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Very happy to be joined this morning by a longtime friend of mine, additional MSNBC refugee here, Torre, who is doing all kinds of cool stuff.
Now.
You are blowing up on TikTok, been covering the Diddy trial really closely, among other things. You've got a substack, You've got a new show, Truth Talks Live on YouTube that people should go ahead and check out. How are you, my friends, I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm upset about the situation that's going on in Gaza, and I've been doing a lot of CNN a lot of Abby Phillips show where you get arguing with the right. I don't usually talk to people from the right in my real life because usually they're I don't know, they're often in space. There was a segment that really bothered me about the rise of anti Semitism in America, and
I think that that is real. Although we can talk about that because I saw another segment that talked about how the ADL is inflating those numbers.
But I think that.
Israel is making the world less safe for American Jews by destroying the image of Israel through this genocide.
Well, and I insisting that Israel and Judaism are one and the same by erasing any sort of you know, anti Zionist Jewish voices who have been incredibly influential and instrumental in the pro Palestine, you know, protest movement.
Here, we have.
Definitely seen more Jewish people in the pro Palestine movement over the last year, year and a half, you know. And it's also it's really discussing the way that a lot of folks who are on that side try to reduce Palestinian people, many of whom are fifty percent of that population are children, but they want to talk about them as if they are all hamas and they are all terrorists. And the dehumanization that you mentioned last segment is absolutely real, as if they are not real people
and we can kill them. They are all animals, even if they are young, even if they are children. And I think the world sees the way that Israel is approaching Palestine, and many people are responding in an appropriate way. The encampments, the college protests have been a very appropriate and aggressive way to protest. Now we've also seen horrific, violent anti semitism that is obviously not appropriate. But when a country sets its image on fire in the world, what do you think is going to happen?
Well, you know it's funny. Ken Klebnstein actually got the Intel report on the guy here who murdered the two Israeli embassy officials, and in it they say, in this report they don't talk about anti Semitism, and they talk He is motivated by the horrors that he's seeing unfolding in Gaza and the fact that he feels there is
no democratic way in order to effectuate change. And so it's important to understand that even while obviously saying this violence against civilians is exactly the reason why we're opposed to the genocide occurring in Palestine and Gaza. But you know, that is the administration's assessment that this was not actually quote unquote anti Semitism, that this is a direct result of the horrors that we are all watching in our
feeds every day. So appreciate you offering your perspective editory, especially since you are on CNN all the time and sort of inside these rooms. Still also wanted to get your wanted to get your thoughts today on a couple things. So we're going to talk about the Diddy trial, which I'm looking forward to, but I also wanted to get your thoughts and Ryan's thoughts on this effort among Democrats to figure out what's going on with the men.
Right.
There's this big, significant conversation I think is important about the way that men and young men in particular have been moving to the right, you know, coming on the heels of a Bernie Sanders coalition that was smeared as being too male and too young and whatever. And then once they you know, trashed that part of the coalition, it started to shift away from them. So there's this evert you know, official multimillion dollar effort to talk to
the men and figure out what's going on. And let's go ahead and start with the ladies of the view and Joy Behart in particular and her take on this this study and what the Democratic Party should really be doing in terms of men.
Look, I don't know that you learn how to talk to men by being in a conference center at a New York hotel up with strategists and experts in suits. I think people need to go into the barrios and the neighborhoods and the barbershops and the and the.
Places where real people are.
And I think one of the problems that the Democrats have several of them, but one of the things is that they keep talking about how weak their brand is and how bad their team is. I never met a man, I never met a woman. I never met a human who wants to join a losing team. So maybe start projecting some you know.
Winning attitude.
And I think I think it's a waste of money.
Maybe these guys should spend their money on teaching men to not be such sexist.
Maybe that's the stats don't bear that out. Now that thank you now be seen the eleven.
Years old, Donald Trump performed better with than the previous several Republicans with most every people group. He did better with black men, better with Latino men, better with white men and white women. Like, it's just a fact that he has tapped into something and what I think that it was running against a woman, but I'm saying that men showed up more for him. Oh so you think that Democrats who were with Biden in twenty twenty left to be with Trump because they're sexist.
I don't know the reason, but it's very much so, Tore.
Do we need Democrats to spend more time lecturing men about how they're to sexist? Is that going to bring them back into the party fold?
No?
I mean, apparently they feel like we have been lecturing them and telling them that they are too masculine, they
are too toxic, they are too disgusting. I understand what these young guys are saying that the democratic world, not necessarily just the politicians, but all the people around them who are liberal in public or progressive in public, are making them feel like being masculine is inherently a bad thing, and like being Republican means being strong and being Democrat means being weak, and we've been dealing with that, I think stereotyped for a long time, right, I mean, the
Democrat has been the Democrats have been the mommy party for a long time, and the Republicans have been the tough on foreign policy daddy party. You know, we have all these sneaky conservative outlets.
Now.
Joe Rogan is not overtly conservative, but he keeps giving you conservative ideas right aiden ross these others who are not overtly conservative. There's definitely an image problem among men and Democrats who used to be we used to be the party of unions, so clearly working guys thought the Dems were they are for them at one point in our lifetimes. I'm not quite sure quite how you get
back to that. When we love the intellectual dem right, I mean thinking about like Barack from Harvard and Bill for you know the way I mean, we love the intellectuals, even Bernie as much we love him, he's an intellectual. Like, there's got to be a different way of communicating with people.
I don't know, although Bernie worked like Bernie had the young guys across the you know, across you know the board that clip though, to me was so revealing that that view clip. First of all, Annonavarro is kind of misunderstanding what's going on here. It's like she's like, you're not gonna, you know, win over men in luxury hotels. No,
they're not going to luxury hotels to win over men. Uh, they're going to luxury hotels to shake down rich people for a bunch of money, and then they're going to use that money to like, you know, do content and stuff that tries to reach what the barbershop and the and the borrows and all that like that, that's that's how that pipeline works. But the joy behar one was even more revealing, like she's like, why would you do this because men suck?
It made sympathetic to this study?
Actually yes, it's like yeah, yeah.
It definitely seemed like she had not prepared for the segment, because if she had read the notes about the studies, she would know you're doing the exact opposite of what devs need to.
Well, I don't know the audience ate it up, which was the other revealing part of what happened there. Let's go and put go ahead and put D two up on the screen just so we can see a little bit of what the study is revealing so far. So the focus groups found young men feel there in crisis, stressed a shame, and confused over what it means to be a man. In twenty twenty five, they vented about conflicting cultural messages of masculinity that put them in a
no win situation around the meaning of a man. According to the SAM what is it? What does SAM stand for? Again?
Speaking speaking about men's about that?
Put the next piece up on the screen. This speaks to some of what, you know, what we've been saying for a while. They describe how the COVID pandemic left them isolated, socially disconnected. They said they now feel overwhelmed by economic anxiety, making traditional milestones like buying a home or saving for kids college feel impossible. One analysis of the research said, and so and we've got I think
one more quote we can put up here too. Democrats are seen as weak, you were saying, some of this tore whereas Republicans are seen as strong. According to Alice Hoag who's involved with this, young men also being invisible to the Democratic coalition. And so you've got this weak problem. And then you've got this, I don't think they care about me problem, and I think the combination is kind of a killer. And to be honest with you, I
don't really disagree with any of that. I think the part that's a little like lol is that you needed to pay millions of dollars to come to these conclusions, which you know, to me are fairly straightforward and obvious. That when the traditional definition of what it means to be a man is to be a provider, you know, to be able to have the job and make the money and support the family and support the wife and the kids in the house of the picket fence and whatever.
And over decades we've stripped that ability away. That that is going to create some you know, some upset, some dislocation, and some searching for answers.
It does, it also represents the fundamental problem the Democratic Party has right now and then for so long we have been about uplifting people who are not traditionally at the table, right, black, brown, female working class through unions. That's healthcare, right, that's what we you know, we're about affirmative action. We're about lifting up the working class, right, and so that means we are not here for the
people in power. And I remember, I think it's like fifteen years ago now, Harvard did a study that said white people see race as a zero sum game that they are losing, which is just the notion of the people in power. When we start to try to add some equity, they feel like they are losing. They are
the victims, they are losing something in society. And here we are, again, straight white men as Democrats try to say, hey, can we also give some power and some piece and some justice to trans people, gay people, women, black and brown people.
And they're like, oh my god, you're taking away all my rights. We are literally not, But that's how you feel.
I think it's a question of whether or not there's a play a welcome place in the coalition for an were white guys, And you know, I grew up a poor white guy, and in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, the place for those people and the place where I would feel at home was within the Democratic Party. There wasn't any question like the Republicans were the party of Reagan, the party of George H. W.
Bush. They were the party for.
Rich country club.
Yeah.
Now I'm an upper middle class white guy, and the Democrats are still the party you know that where you're you know, a white upper middle class guy is going to be well welcomed in welcome also in the Republican Party. White middle class guys there, I mean upper middle class guys, they're.
Welcome every everywhere, right, well, welcome everywhere.
But if you're a poor white guy, now, like, it doesn't it does not feel like the Democratic Party kind of wants you in there. And Joy Behar is saying, like, right there, and I don't think it's just white either anymore. Democratic Party, Joey bayhar men or sexist, like stop being so sexist, Like do we really want these men in here who are going to be sex.
We're going to need some of them if we're going to win an.
Election, Yes, exactly. And so I think this uproar about this study. I think it's worth unpacking where it comes from, because if you think about it, it's of course it's the Republicans. When they were losing with women, they went out and studied women, tried to figure out how to win them back.
And that was comical. But what was comical about.
It was not that they were trying to win them back, but it was that they had to study them in the first place, that they had gone so far around the bend that they had lost women so badly that they needed to hire people to explain to how to talk to these mysterious creatures. And so now the Democrats are stuck in the exact same place. So it's obvious
they do need to do this. And apparently the only way that democratic elites will listen to anything is if it comes through a multimillion dollar focus groups rather than just you know, like would be a preferable way of doing is just naturally attracting people into your coalition.
But yeah, the other thing that drivesing you crazy ran about that too is like you did have an example with Bernie Sanders where it works so like, and that seems to me much better data and research than your sort of inorganic focus groups. You have a very recent example that was very successful with this group and did not require you to like abandon your principles or like, you know, become sexist. So go ahead to RAI No, I mean, I.
Think, I mean obviously that's right.
I think Dems are still speaking to young men and to most people in an intellectual, logical way. I will help you with this policy, this program that you should intellectually understand is going to be beneficial for you. And
then Republicans Trump does this even better. But most Republicans come with an emotional thing that grabs you, you know, and makes you feel like, yes, this is a team that gets me that, that is a thing that bothers me that And they understand thosetional triggers much better than the Democratic Party does.
And I wanted to underline one of the things that was in that political article, which is their use of the term economic anxiety. So the people who did these focused groups and did these studies, you said, you know, we now understand that men have genuine economic anxiety about
their place in the world. In twenty fifteen, if you remember, if you ever used the term economic anxiety, you would get piled on on Twitter and say stop talking about economic anxiety when you're not using the terms that you really mean, which is these are people who are racist and sexist. Yes, and so it's belated, but ten years later they're like, Okay, they actually are feeling economic anxiety and.
That yes, there is genuine economic anxiety because the economy does not allow people in their twenties to reach the benchmarks that they did when the previous generations. Yeah, fine, but they are also being racist. They are also being white peop are. They are also in love with white privilege and seeing it seep away.
So both those things.
But sorry, how do you then grapple with that? You have not just white men moving into the Trump coalition, but you have black and brown men moving into the
Trump coalition. And I mean, I'll tell you my view is when you have these heightened levels of economic anxiety and people feeling like they don't know how they're going to find their place, they don't know how they're going to achieve the things that their father and grandfather were able to achieve, that opens them up for you know, the Trumpian explanations, the far right explanations of scapegoating this group and that group words trand people are immigrants or
college educated women or whoever the villain of the day happens to be. And so to me, I don't think you could ever truly disentangle those two things, because I think they are connected, and I think there is a relationship there.
Yeah, I mean, you.
Know, I think that the black movement there is perhaps less significant than we've been talking about.
It was not a gigantic coalition.
He was not statistically way out of line with what Republicans have gotten. I think some black men responded to some of the same things that white men responded to, as far as masculinity, as as far as misogyny against Kamala, as far as the sense that I clearly understand what this candidate wants, and I don't understand clearly what that candidate wants, So some of them may have come to
it with you know, that sort of math. I think that when we think about Latino voters, we have wrongly thought that they would think of themselves politically as people of color, and many of them do not, and they vote as if they were white people, and we are as dams. We are like thrown off by, like, oh, we thought this would become our coalition, and they're like, no, we want to assimilate, we want a big money. Even if he says anti Hispanic things, we are still rolling
with him. It's it's a tricky position for the Democratic Party. We see right as unpopular as Trump is, the Democrats.
Are even less popular.
Yea, And I'm not even sure who is the person who will be the leader to get us out of this. We both love Bernie, but we need somebody. I assume he's too old to actually be the savior himself.
Right, Yeah, So the question then I have is things are getting objectively worse for men across the board in America. Things are getting objectively worse for women across the board in America. This is this is true. Things are getting probably relatively a little worse for men than for women to buy all the all those standards, but they're getting worse for everybody. So then what is the acceptable way
for men to express that anxiety politically? They tried in twenty fifteen and sixteen with Bernie Sanders, and we're told that that's not an acceptable way of doing it because you're actually just racist and sexist and you're afraid of having a Hillary Clinton as the nominee. Obviously it's not acceptable to do with Trump. It's deplorable, and uh, you know he's he's racist and sexist, so you can't you know,
express it through him either. So then how like, what what vehicle do men have to say I think the world is getting worse and I want it to change without being dumped on it's a great question.
Do you do you really not understand the question? Are you just throwing me a question?
Yeah? What's what?
What's how can they what is an acceptable way for I think who feels that way.
To express themselves?
I think with Trump the message has been quite muddy with racism, and the notion that you are not getting what you deserve.
Is wrapped up in racism.
I would love to hear a genuine conversation with a politician who I don't believe is racist, who is not playing on white fragility and white victimhood to make the case of like, I can do better for you economically. We haven't yet seen that we've come into this moment where we have this economic crisis and we have this population crisis because a lot of white people are afraid that they are about to become the minority versus people of color in this country, and so those two things
and globalization are happening at the same time. If we could have just a conversation about the economy without it being wrapped up in racism, I would welcome that conversation. But I think that the racism has been cloaked in the economic argument. I think quite I mean, we understand quite often these people are blaming immigrants for things that
are actually economic problems that are actually not their issue. Right, They are not bringing crime, they're not taking away American jobs, so they are an avatar for something that's not happening. So that's not that that's not a quality argument for men. So I would want to have the just let's start to have the conversation without tiling in the racism, because quite often it is just a way of hiding the racism.
Last thing I was saying then we'll move to Diddy is I think you were onto something And I've been thinking about this recently when you were tired, and I think this is somewhere with the left needs to work on. Speaking as a leftist when you say, yes, it's about
the material concerns. But the other thing that the right has done is provided this sort of like hero story and like a sense of belong and like there's more than just we're going to you know, check the box that you're going to get healthcare and you're going to get minimum wage. Yes, those things are good. I think that would be a better, certainly a better political and policy path to go on et cetera. But I think part of the appeal of Bernie movement wasn't just those
material concerns being addressed. There was a sense of like belonging. We're on a team together and we're doing a thing, and here's our goal and here's our mission, and we're in this together. And you know, I think to Ryan's question, like right now and what the Democratic Party is like having these struggle sessions about is figuring out how to like, ultimately, they need to figure out you need an organic movement,
You need a program that people believe in. You need a leader that's charismatic that gets people buy and into that program. You know, that's not just about then, but that's about everybody succeeding and it not being some zero sum game. And you know, to circle back to joy Bay, are you probably not going to get there by being like you're bad? And here's why.
There's some psychosocial scholars who talk about you know, left and right, conservative and liberal, progressive, And one of the things that keeps coming up is that conservatives and.
The right they like hierarchy.
They understand he is at the top and we are below.
And I think.
Dems innately understand a more flattened.
Society sort of situation.
Where like, you know, we're a group without a strong hierarchy, and I think young men respond to that this sort of notion of like, here's this big, strong, tough guy who's going to be our leader, and they're like, yeah.
That's great.
And somebody who's like, you know, dem who's like, you know, let's work together and have a coalition and like figure things out together.
It's a little too kumbaya for them.
Yeah.
I think an interesting flip of that is Bernie's slogan of not me us, and that appeals to that flat lateral element. But he's also a guy who's been saying the same stuff for thirty forty fifty years, and so people believed, Okay, it's yes, not me us, but also it's him because he has integrity and we're going to follow him.
But it's all of us doing it together.
And I think, Torri, I'm curious for your Tori, I'm cures for your take on this. I think the answer would be if democrats and the reason it's not going to come out of these luxury hotels, uh, if democrats fight powerful corporate and oligarch interests there's a masculine energy to that, like it's and what Bernie Sanders, despite not being you know, a man's man like he was, he was fighting against the one percent and the millionaires and the billionaires and.
So and casting you in a role as hero, what you're doing for others?
Yeah, right, we're going to all collectively fight for a better world. And so we're gonna it's not the toxic masculinity it's going to be but it, but it is going to be a masculine aggressive effort against the people who are robby.
That would be amazing. Uh, the corporate Democratic Party.
Right, exactly best, exactly, That's why I'd be like, they have to do just a care. They just do a care. We're going to take care of everybody. But we're not gonna fight anybody because and it's not because they're mommy's. It's because they're sellouts and they're bought off.
Yeah, that's basically what Welcome Fest is all because like, let's make sure that challenging corporate powers was actually.
A party of mom's. Like moms fight hard, that's true, they fight.
Yeah, but mom takes care of you, mom nurtures you.
It's not sexy right, dad goes out to fight and these are obviously ancient stereotypes, but like that's is the daddy party will attack the barbarians.
In Iran, but if a mom'sammy party will, like if the family.
Felt them, the Mama bear, the Sarah Palin Mama bear trope. Let's move on to what's going on with with Diddy here, because you've been you know, blown up on TikTok talking about this trial. What are we now? Are two weeks in? Three weeks in?
This is the end of the third week.
Okay, So let's put this Business Insider tear sheet up on the screen that had some of the key details here. And you know, I think most people be familiar with the horrific hotel video of Cassie being beaten and dragged by Diddy, and this is they played this pretty early in the trial to sort of set the stage that the prosecution did, and it is also critical to their case about Hey, this was an act that was taking place in the context of sex trafficking, which is one
of the charges here. So just take us through sort of the broad strokes of where we are right now.
We have heard the government is still putting on their case. They have produced many many witnesses who have said, did he was violent? Did he was controlling? Did he was using his organization to control Cassie. We've heard so many insane stories. Just yesterday, this woman who's a friend of Cassie's out on the stand and talked about did he dangling her over a seventeenth story balcony and then dropping
her onto the furniture of the balcony. The one hundred thousand dollars thing you mentioned is an incredible moment because it brings in multiple predicate crimes that the government needs to prove in order to prove racketeering. Long stories or did he beat up Cassie? It was videotaped. His chief of staff and did he himself? Both went to the hotel personally multiple times saying we need that tape. Finally the hotel. The hotel first said we can't give it
to you, we don't have access to that room. And then they kept pressing the issue and the guy's boss says, okay, give us fifty K.
And I'm I didn't know.
That this sort of a bribe would happen that easily, Like, well, if you just pony up fifty k, then you can get whatever security it takes you want. So Diddy shows up with cash and a money counter. They give him the tape and then he counts out one hundred thousand, even though the fee was only fifty thousand, and they're like, what this is for the other guys. So he's proactively bribing the other people in the situation. So this is
multiple bribes. This is obstruction of justice, this is witness tampering. That's three separate predicate crimes.
In one story.
He's also committed kidnapping, which is also that extortion. We just saw that extortion proved because the CFO a Bad Boy came up for very briefly and said, yes, we did receive twenty thousand dollars from Cassie's father, which happened after Puffy said I'm mad at you and I'm gonna put out this sex tape if you don't give me twenty k. And so they took out a home equity load so that they could access twenty k and sent it to Ditty.
But the other part of that.
Story that I noticed she was a recording artist at Bad Boy for at least four years when the twenty thousand dollars. Extortion request was made and her mom takes out a home equity loan. She was not liquid enough to come up with twenty thousand dollars in an absolute emergency.
As a recording clearly she's kept with no money. So this is how he's coercing her, because you get as a recording artist, you're gonna get money when your album comes out, right, Like generally they give you an advance to go make the album, and then when you come back for the next album, they give you another check. So if you're not putting out albums and you're not touring, you're not getting any money. So he's keeping her in this economic prison.
It sounds like you don't need the freak Offs to make the case here, like that, is that right? It's because a lot of this stuff.
The freak off is the center of the whole thing. The government's case is that the whole operation is to get the freak Offs to happen, and to facilitate them, to make them happen, to control Cassie so she stays in the organization, and then to clean up after them, like in this situation when we needed to get that tape Okay, the chief of staff and Diddy and Diddy's
corporate money are getting that back for him. I think we started with Cassie, and yesterday the government put ten sex tapes, including Cassie, into evidence under seal, And I think that what they're doing is they're preparing for the end of their case to be them showing these videos to the jury. The public and the gallery will not see them, but the jury will see them, I think, and that I assume will be quite devastating for the defense.
Because my understanding is that, I mean, they have him dead to rights on all kinds of I mean, beat the show on her on multiple occasions. They've got all kinds of witnesses. They have another woman who came forward and said he raped me too. You have a kid cutting incident where he you know, reportedly like bombed his car out of jealousy and was in his house and you know, messing with his the Christmas presence that he had wrapped up to give his family, like just total insane,
unhinged violent behavior. My understanding of what did hey side is prepared to argue is basically like that's domestic violence, that's not sex trafficking and so is that where they're headed. And is that why the the freak Offs which entailed, you know, bringing these male sex workers in and coercing Cassie and all of these things, Is that why that becomes so central?
Well, yes, the freak Offs are the central sex trafficking act that all of this is built to construct. The kid cutting story is actually quite devastating for Diddy because arson is also a predicate offense that proves racketeering that you use to build toward a racketeering case.
So there's a criminal enterprise, not just individual acts of violence, which is not what this case is fundamentally about, right.
Right, And people keep going back to the notion of like, well, it's not a criminal enterprise like the Sopranos, which overtly tries to commit crime as its main job.
Right.
Lawyers have said to be well, the money's going the wrong way. They're not making any money from the crimes they're committing. Fine, But like the sex trafficking, Cassie is coerced and controlled by violence, by blackmail, I'll release the tape, by economic means, if you don't do what I say, I will not put out your album, And by violence that Diddy has bodyguards who act like soldiers who go and retrieve her from wherever she is if he doesn't know where she is in any given moment, So she's
stuck in this world. She tells one of his assistants, I can't get out, so she's trapped in this thing and thus used for sex trafficking, or she is sex trafficked and you sexually week after week after week. She says, the freak offs are like two to three four days every week for like nine ten years. Like, I don't even know how a person could function in that way
when you're having that much every week. And it's like she's like, we're not sleeping, we're just doing drugs and staying up for forty eight, you know, seventy two hours.
And like, well, and there's a horrible scene where I believe they're on a plane and he's beating the shit on a cassie in the bedroom and there's all these people around, and she says, don't you all see what's happening, And one of the other you know, yeah, he was young at the time of twenty three years old or something. Assistance who was on the plane, who then goes on to you know, ultimately resign, but he watches all this happening,
and nobody does a thing. Nobody does a thing to try to intervene and protect her from this ongoing violence and horrific abuse.
It's not and you're not saying this, it's not domestic violence. Domestic violence is happening in this situation, but this is not a domestic violence case. He is using his power and his resources as a person with who controls some massive corporation to control her, and that is why he is able to have her sexually every week and to beat her up and she cannot leave. So already the ten album deal and the refusal to release any of your music already controls her. Plus I beat you up
all the time. I pay for your apartments. So if you know I will extort you, I am blackmailing you, because early on he's like, if you don't do everything that I say, I will release these tapes.
I mean.
One of the most horrific moments in the trial to me was when no No Capricorn said that they were arguing. She was arguing with Ditty about why she didn't have a boyfriend, and Diddy summoned Cassie into the room and said sit down and she did, and stand up and she did. And then he said turn around and she did. And he said, y'all, bitches don't want to do that.
That's why you don't have a man. But this is the level of control and humiliation that he's willing to dole out to her at any given moment.
And Toy, what did they do in cross with Cassie to try to undermine her character? And you know, there's always this question of the perfect victim and the attempt to say, you know, she was into it and she liked it, and she was participating, and all of these sorts of what did they do on that front?
I mean, you know, they they exposed the complexity of trying to adjudicate what happened in a domestic violence situation. They talked about Cassie doing a lot of drugs. They talked about Diddy being jealous and being bipolar, and they talked about Cassie suggesting that she actually liked it. And they showed text messages of her based saying I can't wait to freak off, lol, I'm always down for a freak off. Now she's consistently saying in general, ways, Yes, I want to do this.
I'm so happy about doing this.
She's not saying it in very specific ways, like if we really wanted to go have dinner, we would be talking about like, yes, I can't wait to eat the sushi or whatever it is.
She's not discussing it like that, but you.
Can take it like does he know that she doesn't want to do this, because when he asks her she says yes, but she also says if you keep if you read it critically, she'll be like, yes, but I want to spend alone time with you, or I can't wait to be with you. So she wants the alone time. She loves him, and I think that's another way that
he's coercing and controlling her through love. And she keeps trying to get to the good part of their relationship, which is very typical in a DV situation that you think maybe we can erase or get away from the bad part and get back to the good part, which of course is impossible.
And that's why I was asking about the centrality of the freak offs to the actual charges, because if a jury comes away and says, all right, look, we've got these text messages, we think they're weird, but she seemed to not object, so he didn't like, you know, physically force her to participate in them. Would there still be enough evidence of all these other crimes that even if a jury wants to be like, you know what, she participated in these willingly she's an adult, that's on her.
But there's all these other obvious crimes. It's extortion and violence. And it's a great lawyer question. I haven't passed the bar yet. That's the one thing Kim Kardashian has over me.
But like, here's the thing that the government has to prove that he conspired.
It's a conspiracy to Rico, it's not a Rico charge.
They have to prove that he conspired to commit two of this long list of offenses. And we have heard like eight or nine or ten of them in this trial. So when they go to sumasion, they're going to be like, look, we have proven this, we need two and there's already a ton and I you know, I named three in one story.
There's two or three.
There's three alone in the kid Cutty story because he kidnaps Capricorn within that. So I mean like there's multiple moments when the jury can be like, ooh, he's hitting a lot of the predicate offenses that prove that this is a criminal. Somebody made the point. People keep saying, how can it be a rico if there's only one person? Imagine a mobster with no lieutenants. He doesn't trust anybody else, so he just has underlings. But also, you can unwittingly participate in a conspiracy.
You don't have to know.
The person who sets up the hotel room for the freak offs does not have to know what's going to happen there? Did he does? So he's creating this whole situation, so he can't have the freak off. He's the planner that all they have to do. They don't have to prove that he did it. They just have to prove that he planned they planned it.
One question I've had, and maybe this hasn't even come up in the trial, is it seemed like he knew these charges were coming and made some kind of efforts to get out of here, get out of dodge. How did Biddy end up with these charges taking so long to land? How was it that he didn't flee to somewhere that doesn't have extradition and has that come up at all as consciousness of guilt, like attempts that he he made.
It's a great question they we haven't gotten to the defense's part of the trial. Perhaps they'll mention that I suspect that he was unable to leave the country. I suspect that that the once they raid you and and they make it clear that they're going to arrest you, like I believe that his attorneys were negotiating from a
while ago and saying, please don't tell him in the custody. Now, we promise we won't leave, and like different assurances that they would not leave, you know, the whole when he was in prison on bail, he was saying, I'll sell my plane. I'm I'm proving to you. But like, look, when he is arrested, he has gone to New York City, where he does not live anymore, to effectuate the arrest, to be there to make it, you know, more more amenable.
Let's say, now, the thing we have learned is that while he was in New York to allow himself to be arrested, he was also planning, it seems, on another freak off the hotel that after they picked him up and he was surprised that they picked him up when they did. They thought it was going to be the next day or something like that. They go, of course, they go up in the hotel room like there's a lot of baby oil and astro glide up in.
Here, like and a bunch of like ecstasy or something too or.
Do it again like right now like the road.
Last question for you, tore So Trump has floated he might be open to a party, a party part in you never know for did he has You know, we've seen this play on so many times of suddenly, you know, uh, someone who's in trouble with the law, suddenly they love Donald Trump and they're the biggest Maga fan ever and this is the deep state coming to get them or whatever. Has he made any of those attempts to kind of appeal directly to Trump in order to you know, try to be able to get this this pardon.
We don't know, obviously, did he cannot speak publicly right now. I saw a report that said that he was his group, his team, his allies were trying to back channel to Trump, and then of course Trump said he had not heard anything about that. But you know, we take all of Trump's words with a grain of salt. I imagine that it could happen. Trump is a total wild card. He pardoned NB A Young Boy and Kodak Black. Alice Johnson may decide, oh, Diddy would be another good one to bring in.
Some black voters, right.
I mean, it's this bizarre okie doke of like, you know, we're going to pardon specific individuals while we're taking away your rights over here. But that's that's the game we're playing. Trump's a total wild card in this. I don't expect him to look at it and say, oh, there were actual problems here, actual miscarriagters of justice. It'll be like, do you like Diddy or not?
Right? And how much are you willing to pay me? And what do I think the political benefit will be?
Yeah?
Yeah, And I mean, like the release of Diddy at this point would be extremely dangerous for a lot of people. A lot of people would be looking over their shoulder for quite a long time, myself included. And I'm sure I'm not top ninety nine on his list, but if he's petty enough to be making a list, I'm probably in the top hundred. But Cassie has a lot to be afraid of. He knows who Nia is. She works for him, She sat in front of him in the courtroom, and so she has a lot to be afraid of.
I mean like there's a lot of people who would be very afraid for.
A long time.
Yeah, all right, Tori. Tell people where they can find you and follow your work.
Yes, I'm on a show called truth Talks.
You can find us on YouTube at truth talks dash Live. I got a subseac culture Fries where we talk about Diddy and other things.
Follow me on TikTok and yeah, I was on Instagram too.
I was just telling Torre I don't follow many people on TikTok. He's one of the few that I do. And so you're in my feet all the time. I love you, allow you too. Right, you're killing it on there.
You got to get Crystal back.
Yeah, I've been slack and I'll get back in the game.
Guys, the chairman, she needs that content.
Tory. Good to see you, my friend.
Thanks guys, Love you, buddy.
Alexandria Ocazio Cortes has now endorsed a zorhand Mom Donnie number one on her rank Choice ballot. This comes after last night you can put up that form. It comes after last night's New York City mayoral debate. This and endorsement by Bernie Sanders have been much watched. There have been a lot of pressure on AOC to get off the sidelines and get in and endorse Dorehand as he has been surging and closing to within about eight points of Andrew Cuomo in the latest race.
Last night.
There probably were not an enormous number of people watching this debate, so we can overstate its impact. But boy was it fascinating and it is The entire conversation becomes just much more interesting when you have a social democratic voice in their debating pushes everybody else to be like, oh, yeah, I'm going to do this good thing. I'm going to do this good thing. I'll do this amazing thing as well. So let's let's start with Cuomo getting piled on. Should we do that first?
Yeah?
Yeah, because Cuomo as the front runner, is just naturally going to get piled on.
And there's plenty of ammunition to work with too.
Right, And also he's Cuomo, so you can pile on them anyway. So you know, he's facing an investigation by Trump's DOJ which on the one hand, is a boon because it rallies Democrats in New York kind of behind him, because if you're against Trump, then you're objectively a good thing according to a lot of Democratic voters. On the other hand, he did a lot of Congress and he did cover up a bunch of deaths, so this was a needle to thread for his opponents. Let's let's roll f one here.
The question is whether or not it's political and whether or not your congressional testimony was truthful. Were you, now that you've had time to reflect, involved in producing that report that under account of those nursing home deaths?
Oh, there was no doubt that my administration produced the report and it did not undercount the deaths.
Okay, but you're still saying you were not.
It's very it's very clear that's the Trump line, the Maga line, right, because this was during his the Trump reelection. Okay, the New York reports always counted the number of deaths where they occurred in a nursing home or in a hospital. Okay, now that.
Okay, we have to move on that. We have to give other people. We'll we'll, I'll have a lot more time on other subjects.
All right, will you acknowledge the deaths? Okay, I mean it's a it's a very black and white. Did you apply to Congress or will you acknowledge the death Fifteen people died and he still won't answer.
Your wells, all right, here, here's a chance to answer the question as Melissa presented it. Yes, no, I told Congress the truth. No, we did not undercount any deaths. When they are all counted, we're number thirty eight out of fifty, which I think shows that compared to what other states went through, we had it first and worst, and that only twelve states had a lower rate of death. We should really be thanking the women and men who worked in those.
Okay, very quick, Yes, we will follow up if I just the question is were you involved in the producing of that report? It's just he answered no question.
I was very aware of the report. I spoke to it at fresh conferences.
Before answer question about the production of the report. We're going to not getting an answer by the reports.
To whether or not you were so to refresh people's memory, Cuomo had a policy where he forced nursing homes to take COVID positive patients that led to outbreaks and nursing homes that led to people dying.
When the New York.
State produced a report on that, he the report systematically undercounted the deaths by saying, well, they didn't actually die in the nursing home because they got taken out and died either in an ambulance or in the hospital an hour later or whatever. And then the question was, well, were you involved in the fudging of this report? He told Congress no, And then we get an email that says, attached to are the governor's edits to this report?
Yeah, And one of his staffers said.
Yeah, this is Clomo's handwriting in the margins of the report. The criminal question might turn on whether or not his denial to Congress was you know, ironclad, or whether he was saying, I don't as far as I remember, I don't.
I was not involved in that report.
And so there's a question like that you're lying you do remember, but then how do you prove that somebody has a memory, Like it's clearly he.
Lied, right, so I mean, which is like you can very much tell in the way he I know, dancing around and still doesn't have a good answer for this like.
That, were you involved in report. I was aware of the report.
There's no question my team was involved in that's not the question. That's not what we asked.
May be very clear and say nothing clear right.
And sore On's line on this, you know, when he was asked about it, because, like you said, it is a bit of a needle to thread for you know, his opponents who all want to position themselves being vehemently anti Trump, especially after Eric Adams's collusion with the Trump regime, etc. He was like, listen, he did lie to Congress. That being said, I totally Trump pursuing him has everything to do with retribution, nothing to do with justice. But yeah, he did commit a crime here. He did lie. He
did ultimately lie to Congress. I thought overall, Cuomo, you know, he seemed like he seemed kind of rusty and complacent. You see this sometimes with politicians who've been in for a long time, and you know, they sort of take things for granted and maybe don't take their opponents as
seriously as they should. Like he clearly has a level of contempt and derision towards Zoron in particular, and so he seemed kind of rusty and off his game in this debate, and I think that's evidence by that exchange where the question that he gets asked is obviously going to be asked of him, and he's doesn't have really prepared a great response. We also had, you know, Cuomo's running this very traditional playbook of I have the experience
and Zoran has. He says that, like you know, he's been in government for twenty seven days and he doesn't know what he's doing, which is this sort of throwback argument, you know, play to expertise, although maybe in a may oral race it has more salience. I'm not sure, but I thought Zoron had a really good way of flipping this on Cuomo in this debate. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
The difference between myself and Andrew Cuomo is that my campaign is not funded by the very billionaires who put Donald Trump in DC. I don't have to pick up the phone from Bill Ackman or Ken Langoing. I have to pick up the phone for the more than twenty thousand New Yorkers who contributed an average donation of about eighty dollars to break fundraising records and put our campaign in second place.
You want to spot that.
Yeah. Please. You know mister Mandami, he's very good on Twitter and with videos, but he actually produces nothing for him to accuse me of. Lyne's so called President Obama a liar and said President Obama was evil. So take everything with a grain of salt. Donald Trump would go through mister Montdommie like a hot knife through butter. He's been in government twenty seven minutes. He passed three bills. That's all he's done. He has no experience with Washington,
no experience in New York City. He would be Trump's the light.
All right, brief response with smam Donny, then we have to move on.
Look, it's true that I don't have experience with corrupt Trump billionaires who are funding my campaign. I don't have experience with party politics and insider consultants. Or I do have experience, however, with winning four hundred and fifty million dollars in debt relief for thousands of working class taxi drivers and actually delivering the working class people.
So I thought I thought he kind of crushed him in that exchange.
Yeah, I mean it's going to be I guess is a question partly of like do you want Andrew Cuomo back, do you want him in your face for the next four or eight years as mayor?
A lot? You know, is it a thing where Okay, a lot of people don't like Woma, but he is what you get. I don't know, Well, it's it's hard. It's hard to say.
He's such a known quantity and his father, like his camp has been trying to call mom Donnie a NEPO baby, but he's a known quantity because his own father was governor, his wife was Kennedy. It's like, come on, like, who's the who's the He.
Is no Mario Cuomo by the way. Yeah, Also, the Trump's Delight barn is just a funny way of phrasing that. And look, Clomo is running a playbook that I think, prior to this moment would have worked very easily in New York City, not only with regard to just like he's got the name, people know who he is. You know, there is a tendency in New York City politics to reach for someone who is sort of like the safe
establishment Canadon's. However, Adams ends up winning. Deblasio was a little bit of a break from that, but he's not that far out of like the you know, the mold in the mainstream whatever. And so this playbook that he's running, I think in any other year would be guaranteed to win him like a thirty point victory. But we first of all, he you know, went through his own scandals and is sort of disgraced in trying to recover his
reputation at this point. Second of all, there is a real disgust among Democrats with the establishment Democratic Party that helped to usher in Trump, that did capitulate to Trump in many ways, Eric Adams again being emblematic of that. And so it's more of a question mark now over whether or not this traditional playbook, which in any other year likely would have worked, is going to work for
him this time. And that is also on display in the way that they are aggressively attacking Zoron over his position on Israel. Obviously, there's a significant Jewish population in New York City and they're you know, really important electorally, and there are various, you know, relatively organized voting blocks that you know, Cuomo in particular, but many other candidates
have been trying to appeal to. So there was this extraordinary moment at the end where they're doing their quote unquote lightning round and they ask all the candidates, what is the first country you're going to visit once if you get elected mayor of New York City. And so you have them all going down the list, and Zorn gives us answer of I'm not going to visit another country. I'm going to be here in New York working for
the people. And unlike any other candidate, they decide to the moderate is to decide to jump in to say, okay, yeah, but would you visit Israel? And then go on this, you know, to dig into like and do you support israel right not only right to exist, but right to exist specifically as a Jewish state. Let's go ahead and take a listen to how that all went down.
Given the hostility and the anti Semitism that has been shown in New York. I would go to Israel, mister Tilson, where would you go?
I'd make my fourth trip to Israel, followed by my fifth trip to Ukraine, two of our greatest allies fighting on the front lines of the global war on terror.
Mister mom Donnie, I would stay in New York City. My plans are to address New Yorkers across the five boroughs and focus on Uh.
Mister mom, Donnie, can I just jump in? Would you visit Israel?
Mayor?
I will be doing as the mayor. I'll be standing up for Jewish New Yorkers, and I'll be meeting them wherever they are across the five boroughs, whether that's in their synagogues and temples, or at their homes or at the subway platform, because ultimately we need to focus on delivering on their concerns.
Just yeso, no, do you believe in a Jewish state of Israel?
I believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, as a state with equal rights.
Right to exist as a Jewish state.
And his answer was no, he won't visit Israel.
I said that that's what he was trying to say. No, no, no, unlike unlike directly, I believe every state should be a state of equal rights.
Ryan, your thoughts, well, first of all, the guy that wants to go to Israel and Ukraine.
I like how they were competing big ever, former charter school guy, billionaire chargers.
Competing for who could have bigger yellow ribbons, Like I'm going out of it. That's been so angry when he came out and saw us nobody had a bigger yellow ribbon than him.
Outrageous. Some stafford got fired over that.
But what is what's this guy going to Israel and Ukraine? Like I had to like check, this is a New York City mayoral election, right, what is he going to do in Ukraine? Are there are a lot of Ukrainians and Russians in New York City?
Yeah?
Well, Zoran's answers part, Yeah, I will meet with voters here. Yeah, That's what I will do. And then the moderators need to jump in.
What you're saying you won't go, but you go to Israel.
It's like can you imagine them going through a checklist of every other four and well what about what about Russia?
To chat?
What about that? Are you going to Mexico? I mean when when's your trip to Brazil? I mean it's just only for the country. And then the other piece here is Zoran says I think Israel has a right to exist, and well, but what about as a Jewish state? And he refuses to back an explicitly ethno nationalist state and says, I think they should have equal rights. And again I think this playbook, it may well still be effective, right.
I'm not saying it won't be, But there is a completely frankly racist and caricaturish view of what Jewish voters actually think about Israel and Palestine. And many Jewish voters, by the way, a majority voted for Democrats, a majority are opposed to US continuing to endlessly fund this horrific genocide. Many have been involved in the protests against our government policy visa the Israel. And so you know, the tried and true playbook of saying he's not pro Israel enough.
Maybe it will work, maybe it's possible. I'm not saying it doesn't have any power, but I do think it represents a completely outdated mode of politics that does not reckon with the fact that Zorn is getting at there that hey, I'll meet Jewish voters here wherever they are, because guess what, they are complete human beings who have interests separate and apart from whether or not I decide to make a trip to Israel and whatever statements I make about this one foreign country.
And poll a couple of weeks ago, specifically of Jewish voters in New York that found that Cuomo was only leading him by eleven points among Jewish voters. Well, and that was happening at the time when overall Cuomo was leading him by something like sixteen points.
Well, there was that poll recently that found AOC beating Schumer by a significant margin among Jewish voters. So this caricaturish view of what you need to say to appeal to this, I mean, it really is a racist view of what you need to say to appeal to this one demographic is completely you know, it is completely outdated and anachronistic.
And one of those propagandists, a al I forget his last name, who always in my Twitter feed when he saw that poll showing that twenty percent of Jewish voters in New York were supporting Mom Donnie and thirty one percent supporting Cuomo, he said, not a single one of them is actually Jewish, just like it's an anti Semitic.
What do you mean, they're not Jewish?
They're only Jewish if they vote in a New York City mayoral election for the candidate that you believe they should vote for.
Right, that thinking is very common, though, I feel, especially on the right, this thinking of like, well some of these well, Joe.
Biden, you're not black. You don't support Biden, You're not.
We're not black. But there is this view of like, oh, well, the you know, people who are culturally Jewish or who are more like secular Jewish or like reform Jewish, like they don't really count. That doesn't really count. The only ones that count are the ones that I say count or that uphold that you know, you know, lockstep zion is pro Israel view.
But if you go too far right and it's an anti Zionist Orthodox, do they count.
No county, they don't count either. So yeah, I mean it was really I think a fascinating debate all around, Like you said, Lisav Lursus about how many people are gonna watch it, although you will see that the Twitter clips floating around. But I think the dynamics were good for zarn and that he handled himself very well. Cuomo hand handled himself badly, and Cuomo was taken fire from from absolutely everybody on the stage, which is also you know, a difficult position to do, and that he did not
handle all that well. So AOC's and now do you think that moves the needle? Do you think she got it at the right time? I know people are saying she should have come out earlier and really been there on the ground trying to build name recognition for him, and now basically he's sort of coalesced aled AOC voters, so it may not make that much of a difference.
Earlier is probably better.
The best argument for this one is that it maximizes public attention to the endorsement. You know, if she does it right away, you know, we had him on the program very early.
Right in the race, and it's like people didn't really care.
So people didn't really care, whre's this guy?
Right, Like, no, this guy's really cool. You're going to see him interesting. And so if she did it, then it's like, man, whenever he and then he would have been known as the AOC endorsed candidate. But he's already known as the DSA candidate. So there's a ton of media attention now around the fact that she just endorsed him and he did very well on that debate and Cuomo did poorly, so it's combining to create some energy.
It may be a case I don't know, but it may be a case where Waiting ended up on net being better than going early, because it's almost never better now if she would start early and do a unified thing like We're going to raise enormous amounts of money from you for you from my email list, and I'm I'm going to rally with you everywhere.
That's better.
But that was probably never in the cards, although, which which is an interesting question in its own right why that wouldn't have.
Been in the cards.
She's very cause, I mean, I also think this is kind of an outdated mode of thinking. I'm being so cautious of like when you give your endorsement too.
And from endorses any koop right away.
Exactly right, and if they don't win, then he just wants someone else, you know.
It's like, oh, it was there, fould if I didn't endorse her.
Yeah, So I do think that that is also kind of an outdated playbook. And then the other question is whether Bernie is going to ultimately get involved here as well. Is possible he was sort of waiting for AOC to jump in since she is actually in New York City and I don't know, So we'll see how all of those things play out. But you know, the polls have been tightening. He has definitely outperformed what anyone's I think, including his own team, potentially expectations of where this race
would ultimately be. And you know, in the final stretch here as people who are lower information voters who weren't tuned in before start to tune in, what are the sort of messages that they're hearing and what is appealing
to them at this point in time. It's I think important from a national Democratic Party conversation because there is this big question about where the Democratic base is in, how things are shifting within the coalition, what types of candidates they're looking for, what sorts of things may be on the table that previously weren't on the table, And this could be a kind of canary in the coal mine for where things are are hadding nationally as well.
So that's why it's interesting not to mention it's a giant city and important and all that.
Yeah, Cuomo was still the odds on favorite. The ballots go out, I think you're fourteenth. The actual election is twenty fourth, twenty fourth or twenty six. Don't want to give any misinformation. Just google that you're yourself. Yeah, we'll see And anyway, don't forget that for the rest of this month, one month free if you go to Breakingpoints dot com.
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