mexico covering this as it happened.

No surprise, huge landslide.

She's the first female president of Mexico, although she herself isn't obsessed with that. But one of the big differences between her and Omlo is she is postured at least more towards that cultural per us of theme or the themes than Omlo ever did. In fact, Amla was extremely critical of feminism. He had some really interesting, you know rants in different directions. People say he's basically still going to be the president because he's always been close with Shanebaum.

Like Omlo did doubling minimum wage.

Huge increases are huge decreases in the poverty rate in Mexico. They're rewarded with a massive margin in the presidential election. Here, we'll see if you is able to maintain that she seems to be wanting to.

You know, it wasn't.

Her speech wasn't full of sort of like you win world economic platitudes, foreign platitudes in any.

Way, whatso responding to her the way they are.

If it was, no, So let's bring in Juan da Vid and talk about Claudia Shanebaum for more on the Mexican elections. We are joined now by Juan Da Vid Rojas. He is a columnist at Compact. He was also in Mexico covering this on the ground. Juanda Vid, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me on, guys, big fan of the show.

Well absolutely, I read your work all the time. Jan Da Vid, and I want to ask you. You wrote a great piece on this for Compact. Let's put E one up on the screen. Mexico's political revolution. You sort of broke down the economic nationalism that Claudia Shanebaum will likely continue from OMLO. Obviously they have been very close, fascinating a dynamic between nationalism and populism in Mexico right now,

Yeah, I mean it was just a stunning victory.

I haven't seen anything like it for an incumbent leftist populist government. I mean, it's by far the most successful left government I've seen in ten years.

I'd probably and tell us a little bit more about why, because Ryan and I were just talking earlier. I think a lot of folks probably misunderstand exactly what it is that attracts so many voters to OMLO and to Shane Baum and their party.

What have they done?

Especially you know, people look at the top line economic numbers out of Mexico, I maybe don't realize what that means for an average Mexican who went to the polls on Sunday.

So for decades, GDP growth in Mexico has been really stagnant. It around one to two percent, and that hasn't really changed in recent years because near shoring it's gotten better. But what changed under OMLO is that wages really started to improve. The government every year gave these huge increases

Values, and so Juan de vide four decades.

You know, Mexico was a one party state, and elites here in the United States seem to have absolutely no problem with the pri you know, just running Mexico top top to bottom. Wages famously were extremely low. Now you have wages growing, and you have a lot of the kind of the Atlantic and other kind of elite institutions here in the United States panicking and saying, oh no, now, we're not going to have democracy anymore. It's a one party state. Like she won by too much, she's too popular.

Very possibly.

There's this great graph that I've referred to that you look at the wage over time in Mexico. In the seventies, Mexico was a pretty prosperous country off of the oil boom and following the debt crisis in the eighties and the nineties, there's deliberate decisions to press wages and stop letting the stop raising them in their own wage Well, you have to figure this is.

Also around the nineties they enacted and AFT to. It makes a lot of sense.

You want those low wages because you're stealing all of the industry from the US, all that manufacturing industry. Shane Boh won with around six fifty nine sixty percent of the vote.

It's an incredible victory. They won.

The Mona Party won seven out of nine governorships, all but every and shameeb One went in all but all but one state. You're gonna hear the words democratic and backsliding and a lot of the next few months. Why it's really interesting the Congress actually the next Congress actually starts one month before Obradoor leaves office, and so the

Well, yeah, what kind of stuff, Like what are we likely to see in this month of September where you know, he's still in office.

But they'll have close to a super majority.

I guess they'll have a super majority in the lower Chamber, and then in the Upper Chamber they'll have to like pick off a few pri people to get a.

Super Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They really are just clientealists. They have no ideology. All they care about is money. They're four seats short in the Senate, but in the Chamber of Deputies they have a supermajority, so it's actually pretty realistic they could pass some of these reforms.

Some of them are pretty benign.

One that I love to refer to is that they want to constitutionally ban babing, which is something that libertarians really would hate. On the other hand, the most controversial one I would say is they want to directly elect judges, including Supreme Court judges, and all. Be honest, I have different feelings about it. It doesn't terrify me, but sure, I guess it could lead to more politicization and long run, I mean, for a lot of American professors, I'm sure they see that and think.

Oh wow, that would be incredible. But what else they.

Want to make it a constitutional amendment to the minimal wage has to always be raised more than inflation.

Yeah, and they want to put some of the cash transfers right into the constitution or something right.

Yeah, a lot of that basically codifying a lot of the laws that were seeing during the past six years.

So let's talk a little bit about we can put this next element up on the screen, the violence that surrounded this cycle in Mexico.

And again wand Devide was just there.

So women may are shot dead in Mexico day after Claudia Shanebaum's historic presidential win.

That's from CBS News.

They were over thirty, by some counts assassinations over the course just of the cycle. But Wandavid, one of the things you're reporting makes very clear is that violence in Mexico well serious, also concentrated and isolated basically in different parts of the country.

So if you're in Yucaton it's one thing.

If you're you know, in Tamalipas, it's another thing. Can you talk to us just a little bit about that. And also in the context of Eve and I talked actually on a podcast last week about allegations of.

Tomlow's should check it out.

Yeah, Amla's relationship with Sinaloa, the allegations surrounding Omlala's relationship with Sinaloa. Obviously, Shanebaum doesn't come in with any of those any of that bagage necessarily other than her affiliation with OMLO. So maybe you could break down just a little bit about what's going on with organized crime in this cycle and beyond.

So, Mexico is a gigantic country, so as a population of one hundred and ten one hundred and twenty million, the thirty odd states, so there's a lot of variety. I was only in Mexico City, and I was actually surprised. I've been to a lot of American countries and Latin American cities. Mexico City I found to be extraordinarily safe. You see a lot of people with their cell phones out of there's a ton of tourists.

And a lot of the countries like that.

Obviously, there are loads and loads of tours from all over the world, especially from the US.

That is different states.

Obviously it's not all Afghanistan, but there are states that are extraordinarily violent. You see incredible rates of kidnappings, yeah, cartel attacks and stuff like that. The data is mixed and there's a lot of scrutiny over it. The government says one thing, critics say another. You could do this, but just about any country, honestly, but at minimum, yeah, we can definitely say that a lot of places within Mexico are very dangerous, but others less.

So there's a lot of variety.

As for the allegations against the locals overdoor, they're really I've referred to them as overdoors Russia Gate.

Why they're plausible, But.

You could say the same thing about Russia Gate. Is it possible that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Sure, it's believable, but there was just no concrete proof.

Same thing in the case of OMLO.

But yeah, a lot of Mexican presidents and Latin American presidents have had dirty dealings with cartels, but there's just no concrete proof. The allegations that came from Pro Publica and The New York Times had no solid evidence behind them, so much so that an XDA agent came out and said it was probably just a hit piece because the agency hates Omlo's.

Guts and something.

This is a good reason because his security policy is very controversial.

Sure, and does Shane Bam then come to the table with any of that baggage when you have United States media reporting in that way, what does that mean for her?

Basically, Yeah, she'll definitely have that baggage.

I mean, I haven't seen anything that ties her to the allegations. And because she was mayor of Mexico City, the big cartels have as much of a presence there, she should be fine.

Who knows. It'll really depend I'd.

Say on whether she continues a similar more lax approach that has been criticized of the current administration, and we'd probably see more.

Scrutiny then and wanted to be She's also famously a climate scientist.

Mexico City is said to run out of water.

I believe June twenty sixth is supposed to be the day that if it doesn't rain between now and then, that the horrific drought that we've been seeing, combined with the heat dome that Mexico has been suffering under the last couple of weeks. Literally we're talking about running out of water in major parts of Mexico City, not the richest parts, apparently but what does that mean Mexico City's going to.

Run out of water?

And what it seems like Mexico is had, you know, has the best person they could possibly have for the job, the former mayor of Mexico City, you know, who is a climate scientist, now elevate to the highest office. But that's still not going to make it rain. Like, what is Mexico City going to do?

Well? Not really sure.

Yeah, while I was there, there was this huge heat wave all around the country, and in Mexico City is actually way above sea level, about two thousand odd meters above sea level, and it was very, very hot. They said that was very unusual. I'd read just glossed over that there had been some measures taken around the country. But I'll be completely honest, I was distracted by other things as far as Shinbaum's concerned. Of Yeah, she served

Well, yeah, go ahead, right, no, yeah, I mean currently, I think most of Mexico's water is used to make produce.

That is then shipped up to us, and we think Mexico.

There's always this big back and forth between Texas and I think it's the state of a Chihuahua. They're always hackling over the water in the area, which is we're seeing like over one hundred degree temperatures in the Northern States.

And it raises this like super fascinating question about the divides between Omlo and Shane Bomb, because Omlo, for example, has had, you know, things to say about the feminist movement that aren't eagerly, that aren't easily categorized in one way or the other. Shane Bomb, on the other hand, as you mentioned, served being like a un climate panel, has been heralded, you know, not because she's pushed it, but as a sort of feminist champion, a champion women's values.

So what are some of those.

Differences in how do you expect Shane Baum, who hasn't made an effort to like really highlight them over the course of the campaign, at least from my interpretation of how it went, how do you expect those to continue going forward?

That's a spot on analysis.

I mean, during the campaign she basically just stood as close to Omlo as you possibly could refuse to criticize him. She yeah, she noted some differences that she wanted to invest a lot more in renewable energy, She wants some more state let approach, wants pemics to transition towards extracting lithium. Om laws will also created a state owned lithium company, but she wants she wants her to be a role for the private sector, but definitely wants a greater focus

We took away their change.

And we gave them back democracy, and now they're not they're ungrateful.

Well, we let them vote and now they're voting for the wrong people there exactly.

It's really hilarious.

But so long as they stick to those things, I think that Shameebaum should be successful. On the other hand, if she abandons the nationalism, the Mexican left is a really hardcore protectionalist to patriotic tradition, and if they stick to those things, I think that normal people will still see the government as really speaking for them.

And Shaneban's parents actually were Jewish migrants to Mexico. They're from Lithuanian and Bulgaria, I believe, just like a really fascinating story. I have one more question for you one, Davide, is how do we Shane Baum's relationship with the Biden administration.

To proceed similar to OMLO.

I mean, we don't really know exactly what the Biden administration has worked out with OMLO when it comes to border crossings. We know that there's been a crackdown after there were meetings. I think this was back in January. So what can we expect from Shanebaum.

Hopefully content?

Well, I guess depending on your point of view, it could be good or bad.

It's been you.

Know, famously, Trump and Lopuz Obrador had this bizarrely good relationship. I wrote a whole piece about this called the OMLO Trump Romance in March. And on a personal level, but even on policy, uh, Trump and OMLO have a lot of similarities. They both hate the media. They're both protectionists, they're more traditionalists. I mean, you can question Trump's sincerity. I guess maybe Lopez Obradors too, but they supposedly got along from the moment they met, and they were really

And but before I let you go, I wanted to get you to comment on one of the funniest things I've seen in a very long time.

And so.

The night that she was elected, Todd Richmond, who is the chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, which is an APEX spinoff, said that, you know, because she's been so critical of Israel, that it's not really fair to really even highlight the fact that she's the first Jewish president of Mexico. And he pointed out that she even thanked Jesus in her victory speech. Turns out her husband is Jzeus. She was thanking her husband. So it's apparently news to

And B what does it say.

About this kind of the kind of apac pro Israel reaction to her historic election.

I mean, it makes sense she has taken the same line as her mentor on Israel Palestine, which actually they've embraced the kind of neutrality. I think they want to play a mediator role, but they've been very strongly in.

Favor of peace.

As far as the Jewish component is, the reality is that Shamebaum is more just ethnically Jewish. She hasn't played up her identity and does not really practice. I think she may be an atheist and has played up a lot of her you know, just Mexican nests, wearing traditional address, et cetera. Her husband is in fact named it's a common.

Name in Latin America.

But she's had a lot of videos about it, and maybe it could have fooled a lot of people but the opposition candidate soci advis towards the end actually started playing up her religiosity.

Who knows how.

Authentic that was to try to draw a contrast with Shane Baum and, for instance, formal President Vicente Fox, the Coca Cola executive, has made some borderline or openly anti Semitic slurs against Shane Bam, noting that she wasn't a real Mexican and the only authentic Mexican in the race was the opposition's candidate.

Well Onanda vid Rojas, columnist at Compact, thanks for your reporting and for sharing with us some of what you saw down in Mexico City last week. That does it for us. On today's edition of Counterpoints, Ryan, We'll be back here on Friday with a debate. I'm really excited about just getting fully immersed in the Trump law. Fair conversation with two people on the absolute opposite ends of it.

Trump lock him up, yay or nay?

Yes, exactly. That is a resolution.

Yay, lock him up for whatever.

I mean that's going to be used against you.

If he becomes president. I didn't mean it. If if he becomes president, I take it back.

That's fair, all right?

So We will be back next Wednesday with more counterpoints, but stay tuned Friday. Make sure to subscribe to the premium version breakingpoints dot com to actually get the Friday show on Thursday and to get the Wednesday show early with no breaks whatsoever. Full thing just hits your inbox right away. Breakingpoints dot Com, thanks so much for tuning.

In and obviously locked by en Up, like that's not even a debate.

Well I was going to say, that's really we just opened a can of worms kind of at the end end here, but

Yeah, alright, see you guys soon