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What do we have, Crystal, Indeed, we do government shutdown possibility. This week we will break down the details of what exactly this fight is over. Also, there was a rash of mass shootings over the weekend, truly horrifying stuff. Will break down for you what we know about those killers and the loss of life. Therein bbe bragging about acquiring TikTok, Guys are.
Definitely going to enjoy that segment.
We've got Eric Adam officially dropping out of the New York City mayoral race and some people calling on Sleiwa also to get out of the race. So it's a head to head spoiler alert alert. Quoma would still loose to Zoron, but some interesting stuff there. We've also got Zoron going back and forth with the ADL. Trump announces
invasion of Portland. Ken Clipenstein is going to join us with the latest reporting with regard to their national security crackdown and comedians flocking to a big payday in Saudi Arabia and a lot of dissent within the community.
So that's an interesting one for sure.
Yeah, there is some things to say about it, and I'm excited actually to cover that and at least get some culture in the news. Thank you to everybody who's been supporting the Showbreakingpoints dot Com. We've had banner Monk here on YouTube, so thank you all as well for those If you can't support the show, no worries, just please go ahead and hit the subscribe button on YouTube. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, please just go ahead and rate us five stars and send
an episode to a friend. It really just helps us grow word of mouth. The best advertising there is, and we don't spend a dollar on any of that. All right, let's go ahead and start with the government shutdown. As Crystal said, tomorrow is the official deadline at midnight, and it does look all roads currently lead to a shutdown, although we will talk soon about whether the Democrats will
cave or not. But here we have the initial word from the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, basically saying we're not negotiating at all, calling the Democrats bluff.
So we'll see what happens. Let's take a listen.
So just to be clear, there's not going to be any negotiation at this meeting. This is just going to be you and Thun and Trump telling Jeffries and Schumer we're not giving you anything.
Look, I'm not going to get in front of the President and tell you what he will do, but I've talked with him a couple of times, even yesterday, and I'm telling you where his head is. He wants to bring in the leaders to come in and act like leaders and do the right thing for the American people. It's fine to have parties and debates and squabbles, but you don't hold the people hostage for their services. Allow
your self political cover. And that's what Chuck Schumer and Haikim Jefferys are doing right now.
So basically saying we're going to go to the meeting and we're going to tell them we're not negotiating. This is going to be them telling us we are not giving you anything. Mike Johnson, that is where the president's head is at. And so the Republican strategy is kind of interesting. This has been telegraphed now for quite some time. We were talking about it a bit before the break, and there is the biggest question in Washington is are the Democrats going to cave because for years they went
after the Republicans for manufactured shutdowns. They called them reckless, they said they were holding the government hostage. But the thing is now the Democratic base is like, yeah, I want to do some of that. They're like, give me
some of that. Let's screw over Trump. But the X factor here is that Trump, and we'll get to this in a little bit, is also like, listen, if you guys are going to shut the government down, then I'm going to do some crazy stuff here and I'm going to fire a bunch of government employees.
I'm going to do whatever I want with the government.
You know, the president has a ton of unilateral authority on how to actually execute a shutdown. I remember the twenty thirteen the quote Bayner shutdown, as Obama called it at the time. They were furious because the Republicans shut the government down, and Obama was like, all right, I'm going to close all the national parks. And they're like, well, you didn't actually have to close the national parks. He's like, yeah, but I can to show the public what you're doing. Eventually,
you know, they did cave. To be fair, there was a government shutdown under Donald Trump.
I covered that.
Day in and day out. He caved completely to Chuck Schumer and to Nancy Pelosi. It was over border wall funding. But after a while he folded completely to the pressure. A lot of the public was actually pretty upset about it too. So shutdown politics are very very hard to predict. But yeah, the big question are the Democrats going to fold?
No idea well, and so it really rests on Chuck Schumer's shoulders because the dynamics here are you know, they need to pass the funding bill. The funding bill, because Republicans have control of the House, has already passed the House, so that's done and dusted. Now it needs to get through the Senate. The Senate you need Democrats help because of that sixty vote Philibus rule. So that's why you have this dynamic. And you know, there's no doubt that
Schumer wants to cave. I think he didn't want to do this to begin with, to be totally honest with you, and he's but he's feeling the pressure from Democratic base that's like, when are you all going to actually fight? And you know, the dynamics for Democrats are pretty grim. They don't have you know, they don't have the House, they don't have the Senate, they don't have the presidency. So this is one of the only times that Republicans
need them. There was another time earlier in this Trump administration where the base again really wanted leaders to fight. The Democratic leadership decided not to fight at that time and to completely stand down. They have been raked across the coals from their own people ever since that moment, and so that's why they feel pressure to do something this time. So what they've decided to draw the line
around is these healthcare subsidies. So they're really making a stand saying we are not going to vote for this bill unless you restore these Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. And the basic dynamic is you've got Republicans kind of divided on what to do about those subsidies. I think
that's why Democrats see this as a winning issue. Not to mention, obviously it's very popular to continue the subsidies because if you don't, you're going to have millions of people who ultimately will be unable to afford healthcare through the AC exchanges, and you're going to have premiums spike
dramatically for some twenty two million Americans. So there are a lot of Republicans, including actually Trump's polster Tony Fabrizio, who have warned about these premium spikes, saying, hey, Republicans, if you guys let this happen, this is actually going to be a political problem for you. You have some
Republican moderates who want to extend those subsidies. Some were hardline, like fiscal hawk types who don't want to extend those subsidies, and so that's why they kind of pick this issue for the fight because they feel like it's a popular one and one where the magabase is divided.
No, it's smart. I would I'd give it to him as you. By the way, two ACA members here right as small business owners, so looking for at eighteen.
Pcarity money expensive thank you present drum for.
That one, especially when you have a child and your premium goes up by fifty percent and you're like, oh wow, okay, all right, now imagine having a couple of them.
I can't even put myself in that headspace.
But the point actually around this is I think they backed their way into a shutdown, and that's very much the same way that the Republicans back in twenty thirteen. And also I'm trying to remember a few of the initial Tea party waves is look, they just want a shutdown, like at the end of the day, and then they would pick the issue of which they were going to fight and try to mobilize the base on at the end of the day.
It's like the Seinfeld thing.
It's like a shutdown about nothing, but it's a shutdown for the sake of satisfying all institutional politics. I do really wonder though, how this rubs up against Democrats, because they really were the party of norms and of perpetuating them. And that's still where the Senate broadly is, right like, that's who Schumer. Schumer and a lot of his sixty five, seventy or eight year old colleagues, these are institutionalists.
They don't like to see what the Republicans did.
They hated Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and these new bombers. And the thing is, because we're not yet in the post twenty twenty six period where some new blood of some sort is going to come into the Democratic Party, who would really be rallying this. Yeah, the Republicans right now, or they're Democrats right now, are so torn. And you see this in Schumer's comments. So here was wh already had to say recently just yesterday on Meet the Press, Let's take a listen.
The bottom line is very simple, Kristen. It's up to them if they come into the meeting to seriously negotiate. And the reason we've been pushing for months, we've been resolute that we need a meeting, that we need a real negotiation. That you don't do this by one party putting together a completely partisan bill and saying take it or leave it. So they felt the heat. The President at first said no member. He first said yes for
a meeting, then he said no for a meeting. It went on a rant against Democrats, but I think they felt the heat and they now want to sit down. But the fundamental question hasn't been answered yet, and we'll see on Monday.
I mean, you know, we need a kind of weak in my opinion.
Yeah, Well, did you see his answer when they asked him like, oh, what are you going to do? We're going to cover Trump threatening Portland with invasion, full force if necessary, and they're like, what are you going to do about this? He's like, well, I would hope there are some Republicans like dude, and you were laying this ount like this is really kind of the fundamental divide between where democratic leadership is and where the base is.
Leadership is still in this like sort of normal politics mode, like I'm going to reach across the aisle and we're going to get a bipartisan deal done, and we want to maintain the norms and institutions, and the base is like, no fucking burden down, Like even if there are consequences, even if it's risky, we want to see you fight and even on the healthcare thing, Like what the base would really want them to fight on is healthcare? Yes, but also you need to get your troops out of
American cities. Like the sort of fascist crackdown aspect of the Trump administration.
Is what the base is.
What yah is where the base would really want them to pick a fight. I'm underdow illusion that chucks youroomer's going to pick a fight over Israel. But you know, those are the areas where I think the Democratic base is most inflamed and would like to see them fight. They're like trying to be I think you said this too cute by half. With the healthcare thing, Yes, it's a really important issue. Okay, we're talking about millions of people cost of healthcare.
This is critically important.
But you can also kind of see just like the political machinations are a little too negative. Like we pull tested this and this is what our focus groups said, and this is where we know that the mega base and the Republican electeds are divided, and so that's why we're picking this particular spot as well.
Absolutely, we should also think back to the way the Republicans did. I mean, look, if you want to take a page out of political effectiveness. The Republican Party has been very good at this over the last decade or so. The twenty thirteen shutdown was broad. It's not just the twenty thirteen shutdown, because some of that was ACA. But to be fair, that's where the Republican base was, right.
They were like, no, we're done with Obamacare. The future fights that the Republicans picked with Obama were all on illegal immigration, which, by the way, the polling was not necessarily like on their side, quote unquote.
But that's where the base was.
I think that's the reason why is because they had tea party, like the Dems have still not gotten truly smacked with reality about where their base is. Eventually, you know, after the Dave Bratt stuff with Eric Canter, they're like, all right, you know, it's a matter of political survival. They're like, this is what we have to do. Bratt beat Canter purely on the issue of immigration. And then obviously Trump comes in twenty sixteen wins the primary probably
based on that message more than anything. And so when you put that together and you can also see that's what fight and being you know, that's what fight and with the base politics and trying to move the country. Looks like that's what a real political effective party ultimately is all about. And so with Trump though, and this is where the norms thing is all going to come into play, because Trump doesn't care about norms. So let's go and put a three up on the screen. He
just gave an interview to a CBS sixty minutes. It was by the phone, So we're just pulling some of the quotes. He says, quote, I just don't know how we're going to solve this issue, Trump said. A source close to Trump told CBS the president privately welcomes the prospect of a shutdown because it enables him to wield executive power to slash government programs and salaries. And so that kind of leads into a four. We can put that on the screen. Behind the scenes, the White House
is very happy about a shutdown. They say that they can just use it as an excuse for mass layoffs, for deregulation, and for military deployments because you know, one of the things with shutdowns is they always pay the troops.
So it's one of those where you know, everybody pays the troops.
Everybody make sure the Social Security goes out, everybody else kind of comes down. But the thing is is that because of their extraordinary powers, as I said, the executive under a shutdown, while technically is not supposed to be able to do whatever it wants, it basically can do whatever it wants and declare whoever they want essential. So for them, they're like, oh, okay, cool, so we don't have to run this Department of Education, we'll just do
ice the military and Social Security. They're like, good luck Democrats, right, And I mean kind of smart to be honest, because you know, they've they borrowed that page from previous shutdowns under Clinton and under Obama, where as they continually had to as the executive started to grapple with what shutdowns means, they became very good at saying, all right, we're going to use it for political purposes.
We're going to do whatever we want.
I think the Democratic response is Trump is whatever he wants anyways, Right, that's so yeah.
I mean it's funny there put that headline back up on the screen, because it makes the point they're like layoffs, deregulation, and military deployments. He's literally already doing all of those. So that's why I think you know, the base in particular feels like where's the threat, Like this is all You're already doing whatever you want with your executive power. You're already acting like a king and have zero checks on you. So this is the only bit of power
that Democrats can wield whatsoever. So that's why they're like you have Chuckture where you have to fight, you have to do something here, and you know, I mean, the problem for Democrats is that their leadership is extremely weak. They're extremely poor messengers. Trump is an extremely effective and relentless messager. And that's what the shutdown politics end up usually boiling down to, like who can message the public better?
You know which side?
And look, the Democrats have a decent hand to play because they can say, listen, just give us, just make sure americans health care premiums aren't.
Going to go up.
That's it, Like that's all you have to do, and we'll go along with your thing. Why is this so hard? Many of you are saying you want to do this anyway? So they have a decent plan to play. Do they have a decent player to play that hand?
Really? Not so much.
Yeah, let's go, let's go through the history of the government shutdowns. So the most recent government shutdown was the one I believe under what prolonged government shutdown. There's been mini shutdowns, you know, twenty four hours or whatever, they didn't really matter. But in January twenty eighteen there was a three day shutdown. That's when they did a filibuster over DACA. But ultimately they caved, so you could see that it wasn't particularly successful. The big one was the
thirty five day shutdown. I have the timeline right now in front of me. That was December twenty two to twenty eighteen. I remember because Trump was in the White House all alone, and he was like, I'm all alone here in the White House.
Democrats, He's like, please wild times.
That one again was over border security, and even though Trump dragged it out for a month, he ultimately cave. Because what happens is and this is all about timing as well. The longer it goes, the executive seems to get some of the blame, even with good politics or good messaging, just because people are get sick of no government services or you know, here in Washington, I mean, we feel it the most right because we have all these federal government workers but in general, like the federal
government is the biggest employer. You never know, we could listen, we're heading into hurricane season, like you really want them to shut down with her, It could be politically disastrous for the administration prior to that. So this was a twenty thirteen shutdown. That was the ACA one that was sixteen days, and then obviously President Clinton had a twenty one day shutdown over with Gangridge. I'm not as familiar
with the details of that one. I've read a little bit about it, but broadly it looked like Clinton was the victor in that shutdown. In the twenty thirteen shutdown, I think it's pretty unambiguous that Obama was the broad victor on the politics there. If you think with Trump he was definitely the loser against Schumer and against Pelosi, there's no honest assessment because he literally gave up nothing after thirty five days. So that's what I mean. We
just don't know where these things will go. I think it'd be smart for the Demoscrats shutdown. I mean, look, it's not only where the base wants it, but also because the base is already pissed off at Trump for like extraordinary action and he does it. Anyways, it's like okay, whatever, I mean. Look, it's kind of in a bi directional. The Republicans base would also love it too. They're like, great, you.
Know, but now we get to do whatever we want.
So I don't see as much and I don't know right now, and put my money on Dems caving at some point, either immediately. I don't know if they'll cave immediately, but a seventy two hour shutdown and then they're like, oh my god, Trump just fired fifteen thousand employees.
You could see it.
One thing to mention about the previous shutdown that you said, you know, Trump loss and Pelosi and Schumer won. Pelosi and Schumer Pelosi is a much better tactician, much fiarsier, much better messenger, think and feel however you want about her. She is a much better politician than Chuck Schumer is.
I think that much is totally clear. So this now resting on the shoulders of Chuck Schumer and like kind of King Jeffreys is like, shouldn't be too confidence inspiring here in terms of, you know, have the Democratic base being able to pull off something that approaches a victory. The other thing that's we're saying is let's say that that we're wrong, that is actually Trumpet case. That's like, oh, you know what, I want to make sure everybody has
that healthcare. We're going to do a great thing for the people. We're going to make sure everybody is healthcare. Right, let's say that he does that. There is nothing that would require him to keep that deal, because you just had a Supreme Court once again shadow docket ruling that essentially allowed them to go forward with what's called a pocket recision, meaning that Congress can authorize let's say, the ACAA subsidy extension, and then he can just decide not
to do it. The Supreme Court now hasn't ruled officially fully on the merits of that, but until they do, and God only knows when that will happen, he can do whatever he wants. He is not obligated. And this is completely different. Okay, power the person is supposed to be with Congress. Supreme Court has at least for now greenlit him being able to back out of whatever deal that he strikes here and say, now you know what, I changed my mind.
I don't want to do the healthcare subsidies.
Ultimately, so that's an important dynamic to keep in mind here as well as we move into these negotiations.
Yeah, let's put a five on the screen.
I've seen this a lot of progressive Democrats passing this one around.
Oh my god, So you can't make it up.
In the midst of shutdown planning, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has circulated an invitation for a quote NAPA retreat.
On over the wine Cave is back.
Yeah, I was gonna say the wine caves, wine cave. So the government shutdown. The retreat would fall on what might be day twelve of the shutdown. The itinerary features accommodations at the Hotel U ten Bill with a resort and spa that extends a Tuscan European vibe, and a wine tour and didn't her at the Staglan Family Vineyards and emidst Its wine Caves. The plan for the luxury trip comes amidst Trump administration's threat of mashed firings for
federal workers. A Democrat briefed on the event tells US is also slated to include a representative, Hailey Stevens, who is campaigning for a state's open Senate seat. As a gritty daughter of the Midwest. So and that's important with these Michigan Dems. Slotkin recently talking about remember when she was on Colbert after our show and she's like, its just corn fed folks. No, they're not okay, like CIA people are not corn fed folks. Well bear Yale Harvard, yeah, graduate, you know, yeah.
Just stop.
Well the other thing, that's just a little note there is So this is a d SCC.
So that's a.
Democratic Senatorial campaign committee, and they invited Hailey Stevens, who's running in the Democratic primary for that Michigan Senate seat. But she, you know, she's up against two other significant contenders that would be abdulal Sayed and Mallory mcmarrow. This is also the d SC putting their some on the scale for miss Haley Stevens, who, by the way, has received some five million dollars in Israel lobby funding.
So just so you know, yeah, that's I don't know, Dems need to get their act together with the base, like you guys need to fight and I know, look it's coming from me, just you know whatever, But I don't see like at this point, the Tea Party Action people were barnstorming the country in this point in the Obama administration, they were everywhere. Yes, the cope is always oh but that was all billionaire funded. Oh yeah, there's no Democrats who found the billionaires Like, come on, like,
what are you guys doing? Uh?
Yeah, but the billionaires don't want this, why not like what they don't want the Yeah, they don't want the you know, pro the like pro Palestine that you know, tax the rich. That's where the Enterry Party and that's not where the billionaires are.
And get your shit together because at this point, like you need to organize, you need to do something, because you are not currently on track to deliver the type of success that the Tea Party was able to because that was about money plus grassroots. That's ultimately, and I think the grassroots. Everyone always tries to say the Tea Party was AstroTurf. Sorry it wasn't. It was like actual mass outrage. Yes, there was a lot of money backing in that helped, you know all that stuff. This is
the truth with all grassroots style movements. There's money in all kinds of special interest groups. It's only when you have an issue that actually resonates are you able to do anything. So if the Democratic base does not going to have their billionaires, then do something about it. Like you need to form your political action committees, get out there, create the litmus test for candidates, actually just hammer the
shit out of them. Create and find your slate of issues and where you and then you have to hold the line. You're like, if you do not support doctor issue, we will not vote for you. Like if you do not commit immediately to making sure that we're no longer with Chuck Schumer, that we're going to defund Trump or whatever, pick your issue, then you're not going to do anything. Because in the absence these Hailey Stevens people can always
come around. This is what this is what the pro Republican establishment politicians we do put fighting against Obama and they're like, ooh yeah, but we need you to fight against Obama on our terms. You don't just get to say fighting Obama.
Same thing here.
You can't just say, oh, drump is bad. It's like, is that it right? Because that's the easiest possible slate. I don't think the dums have gotten their act together period. Obviously not going to come from the national level, but I don't even see it at the grassroots level, like people need to show up. You know, there's some campaign canaries in the coal mine. You've got Zoron and yeah, he's an extraordinary politician, very just different circus circumstances, very
very liberal city and base. Like the what made the Tea Party extraordinary was we're going into the blue dogs and we're blowing them out. You know, we're going into the primaries, We're primary we're making their life hell. Eric Canter spent more on steak here at a steakhouse in Washington than Dave Bratt spent on his entire campaign, Like you got to fight back against that.
Yeah, I hear you on all of that, and I do want to see more. But I will say also with Dave Bratt, it's not like you would have said, oh there's this organized like Dave brattmoth.
It came out of nowhere.
And there are a lot of things like that that are happening. So just to name a few, obviously Zoron, obviously, Graham Plattner we already named, checked Abdul said, who are drawing really hard lines and saying we're not going to vote for Chuck Schumer. We are you know, pro Palestine.
This is genocide, like going hard. You also have Corey Busch has jumped back into the Royals, Yeah, against Wesley Bell, who's one of the top like APAC recipients in Congress and constantly shilling for them, just signed a letter against recognizing a Palestinian state. You've got Shoycott Chakrabadi, who was
AOC's chief of staff, who's running against Nancy Pelosi. Actually don't think Pelosi has officially announced, yes that she's running again, but he just released some internal polling that showed him actually firing pretty competitively with her, which is a that is a shocking turn of events that anyone could even be in the race. So and there are there are more many that I don't even know their names. So
you do have these dynamics playing in primaries. You're right, and I ran in that twenty twenty twenty ten cheap party year, so I can tell you.
For sure the energy was real.
Right.
There was funding you know from the Todd There's no doubt about it. But there was also a genuine like backlash to Obama that was being expressed at that time.
There's no doubt about it.
Here.
You have also that.
Genuine Democratic based backlash, but somewhat more in CO eight and less sort of like organized than it was now. It's worth saying too, it is still pretty early, like we're still you know, the formation of primary fields is happening right now, and part of why Schumer feels like he has to do this, which is not something he wants to do again. He feels like he has to because he feels the heat from his base. There's no doubt that if he runs again and AOC runs against
him in a primary, like he's going to lose. And he's aware of that polling. I'm sure he's aware of the way that people perceive him and how they don't see him, and because he hasn't as being any sort of a fighter, and so even the fact that they're picking this fight is an expression of how they are fling pressured by their own base.
Very well said I just to people, don't if you're too young and you don't remember the Tea Party.
Here's what happened.
Plus sixty three GOP seats plus six GOP seats in the Senate, plus six GOP governors, the biggest midterm victory for a party since nineteen thirty eight. You have that same type of energy if you want it at the wrong level, right, And I didn't even get into that the state leg thousand state legislators, it.
Was massive, and which that the terms were redistricting, which ended up being you know, it continues to be consequential.
Very well said. And that's my point is I don't I just don't see that. Yeah, here, okay, I have it here twenty state legislative chambers which flipped, which was specifically important for the twenty ten census for redistricting. That's what power actually looks like. I just don't see it yet. It could be right, it could come. You can have some organic but there's a big difference, let's say, between a twenty five point swing and the sixty points swing.
Like to make it extraordinary and to just like punch the administration like if you want it in the face. But I don't know right now, there's not enough seriousness of taking control. I think it largely has to do with the establishment and the way that they think because fundamentally, like to their money, bottom line issue set, et cetera.
It really is an existential threat. But you got to keep in mind it was it was very similar for the Republicans too, Like for a lot of these establishment Republicans, the way that they did business back in two thousand and nine was completely disrupted and destroyed. Like you can only teach them by hitting them. There's no other way. So we'll see. I don't know I personally again, I
think that thems are going to blink. I just think that they're so married to like the federal government as an idea that the mere prospect of mass firing, like you're gonna put it against up.
You know, you're gonna put it.
Past Trump to fire twenty five thirty forty fifty thousand workers like he will, right, and they're going to freak out about that. That's what a big part of the twenty eighteen shutdown, part of the reason the Trump cave.
But the big Democratic message was.
All of these federal government employees are not getting their paychecks right.
It's devastating.
So that there's like a religious marriage between the bureaucrat and the Democratic Party that I'm not sure at the institutional level, I don't know if they're willing to stomach you know, what it takes to actually go go through.
No.
I think, like I said, I don't think Schumer wants to do this fight. He's forced into it, and so I think probably his plan is like, let me put up some sort of show of resistance and then once, you know, I get credit with the base for having allowed to shut down to go through or stood up to Trump or whatever, then I'm going to find some way to walk back from this ledge.
That would be my guess of his plan.
Don't you think a seventy two hour cave is worse than just shut down a cave in just cave?
I don't think he I don't even have to say I don't think. I know that these Democrats are totally out of touch with where the base is and what they want and how sort of radicalized they've become in this moment. And part of their radicalization is about what Trump is doing, and part of it is about the
failures of their own media apparatus and their leadership. And I say I know that they're out of touch with this because in particular, you know, one of the manifestations of this frustration is obviously on Israel, and you still see them all out there trying to find some middle ground and tiptoe around it. Hakeem Jeffries still not endorsings around. I mean, it's completely insane, and it's like you all have no idea how loathed you are by your own
Democratic base. I mean, Zoran outperformed to keep Jeffreys by like twenty points or something ridiculous in his own district, and I don't think they've internalized that. And I'm not sure what it's going to take for them to internalize that. I don't know what their Dave Bratt moment is going to be, but one of those is coming where they're going to realize like, oh, we we really are in trouble here with our own people.
You know why.
I also because politics should matter, you know, the expression
of your voters should actually matter. And you know, the one thing I think you can say about the Republicans is like they mostly do what their base kind of wants them to do, and they don't really care they do about about you know, the media or whatever, and there's just too much institutional elite worship and fundamentally, like that's where my war is with these you know, the kind of that bipartisan Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer type style leadership.
These people need to go they're largely the ones responsible for even the reason like where we are where we are today. So yeah, I would like to see them be punished and punished badly, And because the voice of people actually should matter, and political leadership is supposed to be broadly reflective, and there's actually no way to solve existential questions if you don't actually tackle them, and if you just kind of put your blinders on and look past it and pretend that it's all fake.
So we'll see.
I am an accelerationist though, So that's me, all right, I've always been contradictions.
I think that's good. Let's get to the shootings.
Okay, very grim situation unfolding over the weekend for separate mass shootings. Let me give you the top line for all four, and then we can take a look at the I guess the most deadly one, which was a Mormon a shooting at a Mormon church. So four dead and eight wounded there. Perpetrator was also killed in gunfight with cops. You had two killed and five injured in a casino in Texas. You had one dead and others
injured in a neighborhood in Pennsylvania. And you had a gunman who killed three people and injured five others at a pack North Carolina waterfront bar. That suspect has been taken into custody. So I'll give you some details on all of these, but let's go ahead and start with this Mormon church shooting, which was absolutely horrific. Can put these images up on the screen. You can see the church was not only so a pickup truck rammed into
this church. The killer then shot indiscriminately at people. We don't have a lot of details about the exact sequence of how this unfolded. Law enforcement is also saying there were IED's which were recovered from the scene. As I said before, the death toll has now risen to four killed an eight wound. Did this was a Mormon church that was in Michigan, so truly horrifying series of events.
Here.
Let me go ahead and show you some images of the truck that rammed into the church.
Here, you can see it there.
People noted right away, of course the American flags in the truck bed, and then also there was an a rock War veteran license plate on that truck. And sure enough we actually put before up on the screen. It turns out that the alleged will say killer here who also was, like I said, killed by law enforcement in
a gun battle pretty quickly after this all unfolded. By the way, law enforcement is getting a lot of credit for their rapid response preventing even additional loss of life from this horrific situation.
So looks like this was in a rock war.
Veteran Thomas Sandford I did as the gunman who attacked this church, killing too and setting it a blaze. Don't know a ton about him. He does have a young child roughly ten years old. He is married, served in a rock for I think roughly four years overseas. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what law enforcement had to say.
This is B three during this incident.
What we know right now is it a forty year old suspect from Burton. He's a male. He drove his vehicle through the front doors of the church. He then exited his vehicle, firing several rounds at individuals within the church. Ten gunshot victims have been transported to local hospitals at this time, including one who has been deceased. Officers who
were trained immediately responded to the area. One was a DNR officer, and then one was a Gramblank Township officer where they met the suspect and they engaged in gunfire with that particular individual, neutralizing that suspect. And that suspect is no longer with us. As I said, it is a forty year old male burn.
So, as I've announced, are we have no idea about the motive here. Of course, everyone quick looked to see what this guy's political affiliation was. He appears to be Republican, but it also appears like this is someone who was a veteran of one of our wars who apparently lost his mind. I mean, they're starting to talk to people who knew him, haven't been able to press, hasn't been able to get in touch with the family, Like they're
not responding on no surprise there. But the people they were able to speak to were like, I would never in a million years think that this guy would do that. They're one thing they're looking at. I have no idea whether this is related or not. But the day before this shooting, an attack occurred. Russell Nelson, the oldest ever president of the Mormon Church, died at the age of one hundred and one and then this is obviously an
attack on the Mormon Church. Police are looking into whether that's linked in any sort of a weird way, but it appears that this is, you know, someone who was mentally.
I interview posted late last night of a local politician who was canvassing the area and he actually interacted with the suspect for his testimony, and what he said is that when he listened anybody who's involved in public life, and you and I have been in this situation before, you get to meet the bottom two percent of the population who are like mentally ill and schizophrenic, who have kind of crazy ideas, And he apparently cornered this local
politician and had that classic side of mental illness. We're on the surface, perfectly nice guy. Within two minutes is talking about how LDS is the anti Christ the Mormons, So you know, it looks like a listen. I mean, the Mormons are classic target, unfortunately for a lot of
people involved in like these wars over Christian theology. And it's very easy target in particular for somebody if you're mentally ill, and you're if you're steeped in all of this and look pure speculation, but you know, it doesn't. It's not a far leap to say somebody who's served in Iraq, you know, if you look at the suicide rate, mental illness rate, and the effect of what all that takes, not to mention, I mean, didn't seem to be doing
particularly well, like was living in like substandard conditions. So you put all that together with what happened, and it's very you know, it's very very tragic incident. Especially the Mormons always have been targets for people, for people like this, and it's really sad. I mean, you know, it's just these are people who are gathering some of the people who were shot, literal children.
It's Sunday.
It's supposed to be like a sacriscancic place. So it's just it's a horrific tragedy. But it's one of those where when you put it together broadly, and I unfortunately I was not here for the ice shooting.
You guys did a good job.
But the point around it is just look at these guys. It's like a rampant mental illness throughout the country, and in the veteran case. I mean, look, we all agree, I think that nobody does nearly enough. It's highly inefficient. Even though the VA spends a ridiculous amount of money per patient, the services and the administration that they do is it's it's a disaster. Most of the veterans I
speak to almost always have a substandard experience. It's very easy for guys like this to slip through the cracks, and it's obvious. I think it's pretty obvious to me that that's probably what happened here. You know, four eight some of the worst year serve in Iraq than you have. You know, a prolonged period of time, mental illness can
happen very quickly. It can be exacerbated, as we've talked about at length about drug use online, just periods of time you know, you can snap and the slide through that is not a surprise. And the fact that this local politician is saying, I canvas this guy and within minutes he's telling me about how anti christ nailds yeas, it gives us a little bit of an insight.
Right yeah, Well, and that wasn't the only murderer shooting mass shooting by a rock War veteran over this weekend. So we can put this next B five up on the screen. This was at the North Carolina waterfront. So they say a lone gunman killed three people, injured five others at a pac North Carolina waterfront bar late Saturday.
Police are describing me as a highly premeditated attack. This guy who now calls himself Nigel max Edge, she changed his name to that, who's forty years old, detained by the Coastguard, charge with recount first degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, five counts of assault with the deadly weapon another and he's another veteran of our war on terror foreign wars. So you know, we don't know that much about this individual yet what he was doing and
saying police are calling this premeditated. We don't have a motive for this one either, but again fits with you know, the pattern of Look, we send these you know, mostly men overseas and have been commit these horrific acts that haunt them. They come back home, they have very little like support in terms of reintegration into society, and then downstream from that you have, you know, horrific acts like this. This is not too like I'm not trying to like smear merchant veterans whatsoever.
Quite the customary their fault they're reporting a disastrous situation.
Yeah, I'm saying that we should be. We should pay a lot.
More attention than First of all, we shouldn't get into these foreign re wars and an outside of these individual violent incidents, there is a long term societal correlation of after you have a war, when people come back, there's a spike in violence, there's a spike in crime. Not to mention that, then you you know you have in
our culture, it's a mass gun culture. One of the things that are in common with all of the mass shootings we've been talking about lately is all of these men were very proficient with firearms and been around them, you know, highly trained on them, et cetera. And you know,
that's one of the dynamics here as well. But you know what's interesting is there's been very little journalistic interest in the question of what the blowback has been from what we did to these individuals when we sent them overseas to for you know, the Iraq and Afghanistan war in particular, I had to go back to There was a two thousand and eight New York Times investigation and they identified one hundred and twenty one homicides that were
linked to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans from two thousand and one to two thousand and eight, and they found that was an eighty nine percent increase in such cases during wartime compared to before we went to war in a rock, so they were able to establish somewhat of a at least correlation and an uptick. And you know, you had similar instances after the Vietnam War as well that were
you know, tracked closely too. So you have mass you know, mental illness exacerbated in the veterans population because of what they've seen and what they've done and what they've been through and the total lack of support and complete neglect. And this is also not to let off the hook these killers, by the way, or just analyzing here the societal trends, and you know, we end up with this explosion of violence and looking around and going why does
this only happen with us? I don't think it should be a mystery when you consider the combination of a combustible gun culture, rampant untreated mental illness, and a society that's kind of coming apart at the same of.
Course, I don't think you can deny any of that. I mean, I know the gun culture thing is one of those where people really latch onto and I get it. But you know, if you look at it practically, like we've talked about the Charlie Kirk shooting at nauseum is a bolt action rifle. It's never getting banned under quote unquote It's it's not going to be banned under even the most extreme liberal gun control at all.
I am fairly hopeless about any sort of gun control measure that would really deal with the problem for exactly the reasons you're stating. But in analyzing all of these things and why we have these mass shootings in other countries, don't you have to name it as a fashion because I mean, part of why, yeah, and part of why Tyler Robinson is able to allegedly take that shot is
because he's he's raised in that culture. He's very comfortable with weapons, he knows what he's doing, he's a proficient marksman, et cetera. Yeah, So that's I'm just pointing to those fact think, obviously these are military trains.
No one's going to deny that having four hundred million guns in the country does not make it unique. I think it's just frankly a constant. It's not going to change. And I mean, we've had a lot of debates here. I don't really think it should change. But and you know, if to echo what Charlie Kirk once said, when you have a nation with the Second Amendment, you do accept a certain level of violence that is not going to be seen in other societies.
That is a simple constant.
Now, of course, you know, everyone always liked to post that as some sort of own It's like, well, you know, if you have other countries they don't have like even close they have, you're worried about authoritarianism and fascism and all that. In America, It's like, well, look at a lot of other countries which are Western but with no guns.
It's very very different in terms.
Of their culture and the level of subservience that those people put up with from the government.
So that's part of what the check is supposed to be.
Now, all kinds of debates about AR fifteen's and you know, magazines, et cetera, most of which are think it's silly and broadly doesn't work. But dealing with what we were dealing with where we are right now, the veteran piece, the mental illness piece. But also look, I mean I was not able to join for that Ice shooting, but I'm thank you for bringing up on my behalf. Drug use and weed use was a big part of it, and everybody just wants to move past it and listen, it's one,
it's not all of it. But oh, it just turns out that the ice shooters quote obsessed with weed. I've been trying to tell people that the reflections of what we see from legalized marijuana, from just this culture of degeneracy. Turn on football. You know, I've been watching football this season because I can't leave my house from the bait. Everything is just Rby's gambling and booze. It's like, oh, do we do anything else in this country other than get fat as shit and watch TV and drink alcohol.
Apparently that's not what anyone and the few spare bucks they should probably save you're going to put on your shitty parlay, which are one hundred percent going to lose. It's like an opiate of the masses, quite literally, and that leads to a lot of downstream hopelessness.
I talked about this with gambling.
If you look at the data legalized gambling and in particular, when a home team loses, the data tells us that domestic violence goes up. That's what we're dealing with here, and it out put the actual like money and stakes and all that. Part of the population in a three one hundred and thirty million people, one percent is a lot of people. That's millions of people. They're gonna go crazy.
That's part of the issue. And everyone's like, well, just because one percent is going to do it badly, It's like no, but sometimes the one percent is so bad that we actually should consider what the you know, societal norms and all this this discussion around it. Like with alcohol, most people can drink responsibly. One out of seven people canot drink responsibly. It causes all kinds of crazy downstream effects. Are we willing to accept hundreds of thousands of duys
and debts and drunk driving et me? Not really.
I think we should do a lot more.
To actually reduce alcohol consumption or the health effects obesity.
Well, we'd have done more than anything to reduce alcohol consumption.
Okay, yeah, oh fantastic, it's so great, But now we just have what violence skits those who are shooting iced detainees, what a great trade that we all both should go down.
So that's not going There are parts of what you're saying that I agree with, and I think, you know, I view it from you know, from a leftist lens of First of all, addiction is very profitable, right, That's why the food and the algorithms and the gamble, like everything is set up to addict you and keep you locked into whatever that thing is. So that's number one. And you know, I see a lot of these things
as being downstream from the policy and societal choices. So, you know, I don't know, like the ice shooter, I don't know that his weed use was related. It could also be that's attempt at self medication is often the case.
That's not self medication.
Then if you're taking something that literally makes a certain percent of his users go violent skitzo, then it's not medication.
Sorry, I'm not saying it's like effective self but that's that is what a lot of people who you know struggle with, like weed addiction. They feel it is self medicating. They're trying to check out of a life that feels horrific to them. And so in any case, to say like the weed is the cause of the violence. Well, the weed could be a correlation because you have someone who's struggling with mental illness and isn't getting treated and
they're treating themselves. And that's what I'm trying to point out. In any case, with these two dudes, we don't have any sort of wead connection that we're.
Aware obviously, so I think it's going to come out.
But you know, if you like, there's a big temptation to sort of draw a circle around all these things and try.
To see because we've had this.
Rash of them, and try to tell a story about it, you know, some very natural human impulse. And it could be that there is no real story to tell about
all of these disparate shootings and murders. But if I had to try to tell a story, you know, they all seem to spring out of sort of the the societal ills that we're struggling with, right, disaffected young men, political extremism, the blowback from our endless you know, wars, and what we subjected you know, these young men and women to when we sent them overseas to fight and die in these like base in moral, pointless wars that
only made things worse. All of those sort of chickens are coming home to roost is what it feels like right now. And you know, to add one that'll you know, serve some of your your points. There was also put B six up on the screen. There was also a shooting at this casino in Texas.
This one.
We really have no idea what the this is Korean Jones thirty four, what the motivation was, what's.
Going on here?
I don't have any more information for you, but you know, you could imagine what might have been going on. Why someone would be angry at a casino. You know, that's certainly a possibility. And then did we put B five B up just so people could see the picture of the Yeah, this is the guy that's accused of murdering
the people at the North Carolina waterfront. Now his story in terms of his service, he was actually injured, I think shot four times in a friendly fire incident and suffered severe you know, like brain damage.
Because of this.
He was actually, as it says here, he once escored in this American Idol Star to the Country Music a Wards because he was you know, sort of like a minor cause to lab because of the injuries that he had suffered, et cetera. And then after that you can just imagine like a sort of downward spiral and how you I mean, I can't really imagine how you end up in this situation where you're murdering people, but you
can certainly imagine a downward spiral for this. No one who is already was suffering with this brain injury.
We're not absolving any of these people.
We're showing like we're trying to look at the on the gambling point.
I mean, look, Vegas.
Anybody who lives in Vegas will back me up on this because I've spoken with people and I was telling you guys about it. The amount of suicides and Vegas parking lots and hotel rooms is shocking. The LVPD and others mostly try to cover it up because they don't
want to affect tourism. But the amount of violence, as I just talked about, domestic violence when people miss their parlays and they end up beating their wives, lots of alcohol use also used to alcohol and weed use combined and shocking people start to commit crazy crime.
Same thing.
You know, there's just something about people who get driven to the brink. I've seen it, have you ever been to a casino and you see somebody who is gambling out of literal like within with something a look on their face of like absolute sheer desperation.
It's like, bro, you got to get out of here. What are you doing?
But you know, instead, what does the casino do. That's the most profitable customer, right, Not the guy who's just sitting there betting the past line having some fun. This guy who's just hoping for the big one and then ends up losing their entire paycheck. Okay, we don't know all of the circumstance, but yes, violence in casino. These people have security and all that for a reason, because people are crazy. And that's just my final psa here
on gambling, because I was just looking. Fifty two percent of betters in the US, which is some hundred million people have now gambled more than fifty dollars per month in this NFL season. That is quite literally statistically, if you're watching this in your medium household income, that's your margin, all right, which is crazy in a country like today, but six hundred dollars per year of your after tax.
Income is quite literally your safety margin.
So do you really want to be blowing that to a company which you know Dave Ramsey I recently saw him say this. He goes, these people are buying the most expensive advertising literally in the history of the world. You think they're doing that with charity dollars. It's your money, all right, And so in the meantime, people just get addicted, you know, to the thrill. It has the highest rate of suicidal ideation of any addiction, more so than heroin addicts,
more so than everyone else. It's the easiest one to cover up, right, everybody's It's like the keeping Up with the Joneses thing. You have no idea how financed the cars are in the driveway, and then there's a silent life of desperation in the back and then people just break.
So stay away from it.
That's all I can tell you, especially if you have kids, please please keep them away.
It's bad.
It's permeating everything in our culture. All right, Let's get to TikTok, shall we. Prime Minister bb nets on Yahoo is here in Washington for this week. He will be having an unprecedented fourth visit to the White House.
Congratulations to him.
But while in the United States for the United Nations General Assembly, meeting. After having a mass walkout while his speech, he took some time out of his busy day to meet with US content creators, specifically to brief them about
the propaganda war over Israel. He was asked specifically, how should Americans or how should American pro Israel forces fight back against the rising tide of what they call anti Semitism, And here he now speaks about how one of the most important things is the new purchase of TikTok.
Here's what he had to say.
Well, we have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which one gains, and the most important ones are on social media. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is Toller Tom number one, number one, and I hope it goes through because it can be consequential. And the other one, what's the other one that's most important?
X X very good?
And you know, so we have to talk to the Luck. He's not an enemy, he's a friend. We should talk to him now. If we can get those two things, we get Luck and I could go on on other things, but that's not the point right now. We have to fight the fight, Okay. To take give direction to the Jewish people and give director to our non Jewish friends or those who could be a Jewish of friends.
The most important purchase is going right now is TikTok. I hope it goes through because it's going to be consequential. So Chris sol I once again asked, will you join me in calling for the band of TikTok? This it was important even for you know, on the whole China data thing. But one of the things that people underestimated is that what Trump saw with his victory after twenty twenty four was all the kids here, But it's the power of the algorithm and what obviously the worry about
that was with China. But now because it's Trump, he's like, oh, we'll preserve TikTok, but we'll make sure that a bunch of pro Israel forces are involved in the purchase. And it's undeniable that TikTok is very good at shaping culture, which is why the Chinese ban TikTok in their own country, just to be very clear for people who don't understand that. And now what they're looking at it is they've already installed this censorship head over there. They get to keep
their business everybody's everyone is going to keep scrolling. Don't deny yourself.
It's like we just talked.
About weed addiction and gambling addiction and all that. It's exactly the same thing downstream of the hours a day that people are burning on TikTok and scrolling. Well, now it's going to have the same propagandistic efforts kind of behind the scenes. It's now probably the most overtly politically controlled social media platform alongside Twitter. Now i'd say, I'd say a.
Lot of time.
But the thing is, the only reason why I think it's more consequential is Twitter is for elites, so it's very important at shaping you know, elite culture and conversation. Yeah, a couple hundred million people use Twitter globally, Like in the United States, it's a couple hundred million people on TikTok, Like actual people who have no Twitter account, don't even know what's going on over there and not involved in the wars over whatever, you know, some sort of political
going on, they're scrolling. That's where a lot of their information is coming from. So, by far, in my opinion, the most consequential at a small de democratic perspective for shaping whatever the future conversation.
Yes, so now instead of my China's could ben by Israel?
Okay, well great could abandon great stuff abandon definitely worse. I mean, I just I guess I don't see it as any worse than than X or other social media. I mean, I think it's all poison. Like that's where I am. I don't know what the answer is, Like, I don't know that complete ban is the answer, but I'm kind of like at a loss as to what to do about all of these things that are set on colonizing our mind, right, colonizing our attention.
That's what they're like.
That's the commodity that they trade in and with dystopian outcomes, frankly, but the ones which we can't resist. You know, we were talking about the gambling addiction, like the scroll both of TikTok and you know YouTube shorts and Twitter, it's all modeled off of slot machines, like to keep you endlessly scrolling. That's the whole idea, is the endless scroll.
And yeah, I mean it's it's brain poison. And I just the one thing I will say, like, I think if Beabie really thinks that this is going to you know, help him win the propaganda war. Like the propaganda war for Israel's already lost. That battle is over, it's done.
Now they have to operate in the realm of just like pure power politics, like cracking down on anyone who just sends, you know, using their their main ally and most important now only ally that matters the United States of America to do their bidding in terms of cracking down on our own population, backing them in their endless wars.
Like that's where they're at.
They've already lost the sort of soft power competition in terms of global opinion. I don't think that their ownership of TikTok is necessarily going.
To change that.
In fact, if anything, it's going to further piss people off and enrage them that they feel that heavy hand of censorship now coming down from their favorite class I would hope.
So, I'm not yet quite sure about our current population, and in particular with some of the calls right now for open censorship. Here we have Israeli politician Yayrgalan openly says the next step is strict controls on social media, in particular going after Twitter and saying that they need to ban what he considers to be anti Semitic voices.
Let's take a listen.
The next thing I will do.
We will do.
Is to put restriction on the social media in a way that not allowed to make brutal propaganda in the social media. Because this is a worldwide problem and it should be initiate by the United States of America, the place where all the big firms is settled. Facebook and X and all the rest. This is a major problem for democracy all over the globe, and we need to treat it seriously.
We need to take it seriously. Facebook to X, they all need to be banned. I mean, does anybody else just think it's so crazy that Bebee comes to America and assembles a group of social media influencers, including his own son.
Is that the only interaction that he has with his own son?
Yeah? Yeah, you're what so your son, who, by the way, lives here in America? Why for what reason? What's his visa status? Anybody want to call ice over that one?
You know, how exactly? Who doesn't he draft agailable shouldn't be fighting in Gaza if it's so patriotic and amazing and he's sitting over here on our soil, presumably on a you know, some sort of friendly visa, being guarded by the literal Israeli shinbat as he lives in a penthouse apartment in Miami and firing off tweets from his sunny little balcony about how they need more censorship of Tucker Carlson and Cannas Owens and it's just so naked,
it's so unbelievable. And I hope, I hope that you're correct that the propaganda war and all of that is lost.
But I don't know.
I still like, even with all of the sentiment moving, Yeah, at a basic level, the politics have not changed. Like at the power level the Trump administration, they could care less about the rising tide of Look, even amongst Republican younger voters, it's like the sentiment is lost. They just don't care. They're like, look, this is what we are going to do. The average Republican politician still doesn't care. The average Democrat politician will pay a little bit of
lip service. But at a you know, power level, they're not doing anything about it. Slock in here on our show. Maybe I'll vote for it, Maybe I won't goes on Stephen Colbert then says she would have voted against it if she was there, but we'll never know because she wasn't there. Because she was It's like, what's going on here? Yeah, you know, it's like does this Does any of this even matter?
No, the hard power, like they still have a lock on a lot of certainly the Trump administration, no doubt about that, and most Democrats. But you know, let's to the point of whether or not they're winning the propaganda war. Should we take a listen to a little bit of the propaganda and you can tell me if you find it,
tell me if you find this persuasive or not. This is the three This is some of the influencers who were gathered at this meeting to get a sense of some of the content they're putting out to the TikTok world.
We were asking him the hard questions that a lot of people from our generation have been raising concerns about, for example, and the same way he listened to us and took in our criticisms. I'm truly hoping that you guys will listen to the answer. Apak Apak is something that I see.
All the time.
Number One, Apak is not an Israeli organization. It has no ties whatsoever to the government of Israel foreign lobbying. It's a lobbyist group that happens to be lobbying for a certain group of people, right, and this is not unique to Israel. There are multiple countries that do this, and there's multiple different groups that do this. For some reason, people just attach ont APAC, despite the fact that APAC
makes up less than five percent of the lobbying. So if you have a problem with lobbying, like me, that's totally fine. I'm against APAC because I'm against lobbying. But you can't just hone in on one specific group. If you're going to be against it, then be against it for everybody. Moving on from that, we were asking questions about these rumors that Israel has been going out and funding people, and no, none of us were paid for
that meeting. But I wish Phobe if you want to write one hundred and fifty million check, go for it. But we asked, We asked about funding, and as he explained, Israel is not offering to fund anybody. They're not trying to get involved in American political advocacy groups. That has never happened. And if you're concerned about this. Who you should be concerned about is Katark. The last thing that
we really touched on was the aid. People don't know this, but Nanyah, Who's first address to Congress was to.
Say that they didn't want aid.
Jimmy Carter, who was a notoriously anti Israel president, is actually who started this because he saw that Israel was building up their air force and he didn't want them to. So he gave them eight that they could only use to buy military weapons from US, and they had to agree to shut down their manufacturers. So now they're dependent in a way on this aid for military operations that America doesn't want them to lose because we use it as a leash on them, so that.
At our points.
I just pulled this up on TikTok. Here are the top comments.
Number one on the payroll confirmed, Number two that APAC paycheck must be insane. Number three did she just say that APAX not an Israeli lobbying group with four question marks? As a conservative? That man is a war criminal? How much are they paying you? As soon as she said APAC was an Israeli lobby I scrolled out confirmed, unfollowed, We're not buying it, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, I mean, look, look I don't know.
I just I feel very dark about how this is all playing out right now. And the reason why is that as as disturbing and preposterous as all these influencers and all that are, they have currency.
I mean, they're meeting with the Prime Minister.
Oh do you need to make me think of those Sager?
It makes me think of you know, we cover the chorus dark money scandal with the Democrats where they're paying this like you know, one of the influencers, does some American girl dull like pro DNC memes. You listen to most of these people content and you're like, okay, good luck, or the DNC started their own podcast.
Ken Clippenstein loves posting the.
Views on it, like just because you put money behind a thing, doesn't mean anyone is going to buy what you're selling, doesn't mean anyone's gonna be like and like I said, if anything people watching that or just like screw you. Basically it had the opposite of the intended effect. We've got one more we can show you too, which is if anything, you I mean this, this.
Is the best one.
This is wild. This is c four. Take a listen.
Imagine supporting people who start wars just to lose the wars.
So they can cry about it and then try.
It all again.
You must see anti Semites are literally obsessed with Jews. Now walk with me while you must see. Anti Semites are stacking eviction notices. Jews are out here stacking up businesses.
Jews control all the industries. Maybe if you spend more time taking.
Notes from successful people, you wouldn't have to spend your nights and weekends spreading hate from your anonymous account with an anime profile picture.
Do you work as hard as Jews?
Do you network like Jews? No, because you're too busy cheering on a group of musty terrorists who smell like dirty ear ring backs. And if we're gonna keep it, really, you're really mad because your income is giving side hustle period. Hi, you gonna hate from outside shapot you can't even get in.
Wow, So they have their own sassy gay black guy.
Congratulations, Well and I love this.
Who is that influencing? I don't know it's being paid. I mean, look it's perverse and it's sick, but like pretty clearly they're finding.
Is that reaching an audience.
Probably not, but they're obviously look they're doing it for something, like they're making some money of perpetuating this stuff. I believe that some of these people were present at the Bill Ackman summit them right, And that's my point is like it's it still does come with access to power. That's what makes me feel dark really about the entire thing. At the end of the day, people's salaries are getting paid. Do I think that influences anybody. No, I certainly don't.
I think it's pathetic and ridiculous. But they're getting meetings with the Israeli Prime Minister. One of the things is when you look at Israel is that at the end of the day, believe in hard power. So for them this influencer briefing, everybody can laugh it off. I don't laugh it off because clearly they still think it's important and maybe it's a signal to the future TikTok people that these people need to be boosted in the algorithm
or something. And you and I know, like there is enough kind of mindless scrolling and lack of information, lack of just attention or whatever that to casually just stumble across and get quote the truth. Clearly, the Israelis believe this is like an extential, extent and very important mission for them, Yeah, to try and will it work. No, I don't necessarily think so, but I don't know. I wouldn't put it past them. I trust their judgment in respect of controlling the conversations.
I don't.
I mean, I'm glad to not because I just think that they have so cocooned them.
It really is.
I'm not equating the two, but it does remind me a lot of the DNC, Like they're so high on their own supply, they're so cocooned in their own bubble and so insulated from their critics because they just immediately write anyone off who has anything negative to say as an anti semi and they don't let it penetrate. And so I think they are completely disconnected from the way that they have just become reviled around the world, around the world, and reviled in the US in a way
that has never been the case. And so you know, I mean that like that thing was a mess, that was a disaster. Yeah, I don't think there's one person who looked at that and was like, oh, you're right not to mention it was anti semitic. Even as they're trying to like stand up against anti Semitism, and they're like the Jews control all the industry and are really good with money. It's like, what are you doing here?
So in any case, I mean, there's always going to be shameless hacks who stuck up to power no matter what.
That's what these people are.
They know that they can get into these meetings if they toe the line. They you know, may genuinely have some like ideological belief about it or whatever. But more importantly, there's always going to be sick of fans who circle power. And that's what's going on here. It is very dystopian, Don't get me wrong. The consolidation of media power in Trump aligned hands and in pro Zionist hands, that is very disconcerting. And the amount of you know, sway that
they can use these social media platforms. They're out there saying like, look, we're going to tell Elon what to do, and he's probably going to do it because he's our buddy. Is also really wild and dystopian. So I don't want to downplay it. I just want to say that I think that their haspara efforts have been laughably pathetic. No one is buying their bullshit anymore. Very few people are buying their bullshit anymore.
I should say.
And we all have access to reality now, like you're not going to be able to stop the flow of the videos of the horror coming out of Gaza. And by the way, your own soldiers post their own war crimes, so we can see it directly from them as well. We can listen to the statements that you make about how you're trying to manipulate all of us and buy
up the media platform so that there's no descent. We can listen to them saying in hebro you know, we can hit the translate button and hear them talking about how there's no innocence and how they want to displace
everyone and exactly what the plan is. So, you know, I think it will be very hard for them in this environment to just hide reality and hide the truth and to turn back the clock and then persuade people, Oh, you know what, I was wrong, It's not a genocide, like actually, this is the most moral army on the plant or whatever.
Nonsense.
Yeah, listen, I hope you're right. Let's go to C five.
Please up here on the screen, which shows the list of the influencers that always like I said.
Yeah, there you go, first of the list.
Yeah, he's an influencer. He's a Nepo baby living on our contract to poor disaster. Please send him, send them to Gaza, all right. You know, one of the hallmarks of a society, like one of the things that it's easy to romanticize it, as horrible as it was. But in the First World War, something I've always respected about the British and the Germans and all their societies is that when the leaders went to war, they actually sent
their own sons because they believed in it. Like you had the Prime Minister of the UK whose son was literally killed in combat. You had you know, crown princes and others in the field of battle. The average life expectancy for a British soldier almost entirely taken from the upper cross like the lords and others who supported the war was like I don't even remember exactly the timeline,
but it was very very short. But my point is just that nowadays, you know, it's the norm of the chickenhawk meme, where you have the congressman and everybody else.
This kind of relates to our shootings.
Block who support the war, their kids get to go to college, get exempt.
We don't even have a draft anymore.
But it's like very few of them ever sign up for military service. And then it's like the working classmen and women of the country who actually have to go abroad and face the consequences.
That's like the post World War two status quo.
So there is something very sick about that, and clearly that's also present in Israeli society as well. And by the way, to that point, Paramount has now released a new trailer for something called Red Alert, a four part mini series depicting the real life stories of the victims of October seventh massacre in Israel. Why does that matter because Paramount was bought by whom, David Ellison, the guy who wants to hire Barry Weiss over at CBS News.
Paramount's Guide Dance now owned entirely by by David Ellison, who also just made an all cash bid for Warner Brothers Discovery including HBO Max. So you're going to have two Hollywood studios that are all under control.
Who the hell knows what's going to get released nationwide. I don't know.
I mean, that's where again the ability to shape culture is that from TikTok to the literal movie studios.
It's going to be.
Very very interesting to see what the divide on that and whether it can hold who actually controls everything. I tend to believe a lot of it, A lot of it is a lot more top down than people think to be able to push this stuff, you know, out into the ether. But potential, potentially the Internet will still be more powerful.
Yeah, I mean, I just would say like they are becoming more overt and more heavy handed, but like the Western media has been aggressively pro Israel forever and certainly, you know the way they framed October seventh, post October seventh are involvement, et cetera. So it's not like they haven't been trying on the propaganda front. And still like you have this massive revolt against what they're doing. Democratic Party is lost, Independence are lost, Republicans are divided. Young
Republicans are increasingly lost. So I think it's probably too late to put those pieces back together, but they are certainly going to try.
They're trying. We'll see, Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, maybe it'll be a boon for independent film or something, but then how do you get it distributed? See, that's that's the issue with Hollywood. It's so bottlenecked and so controlled. That's probably the thing I worry about the most. And also, just don't screw up HBO, please please please. It's like, let us just have our tasks, all right.
Great show. Shout out to that