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For the past many months, the BBC has been broiled in a controversy in which it has been refusing to air a documentary that kind of took on a life of its own inside the organization, as the journalists there have been demanding to know what happened to an investigation that the BBC had commissioned into Israel's war on the on medical professionals in the entire kind of medical community
inside of Gaza. That contrivers now resulted in the documentary being acquired by Mehdi Hassen and Zeteo News for its worldwide distribution and by Channel four inside the UK for its UK distribution. So many's joining us now to talk about this documentary and also the process that led up to it being centered and now being finally released last night.
Maddie, thanks so much for joining us, Thanks for having me.
And I wanted to start by honoring several of the medical professionals who have been killed in this genocide. If we could put up I believe it is C three drop site posted this yesterday. This is a picture from a graduation ceremony at the Faculty of Medicine in Gaza.
Four of the people that you're looking at in this photo doctor Omar Farwana, who was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine, doctor Adnan al Bersh who was head of orthopedic surgery at Al Shifa Medical Complex, got A Rafat Lubad who was the head of internal medicine at Al Shifa. And also then this week was the killing of doctor Marwan al Sultan, who was the director of
the Indonesian Hospital and a cardiologist. So in that photo, four of four of them have been assassinated, several targeted at their homes, not collateral damage from attacks on you know, fighters are caught in crossfire. But medi I want you to talk about the targeting of medical professionals because that is what I think people don't understand because it sounds so insane to say it out loud, that.
It sounds insane to say it out loud.
It's I mean two things, three things I think sound insane over the last twenty one months, twenty two months that we've normalized. One obviously the deliberate killing of journalists, which a lot of journalists in the.
West have a lot of problem comprehending.
The other is the deliberate killing of children, of course gunshot wounds to the head, sniper shots, not collateral damage. And of course the third is the doctors, the killing of doctors, nurses, paramedics, the deliberate targeting.
And destruction of Garza's healthcare.
That is what the premise that was the basis of this film is. And this film, produced by award winning filmmakers at Basement Films in the UK, made over several months, went through rigorous checks, went through the BBC editorial process for much of it.
Ride of reply.
Fantastic lead report remain a Navai award winning war correspondent and they put together this film, this hour long film based on eyewitness testimony from Palestinian doctors and survivors, as well as doctor Adnan old Brush, who you just mentioned. He's in this film, but he's since been killed in Israeli captivity, tortured and died in prison, killed in prison as one of his colleagues. So you've got eyewitness testimony from Palestinian doctors to what they have had to endure.
We also have an Israeli medic whistleblower in the film who served at State Taman, the Israeli Gulag, the prison, the black site where they've taken Palestinian detainees to be tortured, raped, killed.
So it's all there put together in the film.
And you mentioned, you know, the targeting of doctors saying it out loud perhaps the most powerful moment for me in the film, and we just I would urge breaking points views to go to the Zeteo Twitter feed or Zeteo Bluska.
We actually put up a clip from the.
Film last night, separate to the trailer, which is one of the most powerful moments in the film from doctor Khalid Hamouda who was a surgeon, who is a surgeon in guards are now in Egypt, who was bombed in his home with his family, a family of to other doctors. At first ten people killed. They then flee him his wife as child, and they go down the street by the way. His house is blown up, not the entire street,
just his house. They then go down the street to take refuge and a drone follows them down the street and attacks them again. And he wakes up in a hospital and sees a nurse carrying his child, his daughter, who's dead.
The next morning, his wife, the mother of his child, is also dead.
He's told Keled he's the only survivor or one of the only survivors I believe, from that masacret And she says, remin and Viler, what you were talking? He says, yes, drone came and targeted us. And this is what we heard from the world Central Kitchen folks when they were in the humanitarian convoy and they were.
Targeted car to car to car.
This is what we've heard from journalists, of course, and this is what we have to get our heads around. The United States of America has been arming and funding a country that is systematically. This is a key word here, destroying the Gaza healthcare system, destroying doctors and medics. And the key point here, and it comes out in the film. You can rebuild hospitals in years to come. Trump can turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East and
build as many hospitals as you like. You cannot rebuild that knowledge base, you cannot rebuild that human base.
You cannot just.
Get doctors back of Ghazan society palaces for years educating itself in this way, and these Raelis have deliberately targeted it.
Well, let's take a look at the trailer.
This is one to get a sample of what people can expect from the film.
Rome.
Israel has been killing the very people trying to keep the healthcare system alive, its doctors and medics, despite hospitals and healthcare workers being protected under international law. As Israel has bonded Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian doctors and medics have refused to leave their hospital.
We are in the theater and operating room, full of darkness, no water, no electricity, but we have a hero surgeons in Gaza.
Hundreds of medics have been killed, hundreds have been detained. Many of them have been forcibly disappeared. Our Palestinian team on the ground have gathered testimony from health workers and their families.
Wings of them, and Israeli.
Whistleblowers have told us they witnessed Palestinian prisoners being tortured and that some Israeli medics are complicit.
I don't even think that in the Israeli society there is a need for cover up. These days, you can do almost whatever you want when it comes to gardens.
One of the things people conceive METI is that this is a high production value film. In the BBC funded this film. The BBC then refused to err it and was giving quote unquote bullshit reasons. According to a source who told that to the Independent and medi you have probably a lot of insight into this process of why the BBC, which had recently aired row documentary, I believe that was on BBC.
What happened?
What's your understanding of why they ended up getting rid of a film that they funded?
So the BBC put out a very long statement, a bullshit statement, I would argue as well. Their argument was that they had this other documentary that they aired on GAZA, which became super controversial, I would argue for unnecessary reasons.
It was narrated by a child in Gaza surviving the war.
And it turns out the child was the son of a deputy agriculture minister in the Gaza government, some technocrat who was then labeled, of course as just Hamas.
And there was a huge furory in the UK that.
The BBC had put out a film from the child of a Hamas minister, even though again it was a well sourced, well made, high production valuy film.
The child had not decided the editorial agenda.
But while they were quote unquote investigating how that happened, they decided to park this film, which, as you say, they'd spent a lot of money on, spent many months making with Basement Films, who we are Detayo know well because they made a film for his last year called Israel's Real Extremism, which came on the show talking about memory sells me correctly then and the fundamental argument for the BBC was, well, Basement Films went out and talked
about the process while we were still trying to get everything approved. They then put out Basement were frustrated. Of course, my friend Benda Peir, who's the executive producer, formerhead of Channel.
Four News, very respected award winning journalists.
He went out at the Sheffield Documentary Festival and said, come on, this is ridiculous. We've got doctors in the film waiting for this film to come out. We're showing disrespect to people who risked their lives to talk to us. Sources, whistleblowers, you know, survivors are massacres. The BBC put out statements saying well, if we put it out now, there will be the perception of partiality, and the BBC can't have
the perception of partiality. The great irony being, of course, that their decision not to air this film that they commissioned that ran through their checks. That is the greatest perception of partiality. It's partiality towards Israel. They have now run one Gaza doc and then pulled it nowhere to be seen because apparently it was the child of a Hamas minister bullshit argument. And now they didn't even the
other Gaza documentary. And then add that to all of the rest of the coverage of the BBC's of Gaza over the last twenty one to twenty two months, which has been abysmal, which has been which has caused multiple internal you know, backlashes, protests from BBC staff who are frustrated at what their broadcaster has done. This is a BBC that has been cowed, intimidated, pressured, bullied.
This is a BBC. I used to work at the BBC.
I used to defend the BBC when I worked in the UK from right wing bullshit attacks. But I think I've never seen in my entire lifetime. I'm im about to turn forty six years old, in my entire lifetime, I'm watching the BBC.
I've been watching the BBC since.
Children's Cartoons on a Saturday morning, and I can honestly say it's never taken a beating like this. I've never had such a depressing, disappointing view of the national broadcast in the UK that I've had since October twenty twenty three. I know many other people who stopped watching the BBC, stopped appearing on the BBC because their coverage has been so shameful, not just in the documentary space, but in
the new space, the online space, the ridiculous headlines. There was a study by the SENSE for Media Monitoring recently which said they give thirty three times as much coverage per Israeli casualty as they do per Palestinian casualty.
So there's not a perception of partiality.
There's a well documented evidence of partiality towards Israel.
And I want to linger on that point and connect.
It to the point that you made about the original controversy that then put this documentary on ice.
Trying to imagine a world in which a.
Documentary was made about the difficulties faced by Israeli children in the war, which are non trivial, often headed to bomb shelters, which is absolutely even if nothing happens, it's traumatizing for a child to have to hide, to hide somewhere with their family in the dark, worried that they might get hit by a bomb.
Like that alone is traumatizing.
So let's say that the BBC commission a documentary focused on the way that the war was affecting children, and then it turned out that the boy's father worked for the Ministry of Agriculture in Israel, and they pulled the documentary and apologized and and.
Investigated how that could happen?
How could you possibly have aired the thoughts of a child whose father works for the Ministry of Agriculture in Israel.
That to me kind of tells you everything you need.
To know about the way that the BBC approached it. So how difficult was it to kind of pry this out of the BBC or were they like, thank you, Metti, We're so glad to be done with this controversy.
So the heavy lifting was done by Ben de Paratt Basement Films, who spent who made this film, sweat and blood in this film, spent a long time.
In back and forth with the BBC. And you know, he runs an independent production company.
It's very risky for him to pick a fight with one of the biggest broadcasters in the world, which commissions his staff. So props to my friend Ben really for believing in this film and saying, look, I want it out there. Doesn't matter if I screw up my relationship with people, doesn't matter if I lose money on this.
I want it out there.
And the BBC did sit on it for a while and weren't going to release it as far as I'm aware, and eventually they did release it, partly because of Ben's cajoling, partly because I think they just wanted to be done with it, and then US and Channel four were able to come in and say, well, we're going to give it a platform. I knew from the moment they benched it, if this film becomes available, I was messaging men, say
we want a platform. This is what Zato was created for, right to give these voices to the world, to try and platform these voices.
We know, Ryan, you and I that the right have been arguing.
About cancel culture for decades and yet the single biggest victims of cancel culture are Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian movement and journalism about Palestine and academia about Palestine, and that has been a fundamental issue. We've seen that in this conflict, and I think that was a frustrating issue where the BBC we're not airing it and we're not releasing it, and the moment they released it, we
move fast. And props to Channel four broadcaster in the UK for running it, because again, Ryan, you say hamas and everything shuts down, All critical faculties shut down, even amongst smart liberal, progressive folks. And if you're able to say anything's hamasked, and that's what you're able to throw at it, and I'm sure people will throw that at this film as well. One thing I took great pride in doing was take you know, the BBC put out statements saying this is not our film anymore. That's true,
it's not their film anymore. We made some We made a few changes. One of the changes we made is we took out all references to the Hamas run health ministry. We call it the Garza Ministry of Health of this film. That in itself is a propagandistic and loaded phrase, as you well know, because it allows people to then cast doubt on the deaths and torture pass it. And we have eyewitness accounts of this film fro people who are
nothing knew Hamas about that suffering. Just one quick story that your viewers might be interested in that I heard recently from someone else. You talk about the kind of
imagine if this was the other way around. A production company, I'm told went to a major American broadcaster at the start of this conflict, at the start of the genocide and had a story worry about a Palestinian family just to kind of followed the moon around and the suffering they were going through and the number of members of the family had been killed, and the American broadcaster said, we'll run it, but first go and find First, let us go and find an Israeli family so we can
balance it and we'll run both stories. A few weeks later, they came back to the production company and said, well, we can't find the Israeli family that suffered like the Palestinian Family show does.
Therefore we're not running your story. Not we'll just run yours, but we won't run.
Anything now because we can't do this fake bullshit balance.
Right, And it would would have looked worse if you try to do the balance, because you'd see.
They just dropped the whole thing. Right, This is what happens if Palestinian voice is are silence.
The other interesting thing about the BBC's position here is they're not disputing any facts in the film or any of the journalism, right many they aren't. They aren't disputing the quality of the journalism. They're not even saying that it didn't meet their editorial standards, which is a pretty usual excuse.
Yep, not at all. And I think they're hiding behind this bullshit phrase perception of partiality.
So it's only and By the way, Emily, they're not even saying it's a biased film. They're saying if we run it now, people will say that we are biased to one side, and we are scared of people people being the pros ra A lobby, and therefore we are not going to put it out. I mean, look, the people who made this film of one Oscars and Emmy's the reporter Ramita Nevai is of Iranian descent, has done films all about Iran's human rights abuses.
She's traveled around the world. The credibility of these people cannot be questioned. I'm sure it will be questioned by bad faith actors.
And yet this is where we've reached now, in the name of protecting Israel, wittingly or unwittingly, we've burned down international law, and we've burned down journalistic credibility.
We've burned down so.
Many institutions which will not survive the last twenty two months.
So, Mady, where can people go to find this?
So they can go to find this at gazadoctors dot film that's the website we set up for this film specifically, or zateo dot com. It is available to paid subscribers for now. People will say, well, why not put it out for free to the world. Well, because the people behind this film spent a lot of time and money making this film, and I just want to remind people that a free press isn't free. High quality journalism requires investment.
If you really want documentaries that are going to win awards and report on the ground and break stories, then we really have to support it financially. I'm proud that Zeteo is financially supporting this film.
It costs a lot of money around Emily.
As you know, documentaries cost a lot, and therefore we are airing it to our paid subscribers. I urge people to become a paid subscriber. If you become a monthly subscriber's less than the cost of going to the movie theater to watch a film. And this film is more important than any other film you're going to see this year, including the f one movie, which I loved, But this movie is more important.
It is true.
Journalism is expensive, and documentaries are particularly so.
The travel, the.
Sophistication that goes into the legally, the leegaling, oh my god, don't get me started on the legaling. Well, Mettie, thank you so much for joining us and congrats on this acquisition. I'm glad that it's it's getting out there. Finally, a new legal filing from attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia alleges that he was tortured while in Seacott custody in El Salvador.
We can put up this first element up on the screen.
Abreo Garcia was it has it has become the detainee who has captured the most attention.
And it could have gone a lot of different ways.
It could have been the makeup artist who is still facing these brutal conditions in El Salvadora. Could have been the soccer the venezuela and soccer player who had absolutely no connection to Toneo Ragua and yet remains down there. Abrego Garcia has become the one that Democrats kind of
focus their attention on. He would He was returned from Al Salvador, surprise by the administration to face face charges for human trafficking in Nashville in the in the Nashville area, charges which are now face kind of crumbling under scrutiny. This this new allegation service as a part of these ongoing proceedings, and we're still joined by a Sto's Mandy Hassen to talk through some of this. Many thank you for sticking around. We appreciate it.
It's a terrific story.
Run it really is they talk about and you know what you know they they he says that you know, he walked into Seacott and one of the guards said to him and was saying to everybody who was coming in, welcome to Seacott.
Those who enter, uh never leave and a break up.
Garcia is one of the only cases that I think we even know of, whether in El Salvador or anywhere else, of somebody leaving leaving Seacott alive soon after getting there. It seems like they had them all kneel for twenty four hours, which.
Maddy and I are old men at this point.
If we kneel for two minutes, were we are, we're struggling hard and then they were beaten. If they if they collapsed, and the filing says that he soiled himself, you know, while they were being forced to kneel kind of overnight among a bunch of the other abuses. Do you think that this is the reason why the Trump administration was initially so reluctant to and is still reluctant to return anybody from the detention center because they can then talk about what happened down there.
I think he's part of the reason. I don't think it's the whole reason.
I think even if they weren't being tortured there, it's a point of principle right for the bullies not to give in, and they don't want to say that. All the liberal media and the Democrats made and the human rights science has.
Made us bring people back.
You remember that the ridiculous playing Homeland Security Secretary Christi nom went in front of Congress and said, I guarantee you he's never coming back. Well, he did come back, but for this bullshit Tennessee indictment for human trafficking, human smuggling.
Yeah. I think it's part of the reason. It's not the only reason.
And Human Rights to Watch have documented that this is a prison where people never leave from and yes, they are just literally disappeared inside of there. It's a horrific gulag in El Salvador, created by a kind of autocrat President Buckley Trump's ally.
People are treated horrifically.
He was threatened with being put into cells with gang members where he would be killed. He was told by the guards. He had his head shaved forcibly with a zero razor. He was beaten with wooden batons, he was punched in the head. He was, as you say, forced to kneel all night long, kicked and beaten if they weren't able to kneel all night long, soiled himself, deprived of food, malnutrition, lost.
Dozens of pounds.
You'll remember that photo that the Trump administration released with him and Chris van Holland having Margarita's which, as the said from Mariland pointed that they didn't order it was placed in the picture by the El Salvadorans to.
Make it look like they were having this great time. He was not having a great time.
And we can only dread to imagine what is happening to some of the other innocent people who have been sent there. The gay barber who was sent there, the guy with the autism tattoos who was looking after his brother. So many cases. There was a case just this week I read of where the Trump administration have admitted for once that they sent someone who shouldn't have been sent out over but they can't find him anymore. I tweeted this yesterday and I stand by this. You said you
and I are old men because we can't neel. We're also old men who remember two thousand and one, two thousand and two, two thousand and three. I think this is as big a scandal, if not bigger scandal than Abu Grebe and Guantanamo Bay. This is happening in plain sight. At least we could argue in two thousand and one, two three. We didn't know till much later. We didn't know till Senator Diane Feinstein's report. We didn't know till Seymour Hershe's reporting in the New Yorker. This is happening
in plain sight. We have known since day one. We didn't even need kill Albrego Garcia's report. We saw the video that the Trump administration put out. Remember they put out a video to music showing off their torture and beating enforcible shavings of innocent men sent to SEACOD. Now we have this forty page amendment with the details in it. I think history will judge what those of us who know about it and saw did in this moment.
This is a scandal.
The Democrats in Congress should be screaming about from the rooftops, which every Democrat who wants to be president in twenty twenty eight should be talking about. The Trump administration took a bunch of people in the United States, including possibly legal residents. We don't know because they haven't told us who went and sent them to a foreign gulag to be tortured, and refused to bring them back, including when the court said.
Send them back. That is a crime.
That is a scandal, and I think Americans need to stop thinking it can't happen here.
We're not like those other countries.
The descriptions in this report, in this amendment are the kind of descriptions you would read about from a North Korean prison, an Iranian prison, a Russian prison.
Let's stop pretending we don't do what everyone else does.
Well, So this is something that Ryan and I actually debated a little bit yesterday, and we can put D two. This is a vo of Alligator Alcatraz flooding on the screen.
So this.
Engineering marvel that was constructed very quickly in the middle of the Everglades is already flooding. Probably knows prize to anybody who would conceive of what it might look like after you throw up a massive three thousand bud facility in the Everglades in like a week's time. And Ryan raised the point that hurricane season could be especially devastating
to people who are kept there in the future. So three thousand beds, they want to increase that to five thousand beds, and they just got an infusion of funding for immigration enforcement. But Maddie, I think the public hates the Seacott stuff. I think most of the public hates the Seacott stuff because it feels profoundly un American. I think it's a blind spot for the Trump administration that gets very online and you know, sort of falls for the appeal of the memes on these types of things.
I think the Trump administration has sort of understood that, which is why they didn't send another group of people to Seacott, at least not yet on the political front. So, I guess I'm curious what you make of Alligator Alcatraz, which you mentioned christinoam like cosplaying. Honestly, I feel like it. I think we need to take it seriously. I do feel like the Trump administration likes to larp as Bucelli. I don't think it's popular, but I don't foresee Alligator
Alcatraz looking like Seacott. That does mean I don't think we should take the threat of that seriously. But I'm curious what you expect to see from the facility in the next several months as they start filling it.
The just on the lopping point, I should also point out that when the history books are written about this period and about the torture Now Salvador, you will have a series of Republican members of Congress who went to El Salvador, stood outside prison cell, said what a.
Great place this is. Christineom Christina led the charts.
She stood in front of a cell full of dozens and dozens of men would shaved heads, lined up for a photo op, many of those men who have been tortured, as we now know. And this is what the American guvernment was part of, which is what I'm saying. It's worse in many ways than Abu Gray because the Bush administration, Cheney and Ashcroft, didn't go and do.
Photo ops at Abu Gray.
They tried to keep it.
They tried to keep it hidden.
And this administration, as usual, the cruelty is the point to borrow Adam Seller's line. So yes, and I think, look, whether you call it alligator, alcarez, whatever stupid name these people give to their concentration cabs. Even already, ice detention facilities were overcrowded. We were hearing reports about abuse. We're hearing stories about people not eating for days, not having beds, sleeping on the floor, no blankets, all sorts of abuse.
Nine to one one calls from ice detention centers with people collapsing that we had a death I believe of a Cuban American man this week or a Cuban man this week. I don't know what a stayed as well. I can't remember who knows what this administration, what the states of any.
Many Just to underline that, because I was just in Miami and they were talking about this down there a lot. He was a seventy five year old man who had been in the United States since nineteen sixty five, since the age of fifteen, So he fled what they will call in Miami the Castro dictatorship, which I mean kind of was dictator.
Yeah, we're glad to have you guys on the record.
Here we go that.
He so he'd been here for sixty years now, a lot of people in Miami because it's its cultural nature. Like maybe he never became a citizen. I don't know, Like it's quite possibly he didn't. He easily could have. If you've been here since nineteen sixty five as a Cuban, you could have become a citizen.
But just in Miami, like a lot of people didn't.
He died in ICED attention, and Tom Homan responded, well, you know, bad things.
In every prison.
People don't in every prison.
But we're saving so many lives with ICE anyway, So I just wanted to ice prisons.
ICE prisons in particular are overcrowded. We know now we have this new budget. We have this budget bill that's gone through, giving them more money than most than a lot of foreign militaries.
There's a lot of people appointed to that.
I believe they're going to be I believe they're gonna have half the levels of personalnel as the United States Marine Corps when all this sudden and done, if this bill goes through. So they're getting lots of money for fancy new centers and troops. But what I would say is even already the overcrowding is insane. The conditions are horrific. You mentioned the elderly Cuban man. There was an Iranian
woman who's been here fifty years. She came in nineteen seventy nine her family and came to visit the United States, and the revolution happened and they stayed and she never got citizenship and they are now deputshake. I think they got her in her front yard while she was gardening, this dangerous threat, this elderly Iranian woman. So these are kind of ridiculous stories coming out from the ICE detentions. But the conditions, to go back to Emily's question, are horrific.
I don't think even if they get thirty seven billion dollars from this bill, that they're somehow going to build nicer facilities.
It's not about lack of resources.
The reason people are being abused in detention is not because they lack resources. That's part of it, but it's also because the cruelty is the point. They don't see these people as fully human beings. They don't see these people as deserving of right. You've heard United States senators have gone on live television and said, no, foreigners don't
get you process. Foreigns aren't covered by the Constitution. This is the kind of ridiculous shit that is said by people with law degrees serving in the United States Senate, which is obviously nonsense. Everyone gets due process. So that is the fundamental problem. It's not about resources, it's not about where you locate your concentration camp. It's about the fundamental mindset of Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, which is that these people are not fully human.
These people are not people deserving of rights.
These people need to be punished to send a message, and these people need to.
Be out of here. And I think that is the key point that Ryan mentioned. Miami.
A bunch of Republicans in Florida members of the House are saying, well, come on, can you tone it down a bit because they're feeling some backlash from their constituents who are like, you know, the leoparded, what's the face the face eating leopard party meme?
Like, I didn't know they'd come for my.
Friends, Manny, I know you have to run. So thank you so much for sticking around for a second segment.
We appreciate it.
Thank you guys, of course, Zoron Mom Donnie held a press conference to respond to President Trump's threat that he was going to do also of things to him, including round him up, to port him jailum, et cetera.
Here's Mom, Donnie.
Yesterday, Donald Trump said that I should be arrested. He said that I should be deported. He said that I should be denaturalized. And he said those things about me, someone who stands to be the first immigrant mayor of this city in generation, someone who would also be the first Muslim in the first South Asian mayor in this city's history, less so because of who I am, because of where I come from, because of how I look or how I speak, and more so because he wants
to distract from what I fight for. I fight for working people. I fight for the very people that have been priced out of this city. And I fight for the same people that he said he was fighting for.
This is the same president who ran on a campaign of cheaper groceries, who ran on a campaign about easing a suffocating cost of living crisis, And ultimately, it is easier for him to fan the flames of division than to acknowledge the ways in which he has betrayed those working class Americans, not just in the city, but across this country and the ways in which he continues to betray them, because we know that he would rather speak about me than speak about the legislation that he is
shepherding through Washington, DC, legislation that will quite literally take healthcare away from Americans, legislation that will steal food from the Hungary, legislation that looks to build upon one of the largest transfers of wealth we've seen in recent history in his first administration, and do it once again for the very Americans who already have enough.
We should be.
Fighting for those that do not have what they need to live a dignified life. That is what I will do, and I am thankful to have the protection and to have the support of so many New Yorkers who have stood up and set how unacceptable this is, including our governor,
including members of the labor movement. And ultimately, what I fear for is that if this is what Donald Trump and his administration feel comfortable about saying about the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, imagine what they feel comfortable saying and doing about immigrants whose names they don't even know.
So also yesterday, and we can put up this element here President Trump's Homeland Security Advisory Council, which is a group that includes such luminaries as Bo Didel who is the founder of Bikers for Trump, and Rudy Giuliani, who is a believer or not the former mayor of New York once in his life, as well as some other folks they met, and they quickly decided that the main thing the Homeland Security Advisory Council needed to focus its meeting on was what they're going to do about zoron
Mam Donnie and talking about the Homeland Security Department having authorities that haven't been used in the past that maybe.
Need to look into that.
So before we get into the actual threats on Mom Donnie, Emily and I wanted to talk about his response to it, because I think we both think that this is an expression of a populist democratic party that could exist that does not exist, but these are the kind of green shoots of it popping up, and that if it did exist, it would represent a genuinely interesting development on the scene and would be kind of a party that was actually worth working people respecting and voting for, which is stunning
because it's happening at a time when the Democratic Party could not be at its lowest.
We saw when we were here yesterday. We saw a preview of mom Donnie's strategy towards this when he just first put out his statement after Trump made his comments and pivoted, and we talked about that yesterday, how he pivoted to basically class warfare. Did the same thing right here. He pivoted not to I shouldn't say class warfare, because I think that diminishes it. He pivoted to affordability. And it's like, this is what you do if you realize
your average voter isn't Liz Cheney. This is how you run a campaign where you're going after Trump, but you're not fully taking Trump's bait. And I think it it's genuinely a pretty interesting development for Democrats that they now have a kind of textbook example of how.
To do the thing right.
It's not backing down on the initial charge. It's not apologizing for any of the culture war stuff Trump is doing here. It's pushing back on that, but then it's moving and saying the reason you're doing this is because you're a billionaire that doesn't care about people and you just want to distract from the fact that you're stealing everybody's medicaid and that you promise to run on making
groceres cheaper and you're not doing it. It's really interesting because the twenty seventeen, you know, the first term version of Democrats against Trump, would have just fully seized on the culture war aspect of it and said Donald Trump is a bigot, he's a xenophobe, we are a nation of immigrants, and he doesn't back away from all of that. Rhetorically, he believes all of those things, but that's not really where he puts his energy.
But don't your response and what you're saying is that twenty seven because I think this is so true and easily Yeah, I feel like that's really what everyone would have done. Like the conventional wisdom is that maybe you throw in a couple of lines about grocery prices and medicaid and snap, but actually you spend the bulk of your response talking about how you are going to be the first missile mayor of New York City and how that's what scares Donald Trump. He's scared of brown people,
he's scared of change. I think that's totally true if we put that in the time machine. If we put mont Donnie in a time machine and say he was running in twenty seventeen, maybe he would have been sparner about it.
But the strategists on the.
Left would not have.
Yeah, they would not have.
And I think it's probably it's tied up in the intrademocratic fight that happened at the time where Bernie Sanders had, you know, just come off this very bitter primary, where a lot of Hillary Clinton supporters were still even blaming Bernie Sanders for the fact that Trump was in at all.
And anybody who said that Donald Trump supporters had quote unquote economic anxiety, yes, was that was said to be code for the real reason that they've supported Trump, which is their their racism and their homophobia and their bigotry and on and on and so, because that was the case, if Democrats shied away from talking about economic anxiety because they were afraid that they would then like, oh, look at you, you racist much Mamdani instead takes Trump at
his word and says, if you notice in that clip he says Trump ran on these things, people voted for him.
The point he's making is people voted.
For Trump because he promised he was going to lower grocery prices. He was going to make the city more affordable and fill their lives with some dignity, make their lives better.
That's what Trump said he was going to do.
And he's talking to Trump supporters and saying he's not doing that.
What is he doing?
He's getting you all riled up about me when all I'm trying to do is lower grocery prices.
I revisited this last week when we talked to Zoron in what.
Was that December?
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, it was November December.
Actually, you know what, I think it was November because he was going to say told.
He was interviewing the Trump people.
Yeah, yeah, he did. He sort of followed Alexander A.
Kazo Cortez's lead and went out into I think he told this to the Bronx and he was in Queen's he was interviewing people, talking to them, trying to pitch himself to Trump voters, and he said the number one thing they were concerned about was the price of groceries. They feel like they have less in their bank accounts than.
They used to.
And that's again, it's so obvious. But twenty seventeen you just couldn't make that argument period, which.
Is weird because of course you could, but like you could, just the structures of the Democratic Party at the time were just not allowing the party there was on And also they were so thoroughly rewarded by the media for leaning into the culture war.
Yes, yes, and rewarded.
By a significant chunk of their voters. Doesn't mean those voters wouldn't also have been with them on other stuff. Now, inflation was not what it was in twenty seventeen, like we had you know, one percent inflation since basically the financial crisis, so you know, the context is actually different now. The economy is stunk, and that's why Trump won, I
think in twenty sixteen. But it wasn't exactly prices. It was wages and joblessness which was slowly getting you know, had gradually come back from the financial crisis, but not but took so long, and people were mined in debt and student teds.
So opioid crisis had plenty of local economy is.
Going on, So I think Democratic base would have been there for it. But Democrats didn't need to go there because they would get they would get donations, they get crowds, and they would get fawning me media coverage for pointing out what a big at Trump was, and so they didn't need to go and be like, look, he actually said he was going to run on all these things to make your life better, and he's not doing that.
They didn't didn't want to take it seriously. They didn't want to take seriously the idea that he actually.
Ran on that stuff because they thought that the silver bullet was their own cultural arguments against Trump, and it wasn't. That wasn't enough to persuade voters who have always baked into their calculation. And this is what the media doesn't understand because the media is pretty friendly with a lot of politicians.
Other voters understand that.
Politicians are probably bad people, right like, they know that you're not convincing people to stop supporting Trump by saying he's a bad guy. That's not like a slam dunk own on a Trump supporter. They actually are making a calculated decision that he was going to disrupt the system. And if you're not competing on that field, you're not competing at all. You're arguing totally past what you could possibly persuade people on yeah.
And I think also the party's donors are ambivalent about any class first messaging.
Yeah, yeah, of course that.
They're like, eh, like, can we do some of the other stuff. Were you at all or welcome?
When they did the asterisk after every mention of Trump. Yeah, I look back in that and I remember it said like Donald Trump is a racist, enophobic, chemophobic bigot and something like that, and every mention of Trump it had an asterisk and said that. I was like, I mean, many people believe all of that is true. I mean, you can make arguments about all of that, but it's not persuasive. It actually distracts. I don't know, we don't
have to relitigate that. But it was a good example of the approach at the time.
Yeah, I mean, and I think if we went back and looked at it, it didn't. I don't think it had any class messaging in it because, like you could have led with.
Donald Trump is a billionaire blah blah, right, But.
I think the only way that union busting.
Right only rips off everyone who's ever worked for him.
I think the only way huff Post was able to get away with that, And yeah, I was, I was there and involved with it at the time, like journalistically was because it it would feel more part as than if it was class in a way mm hmm, like because what it was doing was pointing to their universal American values, which are, you know, equality, justice, we treat all people with dignity, civil rights like at least at that time, Yeah, everyone believed in the civil rights movement,
like left to far right like that. The civil not not far right, but left to right civil rights movement was seen as like a very good thing that was that was brought to people who fought for justice, brought by people who were.
Charlie Kirk had not yet discovered Martin Luther King Jr.
Yeah, yeah, right, They hadn't gone down different rabbit holes and come up with theories and and so it appealed to these universal values, whereas if you say, he's a billionaire, he wants to rip people off, like that feels that's us against them. That's that's more partisan, in not in a party sense, but in a.
We are.
There's just fundamental disagreements here that we're not going to win by persuasion.
We're going to just have to beat the one percent.
We're just like or the one percent is going to have to beat us, like this is a fight over something that makes sense, and so then as journalists that that feels like you're now engaging in the you're in that fight in a way where if you're just upholding universal values, like when the Washing Post says democracy dies in darkness, like they can say that and not feel partisan because ye, of course we're all for democracy and
we're all for transparency and we're all against darkness. When you say, you know, the one percent are ripping us all.
Off, I don't think your owners will love it.
Yeah, and the point one percent of ripping the one percent.
Off, yeah yeah, then that feels now you're tangling.
Which is also the massive like unanswered question to the extent that Democrats are able to replicate if they want to win, if they put power above everything else, and that's not all of them, you know, it's some like some Republicans have genuine ideological values that they want to advance. But if they just want to win, do they replicate the Mom Donnie campaign in congressional races in the midterms, for example, in gubernatorial races where you learn from.
Him and Democrats made affordability the thing that was associated with them.
Right, but they're already getting hammered for what. There are already Republicans running ads comparing like random DEM candidates. I forget who the first one I saw was, but like random D candidates to mom Donnie. I think Glenn Younkin said it about the gubernatorial nominee in Virginia, Stanberger, right.
Exactly, exactly real, Mom Donnie.
It's suicidal and part of Democrats because the question is, how do you define what he stands for to the national public before you're then linked with him. And so if the national public is like, oh, yeah, Mom Donnie, this guy who like ran to make groceries cheaper in New York, then when Republicans are like, spamburger is nothing but another Mom Donnie, people are like, oh cool, so
she's also going to make groceries cheaper in Virginia. But if Republicans are all saying that he's a Sharia law loving jihadist, and then Democrats are also saying that they have deep concerns about his use of the word global jihadis, and then she and then cures in jail Brennapp apologizes because he never said that, but like that, they have all these concerns about him. Right, so all the leading Democrats still not endorsed him, became Jefferies, Chuck Schumer, Jello Brand.
And it's Swosey just put Tom Sposey.
Long just had a op ed in the New York Times about how bad he is. And so if Republicans are saying he's really awful and like the worst and basically a terrorist, and Democrats are saying, the leading Democrats are saying, yeah, he's kind of bad, He's not that bad, Like Republicans are over the top and then bigoted in the way they're talking about him.
But I do have a lot of concerns about him.
Then nationally, if you're a voter, you're like, oh, this guy seems pretty concerning. You have to actually like engage with him or immedia that covers him honestly to get the accurate impression.
And there aren't enough people that do that.
Yeah, I mean this is from a cure like just a purely cynical perspective, but Republicans are basically able to do this. With Nancy Pelosi back in twenty ten, socialist Nancy Pelosi back in twenty ten, it's when they put enough money behind it and enough like what's the right word for it, craft into like carvilion public relations efforts into it.
You can.
It's one of the scary things about politics meediing in general, but you can in a red state pretty easily capitalize on a mom Donnie narrative. It doesn't mean that mom Donnie is in any way a net drag on the Democratic Party, but I think it'll probably work for them in red states.
Not so much of Virginia though.
But yeah, I think if Democrats wanted to like avoid this problem, yeah, they would say, of course I support I'm Donnie and it's call to make groceries cheaper.
But they just can't do that.
Just the guy wants to make I don't agree with him on everything, but I sure as I'll agree with him making groceries cheaper.
For advice here, I mean, we're always.
Just giving it out and nobody takes it.
Yeah, all right, Ryan, let's move on.
To the ditty tri Yes, so, uh, Sean ditty Collms is not walking out of the courthouse a freeman, but he thought he might for a second, so he was acquitted.
We could put this first element up on the screen.
He was quitted on the most serious charges, the racketeering charge and the and the sex trafficking charges. But he did get found guilty on two counts of transporting prostitutes. He was not he did not get hit with any domestic violence charges because they were outside the statute of limitations, right, And so did he collapse to the floor and like praying do we have that? Do we have that image
of him like praying? Seat there yet thanking a thank to the jurors, and then it did it did seem like he felt like he was about to get out, and the judge said no, interestingly cited the domestic violence that was in the case as the reason why she was not giving bail before sentencing or he cheer.
He the judge the judge, I didn't watch enough of the case.
Which is interesting because clearly he was guilty, it's on video, but he was not tried for it. So it's this gray area where bail and accusations can have an interplay that leads to you being behind chart, behind behind bars. But clearly a jury felt that it was not a conspiracy. And what what did he had argued or did he's lawyers had argued, is that yes, there was a plan to have these freak offs.
Yep.
And they were organized, and in that sense, there was a conspiracy because he would tell, hey, you do the drugs, you do the.
Baby oil, you bring the women.
And he had and he had an overarching kind of leverage campaign that he would use with women where some would have beginning ten thousand a month and child support others, others would have an emotional connection others.
You know, there's different various ways that he got them involved. Plus some you know, just.
According to them and seems credible fear of violence. So there are all these pieces. But he made this they made this kind of loophole argument almost that the other people were not partners in a conspiracy. There were just his flunkies who he paid to do work, and that if you could use Rico for this, you could use Rico for anything where you didn't, you know, single handedly carry out every aspect of the crime, like you know, if you go and buy a handgun and then commit a crime with.
It, like.
And it was just a business transaction with the gun owner, like did you conspire with the gun owner even if the gun owner knew what you're gonna do? That would be and the point is that would be a different crime like that, that's the underlying crime, but layering conspiracy on top of it doesn't get you there. That That is my guess at trying to get into the jurors mindset.
What what did you think of the response?
Yeah, I mean I think that.
What's your response to the jury's response?
No, I think that's right.
I think the rico is starting to look like an over prosecution. Bundling everything into a rico is starting to look like a real mistake.
And you will be.
Shocked to learn that one of the leading prosecutors on this case is Marine Comy, who is James Commey's daughter.
Amazing.
Yeah, it's just wild stuff, but it looks like a really overconfident prosecution team. To be clear, he could end up with twenty years in prison, so he was denied bail. He has to stay in prison until his sentencing, which is on October third, so he's still got a ways to go. But he could still also get twenty.
Years, right, it's highly probably unlikely.
Right.
So each there's two charges and their ten years maximum. Right, So if they were served one after the other and both the maximum, then he could get twenty years.
Right, But.
This is when sentence and guidelines come in and you have to kind of set aside who he is and what we know about the case. And pretty sure he's the first time offender. Does he have any other charges from before?
Yeah?
Does he? What does he have?
He was? I mean, he's been involved in so many things.
Which he's got a bunch of lawsuits.
Well, there was the I'm trying to remember whether he got charged.
For it, but there was Michael j Lo mac is already screened mac get.
Yeah, send this to us, producer back. But there was the j Lo shooting. There was the nightclub like fire that people died in that he was implicated in.
Right, did he catch charges on any of that thing?
Right?
That's a good question.
He's, by the way, he is fifty five, So if he gets twenty years and serves out twenty years, he'll be an old man before he.
Gets out of prison.
But my guess is that he definitely will not serve all twenty years. I don't think. I don't think even close.
Even now, there's some indication from the fact that he was denied bail here that the judge is going to go as hard as they feel like they can get away with.
But I'd be very surprised.
I think he was acquitted of murder in the first I think there was like a big if I'm remember incorrectly, there was a big case in the nightclub murder situation. This would have been around two thousand and I want to say he was acquitted of that. Actually, let's take a listen to Megan Kelly's reaction. Followed the case very closely and had some legal experts on when the news came down, and go ahead and take a look at this next club.
Combs shook his head vigorously and put his hands together in prayer. Oh, it's all just so chummy inside the courtroom for this disgusting pervert female abuser who I can't believe is about j Romar Streets. Again, I'm sorry, I'm disgusted by this verdict. This is fucking ridiculous. I just find it absolutely outrageous the amount of crime that this guy just got away with. I believe he committed arson.
He definitely battered Cassie. He Jane too. The statute of limitations for battery in Los Angeles, California is one year one year, So if they didn't charge him for battery within one year, and they couldn't because he bought the tape and it remained hidden thanks to those security guards out there. Then they could never charge him with that. Again, there's no question he dragged her back into that hotel room.
Why wasn't that kidnapping? They only talked about the kidnapping of Capricorn Clark, who was his sort of main assistant, because she said he grabbed her and made her go with him over to kid Cutty's house. There's no question he broke into kid Cutty's house in my view, and that he opened up the Christmas presidents and locked the door in and made a thread. There's no question in my mind he was behind the arson of kid Cutty's car. And there was proof, plenty of proof to prove that.
No.
Okay, there was female fingerprints they found on that, the firebomb that was left there, the Molotov cocktail, and the prosecution said, there's no question he didn't do it himself. But he said I'm going to bomb kid Cutty's car. It's in writing. Cassie Ventura emailed her mother saying, oh my god, he's threatening to bomb his car. And two weeks later it got bombed.
Oh gee, it was just some.
Third party who also had it's This is just like the proof was there, the beatings, the threats that if they didn't go back into those rooms and get off with these male escorts, that they were going to get beaten. The testimony from that Daniel Phillip, who was the male escort who heard Colmb's abusing Cassie behind the door and she was screaming, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, as he heard him slapping her. Get back out there. She came back out, she was shaking. She got back into the escort's lap,
physically shaking. She was so scared to the point where that guy couldn't perform sexually because this was so horrifying to him. What in the actual f went on in there?
Yeah, so I feel like that's probably the general public's reaction. It just baffling, and it seems ran like the prosecution just I mean, in that clip, at least one of the legal experts goes on to kind of blame the jury. But I would think that the onus for the failure here asked to lie with the prosecution.
Yeah, sure, I mean, the they it's very hard to lose a federal case. Like it's like they've their conviction rate is absolutely through the roof, and.
So yeah, they they clearly own the blame for this, you know.
And what we didn't cover this trial a whole bunch, but whenever we did and would I would look into it. I remember, you know, I would think, like they're really leaning into the emotional aspect of this. You know, how poorly he treated Cassie and and these other women, and how just what an absolutely like repulsive lifestyle he was leading using violence and emotional manipulation to you know, pull these multi day freak coughs off.
And but I remember thinking every time, like people, but where where what are the crimes here? M M.
Was obvious?
Yes, the violence, yeah, but then that's out of the statute of limitations, right, the drugs no charge, prostitution convicted, But like beyond that, like where's the I and trafficking is an interesting like yeah concept and charge. It's like it's interesting to get if you pay someone, if you can pay a prostitute to get in a car, yeah, and then go to go to a hotel.
For a freak cough? Did you traffic them there?
Right?
Right?
And it's like, what does that mean?
Yeah, No, I mean that's a really good point. It's and so I guess partially another thing is not The.
Jury was like, that's not trafficking, that's that's paying a prostitute.
And it's not necessarily easy for the prosecution then to build a case based on all and I think a lot of it also is him. So he's alleged to have drugged people many many times.
Which would be a crime if they didn't charge.
That, right, And I think because it looks like they were overconfident started bundling things into the Rico case, thinking.
That they had him right on racketeering because.
He clearly conspired to organize these freak costs. But the jury was like, not really illegal, except that most of the pieces within it are actually illegal right within it.
Yes, And so yeah, we were just looking up his criminal history.
He has been charged many many times.
He was he never got charged for the nine people dying. He should have been charged with some type of negligence there.
It's a pretty if.
Everybody probably knows about this case.
This there was a stampede that a at a event that he put on. It's where he knew ninety I've got to hear December ninety one, where he knew that too many people were there, didn't care, wanted too many people to be there for the spectacle. Nine people end up dying, doesn't get charged for that. He got convicted nineteen ninety six, convicted of criminal mischief for threatening a photographer with a gun.
So that's a conviction. That's something that the judge can point to.
That's where he's that's a pretty easy denial of bail predicate, right.
And then in ninety nine, Combs in his bodyguards are charged with attacking this is PBS I'm reading from, or attacking Interscope Records, music music executive over dispute over music video. He was sentenced to anger and anger management. Course didn't work, but that's at least that's something on the record that the judge can then point to. December ninety nine, he's arrested on gun possession charges for that nightclub shooting that you mentioned, where Jennifer Lopez.
Was in the car.
Three people got wounded.
A woman still says that Diddy is the one who shot her, right, yeah.
Yeah, there are people that say that he was shooting and that's that he shot her. He was later charged with offering his driver fifty grand to claim ownership of the nine millimeter that was found in the car. We know from this trial that him offering to pay people to get out of trouble is something that he does, so that's a quite credible charge there. However, he was then acquitted of all charges. Well, Shine took the took the fall for that. So the judge, can you point
to the arrest, but you're not supposed to. If you're arrested and convicted, you're not. That's not really supposed to factor into your sentencing because you're supposed to have been found Like innocent is supposed to mean innocent doesn't always mean that, but that's how that's what's supposed to mean. Then he got arrested in twenty fifteen. He looks like he got in a fight at a UCLA game where his son was playing football, but the charges were dropped.
This is why fifty cent referred to him yesterday as the gay John Gotti.
Nothing's sticking to him, Teon Teflon Diddy, Yeah, it's all that baby oil.
Yes, he charges slippery, yeah.
Slip right off.
And then these charges so he has not zero criminal record. He has a very long criminal record, most of it ending with acquittals or like misdemeanor stuff. So that's why it's going to be a real stretch for the judge to hit him with the maximum. And even if she does, he'll appeal this, so I expect he'll be walking free in a matter of several years.
Five to ten max.
Unbelievable. Well, on that note, Ryan.
And a lot of people took a lot of risks coming forward, come forward, Yeah, that they are suffering greatly right now.
Yeah, Oh my gosh. The trial was just awful.
It was.
It was one of those ones.
It was just hard to follow because Cassie was testifying about all this while she was pregnant. It was just a really really really dark trial. And I forget I want to say.
This was on Hulu.
Someone did a fantastic documentary into the sort of influences emotion on that sort of forged did he like?
How did he become who he became?
And it is just incredibly sad and dark. So I hope that there's at least some closure for people who suffered from this.
And I was saying yesterday I actually liked doing the show without the laptop here because fewer distractions.
On the other hand, when it comes to something.
I really don't remember, which is like Diddy's criminal record, actually helpful, not.
At the top of your mind to have it here.
Yeah, I knew it'd been in and out of trouble, but yeah, as so my memory actually served mostly correct that he's basically gotten out of all the jams that he's been in.
Yeah, but there's so many of them, a lot.
I think that's when you look it up, you're just like, holy smoked, it is.
It's gotty esque.
Yes, it is so no Friday show, It's July fourth, will be independent of our laptops in the morning, Happy independence. Say to everybody, I hope you enjoy the fireworks or a barbecue or whatever you're up to.
Yeah, we'll be back on somebody will be back on Monday.
Yeah, I think Crystal and Soccer back. There you go, so great news, get get rid of us.
Yeah we promised they'll be here.
Yeah, well, no, we don't, can't make promise.
They're gonna try very hard they will be Yeah.
Well maybe they'll get caught up in the system like we did.
There you go, all right, all right, see you guys. Then