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All right, Good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. Saga is out today. Emily couldn't be here and so here I am joined by Crystal Ball.
Crystal, how are you doing.
I'm doing good.
Little lefty takeover of Breaking Points appropriate.
Yeah, we're going to talk about the DNC, and so I think people will benefit from the lefty takeover.
I mean, lefty takeover, in my opinion, is always appropriate. That's always the right move.
Yeah.
So, as you mentioned, we're going to do a bunch of promoing of the DNZ or previewing of the DNZ. We're actually going to be on the ground, all of us there. It's part of why we wanted to make sure Saga rested it up. He is ready for that trip and We've got a bunch of new polls we're going to dig into from some interesting states and some Tim Wall's approval ratings. We want to take a look at see how he's doing with the people. We have
both candidates talking about the economy. Kamala Harris issuing her very first policy pronouncements expected what is that happening Friday?
I think she's given that speech.
That sounds right, Yeah, first one. That's not a reversal of her past positions exactly.
She's gone from backtracking to now we may actually lay some groundwork in terms of what she might actually do. We've got some grumblings from the right, including Megan Kelly and Candice Owen's about Trump and his team and how his campaign is going. We've got the media deciding not to publish any of the hacked Trump campaign documents obviously start contrast with how they handled twenty sixteen. So I'm particularly interested to hear Ryan's perspective on that. We've got
Maddi Hothlan coming in. He's got a documentary about the absolute horrors that are being perpetrated in Gaza, so looking forward to speaking with him about that. And Ryan's we got a little Ryan Special. He's taken a look at MDMA therapy set had a major setback at the FTA. And you've got two different experts coming in to talk about this, right Ryan.
Yes, both of them actually have been heavily involved in the decision that the FDA released recently not to move forward with legalizing it for medical purposes. So kind of a mess complicated, and we'll talk to them. They disagree pretty strongly about which direction ago, and both of them played a kind of leading role.
In this mess.
Yeah.
So it's interesting because they're both advocates for the therapy, but they had very different views about what they wanted the federal government approach to be. So I'm looking forward to watching that one personally and hearing what the different perspectives are there. But let's go ahead and get to the first block here. As we mentioned, the DNC is
starting next week. It's easy to forget because everything just happened so fast, and it feels like a million years ago at this point that Joe by and dropped out of the race. But this is quite an unusual situation where you know, just a couple of months ago, we thought it was going to be a different guy who was being coordinated at the DNC. Now we've got Kamala Harris and Tim Walls as I mentioned before, and can
put this up on the screen. All four of us are going to be on the ground in Chicago there we are look at that exciting group of people. So just so you guys know the timing of the shows, because you know, most of the action of the DNC is in the evening, so timing of the shows and the structure of the shows all that's going to be
a little bit different next week. But as always, if you are able to support us, you know, these sorts of things are expensive, but I think also add a lot to what you guys get out of the product Breakingpoints dot com if you can become a premium subscriber. Let's go ahead and take a look at what we are expecting there. In terms of the speaker lineup, we can put this up on the screen.
From NBC News.
Joe Biden, former President's Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all confirmed as speakers. You're also going to have President Jimmy Carter's grandson Jason Carter, who's going to be confirmed to be speaking as a representative for his grandfather. I know you've also got you know, Pete Boutagig and some of the other sort of leading luminaries of the Democratic Party that are going to be
there and have speaking slots as well. And we got a little bit of a preview of what the speaker lineup is going to be in terms of their order.
We can put this up on the screen.
This is kind of noteworthy because they've got Joe Biden buried in a not so great speaking slot time on Monday. Actually Hillary Clinton got a better speaking slot than he did. Then you've got Obama on Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton Wednesday, Kamala Harris Thursday, Walls Wednesday as per customs. So that's a little bit of a sketch of what we're looking at for next week.
Ran And the controversy that the kind of White House Press Corps is trying to gin up a little bit is is about whether or not Biden is going to actually stay for the convention, and it appears that he's not like that. Those are the indications that we're getting so far that he's going to give a probably a pretty short speech Monday and then take his ball and go back to Washington and continue being the president for
another couple couple of months. They're also jetting up this controversy between Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, like have these long term friends have they fallen out over? You know, Nancy Pelosi leading this this kind of soft coup to get this guy off the ticket. And as I've been following this, I've been thinking, are we supposed to really care whether or not these two people in their mid eighties are going.
To be friends for the rest.
Of their lives.
But more fundamentally, Biden doesn't really have a base, which is exposed by this whole contra whole non non controversy, Like he never developed like a Bernie Sanders style following or an Obama style following over the course of his career, such that if he gets slighted by a speaking gig on Monday, all the Bidens are going to be furious
about it. Biden was always just a stand in for the party, and that's what he was as president, And now that he's no longer kind of connected to the party, I don't think there's going to be anybody who's willing to even be like publicly upset about the fact that he's getting snubbed.
Not at all, not at all, And you alluded to the palace intrigue. We can put this up on the screen, this tear sheet, that's what you're talking about. So you've got Joe Biden set to snub Barack Obama and Kamala Harris speeches at the DNC. And you know, is it a snub or is he an old man who doesn't really want to be there the whole time?
While I mean, I wouldn't write, I wouldn't want to be the whole time. This was supposed to be your party. It's no longer your party.
You can't yes if you have any pride whatsoever.
Yeah, I mean on a personal level.
And so I do find the the Nancy Pelosi Biden thing. I mean, I find her interesting as a character, the way she clearly is the one person the Democratic Party really understands and is willing to wield power. And then the tense, strange relationship between Biden and Obama has also always been interesting because of their very contrasting political styles. Biden always had this sort of chip on his shoulder about you know, Obama looking down his nose at him.
Here's Obama, the Ivy League educated blah blah blah, professorial do like getting his hands dirty and the rough and tumble of politics. Joe Biden polar opposite. You know, his thing was always having the relationships and getting in there
and glad handling and all of that sort of stuff. So, but I think you're right about the about how much the media fixates on this sort of thing versus, you know, any of the more substance of questions, which we're going to get to later about the policy and what any of this actually means and what any of these candidates are actually promising the American people. We can go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen here, which gives some more intel about what the week is
going to look like. This is kind of an attempt at a show of force here, Harrison Walls planning a rally in Milwaukee at the very same spot that Trump recently held a rally, and they're going to do it during the Democratic Convention, so not during the primetime speeches. But this is an attempt to show, hey, we can
put on two big events at the same time. We've got so much enthusiasm that we can not only pack the House, of course at the DNC, but we can pack the house at this large arena that Trump was just speaking at, so trying to make sort of a point about how big and popular the campaign is at this point.
Right and at the same time, we can put up this next element. Organizers are expecting upwards of one hundred thousand Propouseitian protesters to show up at the DNC, which if they can actually deliver on that number, and I suspect that they may be able to, I know personally have a lot of people who are planning ongoing, that's
going to be an incredible show force. And it's truly remarkable that that it's coinciding with these ceasefire talks that are getting underway and Cairo and Doha, you know today, like just as we speak, the mediators are getting together and everybody just trying to push Israel to accept the
deal that Israel already accepted. And we talked about this on the show yesterday, but Iran is basically publicly saying that if Israel will cut a ceasefire deal, basically accept the deal they already put forward, then Iran will not retaliate against them. So they have they could have a ceasefire deal with hamas they could avert a strike from Iran, and all they have to do is agree to the
deal they already agreed to. And it's all happening while the Democratic Convention is unfolding amid a backdrop of potentially one hundred thousand people in the streets, and yet everybody seems to think that Israel is going to say no to this deal. Do you have any optimism that next week we'll be talking about the implementation of a coming cease fire deal.
No, I mean, I think you'd be a fool at this point, given how many times we've been to this show, to have real significant optimism here and listen, if it's left in the hands of bb Net Yahoo, I don't
think there's any doubt what direction we're going. And the only thing that could change that is if Joe Biden actually decided, Hey, we're going to basically force you to take this and by using the leverage that we have, and of course there's zero indication that he's willing to do anything other than you know, once again leaked to Barock revied how upset he is about how they're going, Like, I think that's the most that we could expect. But the polling is also at this point really quite clear.
We have medi jasad On later in his outfit Zeteo, they did some polling showing that this is a significant electoral issue for quite a large chunk of Democrats and independence and that there is nothing but political benefit to
be gained from actually obtaining and achieving a ceasefire. You know, bb obviously he not only wants to run out of the clock, he wants to drag us into this larger war, which is something he's wanted, you know, is to get us more directly involved in some direct conflict with the run for a long time. That would be a disaster on every level, on a humanitarian level, on an American political interest level, it would be a disaster for Kamala
Harris's campaign on a political level. Those are all and those are all things that he, you know, he hopes for. He wants Trump to be back in the White House. So if it's bad news for Joe Biden, the Democrats, and Kamala Harris, that's a positive thing for BB net Yahoo.
So yeah, the only way that I think that we're talking about the implementation of a ceasfire deal and what comes after and what you know, the potential prospects for a longer term, more lasting and just peace might be is if Biden actually had some sort of you know, awakening and decided to use leverage in a way that there is just no indication. But if you're Kamala Harris behind the scenes, whatever leverage she have, which I don't has, which I don't think she has much power in that
White House. I don't think she's ever had much power in that White House. The best thing she could do politically for herself would be to press and push Joe Biden and his team to put that kind of pressure on NETANYAHUO to achieve the ceasefire deal, because those protesters, will, you know, are a visible reminder of one of the biggest political problems that she that she has and one of the most difficult situations that she has to resolve. Because,
you know, Ryan, I'm curious your thoughts on this. I was on Majority Report last week and Sam was asking me this question of Okay, but you know, she's the vice president, like, how far can she really distance herself from Joe Biden. Doesn't she just kind of have to do this, like wink and a nod that I promise guys, I'll be different and send out some you know, Ben Rhodes onto Chris Hayes's show, to signal like, no, no, guys, She's really going to be different if she gets in there.
Do you think that's true or do you think there's more room for her to separate herself from this monstrous genocidal policy of Joe Biden.
I think there's such different people that there is at least an opportunity, And I think people did understand how powerless she was, which the paradoxically creates an opening for her to start flexing some power. Now we actually put
up this next element which is related to this. This is about the parallel, the shocking parallels that a lot of people have identified between nineteen sixty eight the convention in Chicago that devolved into anti Vietnam War protests and a police riot and this year.
A key lesson from nineteen.
Sixty eight that a lot of people have kind of missed is that privately, Hubert Humphrey, who was Johnson's vice president and was coordinated at Chicago without basically a primary, was against the Vietnam War wanted to end it. But was unwilling to kind of buck Johnson, and so went into the election this hobbled candidate who who was seen by the public as just you know, continuing to pursue the Johnson policy and not having his own path towards peace.
Under pressure from the protests, he eventually said that he would propose, you know, a halt to the bombing. Johnson then got mad at him about that and said it was undermining his negotiations with the viet Cong. Kissinger and Nixon then back channeled in a genuinely treasonous way to the viet Cong and urged them not to cut a
peace deal because they would get a better deal. You know, if Nixon won in nineteen sixty eight, that not only was that treason and cost the lives of you know, many Vietnamese and Americans, it was a lie, like they did not get a better deal. War went on for many years. So I was expecting perhaps a replay of that. Trump is very much a Nixon kind of acolyte. Yet,
speaking of Barack revied. He reported for Axios that Trump and I don't know if you saw this, had a call with Nan Yahoo Oldham, Buddy, you need to take
this deal. So even the Trump administration, which presumably would benefit or the Trump sorry, the Trump campaign hope, which hopes to be a Trump administration again, which would benefit from BB rejecting the ceasefire deal, even they are pushing him, which suggests that there's some structural interest that the US has that is diverging from Israel's at this point, which is the one thing that gives me some optimism that perhaps this is going to move forward, because at the
end of the day, Israel is a tiny country, and it is a client of the United States, and the United States has major interests that it may feel are being undermined, and it may see and it may believe that Iran, China, and Russia are all objectively becoming more powerful as a result of this flailing that we're doing in the region.
I don't think there can be any doubt about that. And it is interesting. I wonder with Trump too. I mean, he's also looking at this and saying, I don't really want to inherit this mess if I'm back in the White House either. But I'm sure the calculus for BIBE has always been all right, let me just muddle through and get to potential Donald Trump White House, and then I can really do whatever I want and face absolutely no even like handwringing or leaks to the process, et cetera.
So I do wonder if that significantly changes his calculation, if he sees, okay, even this guy who's supposed to be my guy, even he is ready for this to get wrapped up. So potentially a little bit of hope there go ahead, Ryan No just.
And the funny element there, the interpersonal element. Trump is still mad at net Yahoo for congratulating Biden on his bun venture.
So petty like.
Bibe didn't stop the steal, and so he's going to pay for the rest of his life.
Yeah, I mean, incredible, incredible stuff.
You know.
The funny thing about that op ed that we put up from the Washington Post about the nineteen sixty eight parallels, of which there truly are many, is, of course the conclusion is, that's why the protesters should back down. That's why the protesters shouldn't be pressing you know, Biden or Harris, et cetera. Instead of that's why Biden needs to push to get a cease fire deal. That's why we need to bring this outrageous, immoral you know, genocide to a
close and move beyond this instead. It's all on you know, these relatively powerless protesters who are objecting to the absolutely horrific images that they're seeing in their social media feeds every day. So perfect Washington Post ending there. One last piece here with the DNC coming up, We've got a little bit of a chart analyzing the Democratic Party vibes, the all important vibes heading into the DNC. So this
is just among Democrats. It's from civics and they ask people, how are you feeling about the way things are going in the US today? And you can see when Biden exits the presidential race, the number that feels hopeful just absolutely skyrockets jumps up.
That's that blue line there to thirty four percent.
The number that says the percent that says that they're scared really drops down, Angry drops down.
Excited jumps up a bit.
So they definitely, you know, putting aside genocide, they come in with the vibes, Ryan, they come in with much better vibes than they did previously.
They sure do.
And pretty hard to see a vibe shift like that that isn't drug induced, that's just reality making that line spike really quite incredible.
Yes, indeed, all right, so can they keep those vibes going and is it enough? Let's take a look at the latest bowls that we have. This is from Cook Political Report. They did a big survey of all the battleground states and the news is really quite good for Kamal Aras. If you can keep this up on the screen, guy, so I can talk through it. So overall, if you've put together all of these battleground states, which by the
way includes North Carolina and of course includes Arizona and Georgia. Previously, when it was Biden, Trump was up in these states by five points. Now if you put them all together, Kamala Harris is up by two points, so significant shift, and it's reflected in all of these states. In fact, the only state where Trump remains in the lead is Nevada. Now, previously he was in the lead by eight points in Nevada.
This survey shows him up by five points. The next closest You've got Georgia tiede Previously that was Trump plus four.
But actually this survey has.
Kamala Harris winning in North Carolina, a state where when it was Joe Biden it.
Was Trump plus eight.
This is all the numbers I'm giving you right now are the ones that include the third party candidates, which you know tend to be the most reflectible. Though you know, there's a lot of work being done to try to kick RFK Junior and Jill Stein and Cornell West off
of some of these ballots. However, you know, the movement Ryan is pretty undeniable here, especially when you you know, it's difficult to say, Okay, isn't exactly this number, but this is the same they done with the same methodology, and you just see an extraordinary shift in basically the blink of an eye in terms of political time, from Joe Biden losing badly to Donald Trump to now Kamala Harris having an edge.
Yeah.
It basically, I think what's going on here is that, as we saw in every special election and in every election that's happened since roeby Wade was overturned, the country is leaning democratic like that. That's just the baseline fact. The only thing holding Democrats back from that becoming the manifest reality in this election was the presence of Joe Biden.
Generic Democrat was always beating Trump. They swapped in two generic Democrats for the price of one, and then he's beating Trump like I think, and they're beating Trump like that. It really seems to me quite that simple. It's a reversion to the mean, and the mean was Democrats up by a couple points, closely divided country but leaning in their direction post row.
Yeah, and we saw that when it was Biden. That really showed up in the fact that every swing state Senate Democrat was winning.
All of them.
They were all outperforming Joe Biden by quite a fair amount. Whether they were more liberal or conservative or moderate, or what their personal characteristics or political talent was, every single one of them was significantly outperforming Joe Biden.
As you said, you know, in.
Special election after special election, we were seeing very similar results. I do want to mention there was a Fox News poll that came out last night after we put the show together. It's the first poll in quite a while that shows Trump with any sort of a lead. It's gives them a one point edge nationally over Kamala Harris and actually looks very similar to what the landscape looked like in that one pole from when Joe Biden was
in the race. So I'm sure the Trump campaign is going to be happy to see that one from the Fox News poll, which is a highly rated polster. By the way, I mean, they're conservative lean in terms of their content, doesn't seem to carry over in terms of having a consistent conservative.
Bias in terms they're polling.
But you know, CNN dug into some of the numbers in the recent polling, and we've been talking about, Okay, Kamala Harris obviously is she's doing much better with young people, she's doing much better with black and brown voters. But surprisingly, at least in some of these surveys, she's actually even outperforming Joe Biden among a group that was supposed to be an area where he was out performing, and that was with white working class voters. Let's take a listen to Harry and and break that down.
Kamala Harris is making gains and key swing states with a surprising and crucial voting group, and Harry Enna is here with me to go beyond the numbers. So Harry, you know, we know obviously you look at the overall polls, you see these swing state poles, the ones over the weekend, Sienna did stand out. We'll see if that's really where this goes. But you found something very interesting in terms of one group that stands.
Out, white working class voters, white voters without a college street. That is Donald Trump's core group. That was the reason why he was able to break down that giant blue wall Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, in the Great Lakes. And look at their support now, for this is where we were a few months ago when the matchup was between Johnald Trump and Joe Biden. Look, Donald Trump still leads, but look at that margin. It has shrunk significantly. It was
twenty five points back in May. It is now fourteen points now here in August nearly been sliced by half. Those numbers that Harris is putting up amongst that group right now are actually slightly better than Joe Biden did four years ago amongst those voters in those key states. Those are the types of numbers that Kamala Harris needs
to put up in order to win. And of course Joe Biden was like, I don't want to drop out of the race because I'm not sure that Kamala Harris can break in with this group.
But it turns out you absolutely can.
So that's in the new York Times Sienna polling, which is a high quality poll. However, it's always dicey when you go into what's called the cross stabs where you break down all these different demographic groups, because inherently the sample size is going to be a lot smaller, so the accuracy is going to be a lot lower. And I find it hard to believe that at this point she's outperforming Joe Biden's twenty twenty numbers among this group.
But if it's even in the ball park where she's even hanging on to what Joe Biden was doing before, given the way she's outperforming with other groups, that's a very positive indication for her.
Right And in general, when you're doing well, you do a little bit better with everybody. And so I think that, at least directionally, that's what it seems to be reflecting here that white working class voters too are like Trump is struggling, and this person who's like healthy, you know, cognitively together seems like they could actually be president.
You know, it's early.
There's still like people say it's a snap election, but you know, in France they did the whole thing in what two or three weeks. We still have you know, all of September and October to go, so a lot could change, but you can imagine why Trump is as angry as he is.
Yeah, definitely, And I do feel like in the same I mean, I feel like there is a caricaturish view of white working class voters that certainly exists among liberal Democrats, but also very much has been picked up and exists among Republicans, where they tend to feel like this is
a sort of low, lowest common denominator group. They tend to feel that they can take this group for you know, they can take it for granted as well, in a way that you know, Democrats decades ago felt And so yeah, they're also looking at like, you know, well, this was an election between two old guys, neither of whom I'm particularly fond of, and now we've got some energy injected into the race, and I think Tim Wallas is an asset in.
Terms of his appeal there as well.
So it wouldn't shock me if at the end of the day, Kamala Harris is able to outperform Joe Biden even with this group of voters that was supposed to be you know, his core appeal as grant and Joe, because as you were pointing out before, Ryan, it's not like he, Joe Biden, didn't really have a base or like a particular appeal among any demographic group, even as he himself made you know, his own self conception might be middle class Grant and Joe, but the reality is,
you know, it's not the group of voters that got him to win the Democratic primary, and it's not really what was the core of the reason that he was able to barely eke out a victory over Donald Trump. It was this sort of anti Trump coalition that you know, held together enough to get him across the finish line in East keyswing states.
His lack of a base was in some ways his superpower in the sense that because he wasn't connected to any particular element of the party, he could just kind of move with the political wins. You know, when the party was shifting right in the eighties and nineties, he
shifted right with them. After twenty eighteen, as it shifted left with the you know, the whole Bernie Sanders moment, he kind of shifts back towards the center a bit, and because of that, it made it harder for Republicans to kind of attack him as any particular thing, because
he was no particular thing. A consequence of that, of course, is that then you don't have any solid base that kind of regrets your exit from the scene, and they're willing to just move with kind of whoever else is just following the political bras, which is what we seem to be having here.
Yeah, that's exactly right. So I mentioned Tim Walls.
Part of the reason potentially he was put on the ticket was he's won a number of elections in swing districts that are difficult for Democrats in rural areas. You know, he himself comes from a small town. He also one of the things I've been talking about is Tim Walls is an extraordinarily class diverse pick for the Democratic Party. He's the first Democrat on a presidential ticket not to
have a legal background since Jimmy Carter. He does not own any stocks, bonds, real estate, crypto or anything of the sort. He's like, you know, living off his public school teacher pension. So he's he's a union member, which I know you and Emily talked about yesterday, which also makes him quite unique. And there's a sense that he has a comfort level talking to a group of voters
that has become increasingly skeptical of the Democratic Party. We're getting a look at his approval ratings as people get to know him and you know, process some of the Republican attacks on him, see him perform on the stump, and see what Democrats are saying about him.
We can put this up on the screen.
So his net approval overall is plus five percent, which is the highest of any of the four you know of Trump, jd. Vance, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walls. Tim Walls has the highest net approval rating, very popular obviously among Democrats plus sixty percent, hanging basically even with Independence at plus one percent, and deeply underwater with the Republicans
and minus fifty three percent. The one that I found potentially most notable here, Ryan was if you break it down by ideology, because you know, if you look at that independent group, you have a lot of people who call themselves independence but are really just Republicans, or people who just call themselves independence but really.
Mostly vote Democrat.
If you look at liberals, of course he's very popular, but among moderates he's doing quite well. He's at plus sixteen percent. So the other thing that's been interesting to me is, you know, Tim Walls has been the subject of a lot of conversation on the right about quote unquote stolen valor about quote unquote tampon Tim, et cetera.
I've seen so many people on.
The right speculate that he was such damaged goods he was going to have to drop off the ticket, et cetera, et cetera. And to me, it just exposes what an incredible bubble these MAGA influencers live in. Because lo and behold, she is the most popular person on either of these tickets. So it's so divorced from reality as to really be quite extraordinary.
It is a letter of faith in the conservative world now that the pick of Walls was a quote fiasco, a disaster, that they would they would do it differently if they had it to do over again. That any minute, now, you know, she might get rid of him and replace him with Shapiro or somebody else like that is you say that, and that is just conventional wisdom among a massive portion of the kind I don't know if you called an electorate or a punditocracy or whatever it is.
And yeah, it's I see that stuff.
And I'm like, you guys following the same thing I'm following here, Like democrats are not actually that bothered by it, you know, he Walls did does.
Seem to have stretched.
Yeah, And I think he was like misleading on purpose sometimes about what exactly, you know, his service was. The way he would talk about deploying for you know, Operation during Freedom or deploying.
For oh EF. He did deploy deployed to Europe and support of it.
And he is usually pretty pretty pretty careful not to go over the line. And he'll say some things where and when I say he's trying to be misleading, he said some stuff like I carried weapons during war. It's like, okay, I see what you're doing there. You carried weapons and then there was a war over here. In our minds, we're thinking you carried the web in the war, like
with bullets flying around your head. What you actually mean is you had a weapon while you were like loading the transport planes that were flying into the actual war. So I understand why they're so frustrated with him. At the same time, the fact that he was a veteran may have made up a lot of his biography.
In two thousand and six at the height of the Iraq War.
While that was a big thing that Rob Manuel wanted all Democrats to run on and went around recruiting veterans everywhere, although he didn't like Tim Walls and thought Tim Walls would lose his separate story. But it's not two thousand and six anymore. Like right now, his bio is he's a football coach, and he's a teacher, and he's a union member, and he's a dad, and he drives a minivan. So unless I don't mean, I don't know if he
drives a minivan, but like that's the characterurebe. Yeah, right, So unless you can challenge the fact that he was a football coach or a teacher or a dad, then you're not going to get at his bio. And so I think the Republicans are, you know, getting off a lot of decent shots on them, but they're firing at the wrong target.
What have you thought about Tim Walls's response. I'm not sure if you and Emily talked about it yesterday, but when he was speaking to that union asked me, he said, you know, listen, I'm not going to back down. I am proud of my service and by the way, even from my opponent. You know, the only thing I have to say about your service is thank you, thank you
for serving the country, And that compelled jd. Vance to have to respond and be like, well, I'm glad for your service too, but you shouldn't have lied about it. I thought it was a pretty good response not to back away from it. And you know, also listen, you're dealing with the ticket that number one, the guy at
the top. Of course, there's a whole bones bur situation, right and the you know, whether it happened or not, the suckers and losers conversation and the comments to John McCain, I like, you know, soldiers who didn't get captured or whatever, and they just were in Montana supporting this Republican Senate candidate who accidentally shot himself in a national park apparently and claimed that he was wounded in war like claimed.
That as a battle wound.
So it's not like they have a consistent track record of actually caring about whether he finished his you know, continuing education to maintain the rank and precisely talked about that in the right way.
I think, yes, the people who are predisposed to not like Tim Walls are gonna like dislike Tim Walls even harder as a result of this, but that in general, it won't move the needle for.
Folks outside of that.
And also it's the vice president, so it's like, are you really going to make your decision based on this, which is what Trump has been saying about JD. Vance, you know, privately and even to the press when they asked him to like do you regret it? He's like, well, you know what, nobody really votes on the vice president anyway, And he's right.
I love I love the anecdote about how he got asked at a fundraiser by a bunch of billionaires like what do you think of these attacks on you guys that you're wearing? And He's like, Oh, they're just saying that about JD not about me. I fine, a bit of parent of course that's not really the case. I mean, I think the problem for him with Jadie Vance is just the pick of vice president is an important signal
about how you will govern, what things you value. And it also made it a lot easier for Democrats to be able to frame their attacks through this lens of weird, fringe, extreme, etc.
Because you don't have that.
You know, if you put a Doug Burghram or a Glenn Young Cain I think is probably in fact a better choice on the ticket, it makes it more difficult to land the like these are a bunch of like fringe overly online like obsessed with these strange online subculture weirdos who don't relate to you whatsoever. I just think it makes it more difficult for that to land once
you get jd Vance in the mix. We just there is another clip that came out where he was agreeing with a podcast host who said that post menopausal females only purpose, only real purpose in life is to raise grandchildren. It's like it makes it much easier to land those sorts of attacks when you've got a jd Vance on the ticket versus a Glen Youngkin on the ticket.
Trump gave a speech on the economy, trying to break out of the weird a little bit. If we want to move on to some of that, here's Trump yesterday at one of his addresses.
This is blieb B one.
Now this is a little bit different day because this isn't around. This is we're talking about a thing called the economy. They wanted to do a speech on the economy. A lot of people are very devastated by what's happened with inflation and all of the other things.
So we're doing this as.
A intellectual speechur all intellectuals today. Today, we're doing it, and we're doing it right now.
And it's very important today.
I gave Harris and Biden an economic miracle, and they quickly turned it into an economic nightmare with a nation wrecking agenda ripped straight out of Kamala's San Francisco liberal playbook.
What they've done, and.
We will do something else, which was copied a mean, viciously, ruthlessly copied. No tax on tips okay, no tax okip. You know, if they wanted to do that, why did they do it three and a half years ago.
They didn't want to.
It was actually the opposite.
They hired eighty eight thousand IRS agents to go after these people. Kamelin Joe tried to take credit for thirty five dollars insulin.
You know that.
You know who did that.
I did that. I did that.
I did the.
Insulin and it kicked in. And you know, I remember when I did it.
To help seniors on fixed incomes who are suffering.
The ravages of inflation.
There will be no tax on social security.
We're going to stop it. No tax on socials secuity.
This cruel double taxation of social security benefits. And this has been talked about for a long time.
She'll probably announce this on Friday too.
That was I liked how she ended. It's like, she'll probably say on Friday that she's going to do this too. And after that he pointed out, oh, there's commalst guy. He's like taking notes on my policies. He is, so, you know, burnt up about the fact that he picked off, about the fact that she picked off his like no
taxes on tips policy. Yeah, and also burnt legitimately by the fact that when he proposed that, the media was like, this is a terrible policy, that it will be filled with loopholes that will benefit hedge funds and private equities, which is true.
And then when she proposed that, they're like, oh, this is like for the service workers.
The original coverage, by the way, was the correct coverage, no taxes on tips. It has a lot of like intuitive appeal, and I understand, of course you want to cut service workers a break. The much better way to do that is to get rid of that tip minimum wage altogether, least the very least raise it because as you point out, I mean, one of the problems with it is next thing, you know, you've got hedge fund managers saying, oh, this is an income, this is a tip,
so it doesn't get taxed. So in any case, yes, he is very salty about the fact that she that she picked that up and copied him in a speech
out in Las Vegas. I don't know if you watched the soul speech trying, but the funny thing about it is it was very clear the whole time that it was like his advisors told him he had to give this speech and you know, twisted his arm and wrote up the script for the teleprompter and whatever, because the whole time he's just trying to run away from the actual core content of the speech as much as possible and go on as normal, you know, tangents about what
he thinks about Joe Biden dropping out and how Kamala Harris is far left, and he said something he said about Harrison Wallace, he said, they're actually beyond socialists. I think they skipped over socialists. So it was more of the greatest hits with a little bit of like the economics script sprinkled in. He also made this comment that kind of gave away that he was his arms being twisted to talk about this stuff, which apparently he really didn't care about. He says, they say the economy is
the most important subject. I think crime is right there, I think the border is right there. We have a lot of important subjects. So even in this speech where he's supposed to be like leaning hard into the economy, he's sort of like, you know, undercutting it. And the reason I bring this up is just this is the challenge for the Trump campaign. They were doing much better obviously when Joe Biden was in the race, but when Trump was just kind of being not doing all that
much and letting the issue landscape speak for itself. Now they've got a really clear edge, especially on immigration if you ask voters. They've got a clear edge still in almost all polls. On the economy, although that edge with Kamal Harris seems to be shrinking. You've got some things to work with there. But Trump is he's Trump Like. He's not going to follow your script. He's not going to just read your like economic policy speech off the teleprompter and really lean into that and make that a
core message. Right now, he's finding it incredibly difficult to move on from Joe Biden. So even in this speech, he's still talking about Joe Biden getting taken off the ticket, and you know, all of these sorts of things that he finds to be very unfair and it is his own personal grievance. So in any case, that's some of what's going on there. At the same time, we've got Pamala Harris, who to this point hasn't really announced any policy.
To speak of.
We're all most of what she's done, As you mentioned before, Ryan was like, tell us what she's not for, like no longer for medicare, We're all no longer for that fracking band, like running away as fast as possible from those sorts of positions. But we are supposed to get some specifics of an anti price gouging policy this week in a speech that I believe is happening Friday.
We can put this up on the screen.
She apparently sees it to really be in her interest to try to step rate her economic policy and vibes from the current president Joe Biden, who of course is very unpopular on the economy. So on Friday in North Carolina, she's going to outline a plan of lower cost of healthcare, housing, food. Polls, they say show an opening for reset on economy and inflation not.
Defined by Biden.
Look for an emphasis on the prosecutor background, including price
fixing fights as the California Attorney General. We can put the next piece up on the screen because just this morning we got some specifics about what she's going to be, what she's going to be looking at here with regard to her initial policy proposals, the Politico Headlin says grocery price gouging to feature prominently in harris economic plan, and they say, in addition to a push for the first ever federal ban on price gouging by food corporation, she
would also direct the FTC in state attorneys general to investigate and levy penalties on food companies that violate the ban. She's also going to argue Trump's plans, including threats to slap new broad tariffs on US imports, will only drive
up costs for food and other everyday items. So on the corporate power piece, Ryan, certainly our friend Matt Stuller is going to be very happy about this direction that she's choosing to take her campaign in from the very initial onset of the first policy pronouncements.
And it's a good fight to have because you're also also able to divide you know, it divides Democrats because a lot of kind of neoliberal democrats, you know, really recoil at the idea that you can have the government doing anything about about prices and about profits. But those Democrats, because of partisan concerns, are going to shut up right now. So you're not going to have that fight like that's
which is a terrific benefit for that policy. On the On the right, you're going to have a little bit more division because the jade advances of the world, you very much do believe that it is the government's role to go in and investigate a corporation if it is
price gouging like that. That is squarely within that kind of new right populous nationalism, but it is runs up against all the you know, the free market ideology that dominates so much of the rest of the Republican Party, so that that could kick off some interesting kind of internal turmoil among those But.
You know, the the there's.
Long been this idea for the last you know, fifty years or so, that the government should just stay out of prices.
But that historically has not been the case.
Governments all around the world forever have you know, have done you know, some version of price controls. We currently have price controls when it comes to you know, we control our interest rate policy. We control our energy prices, you know, whether it's through utilities, or whether it's through our use of either our military or our strategic patrolling reserve when it comes to gas prices, or whether it's
our influence with OPEK. We control wages, like if we see the price of labor, if we see the price of labor going up, the Federal Reserve comes in and raps workers right on the knuckles and make sure that they those wages.
Go right back down.
So all this is saying is that will extend this general idea to corporate profits and if there is price gouging going on, they're going to come after that. What that means, you know, remains to be seen. How Harris tries to even come closer to finding that is an open question. It also suggests that she would need Lena Khan. Like the idea that you're going to lead with something that is the FTC's purview and that requires an aggressive FTC. But you're also going to get rid of Lena Khan
just doesn't match. So it feels like she's winning this fight against reed Hoffman right now.
What's your sense.
There, Yeah, I mean it seems like that, and there was another, you know, policy personnel choice that people were paying attention to. The I'm interested your take on Ryan. We can put this up on the screen, So Brian Deese is back. This is some reporting from Brent Schwartzho's good reporterver at CNBC and advising Kamala Harris on economic policy.
David Dayan comments here has a resume to upset everyone black Rock experience, but he was also a good good on the National Economic Council that crafted much of the break with typical dem policy on industrial manufacturing, full employment, and more. I look at what he did in office and say it's good to have him in there. I know Matt's Suller, as I mentioned before, also very pleased with this pick, and on the on the corporate price
gouging piece in particular. You know a couple of things that were note worthy to me is number one, some of what at least some of what Kamala Harris is talking about in the speech on Friday, or things that you can do with just executive power. So even if you don't have Republican you know, if you still have a Republican Senate in particular, you can still take a lot of action here, as Leema con has as FDC head.
The other thing is, you know, as indicative of Brian Deese as being the carryover, like some of this stuff has been done by the Biden administration. There was originally when progressives like you and I were talking about how corporate price gouging was an important part of the inflation picture, we were practically, you know, laughed out of the room, like all the mainstream Oh, that's preposterous, as just government's.
Bending blah blah blah.
The data became undeniable that this was perhaps the most significant part of the inflation picture. And so while Biden did a little like nibbling around the edges with regard to the meat packing industry in particular, number one, he's just not able at this point to really clearly enforcedly articulate this case and prosecute this case. And number two he seemed to be uncomfortable with it, and he had
people in his orbit. There continued to be this internal divide over like, oh, it's not appropriate to call out corporate powers, it's not appropriate to go after these companies. There continued to be a reluctance and a hesitation to publicly make this case. But it's the data backs it up. It's a very strong both reality case but also political case to go after.
You know, the American people have long said that these.
Corporations are price gouging, that they don't have to charge these high price and you know, make you pay through the teeth at the grocery store, et cetera. So I think it's a very strong place for her to stand politically, and I also think it's a very strong place for her to stand in terms of actually making a difference in people's lives here.
Yeah, and to have tough antitrust enforcement is also a way to police this this pricing problem, because what it tells companies is that there is one of the limits on what you can charge people is that you're going to draw the attention of the FTC. Like if your profit margin, you know, goes from five percent to twenty five percent, then the FTC is going to wander.
Wait a minute, that doesn't make sense.
If this was a competitive market and you're jacking up your prices by twenty five percent and just taking it back as profit, some other competitor ought to be able to come in and undercut you on price, Like that's how the market works. And if that's not happening, then you're doing something illegal. You're breaking the Sherman Act somehow when it comes to monopolization and anti trust, and we're going to investigate and we're going to cause problems for you.
And so even if a company is a monopoly, you know, they may want to continue to fly under the radar by keeping their prices low. And if that's the result of that for consumers, it's that's not just that's not just as good as having monopolies broken up, but from a consumer perspective, like it keeps prices down and it makes it so that you can afford more groceries, so that that's a win. So it's it's really a win win to have, you know, both of these things working together.
Yeah, that's that's right.
And it's also an area I feel where the bully pulpit actually does matter where if you have the President calling you out in you know, campaign speeches or in the State of the Union or in a press conference, et cetera, you know that you now have the eye of the federal government trained on you potentially for those sorts of enforcement actions. So having someone who is able to, you know, in a just, lear and consistent way make
this case actually matters quite a lot. The other thing that you and Emily I think touched on some and we'll just skip over this soot from Tim Walls at Ask Me. He also talked a lot about specifics with regard to labor and continue to advocate for the proact, so that seems to also be on the agenda as
you know, a priority action item. The other thing that was noteworthy you can put this last element from this block guy's up on the screen is the Harris team has really shifted the type of ads that they are running against Donald Trump.
So the headline here from the washat Post Democrats.
Ad shifts from Trump to abortion and economy with Harris as the nominee. They did an analysis of data from the political research firm ad Impact. They found that they are now running much more on these issues abortion in the economy versus the threat to democracy, et cetera, et cetera, really fixating on Trump type of ads that the Biden team was.
Running and we had shown earlier in the week.
On Monday, I believe some of the message testing from the reied Hoffman aligned like Pulling Pack, put out some message testing on how Kamala Harris should approach this race, and what they found, I think is not that surprising, which is that you're not going to change how people think about Donald Trump.
They think about Donald Trump what they think.
No, you know, it's not like you're going to see an ad on TV and be, oh my god, you're right he is a threat to democracy.
I never thought of it that way, right, So I.
Think the Harris team is smartly looking at that data and saying, okay, well, instead of endlessly moralizing about Donald Trump, which people already feel about, however they're going to feel about, we need to bolster Kamala Harris on the issues where she needs strengthening or where she's already strong, and we need to attack him specifically on the abortion, try to knock down his numbers on the economy. So maybe Kamala
Harris even has an edge on the economy. I think it's you know, I think it's a much more intense and political strategy, but they're pursuing here with their odds bending.
Yeah, for most people, if you're like sixty years old or younger, Trump has been famous your entire adult life, like since you became cognizant of the news, Trump has been famous. So I think that's exactly right that there's no thirty second ad that you're going to run. It's
going to all of a sudden change people's minds. So the better approach is, Okay, yeah, Trump is this thing, but we're going to do this, whether it's codifi row or we're going to crack down on corporate price gouging, whatever you think of Trump, here's what we're going to do. So good good for them, like this whole because it forces them to actually then come up with something. And you know, we're what three or four weeks into a Harris campaign at this point.
Maybe it's less than that.
I can't keep track of time, but it's funny that this is like basically the first thing we're getting, so that you know, her campaign deserves a enormous amount of criticism for the fact that it's a good thing.
We'll take that, Yeah, definitely.
At the same time, let's go and move on to some of the criticism that's coming from the right as they're watching the poll numbers shift. I mean, it's it must be head spinning to be a Trump supporter, and you know, come off the assassination attempt and the you know, the iconic image and the RNC and Joe Biden is floundering, and you feel so bold, emboldened you even put Jade.
Vance on the ticket. You are riding high.
You're thinking, hey, are we going to be able to put New Jersey into play? And now just in a few weeks time, the world is completely different and it's at best a toss up race. I think that probably is correct. Where it is is basically a toss up at this point. But the trends keep moving against you.
You know, contrary to the idea that Kamala would just have this bump that was like a honeymoon period, she can needs to expand her margin, and she continues to put additional states in play, like the state of North Carolina as one example. So you're starting to get as with any team that feels like they're, you know, starting to lose the unity cracks and you start to get people complaining about this or that. Now with Trump, as you know, on the right, they never complain about Trump directly.
It's always like the team around Trump that's the problem. So that's mostly what you've been getting is like Alway's got to fire these campaign managers and they're giving him bad advice, et cetera, et cetera. But you did actually have Megan Kelly come out and make some directly critical comments about Trump and his style. Specifically, let's take a listen to a little bit of what she had to say in a conversation with Nate Silver.
One of the reasons why Trump gets upset with yours truly is because I have been raising that question for a while, and when he has what appeared to be senior moments, I will call him out on it, and he doesn't like that, and I can't say that I blame him, but that's that's my job. I will say that in that discussion with Elon, to me, he seemed
quite rambling. I mean it was like he rambles, he goes on too long at his rallies and in these exchanges and at his pressor the other day to where you get kind of bored, you lose the thread, you lose interest, which is not something you're used to with Trump. Trump in twenty sixteen he was tough to lose interest in.
And I think that's probably an age related change. So I think this is one of the challenges of the people around him, who are I'm sure are desperately trying to get him to stick on message.
And Ryan, some of the polling has shown that since Biden has dropped out of the rays, people's concerns about Trump's age have actually increased. Now that you don't have the you know, the comparison of him versus Biden, where you're on Oh, in comparison to that guy, he looks great. Now you're comparing him to Kamal Harris and it looks very different.
Yes, And people don't really want to his virus. Don't necessarily need him to stay on message. There's no such thing when it comes to Trump. But right stay on brand and on brand is entertaining and is interesting. And whether you're gawking because it's a car crash and you're wondering if the car crash is going to continue, or you're loving the way that he's just, you know, beating the heck out of the liberal elites and the media and all the others.
That's what you want. You don't want to be bored.
You don't want to you don't want to think that this is just an old guy telling you the same stories over and over again, saying did I tell you this one? You're like, yeah, well it does It doesn't matter if I tell you.
That's like the assassination story that you know at the RNC. He's out, this is the last time I've ever going to talk about this, and then he spends like thirty minutes with Elon Musk going through detail by detail once again that very much had that vibe. Cannas Owan's is sticking in the lane of like, I'm not going to directly criticize Trump, but I'll criticize the people around Trump as like a proxy criticism. Let's take a listen to what she had to say about how the campaign is going.
Something feels a little different right now. A few weeks ago, Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt, and it was very clear to me and I think to the entire role that he was going to win the election because he emerged as a leader in his response and in his speeches thereafter, in the way that he communicated with the crowd.
It just seems so.
Obvious that in order to defeat the deep State, who I believe was behind his assassination attempt, that we needed to elect Trump.
But things have changed in just a very short time. It just the energy of the mega campaign feels very different now. At first I was owing that to the fact that there has to be some reasonable trepidation. You don't just survive an assassination attempt and just keep going and you don't come out of that not being a
fundamentally changed person. And I think by the way for the better, like, you know, really recognizing how precious life is, maybe perhaps being further committed to a Christian principles as a leader. You know, you're going to be changed having survived an assassination attempt. But there is something else that seems to have had where I'm just not sure who is driving the magabus anymore.
So she's not sure who is driving the magabus anymore. I mean, we know who's driving the magabus. It is and is always Trump, but there are rumors Ryan, we can put this up on the screen that Trump may be planning to fire two of his top campaign aids.
That would be characteristic.
This is a man has fired I think every campaign managery's ever hired, so it would not be a shock if he's looking at these pull numbers and rather than looking internally about perhaps where he has gone astray, he's instead, you know, pointing at Susie Wiles and Chris los Avida.
Yeah, and it's a it's a funny moment of classic UK tabloid reporting that we're mentioning because Dan Bongino yesterday kind of in response, you know, vaguely in response is reporting, was saying the knives are out for you know, the good Trump people, and he met Lasa Vita by that, so he was kind of coming to las Avita's defense.
He's like, I didn't want to have to do this.
I don't want to have to talk about the internal turmoil because I want to focus on the Democrats.
But it looks like I.
Can't because now these rumors are leaking out. But the way they leaked out is just incredible. So it's that Daily Mail with this UK tabloid. They don't mention las Aveto or the campaign manager in the headline or even in the article. The only mention of him is in a photo caption within the story, which says Trump is reportedly talking to his confidants about firing his campaign managers
Chris los Avita and Susie Wiles pictured. Like, so they're breaking news in a caption with no sourcing whatsoever other than reportedly, Well, who's reporting it?
The Daily Mail is reporting it in.
Their caption, So it's complete and total garbage reporting. But it does appear that it reflects something real going inside the campaign because of what we know from Bongino's public comments.
Otherwise you could just be like, this is just because it is.
Tabloids don't often fabricate stuff. What they do is they play extremely fast and loose with sourcing rules and norms and what's supposed to be off the record and what's
not supposed to be off the record. So it sounds like they had some stuff that was off the record they wanted to get it into print, they couldn't quite figure out how to do it, and some genius editors like, what if we just slip it into the caption nobody, no, no, there's different kind of rules around it the photo caption, and then boom, it kind of picks up fire on social media. Once it's in there, it's like, oh, daily Mail is reporting. It's like, so, just a little weird
insight into how rumors get started. But the Bongino's response to it, I think is suggestive of the fact that there's something going on. And also it plays it plays as like it sounds right right, It's like, yeah, when Trump is flailing, he's all like, this is not just Trump. Everybody when they're flailing, you know, starts fingers at those below them, but of course Trump particularly Yeah.
And also when a campaign or a team is flailing, then everybody starts throwing everybody else under the bus, and you know, any previous unity that they had five minutes ago is completely shattered and everyone's looking at who to blame. And also you shouldn't underestimate how quickly the posturing starts for people to write the PostScript narrative of whose fault it was, So in the after action report or whatever reporting gets released or whatever book comes out, they're not
the ones who shoulder the blame. So that positioning starts very early in these campaigns as well, to make sure that they come out looking good, even if it's a losing effort. We're gonna have to skip over this conversation about the Trump campaign being hacked and maybe it was Iranians, and then the news media decides not to report on it because we've got guests standing by and we don't want to be too late for them. But just you know, thirty seconds, Ryan, if you do, you see newsworthy value
in the JD. Vans dossier that was apparently leaked to the Post in Politico and one other news outlet.
Supposedly the this oppo dump about JD. Vance is all based on public information.
You know.
It's it's like it's gonna be things that are like hypocritical, like he said this at one point, he said this at another point, you know, he said this offensive thing about this group of people at this on this podcast.
So it's it's it all seems to be public information, and we're constantly like it's not just iron that like it leaks these documents, The campaigns themselves sometimes leak these these opo documents, and all all it often is is just a collection of clips end quotes from like podcasts and appearances, and so in that sense, it's not really newsworthy. And so I can understand why they would say, you know what, this is just a standard opo book. We're
not doing a Run's dirty work here. But you know, I'm sure they're happy to have the oppo book if it ever, ever, if ever becomes useful.
What do you think, Yeah, I think it seems newsworthy because even one of the narratives around Jadie Vance is like did they even bet this guy?
Like did they know about this childless cat lady stuff?
Aparently did they know about like the postmenopausal woman comment whatever, So even just to have a confirmation that yeah, they knew that and they still put them on the ticket, or no, they were blindsided, but they had an incompetent vetting team and they didn't actually pull some of his most controversial comments, or you know, they were actually worried about this issue over here and it turned out, you know, they didn't anticipate that the cat lady thing would be
a real issue for him. Yeah, I think that is all very newsworthy, Just like I think it would be newsworthy to know we we have had some reporting, which is again proof that this is newsworthy that the Harris team did know that Tim Walls would likely face these
type of attacks over his service. But I would still be interested in knowing, you know, specifically, how heavily did they wait this, how did they think about how to respond to it, did they know all of the aspects of how he would be attacked on this, et cetera. Of course, I think that that would be newsworthy and interesting to the public.
Yeah, Yeah, that's it.
Let's let's see it all put up, all the opo out there.
Yeah, put it all out there.
Let's see it all all right, let's go and get to the guests that we have standing by. There's a lot going on this week with regard to Israel, and we're very fortunate to be joined this morning by Mehdi Haffen, who is founder of Zeteo News and out with a fantastic new and horrifying documentary about Idea soldiers and their conduct in Gaza.
Medi is great to see you.
Good see Crystal, Thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course, So to set up the promise a little bit, you can elaborate here as well. There's been this question that's been floating around. We've seen all these social media you know, tiktoks, instagrams, et cetera, of idea soldiers just publicly broadcasting their war crimes. And so you decided to send a team to Israel and actually speak to these soldiers and get in their own words why
they're posting these atrocities. We have a little bit of the trailer we can show to people, and the name of the film is Israel's real extremism.
Let's take a look at the trailer.
Here's a soldier saying that they've destroyed the university. There's no more educational in Gaza.
I think the education when Gaza was something new.
You can find it humiliating, you know, maybe a minute. I don't, as they told you, I don't.
I don't see.
Any any problem with humaniding Palestina. There is nothing.
Since the war in Gaza started, is Ready soldiers on the front line have been broadcasting the devastation and their dehumanization of Palestinians on social media.
Actually, and I filmed with.
My commander or like, was very they want me to do it.
Those videos where they've shown that they've tortured captives.
They didn't told your captives. You are lying. You are lying, and you are lying. They are not torture, are captive, they are good.
Ready is ready?
French soldier investigated a lot.
Of Palestinians who are already suffering. It's a monk question, okay, because the AID gets the dramas.
The issue pit Israel now goes well beyond the occupations in the interest level million million.
It will always be the response of the West. We are egble, but we are we are China silent.
Sooth So, Maddie.
Not only did these soldiers and activists justify these acts, I mean they truly celebrated them in the conversations that you were able to have here.
Yeah, I mean we throw around the word crystal shocking a lot, but there is a lot of shocking stuff in this film, even for those of us who commissioned it, and props to basement FLMs in the UK, who were a bunch of Oscar nominated and Emmy Award winning filmmakers who had this pitch to go find the soldiers behind these tiktoks and instagrams and interestingly, major networks I won't say the names. In both the UK and the US
turned this down. I wonder why, but we came along as the TEO managed to fund it, and they did go out there, and they did get the soldiers.
And as you saw in that trailer, a lot of them don't care.
It's not just the soldiers, by the way, media personalities, radical right wing activists who are blocking aid at the border, settlers who want to resettle Gaza, all of them on tape bragging about this stuff. And it's so indicative of what has happened to Israeli society, especially post October the seventh, the shift to the far right, the obsession with vengeance, the dehumanization of Palestinians, and the complete obliviousness Crystal, they just don't care.
What were the lines medi that you came across. Were there any lines in these interviews where you would get soldiers or their defenders saying, okay, you know what if that happened, that did actually cross a moral line.
So one of the brothers of we interviewed a barbershop owner. You may remember there was an infamous image out of Gaza where a soldier had a bunch of Palestinians, possibly dead we still don't know, bound and gagged and he had a sign for his brother or brother in law.
I forget now barbershop in Israel advertising it in this video, such as the dehumanization, and the team on the ground managed to go speak to the owner of the barbershop and he says in the film he says, look, I have no you know, torture is wrong, but not torturing terrorists that's fine with me. And obviously we've seen in recent weeks since the film was made, the allegations, the video evidence of the rape and abuse in Israeli prisons
that's been coming out. Look, that is a trend amongst people who really do not.
See these people as human.
Right.
There's a clip from one of the soldiers's name is hen Co and he's a kitchen fitter, right, He's a guy who fits your kitchens in Israel in everyday life, goes out to Gaza Films himself laughing in destroyed Gars kitchen, saying, hey, who wants a Palestinian kitchen? And when we spoke to him, he says, quite openly, it's in the trainey. He said, Look, I walk around feeling superior to these people. Why not I am superior to them?
Wow?
I mean when you hear this sort of sentiment. You would hope it's a fringe sentiment, but we know that it's not because we see the way that it's represented in the current government. So what is your sense of how commonplace this view is? Where you know, first of all, every Palestinian is just you know, inherently made to be guilty, and once they're made guilty, well nothing is off the table.
We played here, and I'm sure you covered as well the debates that we're unfolding on popular as really television programs about how not only should it be fine for Ida soldiers to rape Palestinian detainees, but actually the only problem is that they don't do it more and it's not systematized.
And this is happening on Israeli television, it's happening inside the Israeli Parliament, in the Kanesset, where the debate the right to rape. What's interesting is it's not being seen in the US Congress, Crystal, It's not being seen on US television. US newspapers have not gone big on the video that was leaked an air on Israeli television of an alleged gang rape of a Palestinian detainee. And that's why we wanted to make this documentary Israel's real extremism,
because you've got to see this stuff. You've got to hear it from them in their own words. You've got to see it on the ground. Because we talk so much about shared values, we talk about all the aid that we send Israel, well, this is what it's paying for, and it's not. It's not a fringe. Sadly, I wish it was a fringe. The fringe has taken over, just like the GEO be here. The fringe is taken over
the beast. You've got mainstream ministers in government. And I say mainstream because if Ma Ben Gever is not fringe, he's mainstream. When you're the security minister, you're mainstream. When you're the finance minister Bizalo's Motridge, you're mainstream. And these ministers, as we show in the film, have attended conferences calling
for the resettlement of Gaza. We start polling in the film that shows anywhere between twenty five and forty percent of Israeli society's raidy Jurish society supports resettling Guzz And you know he's come out and said we're not going to resettle Gaza, but there's a big chunk of his own government out of Israeli society that wants to do that.
We interview Joseph.
You just saw that very young radical settler who says, look, if we have to kill a million people, we'll kill a million people.
But his dream is to go back into Gaza.
They're going back in and trying to put you know, facts on the ground has always been in these Raeli way and by the way, we're speaking in a week where Ben Gavie and all these guys have just announced a brand new illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, which we don't talk about enough because obviously our attention is on Gaza.
Yeah, and to the extent that Israel does defend it's a tax on civilians. What they will say is that will Hamas is using civilians as human shields. Oh the projection, right, you always get You hear a lot this saying that every accusation is a confession. So I want to get your response to this, this high Retz investigation.
We could put this up on.
The screen here where they confirmed what has been known for many years.
I believe this is yeah, there it is.
That is that IDF truepes are often using human shields, either tied to kind of roofs of cars or or sent out into the streets or sent out into into homes where they believe there may be militants, believing that the the the militants will then not fire at the Palestinian civilians, which to me is in conflict with the rhetoric that hamas you know, do not just doesn't care about Palestinian civilian life, but actively wants them to die
because and then they get, you know, more international solidarity and support.
So the fact that they would.
Believe that this the that those humans would be actual effective shields against the mass seems to under cut that rhetoric. Did this play a role into in any of your interviews with with with folks on the ground, there.
Only in the senses I say that when you're confronting these people with the images, they just don't care. I mean, all all roads lead back to dehumanization, right, and you saw Itamar Fleischmann, very prominent Israeli right with media personality and the start of that trailers. I have no problem humiliating in the Palestinians, nothing's wrong with that, just very blunt and it's kind of you know, from the horse's mouth,
as they say. And even when it comes to this story, and Ryan, you're so right to use the phrase, you know, every accusation is a confession. Fundamentally. It has been the single most popular and prevalent defense of Israel's brutality in Gaza since October seventh, which is it's all Hamas using
human chills. And now we get this Harretz investigation, which, as you say, confirms what we already knew as being on for years, especially in the West Bank, where we just saw a few months ago a guide tied to the roof of a jeep. But what's so shocking about the Haretz piece Three things. One is the Palestinians they grab to do this is totally random. These are not kind of alleged militants who are being used in human shoals. They're just random folks on the street who are grabbed
by the IDEF. The second point is that this is done with the approval of senior military leadership.
These are not random rogue operations.
And number three, the most shocking part of it is they put them in Israeli military uniforms. They want them to be shot at right. They want them to be not accidentally, they want the Hamas Miltington's fighters whatever you want to call them, to shoot at Israeli soldiers who are actually Palestinians. And as you say, it goes against the whole argument, which is, well, hold on, Hamas don't care about civilian life, so why would they you know, why would they stop shooting if they do it as
a Palestinian. But you know, don't let any contradictions get in the way. By the way, going back to the tiktoks when we're talking about every accusation as a confession. I just saw yesterday and is rael soldier put out another video on his social media of him using unra aid to cook himself a meal. And again, weren't we told for ten months.
That Hamas is stealing unraw aid?
He is an Israeli soldiers stealing the aid.
Oh the projection, wow, youo, Madi.
Obviously the most important factory here is the horror that Israelis are perpetrating against Palestinians. But we interviewed a liberal Zionist and Israeli liberals Zionist child Ben Afram Ryan and Emily had interviewed him previously and he was drawing a lot of parallels between the dehumanization and the increasing level of fascism in Israel with the United States, and it kind of bristled out. I didn't say much at the time.
I just, you know, let him say his peace. But I kind of bristled at it because I was thinking to myself, Okay, but on the other hand, we haven't had someone in Congress literally making the argument that yes, it's fine for us for soldiers to rape detainees, like
we have not gone to that level. On the other hand, can I really draw that distinction when it's our country that is sending the bombs When we have, you know, not just the right, but we have many elements of the Democratic Party, including the President and you know, apparently the Vice President, who have been.
Supportive of this policy.
Who will you know, leak some oh, we're unhappy about this, and then send billions of dollars more weapons to drop on schools where innocent Palestinians are sheltering.
Is what are your reflections on that?
And also what is our support of this conflict doing to us and our country and the way that we view our fellow citizens around the world.
It's such a good question, because yeah, I grapple with this as well, and it's an interesting point.
I think I would say a couple of things.
One is, you know, I've made the point before that Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert and all of our freaks in Congress they look like museally eating sandal wearing San Francisco liberals compared to a Ima Bengevia or the Heritage minister who wants to drop a nw CO on Gaza, or some of these kind of people arguing in the kiness for all right direct, Look, these really far right makes the American far right look mild. That's just a
fact based on the record. Having said that, as you say, we are complicit in this, in fact, we have liberals, quote unquote, we have Democrats. We have John Kirby, white House National Security Council spokesman saying on the record at the podium that their military takes more precautions than our military does. We have American officials saying that the Israeli army is better than the American army, which I find
astonishing on so many levels. And the only way they can do that is by you know, seeing evil hear no evil, Kristol. When people in America, especially Democrats, sign off on aid for Israel, to be fair, they're not saying, well, we want this money to go so we can rape Palestinide tennees. But they're doing something else that it's disingenuous, which is they're saying, well, we don't want to know what's happening, right, And that's.
One of the reasons we made this film.
And I would urge, you know, let me do a plug for anyone from the White House watching this Real Israel dot film. Ore e l Real Israel dot film. Go watch the film right because of American TV. If CNN, NBC and the rest New York Terms are not showing this stuff, go watch and see what our tax dollars, what US aid is paying for what this Israeli military looks like.
Hear it from the soldier's own mouths.
Because that is the problem I have, is that people in America talk about Israel at some weird abstract level. A lot of people like Joe Biden are thinking of an Israel I don't know from when, and nobody talks about the specifics. How many members of Congress have you seen Christal Be asked about the gang rate allegations in Israel. How many members of Congress are asked in TV interviews about what's happening with settler violence and terrorism in the
West Bank. We just don't see those specifics put to our members of Congress, so they're able to write blank checks and then go off and do an event, do a rally, kiss babies, and forget about the fact that, as you say, we're complicit in this horror.
We could take the two shot here for one second. Earlier in the show, we talked about the ceasefire talks that are opening today in the region. Do you have any sense of whether or not things have shifted that we should expect something different this time.
I think what we're now seeing, belatedly around ten months into this is a lot more focus on Netaiah. Right before it was even until what a couple of couple of months ago, it was Joe Biden saying Israel's accepted the deal Hamas is the block even as was like, we haven't accepted the deal.
It was almost like a really bad like skit from a comedy show.
It was like they've accepted, No, we haven't, And they even got it into a UN resolution. Amazingly, there was actually uns said Israel's accepted the deal had not accepted. Bizarre, just kind of gas sliding on a level I've not seen in a long time. Level gas landing from the
band administration. Now, I think there's been so much pushback publicly and credit you know where, give a lot of credit to Israeli hostages, families who have not just protested on the streets of Israel and been you know, water cannon and beaten up by police. I spoke to a family member who's been assaulted multiple times by these radio police. But they also came to d C protested whose speech, were arrested outside the speech, even as inside the hall
called them Iranian proxies. So they put a lot of pressure on and have come out and said, look, this is a complete failure. We've had people like Benny Gant's former war cabinet member come out and say there.
Was a deal, you know, undermined it.
So now we are seeing a bit more pressure and I think now with the honea assassination in Iran, the Hamas leader who was actually leading the negotiations. They killed the guy leading the negotiations as good faith for you. I think you're seeing Hamas now saying, look, they're taking the deal more seriously. Iran has come out and said, if you don't want us to retaliate for your illegal bombing and bombing on our soil, get a ceasefire. Quite a good deal. I think it seems fair. It seems
like a great deal. We won't retaliate if you give another group of people to see his father everyone in the world wants, and.
That you have already approved, improved.
Approved through your cabinet, through you d resolution through the Biden Administration's word is a Biden So yeah, I do hope that we are in a better place in terms of is saying that you know, the.
Problem is, he's a stubborn dude.
So at the end of the day, even if everyone comes around to it, unless you pressure, unless Joe Biden makes the Ronald Reagan to Monock and begging phone calls that some of us have been urging him to make for months. Now, pick up the phone called make him do it, which he has.
The power to do. Yeah, he's not going to do it.
Yeah, I think we should.
They just need to experiment with an asylum forum or something give like he can live his days out in South Florida.
I will agree join a Sun there in Miami might appeal to Sarah.
Yeah, oh absolutely it would.
Mattie's final question for you, what are your expectations about Kamala Harris and whether she would pursue a different policy than Joe Biden has with regards to not just you know, this particular assault on Gaza, but with regard to Israel palsign in general.
It is the sixty four thousand dollars question, or maybe the three billion dollar question. I don't know the answer to that. In terms of policy, I think clearly we've seen a shift in rhetoric. We've definitely seen a shift in rhetoric. But obviously that rhetoric doesn't save anyone's lives. The Uncommitted movement are pressuring and will be pressuring at the DNC next week for some movement on an arms embargo.
The Harris administer, the Harris team have come out and said she doesn't support in arms inmbargo, but you know, that's what pressure is for. What's interesting is those of us who put pressure on Democrats before to switch from Biden to Harris were told you want Trump to win, and actually no, Harris taking over means Trump is less likely to win. We were right about that and now is saying, hey, come out from arms of barga. They say, hey, you want Trump to win again. It's actually good policy.
That's what a lot of people are trying to convince to Harait team. Put aside the morale, put aside international law. It's good for her and the Democrats to take a stronger line on net. Great statistic in the new IAMEU Yahoo so you Gov poll that my colleague prom Tack has just reported on which shows of Biden twenty twenty voters in Pennsylvania who are saying that they will not vote for Biden, will go third party or stay at home. Fifty seven percent say they're more likely to vote Harris
if she were to come out from arms embargo. Zero percent say they would be less likely to vote Harris if she came out from arms in bargas. So pretty strong polling showing that it's all there for the taking if she can make a move on policy. The rhetoric, great, keep doing it, but policy is what matters.
Yeah, no doubt about it.
Well, medi congratulations on the film and of course congratulations on Zato. Tell people where they can go to support the work that you guys are doing with got three media entrepreneurs here, two that just launched new endeavors. So go sign up a drop site news and zteo medi go ahead and give people the web draft.
Christ you were ahead of the pack and Ryan are just following in your footsteps.
Zetail dot com is our site.
But if you want to specifically watch the film, you can go to Real Israel dot film.
That's our w L Real Israel dot film. Check it out.
Terrific, Maddie, thank you so much for coming.
In, Thanks for having me all right.
Up next, we're going to talk about the FDA's new terrible decision on m d M A stick around for that. So, on Friday, the FDA released a major decision on the question of m d m A assisted therapy, rejecting the request to make it legal for official kind of medical use and kicking it back for what could be years of further study. Joining us today to talk about this are two people who've been pretty deeply involved in the in the push and pull over whether or not MDMA
assisted therapy would would be allowed. We have John Lubecki's joining us from the middle of the screen at an advocate and participant in the in this portion of this FDA studying also David Nichols, who kind of eventually became a kind of an opponent of the process we're going to talk about. Is that, I don't know if that's a good way to characterize the world. Give you, give you an opportunity to characterize yourself when you guess to you.
But John quickly to kind of tell us, tell us where we are today as a result of this FDA ruling.
Well, that's actually a very good question that there are still a lot of answers that need to be that FDA needs to provide. Licos Therapeutics is requesting a meeting with the FDA to be able to sit down and get more information that is not contained in the denial letter or the notification that they got, which didn't provide a lot of information. One of the major things that they had issues with were addiction or potential for addiction, as well as trial design, even though the FDA themselves
were involved in the trial is on. Once that meeting takes place, which should happen probably within the next two months. Then LEKOS will have more information on what's required with new trial designs, how many more participants need to go through, how many more trials need to go through, et cetera. But even with the denial, this isn't going to stop FDA approval. It's eventually going to be approved one of these days. The question is when.
And David, let me get your respond to a couple of clips from the kind of key hearing.
If we can put up F three here.
These are the scientists who are tasked with kind of reviewing the process, talking about what they're calling adverse events, which means things not going well for people who are in the study.
Let's roll this real quick. F three also concern about a lot of the adverse events not being perhaps recorded correctly.
Adverse event associated with mdmation should be recorded.
Seeing less adverse events.
Until an actual member of the FDA stepped in and said, this conversation needs to stop. I've heard some comments about outside reports of potential misconduct in the studies. Although we are aware of those reports, we consider them to be unverified at this point until we do our own inspections. So the discussions and voting should be based on what is contained within our briefing documents.
So that's from a video that's called what a Trip, And I think it's alluding to some of the reporting that you did that seemed to influence the committee members there. So if you talk a little bit about what those adverse events were that she's talking about, and then generally give us your view of like how you would characterize your role in this process.
Sure, I think there's probably it bears mentioning from the start that that video is replete with inaccuracies and misstatements and.
A number you're referring to the rest of the video, right.
Yes, Oh, and and so with regards to that particular statement, I mean there's there's sections of that video that I would say are deceptively cut as well. The FDA ad come explicitly discussed the failure to report adverse events, things like positive adverse events as well, right, so, like experiences of euphoria, things that they felt could lead to drug seeking behavior in the wake of trial participants getting MDMA
from licos. And so there are actually very clear documented failings which Amy Emerson, the CEO of Lycos Therapeutics, spoke to as far as why they didn't provide data that FDA was very much expecting from them, and that is also considered adverse events. Now the sort of deceptive editing or what is being presented as some of the unverified reports. Obviously in the clip, they're not getting into the specifics.
There have been a range of things that have come up, however, in my and my partner Lily k Ross's extensive investigative reporting that was published via New York Magazine, extensively vetted out via fact checking and the legal process that I'm sure you can relate to, there were a number of participants who experienced increases in suicidal ideation, non completed attempts, mood drops after active MDMA sessions, and psychosis, what was
described as leftover psychedelic effects, and a variety of other experiences that simply did not make it into the published literature. Around these trials, we know that there were issues with the reviewing of trial footage from the cameras that were recording different sessions. In fact, in one particular instance, when we asked the organization, the sponsor organization, when footage from a session that contained abusive behavior by therapist was viewed,
we got five different answers. Different news media outlets got different answers than the five that we received, So when it comes to sort of adverse event collection, it's a bit of a mess.
And I would.
Describe myself as being agnostic with regards to the safety and efficacy of psychedelics as medicines. I'm a longtime psychedelic user. I think psychedelics have a lot to offer, but my role with regards to sort of medicalization, I've been a long time critic within the psychedelic field of the broader sort of socio political implications of medicalization. And as a result of getting various reports over many years in the space, that was basically the impetus for the investigation that became
cover story Power Trip. And at the end of the day, I care about psychedelics. I care about people who are experiencing harm in both underground and above ground psychedelics, uh.
Harms from the underground and and and as you said, this isn't about whether it works or not. This is about whether certain people will have access. As you yourself have stated in stating that law enforcement and veterans having access is a white supremacy problem, and I will broke that that as far as in depth fact checking, there's demonstrable errors in your reporting and symposia's reporting pertaining to me personally where you continually lie. So there's personally.
You John before we John before you that can you give us, give us a background of what your role was in this study and what your role is kind of in the in the field now.
So ten years ago, I was I had PTSD and I was a participant in Leco's trial in Charleston, South Carolina with Michael and Annie Midhoffer. The therapy I received was honestly that the therapy aspect was the same as regular therapy like CBT, just talk therapy. I then, because I was healed with PTSD, I had always had an interest in politics, So I started working on campaigns. Was Rampaul's National Veterans Director and a presidential campaign work, done
a lot of Senate, congressional, et cetera. I mean, right, you know about campaign work, And I started doing a lot of media interviews on my own because when you're working on a campaign and you're sitting there waiting for the candidate to show up, You've got a whole bunch of reporters waiting and you can't sit there and talk
about the campaign, so you talk about anything else. I'm not a big baseball guy, so I I talked about the MDMA experience that I had because I haven't done it in ten years, I haven't had a desire to do it in ten years. So I got more and more involved, and then because of my political acumen, I maps became a client of mine to advise them on ending the Night of Monopoly and work on cannabis. They've
never asked me to do an interview. Most of the interviews I've done, I've completely sourced myself, or you know, I've had reporters email me or reach out to me in some way of their own volition. As a matter of fact, the first time you and I talked to you had mentioned something about psychedelics on the show, and I shot you an email or I think it was through Twitter. Now they've claimed that specifically, let's see in twenty eighteen, they've said that claim that I was on
stage at Seapack. I've never been on stage at Seapack, that me and Rebecca Mercer had some conspiracy. I've never met the person, and that an interview that I did on Breitbart mostly talking about ending the nightA monopoly that I was paid by Maps to do that. I didn't contract with Maps till well after SEAPAC in twenty eighteen. So apparently Simposi's fact checking hasn't exactly been that good.
They just make assumptions, print them, and then when they do a peer reviewed article, just point to themselves as a reference. And I will say in the cover story New York Times magazine, they used me talking about my personal suicide attempt in order to detegrate me. And now I haven't worked actually for Maps or Vets or anybody for a couple of years. Now. I do humanitarian aid in Ukraine. I do still continue to talk about MDMA, and my story hasn't changed.
Not once, David, if you want to respond to that for a moment, and then I ask you about one other thing from the review.
Yeah, I mean, any organization that attacks children, I'm a white supremacist has zero integrity in my book, and that's something that you did, Brian.
So I think there's a few different things that are
worth replying to. So, first of all, with regards to the idea that we only cover the clinical trials and not the underground The first five episodes of the nine episode run of Cover Story Power Trip actually deal extensively with underground abuses, including a practitioner couple that at the time was quite a descendant and that we actually got reports of what was going on, and that's what sort of kicked off what ultimately became the research and investigation
that took us into the clinical trials. But it's really fascinating because both the underground and the clinical trials tie back to this Mexican psychotherapist named Salvador Roquette who actually sort of not sort of, but who actually tortured student dissidents and leftists for the DFS and and there's very mk ultra vibes to the whole history.
Was a therapist in the trial? Is your claimings?
So this is all in Cover Story Power Trip. I would suggest people listen there.
Question is this person a therapist in the trial? Because you're saying this is this is involving the trials? So is this you're referencing a therapist in the trial? Yesterday?
So rich Richard Jensen, who sexually assaulted Megan Buissan in the trial, was Salvador Roquett's interpreter and actually was a devoted acolyte of his methodology and mechanism and deployed the very methods that he talks about in the trial.
So I think this is we're probably gonna have weeds.
Yeah, yeah, So we're probably gonna have do a Friday show on this so that we can go a couple hours on this. But I think I think people are getting a very good sense of kind of the mess that that became of these trials through through this conversation. I want to do just play one last clip because we have to run another another segment that we have to get to, So let me let's just play F four here, because this was the most striking comment that I heard during the review.
We already have.
Evidence based treatments for PTSD, and yes, you know, they do have drop out rates, but they do have really strong outcomes.
They're you know, covered by insurance.
What is the burden on providers to be providing that treatment when we already have treatments that are really effective.
What I read from that reviewer is her saying, we already have pharmaceutical interventions.
I have drugs that work.
I don't I wouldn't say that they necessarily do work for PTSD. But let's pretend that's true. And she said, what's the burden on the providers? Like, which is code to me? For this would be too expensive for insurers to kind of pay for the psychotherapy and the damasys therapy. Curious for just a response from the both you and then and then I promise we'll have you back on for a much longer discussion later.
Why don't you go first?
If they're so effective, then why is there's still such a high suicide rate with over one hundred and fifty Americans committing suicide each and every day. Suicide is no is a known effect of PTSD. The evidence based treatments that work, they do, I mean, they do work for
some people, and they should be available. But also if you take SSRIs for your entire life, plus the costs of secondary issues to taking those medications and the effects of PTSD like alcoholism, liver damage, et cetera, we all know those, it's actually far cheaper to go through the
protocoll just from a financial aspect and be done. I mean, I haven't taken any you know, medications other than for COVID and strep throat since I went through therapy and nobody's The VA hasn't had to pay for any mental health treatment or anything like that. I think part of it is therapists like the concept of the fifty minute therapists hour, where they don't have to be there with a patient for eight hours or six hours or however
long the MDMA lasts in the system. I don't believe big Pharma was against this, and I don't believe the insurance companies were against this. I think it's actually people who like who I freely admit they use drugs and that these are safe and effective. They just have issues with who would be treated and that everybody would have a right to heal.
David any So the reality final thoughts and then and we will have you guys back on.
The reality is we don't know that these drugs are safe and effective for treating PTSD. Personally, I think all drugs should be decriminalized so people can take what they want, when they want, with whomever they want. My concern is that they of the research into MDMA and other psychedelics as medicines for specific indications is just not there, Like
the quality is bad. And the reason that I'm here is because I'm trying to inform anyone who has PTSD, including veterans, that there are significant undisclosed risks and harms associated with these trials. There's a reason that three papers were just retracted that were tied to the LYCOS data. It's worth pointing out that even as veterans are claiming that this is going to decrease suicide, the sponsor hasn't actually reported that it decreases suicide.
That isn't backed up by the data.
And just as a final thing, I want to say that I resigned from Symposia at the end of last year because I was concerned about a former colleagues's conduct and the trajectory of the institution as a whole. A major factor was that Symposia failed to investigate a formal complaint of unethical behavior filed against one of the members of the organization, and then subsequently failed to address a multitude of additional issues that were entered to the team
I left nearly a year ago. I do not represent their views. Some of the reporting that you have mentioned is not my reporting was not done by me.
My line editorial Suneid.
But well let let's yeah.
We can Well we can talk about that next time, John le Becky, David Nichols, thank you so much for joining us UH to talk about this, this big mess of a mdm A trial.
All right, Crystal, I know you had to step out.
Because of the different zoom issues with getting too many people remote at a time, But I think what that segment really showed is the complete and total mess that the m d m A FDA trials produced and the mess that kind of undermined them. There's a lot more to it, as as people could tell UH and and we'll get them back on for a much longer converse that can really breathe and unpack this, because this isn't over. Like the FDA doesn't actually have the authority to regulate
psychiatry and therapy. Yet the way that the therapists were involved with the medication ended up influencing the decision in a negative way, and so it's something that still has to be that still has to be unpacked. It's going to take you, now many more years and millions more dollars, and so we might not have an FDA approved MBMA medication for years.
At this point, which is I would assume really important for sort of mainstreaming it and creating a permission structure, as they say, for more therapists to take it up more broadly.
Yes, because otherwise you basically can't do it.
Yeah, gotcha.
Yeah, Well, I'm looking forward to watching that. I know both of the experts you had on had really interesting opinions, So looking forward to watching that one myself. Ryan, thank you so much for sitting in for Soccer today, and guys, as we said at the top, all four of us are going to be on the ground in Chicago for the DNC, so super.
Excited about that.
Should be very very interesting and the show's schedule then will be a little bit different next week, so just stay tuned for that, and if you can support what we're doing Breakingpoints dot Com always appreciate that, and we will see you guys at the DNC next week.
All I'd see you guys there