9/18/24: Hezbollah Pagers Detonated, JD Blames Media For Ohio Bomb Threats, Kamala Pressed At Black Journo Event, China Secures Pakistan Port, Matt Walsh Confronted On US Racism

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But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, Welcome to Counterpoints everybody. Emily, how you doing good?

I like how you used your hands. If you're listening to this, you really missed out on some forceful gesticulation, right, I'm.

Trying to be excited. Yeah, well it's worth Everyboddy. So bizarrely we have Matt Walsh later in the show.

Not so bizarre.

Who's the Daily Wire guy? Right?

He has a movie out following up on his question about what is a woman?

What is a woman?

Now?

He's asking, am I a rasis?

Right?

Right?

So we'll get the answer to that question.

I don't have the whole right wing ecosystem mapped out, are you guys, friends, frenemies?

What's the situation as we go in here?

You know, I've interviewed him several time. I'm always fairly friendly. You know, he's probably further to the right than I am, all right way, so it'll be interesting. But he's very I mean, this is no surprise, but he's very, very, very popular with a big swath of people on the right, especially younger people on the right. So it kind of makes sense that the movie's doing pretty well. And apart from that, you and I can get into how we

Sounds good, And we're also going to I also have the Federal Reserve is meeting at two o'clock today, so we're not going to have a segment on that. They're going to announce whether or not they're going to be cutting rates a quarter percent or half a percent. That seems to be what people are guessing if they if they go a half percent, it's going to be a signal that they think the economy is a little bit more sluggish than if they go with a quarter percent.

Not until they cut the road today at.

The near stock change and elsewhere, people just be gambling about whether it's going to be a quarter or a half the entire time.

Where's your money?

I don't know it's exactly and I think who knows is a good is as good as a guest as you can get.

Right now, we also have over at drop site, based on a ream of new documents that we got out of Pakistan, a wild story that Pakistan has agreed to give China access to a naval base in the port of Guadar, which is a key demand that China has been making of Pakistan for many years now and is sure to raise the hackles of the United States.

And it is.

Another foreign policy failure on the part of the US because we have been we helped overthrow their last government, installed what is supposed to be appliant US government that has undermined democracy there, US friendly government there, and instead it's winding up.

They're pushing them closer to China. Crazy how that works.

Yeah, there's a lot to talk about. Actually, I have a lot of questions for you based on that, and Ryan, we should probably start with the biggest news of the day, which is developments from the pager attack. That's probably the best way to put it. Sounds bizarre if you haven't been following the news, it sounds incomprehensible. But we can start looking at if you're watching this, we can start rolling footage. What are we looking at here, Ryan, So.

What you saw there is what is most likely a Hesbela operative or employee who had a pager spontaneous, not spontaneously, but just suddenly explode and it sent chaos all through Lebanon, and there were reports of some explosions in Syria as well. So basically what happened here is that in the spring, Israel killed the chief of staff, Hesbela's chief of staff, and Nostralla, the leader of Hesbela, sent out a message

Stop with the cell phones.

We need to go back to the basics, and we need to use handwritten notes, we need to use couriers, we need to use pagers. At around that time, and this is according to a lot of the reporting that's coming out of the region, and according to New York Times. They used a Taiwanese company for this. Hesbila ordered more than three thousand pagers to implement this new op SECT policy. The biggest probably not because you know, maybe hospitals or

Well, you can see actually if we can even roll a one again, if you're looking at it, this is they're surrounded at a market in this case, and you can see two little girls right there. There's two little girls on the other side of the fruit carts. So there are a lot of details about exactly how this was initiated and with what potential precautions. Who knows. Doesn't look like obviously when you see two little girls standing around across from the pager explodes so far, it seems preological.

Oh but just the finishings.

That's why there's so many so many people went blind and so many people lost their hands because it appears that they were like looking at it like what's and they're like, what's wrong with this?

And then it blows.

Now the Taiwanese company, to your point about the supply chain, is saying, actually that they made a deal with the Hungarian company that they would use the Hungarian company would just use the Taiwanese companies branding. But they were in charge of these pagers and they're saying these are not our pagers. The Taiwanese company is saying these are not our pagers. These are in fact from Hungary.

If you're the Taiwanese company, yeah.

Well now we're the Hungarian company. But that does at a wrinkle to how this might have been pulled off to your point about infiltration of the supply chain, right, and.

So what we have also learned is that the scheme was discovered this week or within the last week. A Hesbala operative became suspicious about the pagers and was planning to alert leadership about them. He was killed the reporting doesn't That reporting suggests that he was killed, was asassinated by Israel to stop him from telling the leadership. Then a second person found out about it and was and was planning also to tell leadership, and the plan would

So Israel faced this question.

Okay, the the pager plan was part of an invasion plan, like that's what the reporting says that the idea was, as you're launching the offensive, you blow up the communication system of Hesbola and at the same time Maime and incapacitate a massive portion of the operatives that that's and as a result, you then are more successful in your operation. Israel had was not ready to launch an operation or had decided for whatever reason, was not going to launch

Had an enormous operation clearly no matter what I mean to be able to have this tack right.

Or or the other choice is we pressed a button and we maim, you know, three thousand plus people, you know, kill You're definitely gonna kill some children and some innocent people, like there's just no question about it, because they're going to be near the pagers, but not for the operational value related to your invasion and so but it obviously would be a blow to Hesbela. But you're only in a kind of soft war with Hesbela. You're not in

Now, it's just well, we.

Could really hurt three thousand people or we could not, and we're going to go with we could. And I think what that shows is that there's really very very little contemplation about the idea of just coexisting. It's interesting because that's the other thing you could do, is you could say, Okay, you know what, we're actually going to sign the ceasefire deal, at which point Hesbelus stops launching

It's paying for.

That definitely, and it's you know, I take the cynical perspective on that. What do you make of So the Iranian ambassad Elebanon, according to reports, had a pager and was he lost one eye severely injured his other eye. That's quite interesting that the Iranian I mean, a lot of people would say that, of course the Iranian ambassador Lebanon had one of these pagers. But the geopolitical ripple effect of this, I mean, obviously, on the one hand, you know, it's hard to have a more targeted approach

Well, two things there.

One is so it reminded me of Jeremy Skhal's interview with the second in command of p I J and he asked me, you know, he said, you know, people accuse you of being supported by Iran, right, and the guy said, yeah, of course, yeah, we're allies with Iran, like so, yeah, they support our cause.

We appreciate that they support our cause.

Right, Why would we not accept their supports that's from our.

Perspective, that's great, and so yeah, Iran sports Hesbla. Iran's gonna therefore coordinate with Hesbelah. It is interesting that Iran hasn't even yet responded to the last provocation, right, the attack the assassination of Hondia outside of Tehran, And now.

There's another one.

And it is getting to a point where a lot of Palestinians and supporters of Palestine around the world are saying that, you know, Iran actually is apable. They don't think anymore of launching any kind of serious attack.

That maybe that that.

Very slow seventy two hour you know, drone attack that they launched in response to whatever previous provocation, Maybe that's what they've got.

Maybe that's it.

Maybe they weren't holding back, and now Hesbola, you know, seems to be seriously weakened. Like I don't know how many operatives they have, and you can always recruit more. But it's also a blow to their communication system because now what they do I mean, because they can go back to pagers, but now they're going to be you know,

Probably we can put the next element up on the screen, just breaking down the various other aspects here. So Hasbla is vowing to respond, obviously at this point, so Ran, one of my questions for you is to the point about Iran not having responded to the assassination of Hanea outside Taran. Yet, what potentially could a response from Hasbela look like? What might be what should people perhaps expect.

I mean, they supposedly have some significant kind of hypersonic missile technology that they've been saving, like, so everybody's been The thinking is that everybody's been holding back a little bit mm hmmm, because a they don't want a regional war and b they want to be they want to have their stockpiles if they do have a regional war.

In actually we should put a three up. Four Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush by Hamas fighters just yesterday as well, So.

Yeah, including I believe, and five others wounded three three quite seriously as well as as well as another Israeli officer seriously wounded in a separate clash in Rafice. So this, this continues to go on. This uh, you know this

And that brings us to the final element here. This is from drop site actually about the they'll just read the headline, you guys, a health numbers show. Israel kills two babies every day with no end in sight. Also, if you're just listening to this, the header photo on this Rhin is one.

Of those mass graves.

Yeah, and so Shreve hebdel Caduce, correspondent for drop site.

You may have seen.

He obtained the Health Ministry's latest data over the weekend and we converted it into a downloadable PDF form and a CSV that people can check out. Because it has of the forty thousand plus casualties, it has about thirty four thousand of them that have names and IDs and ages and birth dates and gender to them. There are obviously going to be some mistakes. People can go sift

It just goes on and on and on and.

On, Like the conflict itself, which to the point that this brings us to, which is there's really no end in sight.

There seems to be nobody saying like, well, what if we don't do this, what if we if we just coexist here?

Well, seems I think there is there is a deal.

There is a deal to be had.

Like Iran Lebanon the malicious who thies like they all have better things to do, like they all have domestic problems to deal with mm hm, Israel has better things to do, But there's just carry out a genocide inside it's occupied territories.

I don't remember if this was one of in one of Jeremy Scale's interviews, but even the persistent point that people are making, you know, whether it's from Israel or from Postinians or Hamas leaders, is what's the point of a so called ceasefire when we know it's going to happen a month later, two months later, six months later,

Yes, and while while Hania was negotiating the ceasefire and then was assassinated.

You know, he was then replaced as.

The top leader of AMAS with yasm War Now who recently put out a statement saying that Okay, if there's not going to be a ceasefire, we the Hohu thies has Bela, the the Iraqi militias, We're going to continue fighting and we're going to do it until we've driven Israel completely out of the region, which you know that the Hamas Charters supports a two state solution like that they have they have.

Been pressured into agreeing to that situation.

Now under this conflict, they're saying, you know what, all right, if there's no seasfire, we're just of it's going to be a war of attrition.

That there are.

Their belief, or their stated belief at least, is that because so many Israelis have other passports, they can because they can move to the United States, they can move to Europe, that as the economy collapses and endless war continues, that those citizens are going to choose at that point to move to those safer places. Whereas the Palestinians in the West Bengaza don't really don'tly even have that option,

Get to Egypt and then you can fight to go somewhere else.

But it's a massive uphill climb for that to happen. Whereas from their perspective, all in Israeli has to do is just go to the airport and fly to where they have citizenship, which goes to their kind of fundamental ideological belief that half the countries aren't aren't legitimately native to the region anyway. And that's that's what you're seeing in that, in that thought that they where they believe they can win a war of attrition because they don't

In the context of the story that we just had up on the screen. Two babies every day.

Every Yeah.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, jd Vance media critic, I should say. Jdvance put his media critic cat on yesterday in Sparta at an event in Sparta, Michigan, where the fallout from the cats and Dog meme cycle continues on the campaign trail. Let's go ahead and roll this clip of Vance criticizing media coverage of bomb threats that have come into various places in Springfield, Ohio. Since this really took off just in the last couple of weeks. Here's what JD. Vance had to say.

A lot of people who pretend to be fair journalists, you know what they've been saying for the last few days. Springfield has been experiencing an unbelievable number, something like thirty five forty bomb threats in Springfield and just the last and just the last few days. And you know what, the governor of Ohio came out yesterday and said every single one of those bomb threats was a hoax and

All right. Well, David from weighed in on this, and JD. Vancen responded to David from. Jadvance has been very online as of late to say the least, at least for a non Trump presidential Canada, that is to say, someone who is not Donald Trump himself. David Frum said, the difference the upsetting things said by Trump and Vance are not true. The upsetting things said about Trump and Vance are true. Trump really did mount a violet coup against

What about either of those shooters?

I'd say, what is makes some part of quote unquote David Frum's team? Also what is David who's David Frum's team Ukraine?

So there might be something to that one. In the very very like zoomed out Advance an advantage point that this was this suspect has been obviously a Stager and Crystal have been covering the Ukraine nut Ukraine nut right, and a sort of the most intense version of a hawk that you could find on Ukraine, on China. I guess roughly aligned with David Frump probably on those two policies in the abstry.

Maybe from needs to eat that one. The other guy, I don't know, not so sure about the other guy.

Yeah, we still have no idea, which is strange in and of itself.

But it does seem kind of funny that jd.

Vance wants you know, accurate, you know, once you know, precision and accuracy in the reporting on the bomb threats and wants context as well. When his original story that he was telling which led to these bomb threats led to them, whether or not they were pranksters from the little Russian troll Army or whatever he's suggesting, it is, okay, that's funny by the bomb threats, right, Can we can we acknowledge that that's funny that he's saying it's like foreign interference?

Yes in the election? Yes, okay, that's funny. Yes, that is funny.

They did, they were triggered by the stories that he was telling. You know, he has said, look, I created this story. Now what he'll say is what I mean by creating it is I repeated the story some stories that I had heard from constituents.

Right he was in context. That was one of the annoying things about the David Frum tweet is that he did that that legitimately if you watch that entire interview in context, he said that so poorly. I mean, just from a political standpoint, his com staffers were probably like groaning when they heard that. But in the larger context, he was saying, this is not a fabrication because my constituents have been coming to me for months, blah blah blah.

Right, But the claims don't seem to be standing up like they have found no missing cats and dogs. The original store of that claim has apologized for circulating a bum rumor, and she should. It's sad that she has to apologize nationally for.

She's posted something on Facebook.

Posted something on Facebook that she heard from her daughter, who heard it from a cousin who heard it from a friend. Like not a good source, like, not the kind of thing you would base a national story around. The whole twenty thousand number is also looks rather flimsy.

Some of the New York Times.

That's yeah, no.

But that's what I'm saying. That's why I think it's that's why I think it's taken off.

It's in the New York Times, well, right, but.

The Times reported it, which is where a lot of people source the number too.

Yeah, and I think the town manager, the mayor had said it like a year ago or something like that.

They had My rule of.

Thumb is be very skeptical of a nice round numbers, whether it comes to, you know, no contest bidding, like fifty million dollars from McKenzie as Matt Stoller reported, fifty million dollars. Okay, what are you gonna do with that? Don't worry about it. It's just two million bucks. We'll do

That's that's complicated.

Well and interesting.

Actually, yeah, And so Jayvan's on the one hand, wants wants his bigger truth to withstand the fact that a lot of what's underneath it isn't actually true.

But when it comes to the.

Bomb threats, he wants, you know, all of the motivations checked before people report that there was a bomb threat. If you're walking out of your school because the Russians called one in or because it was like a maga, dude, you're walking out of the school.

Either way.

I will say a lot of the media coverage the did implicitly or explicitly blame the bomb threats on jd Vance And that can that's an argument that can absolutely be made.

You know.

Jd Vance and Donald Trump were the ones.

That, however, wouldn't be doing it without right.

But here's where I think it gets especially interesting. And I'm just thinking about this from perspective obviously of a conservative. It's like Springfield, Ohio, the New York Timestead of follow up here. Estimates range between twelve thousand and twenty thousand. To your point, twelve thousand is a significantly different number than twenty thousand, although still a very significant number for the size of Springfield.

There's a serious population there patients.

Right yeah, according to city officials who have spoken with The Times, and those estments are based on data from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Springfield's public schools, healthcare providers, and social service agencies. So in the big picture, there's obviously a story here of strain and social on a social and economic level from this influx of migrants. And that's a story that can be glass empty or goss

But while it's true that they haven't covered Springfield, Ohio because it's a town of roughly fifty thousand people or whatever as a national story, I think they have covered immigration in a pretty hawkish way.

I don't think they've done a very good job of covering when.

The border like I I mean, Democrats talk about how the border is a complete disaster, Republicans talking about how the border is a complete disaster. The mainstream news media covers the border as a complete disaster, and related to that is the suggestion that there's like hordes.

Of people coming up.

I think from like an immigration hawks perspective of the media is serving up all the hysteria that you could want. Like, Okay, now they're talking about Springfield in particular, But have they really been well ignoring the question of the border.

Well, the question of I think integration of this Like that's what I think has been I don't think the corporate press has been entirely ignoring the question of the border, but the question of what happens once people get over the border and then seek to integrate in sometimes mid size, mid range communities Springfield Dayton area. That story is I think, very rarely covered, and it's an interesting story actually from the left and.

Over this one, the claim was that they're not integrating into the community, right, and the evidence for that was that they're stealing and eating like dogs and cats.

Well, no, I mean there are people talking at all those time console meetings about housing costs going up, about the problems with schools, about like I mean, those people being forced out of housing situations. I mean those there weren't just people repeating the dogs and cats stuff at those meetings. It was everything else too. And that's why I think it's unfortunate because even from the perspective of the left, there's a lot that could be said about

Right?

And what would what would the city look like without them? Right?

No, Seriously, I think that's super interesting and it doesn't have to be right wing. But I think like a lot of journalists are just stuck in this rut we're criticizing, and there are certain countries in Europe that have gotten out of that reflex. But criticizing mass immigration, which has clearly objectively happened, and I didn't say mass illegal immigration. I think that's important because a lot of the Haitian migrants,

And just to check out.

So I just googled the number of journalists in Ohio, and the first thing that comes up is from twenty twelve to twenty nineteen, Ohio lost forty three percent of its newspaper journalists. From twenty nineteen until today, you can imagine that the number collapsed much further.

I imagine if you looked at whatever.

The newspaper situation is in Springfield, the news situation is in Springfield ten fifteen years ago, and what it is more broadly from the Ohio papers, the Dayton Paper and also like the Toledo Blade and the others who cover the state more broadly, you'll see probably a ninety percent collapse in journalistic capacity totally. And when that happens, you only have time to cover the weather, traffic, new businesses that are opening, sport.

Local sort local sports, and a lot of times.

But like actual reporting on anything that takes effort, that what they call that enterprise at those newspapers enterprise reporting and takes enterprise to go and do it.

That is the thing that gets cut.

Right, and it often ends up coming from a bureau in a city tens like dozens of miles away at least, if not those bureaus.

Are shut right, So like those are the first ones that get shut down.

You have you know, the Cleveland reporters or the Columbus reporters reporting on Springfield Dayton as opposed to having a robust local paper and Dayton. This was one of the big things I think during the sort of school culture wars during COVID, I think it did a monologue on this. If we had more robust local news, that used to be the pipeline where a lot of the stuff got worked out before it ended up in the national media.

And yeah, it looks like Springfield was a victim of corporate consolidation from Cox Enterprises, which is this you know, you know Cox. It's like this gigantic behemoth of that gobbles up local news and then basically gets rid of all the.

Local in it.

Centralizes it at the top, combines it with radio and other local newspapers and basically just gives the same news with a slight tweak maybe one person in Springfield.

So that's this maze the Springfield Sun. It looks like.

In late twenty ten, Cox Enterprises merged all of its local media holdings under the CMG Ohio brand and consolidated locations. In addition, it's Prince Publications holds include a bunch of.

Different like radio and local TV.

So they're just consolidating at all and getting rid of all the workers lovely and then yeah, you're not going.

To get You're not going to get.

You know, you get what you pay for, or you get what you allow the oligarchs to control as this democratic society.

So let's watch this Hillary Clinton clip, which is a little bit of a pivot but gets into the broader conversation about disinformation. So this was Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow talking about what consequences should come to people who are allegedly disseminating Russian propaganda.

I think it's important to indict the Russians, just as Muller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting Trump back in twenty sixteen. But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of proper aganda, and whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever

You can vote however you want.

You just can't say whatever you want in a nice concession. Yes, we appreciate that.

Yeah, she's willing to compromise when they come to the table. You can vote however you want.

Now you know that in her heart of hearts, she thinks it should be a crime to a vote.

For Donald, to vote for Donald Trump right, because you're absolutely a Russian puppet and we can't stand for that.

And for her to go on television and float that some Americans should perhaps be charged criminally for repeating what she calls Russian talking points is amazing. It's utterly amazing.

Where is old leftist Rachel Maddow to jump in and say, excuse me, ma'am former secretary of state, what exactly are we talking about here?

I guess we don't look to former secretaries of the state to uphold principles of democracy anywhere around the world, so we might as well not look for it here at home.

But good lord.

Glenn had a great point. He said, if Hillary's Glenn Greenwell posted, if Hillary's insanely repressive measure were implemented, people Spring Disinformation could be in prison. The first two people to share a prison shell should be her and Maadow, who dround the country and Steele Dossier, Alpha Bank Service and other dementa debunct lies, which by the way, could easily have been Russian disinformation that was funneled intentionally to Christopher Steele, As Steele would be the sort of useful

All we can do is let a joy sort it out.

That's right, that's right. Disinformation very real. Punishment for disinformation also increasingly very real. And these two things are not necessarily or should not necessarily be related.

Well, well, amazing.

You have to have some tolerance for disinformation in a free society, of course, but I guess we're losing that muscle memory. Let's move on to Kamala Harris, who has done six interviews since being named the presidential nominee after President Joe Biden stepped down. Three of them have been with friendly radio hosts. I think we all remember how some of those radio interviews have been handled in the past, but she did sit down yesterday for fairly long back

With the local Philadelphia TV reporter.

So this one was really the longest exchange I think that she's had at least live since being named the presidential nominee. And this was at the National Association of Black Journalists. In conversation at an NABJ event. We all remember how Donald Trump's and ABJ said, down went, Yeah, it was perfect it was a perfect phone call. So let's take a listen to this answer that Kamala Harris gave on the economy yesterday.

We had been a lot of work to do to clean up a mess. As of today, we have created over sixteen million new jobs, over eight hundred thousand new manufacturing jobs. We have the lowest Black unemployment rate in generations. We have invested in small businesses and I'm to the benefit of many people, but including black small businesses. Some of the highest rate of creation of new Black small

And again I'm.

Speaking to the black journalists who care about all people, but in particular I'll talk about the impact.

On black people.

Clear we know black folks are sixty times more likely sixty percent excuse me, more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes. And we have now finally capped the cost of insulin for our seniors at thirty five dollars a month, cap the cost of prescription medication for our seniors at two thousand.

Dollars a year.

Because we, unlike the former president who promised to do it. We finally have allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices against the big pharmaceutical companies. And these are just some of the accomplishments. Is the price of grocery still too high?

Yes?

Do we have more work to do?

Yes? All right, do we have more work to do? That's one way to kind of handle questions about how you're part of an administration in which people still see grocery prices as being too high compared to the administration

That you have engaged black men and sinswered them and your economic opportunity tour, But polling shows that some black men, particularly a young black men are considering voting for Donald Trump, and they see him as better for the economy. What is your message to young black male voters who feel left out of this economy, and how can your economic policies materially change your lives.

So I appreciate the spirit of the question, but I'll tell you I've often been asked this question in a way that I've had to respond by saying, then, I think it's very important to not operate from the assumption that black men are in anybody's pocket. Black men are like any other voting group. You got to earn their vote.

For all people. So I have to actually thought that was a pretty good answer, partially because of what Nina Turner said. Nina Turner during the DNC told the Free Press that the Democratic Party kind of emasculates black men. From Nina's perspective, at least, I think there's probably some truth to that, and Kamala harrisoning I'm not taking anything for granted was probably the best way that she could respond to that. I don't know, what do you think, Ran.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And on the previous clip, I would love to have a politics where people are constantly competing for who can take on big Pharma.

More.

Yes, like Biden pushing through with the Inflation Reduction Act Medicare negotiation after the Democrats had ran on it in two thousand and six, and then when they took over the White House in two thousand and nine and had both Houses of Congress, they traded it to pharma in exchange for pharm and support for Obamacare, and then they and then they're like, it's just a one year deal after this and we're back at it. And then they claimed they were going to do it, you know, for

They did beat them.

And the Medicare negotiations, the insulant cap is a life, literal life saver, and the negotiations estimated save something like seven eight billion dollars for both Medicaren and seniors and also pushes down prices for everybody.

But it also is a huge kind of toe in the door.

So to have them I would love to see then Trump come back and be like, no, I'm actually going to be tougher on big farm.

And when I come in, he never does.

That's as you were outlining that I find it. You know, we've talked about this before, but it is so interesting that and Matt Sellier has actually gone back and listened to Trump's speeches from twenty sixteen and compared them to Trump' speeches from twenty twenty four. He was constantly railing not just against like elites, but against other corporate elites. And I say other because he would say I know the system and like these guys are and they're fleecing you.

Yeah, and they already have old people, so locked those old people in. He did do an executive order that had a voluntary price cap on insulin at thirty five dollars for seniors, which did help some seniors. And I've seen Trump try to take credit for what happened later in the Inflation Reduction Act. But you know, a voluntary executive order that applies just to seniors is totally different than a law that applies for everybody.

Across the country.

Yes, but I like to see Trump like upset by the fact that he got outflanked on that, because then hopefully it shows Republicans like this is a winning political issue. Yeah, clearly make people's lives better on a daily basis and then brag about it like that would be a cool politics.

Yeah. Well, there's really interesting studies of happiness in indigenous communities that have been basically isolated from technology, So people living like they did thousands of years ago, and one of the biggest sources, you know, they have pretty high levels of happiness. There are sources of stress or things

But matter of fact, President, just to follow up really quickly, is there a specific policy change that you, as as president of the United States, would say you would do that would help this long Because you know, you've gotten a lot of credit for emphasizing the humanity of Palestinians. But what I often hear from folks is that there's no policy change that would that either you or the President President Biden have gone and said they would do.

We need to get this deal done, and we need to get it done immediately, and that is my position and that is my policy.

We need to get this deal done.

But in the way that we send weapons, in the way that we interact as their ally, are there specific policy changes?

Well, Eugene, for example, one of the things that we have done that I am entirely supportive of is the pause that we've put on the two thousand pound moms. And so there is some leverage that we have had and used, But ultimately, the thing that is going to unlock everything else in that region is getting this deal done.

But what do you say to those that say that's not enough, that stopping the two thousand pound pounds the one time wasn't enough, that this administration, your possible administration, has to do more.

Well, we are doing the work of putting the pressure on all parties involved to get the deal done.

And that one kind of reminds me of Trump saying that he has concepts of a plan. Yeah, what did you make of Kamala Harris's response?

You make yourself either look like a liar or like you're just terribly weak and incompetent.

A caricature of a politics, or I.

Mean as a as a States person like, because either either you're lying and you completely support this war effort and are sending the weapons so that your weapons can continue to be used, which is the most logical reason you would send weapons to someone, or you're just such an incompetent moron that you that you run the most powerful empire in the history of the world and you can't figure out how to get a country of like seven million, eight million people to do what you want

That you fund and arm that country, right, Like, if you.

Can't figure out how to do that, how can you do anything difficult in the in when it comes to world affairs. So it either makes you look like you are completely weak and just getting steamrolled by Israel, or that you're completely comfortable and complicit in what is being done. He the Eugene just kept pushing like, is there anything you would do differently than the Biden administration anything? And to his credit, you know, she tried to use the

Yes, from the Biden Harris administration.

Yeah.

Yeah, And here's here's a policy that's not working and is in the twenties, and you won't divorce yourself from it. Therefore, you're either complete more on or you actually think it is working and you like what's being done.

Like there's really only those are the only two options.

Yeah, I think that's true. It's a failure by their own terms. It's either a failure by their own terms, or their own terms are.

Accept stature actually fine the status.

Yeah, yeah, exactly know what I mean. Again, Like we heard all DNC week about how close we were to a ceasefire, and I think they like having the ceasefire on the table politically because it makes them look like

Remember when you had Biden licking the ice cream and being like, oh, yeah, we're getting a deal by Friday.

Yeah, watch this drive basically yeah yeah.

That was I forget what month. That was many many months ago.

Jake Sullivan told net Yahoo in this cabinet back in November, like this has to be over by the end of the year.

That was twenty twenty three, Right.

We're closer every day, Ryan, Yeah, closer every day. All right, Well, you have some great reporting on Pakistan that we should get to tell you, so let's pivot.

Fascinating one.

Yeah, let's pivot to Pakistan.

So over at drop Site News, my colleague Martaza Hussein and I have a fascinating news story on the way that Pakistan is stuck in the middle of the superpower struggle between China and the United States. We can put this element up on the screen headline over there. Pakistan promised China a new militarized naval base, leaked documents reveal, And so I want to unpack what's going on here.

But let's roll back a little bit.

So one of the best examples of the United States shooting itself in the foot geopolitically came in nineteen fifty three through nineteen seventy nine. So nineteen fifty three, Iran, and I mean the US and the British go in and they overthrow the Iranian prime minister. There, the Runian prime minister had been saying like, hey, we got all this oil. Shouldn't this oil be benefiting the Iranian people, not just Western companies like British Petroleum, And we said no,

So, in other words, not only.

Did we betray our democratic, our ostensible democratic values, we didn't even get the thing that we wanted, which was a pliant kind of client regime that is going to be friendly to Western interests.

There are, despite Kermit Roosevelt's.

Despite Kermit Roosevelt's best efforts, there are so many examples of this throughout American history.

Today's story brings it up to the present.

Because now you have the United States intervening in Pakistan's democratic affairs to oust Imran Khan to then bring in a more pliant kind of military regime which we assume

You know why this is so important.

To the west, there is the Persian Gulf, so you get around this straight you're.

Heading into there's the Ue, there's Saudi Arabia.

That this is where you know, an enormous amount of the world's shipping, not you know, oil in particular, but shipping in general flows through and so control of this sea route is critical, not just you know, strategically economically, but also militarily in the event of a war. And so if you look at that port over there, you can see that it is, you know, one of one of the most important locations that you could possibly have.

Player in the Huti situation as well. Right fears that this could escalate into the Strait of Harmuz, right.

Right, that, and you've had all sorts of right literally right now economic difficulties around the world because of the way that the Hoodys have been able to shut down shipping around that area shows shows how, you know, shows how important this entire region is. So if you if you roll back a little bit, what's happening in Pakistan, and people should read the entire story to get the get the full.

Context of what's going on.

You know, Pakistan, the kind of prime minister has has had dominion over dominion is too strong a word, but has had influence over domestic policy. Whereas the military traditionally managed foreign affairs here in the United States, you know, the civilians are supposed to manage everything.

That's how and that's how it ought to work.

That the compromise those the military allowed and Pakistan's We'll let the prime minister do a few things internally, Imran Khan did things like brought about like a version of Medicare for all, like expanded healthcare to people. And they're like, all right, you know, and do that as long as we can still have our graft and we still control foreign policy. Fine, But then Imran Khan started getting involved in foreign affairs. He had a good relationship with the

Know, a Muslim band.

But they got along well, the two of them, the Biden administration and in Ron Khan not so well. He famously tried to get a call from Biden after Biden was elected.

Couldn't do it.

Like it just there was something about that relationship that the Biden administration wanted distance in. So then in June twenty twenty one, he sits down with Jonathan Swan of Axios actually Axios at the time, and Swan asks, you know, if the Taliban takes over in Afghanistan, you know, will you allow you know, drone flights out of Pakistan. That was a key element of the Biden administration is what they called over the horizon approach.

They said, we're going to project power over the horizon.

We don't need to occupy Afghanistan because our over the horizon capacity is unparalleled. Key to that over the horizon capacity was being able to operate out of Pakistan in ron Khan said absolutely not.

I'm not doing that, and so that is that was looked at by the United States.

As a as a major affront to them. Then, in February of twenty twenty two, i imron Khan had a long planned state visit to Moscow that coincided with the invasion Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The US tried to put pressure on him to turn around, come back, cancel the trip, or at minimum denounce the Russian invasion.

Imroan Khan refused.

He said, at a rally, he said, what are we your slaves that we're going to just do?

What?

Do what you tell us?

He said, We're going to remain neutral. We are friends with Ukraine, we are friends with Russia. This is a war between them because Pakistan desperately needs you know, grain from both, energy from both, like they don't. It's not in their interest to get in the middle of that conflict.

So, if you remember, Nancy.

Pelosi travels to Taiwan October September August September of twenty twenty two, and this is after they have ousted in Ron Khan and China goes to all of its allies and they want a full throated denunciation of Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

Pakistan demers.

They put out a little statement that's extremely mild, and it kind of infuriates the Chinese, like you're not gonna stand with us like you are we haven't. They call it an iron brotherhood they're supposed to have between Pakistan and China. In October of that year, as we report in this article, Badua, who's the military chief, finally gets what he's been banding of the United States or begging of the United States.

Which which is a state visit to the to the US.

While he's in Washington, he gets to meet with the top officials he also at at the Pakistani at Pakisian ambassador's residence. He meets with a bunch of kind of foreign policy heads here in Washington, and he tells them he doesn't really like the Chinese. They've always loved the United States. And he says two things that really raise eyebrows. To make the point, he says he loves American sitcoms

By the way, I'm surprised that you're willing to go to the mat for married with children given the various political incorrectness.

Satire, it's satire, absolutely genius, genius show. And he adds he doesn't even like Chinese food, so he's he's sending a very clear.

Very clear. This leaks out, of course, to the China, to the Chinese establish them as well.

And back in New York, the the Pakistani representative to the UN starts getting chided by the Chinese representative. They're like these sarcastic comments about no, you're best friends.

No, the US, like what you know, what happened to us?

At the same time, China keeps telling Pakistan, look, we do not see ourselves as in a cold war, a zero sum cold war with the United States, Like it is okay, if you want to have good relations with the United States, that does not mean you have to have.

Bad relations with us. We don't see it that way.

But what our reporting shows is that Pakistan understands that that's how the United States sees it, that they have.

To pick one or the other.

And so this whole time they're having very they're they're very difficult balance, but they choose the United States. They figure the United States is the way to go, and at first it starts to pay off.

As we also.

Reported, Pakistan not only stops becoming neutral, they start producing one hundred and fifty five millimeters shells for Ukraine because they're very good at making these low grade, crappy shells, which are the kind of shells they're important for this kind of stalemated war in Ukraine. We're just you're just lobbing endlessly, endless, cheap munitions at the other side.

And it's a boost to the Pakistani.

Econoy bost to pakistan economy, and the US secretly agrees to let Pakistan use this clandestine weapons program as basically collateral financing for an IMF loan that comes in, and so the IMF loan is supposed to help stabilize things cases the IMF loan because Pakistan is such a basket case and because it's not following through on any of its commitments when it comes to reforms, doesn't fully come through, and the economy keeps collapsing, and because it keeps spiraling

They go back to China and they're like, look, we love Chinese food.

We love Chinese food, married with children, really kind of problematic in some of its depictions.

Not a huge fan love you guys, What can you do?

And basically, the what that they need is they China has lent them a bunch of money that is coming due.

They need that.

They need those loans refinanced at a nice rate or else they're you know, completely screwed because they're not getting money in from anywhere else.

And so China is like, well, you know what.

We want, like, we want access to this this port at Gwadar, and also we want you to start protecting our Chinese citizens who are in Pakistan doing the Belton Road construction projects and which Pakistan had not been doing effectively. You keep having these terrorists attacks, you know, hitting these Chinese officials of Chinese started to think that. At first, they're telling them, okay, here's here's where the Chinese workers

They don't trust the Pakistanis anymore to.

Do the security. They want their own security forces. But that's a huge affront to sovereignty. It's Pakistan saying that they can't protect the Chinese civilians within Pakistan's borders and then have to allow foreign government to have its own security forces in there, which they would already be doing with a militarized port of Guadar. And meanwhile, because Pakistan's position is now so weakened, Pakistan didn't even get anything for this concession.

It's just just a concession now.

The documents also suggest that there is no timeline for the execution of this, that Pakistan is going to continue to try say, Okay, yes we've agreed in principle and this is going to happen quote in due time, as one of the documents says, but that doesn't mean necessarily tomorrow. And now that this reporting is out, I'll be the

And can you maybe give some contacts on the state of the Pakistani economy, because I think that gets to the motivations of Pakistan and navigating the difficult relationship or trying to balance US interests Chinese interest with its own interests.

So the IMF just announced that within a couple of weeks they're going to go to their final executive board meeting with a seven billion dollars.

What they call e f F.

A bailout, which right now, you know that the economy is a complete disaster, rampant joblessness. They recently put in a new firewall to try to censor the media, ran a lot of I think it was it.

Was time to some of our articles.

They've band drop site news inside Pakistan and it slowed the internet to a complete crawl. You've got constant blackouts, like the heat waves. They are insane, like they're getting hit with climate change, you know, worse than most other countries because of just where they are are geographically on

It's very much like Egypt where the.

We've got these like military run corrupt companies that are are that are just that just exists to basically, you know, make the generals get richer, and the generals then take their money. This is what's fascinating about the international relations. And they stash it in London and the US through properties and other other holdings. And so, yes, it's true that the Bodua likes married with children and doesn't like

It's we're great over it's great over here. We love it.

But what is really also going on is that their children are being educated here and their illicit gains are housed here, and that means we can snatch them. The Russian oligarchs learned that the hard way after Putin's invasion. You know, the UK and the US seized a bunch of oligarch property, and so.

We really have them.

Pakistani elites are tiled to the US.

We have the Pakistani elites kind of captured in the sense that it might not be in the interest of Pakistan itself to continue to have this tight relationship with US, but it's in their personal interest because we can just oh, yeah, is that your penthouse apartment?

Yeah, your yacht not anymore?

Another your sanctioned boom and once you're sanctioned, once it's snatched, you're done.

So we'll see, which which is why.

It will be difficult for them to actually execute and China knows it actually ex cute on this promise that they've now made.

One of the more interesting subplots of the war in Gaza right now is how China has distanced itself from Israel in the aftermath of the invasion. After October seventh, China sort of is trying to make inroads literally in roads with a lot of different countries around the world and sort of curry favorability and realized that it couldn't continue having this friendship between Net Yahu and Stujen Pang

Yeah, Publicly Pakistan doesn't recognize Israel and is critical, but privately it is quite friendly and on good terms on the size, on good terms with with Israel. Whereas Moron Kong would have you know, if he were free now he's in prison, you would be one of the most vocal critics of of what's going on.

There, as would his supporters if you were.

Yeah, yeah, but as it is, it's it's new, you know, the country is neutralized when it comes to that comes to that question. But I think what from China's perspective, Africa plays a huge role in this in the Global

Favorable to a rise of multipolarity.

Yeah, there's so many layers to this, so fascinating, great story, interesting stuff. A lot of people won't be able to read it. In Pakistan unfortunately.

Well they call it Vpnistan because everyone there has a VPN So I think people are gonna find ways to get to it, and.

I'm sure they will. All right, So coming up, we have an interview with Matt Walsh about his new film, and it's going to be quite an interesting conversation Ryan, so.

Sure well looking forward to it.

We are joined now by Matt Walsh, who is out with a new movie called Am I Racist? That is in theaters around the country. Matt obviously hosts upon him as show with the Daily Wire. Matt, thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me of course.

Yeah, now the movie's doing pretty well. One of the I don't know if it was a coincidence or fate, whatever it was, as it happened when your movie was released last week, everyone was debating whether a very particular post on social media was racist. So we thought we would play a little game of was it racist with Laura Lumour's infamous curry tweet. If Kamala Harris wins, the white House will smell like curry and white House speeches

I mean, by the definition advanced by the DEI industry, it certainly would count as racist. I wouldn't call it race. I think it's just kind of a dumb joke, not very helpful joke. And also, by the way, I like Indian food, so I think when things mell like curry, I'm a huge fan of curry personally, so I don't see that as an insult.

But look, someone.

Engaging in stereotypes, it might be insensitive, it might be unhelpful politically, but it's not necessarily racist. In fact, I would say it's often not racist, because to me, what racism means is that you hate people of another race and or you think that they're inferior to you in some way inherently because of their you know, immutable characteristics.

So that's racism.

And as long as you don't feel that way about another race of people, then you're not racist. You might you might have stereotypical views about another group of people. Everybody does, but it's not automatically racist if you don't also harbor that ill will towards them. And as far as whether or not, sort of the real answer is that with the Laura lumertweet, I wouldn't say that it's racist. The only person who can answer whether it's racist is her. We'd have to ask her, well, do you hate people

Although she's a Trump supporter, she wants Colma to lose. Presumably she's making the point in a negative way. Right, this is a bad thing. That's a call center, and she's saying these are all bad things.

This is an interesting point about stereotype.

By your definition, make.

It, cause stereotyping is often leveraged to say that there's something negative that is generally attributed to someone of a different race.

Right, that's it's great, it's negative.

She means that it a negative, right, because we can assume that she thinks things smelling like curry is a bad thing. I guess not a fan of Indian food. But you can believe, or engage in, or repeat negative stereotypes and not be racist. You might just happen to think so. For example, I give another example, somebody might say, you know, Asians are bad drivers. I don't know if that's actually true that I'm not sure. But if you happen to believe that it's true, does.

That mean that you hate Asians?

No, it just means that you think that Asians buying larger bad drivers.

It doesn't mean you hate them.

It doesn't mean that you're racist against them.

Although it could mean that you think there's like an intellectual inferiority, or it can mean you think there's a cultural reason that they're about at driving in Western countries.

That could be.

I mean, and no one thinks that Asians are or intellectually inferior. I think everybody understands that they're that's one of the other. Because stereotypes can be positive to another stereotype is that they're very good at math and science and that.

Sort of thing.

So you know, there are generalizations you can make about groups of people that.

That can be largely true.

And you know, I'm not sure I've ever heard of stereotype or I thought to myself, well that.

Bears no resemblance to reality.

I don't know one of you could think I've never heard of a stereotype, where I said, I don't even know where that comes from.

That's just falling out of the sky.

Usually stereotypes arise because you know, society has observed things about groups of people, and they could be negative, they can be positive, But I don't see them as inherently racist.

Now, we have a clip from the film that we want to roll here, let's go ahead and play this. This is from the dinner scene. Matt. You've probably seen this one hundred times by now, but sometimes let's take a watch.

I used to be a white woman, an unsuccessful one for many decades, and it was a miserable experience. And really, the hatred of yourselves and each other is like the most the not seeing your power, the being afraid. Like all you do is talk about each other, talk shit about yourself.

My god, fat, that's all they do. I'll tell you he's a white woman.

But that's it. I'm so fat, I'm so stupid. I'm blah blah blah.

Sorry, your kids are watching you, and they're watching you talking shit about each other, you know, raging against the machine or being silent or whatever the hell it is that you're doing or not doing, and they know that you're not doing shit for them.

Important. That is so important what you just said, it's it's really important.

You may have to add.

I would love to take a seat.

You're not allowed to.

How did you get the cameras in there? By the way, Like, what's the set that up for us? Yeah, they're not hidden cameras that obviously they're like cinematic level. Yeah. Absolutely, everybody knew. Everybody's miked up, and everybody's.

Miked Everybody knew they were being filmed, and they thought they were being filmed for a documentary about anti racism, which they were, because that is what we made do uh so we you know, that's what we told people were making a documentary on anti racism.

They know you were involved in it. Probably not, probably not.

So like this, so this waiter, like, they didn't they didn't know the way that the waiter was part of the film.

No, No, they didn't.

They didn't, but they knew you had to be miked up because everybody in the kitchen and everywhere else had signed the thing.

Is that how that worked?

I don't know.

I know, I don't think they knew that I had a mic on and we tried.

I wanted to sit at the table at the race to dinner and be a part of the conversation, but we were told that they only accept women to be at the table, which I thought was interesting because then our next question is, well what is a woman, which kind of harkens back to our first film, and.

Later do sit down in that scene?

Yeah, well, I kind of invited my I earned my seat at the table, I invited myself to be a part of the dinner and I felt.

As a man does painful Yeah.

Did a little man splaining to the women, and they seem to really enjoy it.

It's weird to me because they famously I guess it's not so famous, but they back in. I mean this was years ago, this was pre COVID. There was a podcast called Femmesplainers that Danielle from Crittenden Crittenden from and Christina hoff Summer's hosted where they had a similar experience with Cyral Raw over the race to dinner stuff. And you'd think they would be way more careful, but it seems as though maybe they let their guard down.

I don't know, Yeah, that is I guest. Of course, I get this question all the time. It's like, how did they not recognize me? Or how did they not ask more questions? And I guess I don't know the answer to that question, but I do think that the answer I generally give, I think it's correct, is that a lot of these people live in kind of a bubble. So number one, they're not as aware of you know, people outside that bubbles we.

Assume they are.

So me, as someone in conservative media, I'm actually outside of their bubble, which is weird to me because I know everybody in liberal media because I keep I want to know what they're saying.

So I kind of assumed that they do the same.

You're familiar with Ryan Grimm, noted liberal journalist Ryan grim.

So he's right about twelve percent of the time, which I appreciate that.

But they so they're kind of in this interesting.

Bubble that they don't not only I didn't know who I was, but also I think it was kind of inconceivable to them that they would ever find themselves in a room with someone who doesn't agree with them. I think it just never occurred to them because this's never

Part of the twelve percent that I've been right about over the years, I think has been that I do think this entire DEI industry is a grift and it's just milking corporations, and also that you've written about that, yeah, and that it is actively harmful in the sense that when like corporations. Actually, I actually do believe that corporations oftentimes internally do have racist structures set up within them.

Actually, how could we possibly be racist?

Like we spent this money to bring these consultants in, and the consultants then are then cover for they're more systemic racism to be allowed to continue without being interrogated. What it does is it turns the interrogation inward, where you say, well, these structures and.

These corporations can't be challenged.

What we really need to do is look inside and find our own racism. And because we're all born with it or whatever, it's just inculcated in us, none of us are then responsible for it, and so therefore we're not responsible for actually changing anything on a system wide basis. But I'm curious, has somebody who spent so much time within this grift of a system.

Like, what was your take on these folks, like.

Do they believe what they're saying or have they found like a consultancy that is that they're able to get money on and they're kind of now locked into it.

Yeah, it's well, the short answer is, I don't know exactly if they believe what they say, but I but it strikes me that they probably don't believe much of it, especially the parts of it that are so absurd on their face. But there's a lot of money in it, as we discovered making the film. And then of course there's a lot of power and influence, and also there's the it must feel very good for them to be consulted as these kind of moral experts.

And so that's what they that's what they get out of it. So it's actually not very complicated.

That's why they're in this because they go money, power, influence, Right, it's the tales told as time. Now on the other hand, you've got so that's like the Robind'angelo's of the world selling the books, making millions of dollars. But then you've got the people that are actually buying the books and who are going to the race dinner and going to these seminars that we kind of crashed for our film.

It is speaking to something. There's like something going on inside them.

I don't know if it's just like a kind of guilt or something that they carry around.

And a lot of them are secular.

They don't have religion, and so this becomes kind of like a replacement for religion.

I don't know if that's part of it. I think it's probably part of it.

Yeah, I feel like those people have kind of correctly identified that they were raised in a society that still does have racism as part of it.

As I think and multiicocial society always will.

Well, it's their way of kind of trying to confront it. I think it's ill thought out, But I understand where they're coming from.

But what I would say to, yes, there's still racism in society. There always will be. I mean, as long as there are different races and is living together, you can have racism. I think we have a lot less of it than pretty much anywhere else on earth. But the whatever racism you find in society now is individual. It's not systemic. It's not in the system that these systems are not set up to disadvantage quote unquote people

That's what affirmative action is like that.

The only time you ever find a policy that specifically says, here's an advantage that you can't have if you're a race. The only time it ever says that is if it's singling out white and or Asian people. It doesn't go the other way anymore.

Well, so what about even people on the right now are saying Republicans have singled out Haitians. And this is an interesting segue because we're just talking about multiculturalism and how wherever you have different people from different backgrounds races, ethnicities put together be some types of discrimination, and the goal of the culture should be to minimize that. Has there been legitimate racism directed by high profile Republican lawmakers?

No, absolutely not. I haven't heard it. Everything I've heard has been critical of the fact that we're importing, you know, thousands of people from the Third World who are coming into communities and.

Look, America.

Nobody thinks that it will benefit America to become more like Haiti.

Nobody thinks that.

Or I would challenge anyone if they do think that, to explain how that's the case, Like, in what way could this country be improved by making it more like Haiti? When you look at Haiti, what part of Haiti are you saying to yourself we need more of that?

Beaches?

Well, we have more beaches and then too, right, don't we We're much bigger counts.

We don't want a marine invasion and occupation of the United States that constantly decapitates governments and takes takes the money out of the country, and yeah, saddles us.

We don't want the Clinton's debt from a revolution. Yeah right, although I don't. I don't.

So you were saying that we wouldn't want to be like basically a colony that the entire West spends two hundred years punishing after the Haitian Revolution.

I get that.

I understand that, but also at a certain we wouldn't want that. No, yes, we wouldn't want that, But I would also say that that, uh, that's not entirely why Haiti's in the position that it's in. I meane, at a certain point, as a country, you have to stand on your own two feet and take care of yourself.

But what point is that. Let's say they they elect Aristete, and we overthrow Aristete, then they elect joven el Mois.

Joven El Moy's is assassinated a bunch of a bunch of people with American connections, and then we install in twenty twenty one, like the United States installed the prime minister that we just ousted, like so we could say, okay, yeah, you got to get over the you know, two hundred years ago, but like we're still doing it.

Yeah, I mean, and I'm not in favor of I I'm very non interventionist in my policies, so I'm not in favor of most of the things that we're doing in other countries.

We just made the new government in Haiti in a hotel room in Jamaica, and then we insisted that whatever government we made in Jamaica had to allow Kenyan police, Kenyan troops to come in under the flag of the UN in order to go to war with the gangs.

Yeah, I'm not Look, I'm not interested in if it were up to me, I'm not interested in doing anything in Haiti like let Haiti be Haiti and take care of That's sort of my whole point here. Let them take care of themselves and their own problems. I'm also not saying that there's like never a scenario where we let someone from Haiti into the country.

But it doesn't have to just be about Haiti.

But when you're throwing open the gates and just inviting any one in particular, you know.

Your assumption there was that it is Haitian people that are creating the conditions on Haiti, and then that if the Haitian people come to Springfield, they will recreate the conditions. But I don't think any in Springfield, Whereas what I'm saying is that it's actually the US that is.

I don't think you can entirely like largely, but it's still a country comprised of people, right, but.

Without its own autonomy. Okay, but you can't.

I don't think you can entirely put it on the United States like Haitian people have nothing to do whatsoever with the state of.

Their own country. Nothing.

I mean, I think that's a bit absurd. I'm I'm perfectly willing to, as I said, agree that a lot of the United States sort of adventurism and the interventions in other countries has been unwise. And I'd prefer for us to focus on our own country and not try to build governments in other countries. But at the same time, I think that you can't completely absolve the people of

And I say that of all nations.

You said earlier that we have less racism here than lots of other countries, which I think is we have their fair point to make. And obviously you would acknowledge that at some point in our history we had lots of racism.

Sure, lots of racism, then less racism.

Now, so when did we get to a point where it wasn't systemic and it was no longer a problem that we as a democratic society need to deal with?

Like, what was the moment in your mind?

Well, I'm not sure that you could point to one exact moment in time when when it goes from a systemic issue to not systemic anymore. But what we know for sure is that right now we are certainly in the moment where it's not systemic.

Any time in history, well i'll answer your question.

Yeah, any at any point history when you can go back and look at actual laws and policies that were in place that deprived Black Americans or any other group of rights, well, that was a time when you had systemic right and we know that that existed historically. So if you wanted to point to an exact moment, I mean, I guess the most obvious moment would be the you know, the Civil Rights Act, But of course these are changes

Quote unquote people have.

Called I have a question about that. A lot of conservatives will say there is one policy, and this is you know, you're about as anti abortion and prole life as it gets. A lot of conservatives will say a remaining institution of systemic racism is abortion because it disproportionately, as conservatives make this argument, affects black children and black families is that an example of systemic racism or racism period?

And I think it's a mistake when conservatives make that point, because I think conservatives are very desperate to be able to do the whole thing where they turn back on Democrats and say the Demons are the real raceist. Yes, And I just think that's a lame move, and you're trying to use the left zone language against it, which I think, I think it doesn't work because you're accepting sort of their premise. So what I'd say about abortion is, no,

But does it exist for that really?

Is planned parentod? Is that why they exist right now? Because they want to kill black babies? No, planned parent exists because they want to kill babies and they don't care what color the baby is. They just want the money that comes from it. But it just so happens

They might, but that doesn't mean that they're intended to do that. You know, just.

A disproportionate number of Black Americans end up in prison, Does that mean that prison that that's why the prison is there to put Black Americans in it? No, the reason why disportionate number of Black Americans un under prison is that, unfortunately, this proportionate number of Black Americans commit violent crime.

That's just what the stats show.

And so but so, there's an argument that a system is what it does and that claiming otherwise is just kind of hocus pocus, just magic. Like if the system produces a certain result, but you, as an observer of that system, say, well, actually, that's not what the system.

Is supposed to do. Those words are just meaningless.

What about the system just chews them up and spits them out and produces and continues to produce the result that it produces its like, for instance, doin Jim Crow, you know, pre Civil Rights Act, You've got laws on the books that are systemically racist that allow for you know, straight up racist results.

And when it comes to design of the system, was explicitly zion.

System is aimed at producing segregated schools and low income household I mean low income neighborhoods that are predominantly or almost exclusively populated by Black Americans. Right, you then pass laws that reform those laws, that make it so that you can't legally do those things anymore. Yet the power structure broadly remains in place, and the results stay the same.

The system never stopped doing it.

There was never a day from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday that all of a sudden the system stopped working in the same racist way, which we acknowledge was racist when it was written into the law. Although the system and it's not because we you know, struck through that one line.

But if we agree that the you say, the system is what it does, I probably disagree with you on that. I mean, what the system is intended to do is what it certainly matters here, but.

Why But what also, like, why would it matter what we intend a system to do, Like because the.

System produces a robust Nigerian middle class, like people who come here from Nigeria. Tomsul makes this point, it's a point that's popuable.

Then that's a defense of the system because that's what it does.

Right, That's what I'm saying. So does that go both ways?

No, because the intent of this my point is that the intent whatever you intend a system to do is meaningless. Like if you if you intend for a house to have a roof and a second floor that is sturdy, but when you walk into the second floor you fall through it.

But that doesn't reflect on you. But that doesn't reflect on your anti roof sentiments.

Yeah, and also doesn't matter.

And also to use your analogy, if you walk into a house and uh, there's a problem in the house, you can't automatically assume that it's the fault of whoever built the house. It could be depending on the problem. But you also have to look at who's living in

I mean, would you agree with that at least? No?

I do think it's still designed that way, but it's designed in a way where it can't be litigated because it's not so in law.

Okay, but that's so.

Can you point to me an exact point of the system, an exact place in the system, a policy that is designed to deprive Black Americans.

Of rights, the.

Same people that design the system to protect the wealth of the upper class, you know, in the forty you know, throughout American history, like continued to be in condition.

But now you're talking about class, not race.

I'm talking about race, right, But how do you disrupt class if you're so segregated by I mean, how do you disrupt race you're just so segregated by class.

Well, but I don't think you can bring class into this because I mean, I would agree that there's we could talk about class. We could I agree that there are elites who care about themselves and don't care about the lower class. I would say that those people are are are just as unconcerned with a white person in trailer park in Appalasia as they are unconcerned with the black person in the inner city. You know, because so

Okay, So if you go to Georgia, for instance, after they implemented desegregate school desegregation, what they started doing is saying, oh, okay, well, we can't legally keep black people out of our neighborhoods or out of our schools, but what we can do is we can secede from our neighborhoods. You've been to the Atlanta suburbs like every four fortunately, like every four like every four blocks. For for a long time, you had like new school districts, and they would be drawn.

Well, but what I'm saying, do you think primarily in the minds of the designers of the system, are they are they actually discriminating intentionally on a class.

Basis pre race pretty race driven?

I don't.

I don't think that there's any evidence in it. I think, like an example you give, it's class. It's people wanting to avoid crime written impoverished areas, not you know, maybe someone doesn't want to send their kids to school in a place that's high crime. There's gonna be a lot of delinquency and everything in the school system. I don't think it's because the kids are black. It's just because

Here's another point that rarely comes up. Pretty simple.

You can move right, so you can always move. I mean, if you live in a community where you're claiming it's been set up systemically to disadvantage it it I don't buy that, But if I did, I would say, well, you should probably move from that community. I mean, you can go somewhere else. It's not there's no law saying you can't. And if there was, I mean, if there was a law saying.

Some hoa situations will like act try to but they're not going to say you can't move here if you're black.

It's also why a lot of black community groups support voucher systems to allow like work with conservatives on voucher systems to allow kids to get to different schools.

So so when you see stats to say, like a black home a black homeowner who's trying to get a mortgage, who has a higher credit score and higher income gets a higher interest rate from the average bank than a white applicant. A bunch of these studies have been done where they'll they'll put in like a black sounding name and higher credit scores, higher income, you know better, better candidates on paper other than their name, and they get a overall like there have been so many studies that

Can you pay the down payment?

You know, twenty percent is an awful lot for this mortgage generational wealth. Yeah, So you combine the fact that they get they have to pay higher interest rates with the fact that there's lack of generational wealth.

That's that to me is systemic.

But I'm curious specifically on the interest rate question, what's going on there and should that be a problem now we as a democratic society should address, like why are black loan applicants paying higher mortgage interest rates across the board? And that is replicated across the economy.

Okay, I'd have to look at the studies you're talking about. You say that they've been replicated at time and time again, there's no issues with the studies and there's no issues methodolo.

I'm sure that people could pick some of the studies apart, but they it's well accepted.

Yeah, I'd have to know who is accepted by exactly. But so for the sake of argument, let's say that that those studies are totally legit. I would still go back to a class issue on that. And the reason is that, look, banks, but the white can we explain like banks care about the money. That's all they care about. They don't care about These banks are not being run by people who are saying, you know, we got to keep black people poor. I don't care about that. I

You know, if if I think.

That the banks would have the same sort of skeptical, discriminatory attitude in that case as they would to someone who they're assuming is from the inner city.

Let's say, right, but so the other. The other word for that would be implicit bias. So let's say the banks, we have a heart, but let's say that. Okay, well we got to wrap in a second. But let's say the banks you only do care about money. That's reasonable

Me to migrate out. My head is Ryan. Great.

I don't even think it's you can't even tell that I was white trash, right. I mean you can if you like, you know me pretty well, but you can't tell on a resume or an applicant.

This is a record, Yes, you were in a tie and everything there you go could have fooled me.

What I would even call it implicit bias.

I think it's just like banks, Uh, they are biased against people they don't think that.

They don't think we'll pay their mortgage.

Basically right, and so why don't they think a person with the black name will pay their mortgage?

Because I think in that case, spite a high credit score and a highest income, if.

That is true, then they're making assumptions about they're making class based assumption. This is someone for this, a lower income person coming from a low income neighborhood, even if their current income is you know, the same as uh that that's the background, and.

So people sounds like those people face a systemic pub well.

Class based But that's that's what I'm talking about.

You're getting told, yeah, we're gonna be in the year. Matt, thank you so much. Is a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed the movie.

Ryan, wou'd you think it's funny. I'll acknowledge that the movie is funny. Then these guys are cloud on the poster. Guys are total clowns.

Matt Welsh, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you appreciate it well, Ryan, I actually.

Thought that was really interesting. We had a lot of questions that we couldn't quite get to because that exchange. We wanted to sort of let it play out, and I think the reason for that, and we wanted to ask about anti semitism and abortion, and Matt's actually coming on my Unheard show tomorrow, so I'll probably try to I'll even take questions from Ryan Graham if you have

Yeah, I mean, I just think if you're a black person born in this country, you face systemic difficulties that a white person doesn't.

I think that's true. Yeah, I think that's true. You'll probably get him to agree with that to some extent too. It's just I think it's a question over the scale. At the end of the day, we disagree over like maybe the scale or the scope.

Yeah, well, Supers.

I thought that was even going to be like, I don't know that. I thought that was just really even listening to your rebuttals was I think so helpful. And I hope everybody in the audience enjoyed it as well.

Hope so too.

All right, well, thank you so much for joining us for this week's edition of.

Counterpoints Friday Show. Right with that as the Friday show.

Right, we did a we wanted to get this out today. We didn't want to wait until Friday to get this interview out, so we just attached it to the regular show. So we will be back here next Wednesday, of course, with more Counterpoints. Subscribe over at breaking points dot com you can get early editions of the show. You get the full edition of the show straight to your inbox early, so it's a great deal.

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