Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - 145: Israel is MAH WIFE, with Briahna Joy Gray

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Matt and Daniel are joined by the host of the Bad Faith podcast, Briahna Joy Gray to speak on the UN committee report recognizing a genocide by Israel in Gaza, as well as Charlie Kirk’s dispatch fro...m the AI beyond, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee doing Netanyahu’s act like the Gallagher II of international relations.Please donate to Pal Humanity: http://palhumanity.com/Send us an email or leave us a voice message for our next mailbag. badhasbara@gmail.com / (747) 348-5259. 100 words, 20 seconds, make it count.Get the Bad Faith podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-faith/id1531192509Join the patreon at https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraBad Hasbara Merch Store:https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastGet tickets for Francesca Fiorentini and Matt Lieb at the Ice House in Pasadena October 1: https://www.showclix.com/event/new-world-disorder-10-01-25-7-45-pmGet tickets for Francesca Fiorentini, Matt Lieb and friends with Daniel Maté October 13 in Brooklyn: https://bit.ly/mattfranbellhouseSubscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraWhat’s The Spin playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get your podcasts.Spotify https://spoti.fi/3HgpxDmApple Podcasts https://apple.co/4kizajtSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Mashwam hot, bitch, a ribbon polkote. We invented the terry tomato and weighs USB drives and the iron d'o. Israeli salad, oozy stents and jopas orange rose. Micro chips is us. iPhone cameras us. Taco salads us. Pothomas us. All of garden us.
Starting point is 00:00:22 White foster us. Zabrahamas. As far as us. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The world's most moral podcast, coming at you. Coming at you, not live, edited. For fall, fall back, ladies and gentlemen. That's right.
Starting point is 00:00:45 We are heavily edited to avoid trouble. My name is Matt Lieb. I will be your most moral co-host for this podcast. Daniel Mate, your most autumnal and second. most moral co-host. Can you believe we're out of summer, Matt? I can't because we're not. We're not, at least not here. Of course, you're in L.A. I'm in L.A. It's hot. Endless summer. Wasn't that what they say? Yeah, they say it's the endless summer. Endless summer out here, even in the winter, it's summer. Totally great. I love not having Central A.C., just a bunch of
Starting point is 00:01:18 individual window units and basically staying in this room the whole time and still dying. Still dying. Anyway, so happy. We have had the most lenient and reasonable summer on the East Coast. I always bragging about, you're always bragging about how good the weather is in New York. It's been mild as fuck. It's been mad mild. It's been mad mild, bro. It's not fair.
Starting point is 00:01:41 It's supposed to be bad. That's supposed to be the one reason to not be in New York and the reason to be in L.A. It's like, oh, I got a backyard. It's always 72 degrees. And instead it's a dry heat. Yeah, it's a dry heat. It's not that, no, out here now it's fucking, it's humid. and it's hot, and I can't stand it.
Starting point is 00:02:01 Meanwhile, New York is all good. Give us five stars in review on all the local podcast apps and stores. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. But first, ask yourself why you haven't subscribed before. Yes, please, if you could please just have a deep conversation with yourself and ask yourself why you've decided to be some, you know, just a leach, you know, a shirt. you know a schnora you know ask yourself why you did someone call me schnora recognize that no i don't they're marks brothers uh duck soup hurry for hurry for colonel spalding like a song that this thing
Starting point is 00:02:39 anyway i really got a i really got you know it's it's a shame but i've never seen um all the way through any marks brothers movie i've seen bits and pieces and i've enjoyed it and i've been like wow that's crazy yeah it's in black and white but they're doing jokes that my dad does um and he's full color. But yeah, no, I need to see that. No, they're the kind of comedians that we clearly owe a debt too, but we just don't quite know exactly what that debt is because we've never watched them. Yeah, I do wonder what the Marx Brothers stance on the state of Israel is. Let's watch towards the beginning of this.
Starting point is 00:03:12 All right, fine. Thank you, producer Adam. Thank you, producer Adam. Shout out to him. Always keeping us on the right track. Give us five-s-sinders and review. I already said that. Stand-up Comedy, October 13th at the Bell House, myself.
Starting point is 00:03:25 Daniel Mate, Francesca Furentini, and more. You can get your tickets right now. It's going to be great. Also, the Ice House in Pasadena, Wednesday, October 1st, please come out to the Ice House. If you are anywhere near the Los Angeles area, come out, see me, my wife, other people, New World Disorder, it's going to be a great show. Drive cars, see comedy. That's right.
Starting point is 00:03:48 Buy a drink. Enjoy. Buy drink. Buy two. There's minimum. We're doing another mailbag episode, and you can, submit questions right now either by emailing us bad has bar at gmail.com or a voicemail you can do that google voice uh 747348 5259 uh but please uh just try to be quick you know 20 second voicemail
Starting point is 00:04:15 100 word email make it possible for us to actually answer your question help us help you help you do that now. This episode is brought to you by Pal Humanity. Pal Humanity was founded by two Palestinian physicians who are sisters and is dedicated to serving their community amidst crisis. The charity organizes field medical visits and distributes essential items including diapers, menstrual and hygiene kits, and infant formula. Their work prioritizes prenatal care children with special needs and medication distribution. If you have any money at all and you would like to donate something to a worthy cause, go to palhumanity.com right now. Donate. Do that first and foremost before, you know,
Starting point is 00:05:12 spending $5 a month to, you know, get bonus episodes of this. That's a secondary. So don't do that if you don't have enough money. But please do. Donate to palhumanity.com. But I do want to say, speaking of secondary, if you're considering joining the Patreon, you get a second episode every week. And one thing I've noticed, sometimes the second episodes, they're even longer than the regular ones. Not on purpose, but we got some like two-hour ones on there.
Starting point is 00:05:37 Yeah, they go long. They go long and they go hard. They go super hard. So, you know, we're saying all the things that we can't say on YouTube, like fuck and shit. We do say those. But, you know, other things, too. It's really fun.
Starting point is 00:05:54 So if you would like to join, please join patreon.com slash bad as barra. Daniel, what's the spin? Well, last episode I played, I showed the gray album by Danger Mouse and Jay Z. And you know how I like to do like plays on our guests' names, right? Well, today has some gray content, but I already did gray. Oh, shit. You can't do gray. Now you got to do joy.
Starting point is 00:06:13 I went with joy. Yeah. I went with joy. And it turned out I had a lot in my collection with that. So number one, I need a baker. with the album Rapture and the song You Bring Me Joy Our guest is nodding in the green room
Starting point is 00:06:28 I like that Fun fact, if you play a 33 RPM Anita Baker Sorry, if you take an Anita Baker 45 and play it at 33 It becomes Michael McDonald And if you take a Michael McDonald 33 and play it at 45
Starting point is 00:06:43 It becomes Anita Baker I have heard this I have heard someone actually do that And it's true Yeah There is apparently an entire division for joy. Oh, the joy division.
Starting point is 00:06:56 The joy division. A really cheerful band, very joyful. Pick me up. Just peppy and, you know, it's basically Miss Rachel for adults. Absolutely. Ani DeFranco doesn't have a lot on vinyl, but she's got this wonderful,
Starting point is 00:07:10 like triple, quadruple live album called Living and Clip, and the song Joyful Girl is on here. Lovely, lovely song. Fun. Great artist. Prince, the song Private Joy. on the album Controversy.
Starting point is 00:07:23 Hell yeah, hell yeah. Lucinda Williams has a song just called Joy on Car Wheels on a gravel road. Okay. Steve you wonder, joy inside my tears. I think this one already might be on the What's the Spin Playlist, but I couldn't leave it out. Add it again. Whoever's in charge. And lastly, but not leastly, Bjork, who just took her music off of Spotify and Israel
Starting point is 00:07:44 the other stream platforms. On this album, Medulla, which is sort of a celebration and exploration of the human voice featuring. Yes, it is. Ravel, the human, Razel the Human Beatbox, and Mike Patton and Faith Namor, and Tanya Tejak, the Canadian throat singer, there is a song called, Who Is It?
Starting point is 00:08:00 Brackets, carry joy on my left, fear on my right. And if that isn't a good description of our guests, politics, and middle name, I don't know what the fuck is. Take it away, Matt. Introduce this woman. That was really great. And also
Starting point is 00:08:15 shout out to Bjork. Shout out to that album. You know, that as a all-a-capella album. There's no musical instruments, I believe. Yeah, there's a lot of beatboxing, but yeah, it's the human voice entirely. It's so good. And so is our guest.
Starting point is 00:08:31 Our guest is so good. You may be confused by that, since she hosts a podcast called Bad Faith, but she is intensely good. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, welcome to the podcast, Brianna Joy Gray. Thank you, gentlemen.
Starting point is 00:08:49 That might be my favorite intro of all time and not just because you started with one of my favorite Anita Baker songs. Oh, there we go. It's smooth, isn't it? It's very good. I was actually at a house party or a house DJing event recently, don't ask. And I was, you know, it was not my preferred genre, but this DJ was remixing that song and I was very excited. Did he do the thing? They don't make R&B like that anymore.
Starting point is 00:09:18 Did you remade it into Michael McDonald's voice? Is that how we remixed it? No, it was an Anita vocal original, not chopped and screwed or slow down. Oh, damn. The way that I was like trying to get into it in the back like this, and then Anita Baker starts playing, and I pushed my way to the front of all the young people. The old head I am, like, do you know this?
Starting point is 00:09:38 This is Anita Baker. Do you know it? Get out of here. This is for me and all the other olds. Brianna, thank you so much for doing the podcast. We've, you know, we've been, we've talked about you, I think, a few times on this podcast. You're one of the, you know, people who sometimes we will, in bringing up good takes, we will, we will bring up yours, especially. Oh, I could have down the other way.
Starting point is 00:10:06 Yeah, you never know. Sometimes there's bad takes. I'm sure you have plenty of bad takes. We'll be sure to play those in fairness. But, yeah, I just wanted to start with asking for our audience. who may not know or be familiar with you, which I assume is a very small percentage of the audience. Can you tell us a little bit about what things have been like
Starting point is 00:10:30 post-October 7th for Brianna Joy Gray? Because you have a famous moment in which you got fired for an eye roll. Can you tell us? Yeah. Well, like many people on October 7th, it wasn't immediately clear to me what was going. on. I had the added complication of being in rural Ohio at a Jewish wedding and not having the details for a little bit later than most because of celebrating and such. But, you know, it was right
Starting point is 00:11:03 back to the trenches of co-hosting rising as soon as I got home. And, you know, as a left-right show, where I was a leftist and my co-host was libertarian. We actually had a lot of sympathico when it came to wars, libertarians, generally speaking, not liking foreign spending or, you know, spending on anything at all. Right. But it became pretty clear, pretty quickly that Next Star media, which you might sound familiar to you, given all of this Jimmy Kimmel. Right.
Starting point is 00:11:35 Firing or whatever they're calling an indefinite postponal of his show. Also, because of Next Door Media, they own the Hill. And it became very clear that there was pressure to. have a quote-unquote balanced view of the conflict on the show. So, you know, over- So they're like, you can't both hate Israel. One of you has to love it. I, I, this is my impression.
Starting point is 00:11:58 I think Robbie is savvy enough to know that if he told me everything about what was going on, that I would make it public as I'm doing now, and that I had no tact about those kinds of matters and was happy to blow stuff up. Not in that way, as much as I am accused. of being a terrorist but proverbially proverbially blew things up and but it was clear it felt odd to me not just how much pushback we were having on air but also behind the scenes so and historically in the show there would be these topics that were my bug and like my preoccupations as a leftist but I understood what necessarily do as well in the algorithm you know oh you know this
Starting point is 00:12:44 collective vote coffee unionized. It might be something I want to talk about, but I understand there's a give and take in terms of what actually plays well. Meanwhile, if Joe Rogan ever says anything, you know, if Bill Maher ever says anything, we do a segment about it because it does play well, and I try to make the most of those segments.
Starting point is 00:12:59 Fine, fair enough. Yeah, yeah. But with Gaza, it was one of those times where my personal interests were overlapping with the audience's interest. The audience hated the war. They were very much anti-war, right and left people. the conservative audience did not care about Israel
Starting point is 00:13:16 was not interested in getting involved in that conflict and my pro forget the directionality of the coverage the segments about Gaza were doing very very well and Katie already been fired at this point Katie had been fired well in advance of this yes and for people who don't remember she had been we had been testing her as a fill-in host
Starting point is 00:13:39 and so she had sat in and done her radar which are these direct-to-camera monologues. It was, in retrospect, kind of benign, given, like, how the discourse has expanded and people's knowledge in defense of Palestine has gotten deeper since October 7th. But they, I guess, objected to the idea that she called Israel an apartheid state
Starting point is 00:14:01 and backed it up with all of these. I know, that's, isn't that crazy to think about? That's crazy. That's adorable. People like, Israel shouldn't exist at all. But, like, back then. just saying, okay, here's Bet Selim and some other folks who said it was an apartheid date. Just repeating what every Israeli human rights organization has said.
Starting point is 00:14:21 Exactly. Grounds for firing. That's amazing. Exactly. So, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, a surprise that there was this pushback. But we had basically, we got new producers, a whole new staff around January after October 7. And the new producer was extremely hostile to, us running the show the way we want it and basically put a cap on the number of segments
Starting point is 00:14:46 we could do that even talked about Gaza, at which point I started doing radars again. I had stopped doing radars because there were a lot of work and they wanted me to do four days instead of three and I was like, fine, I'll do an extra day if I don't have to do radars. How long do it take you to write one of those and prep it and get all the slides? That's the thing. Like I was always really impressed by the detail. I mean, it's like writing an article. Like, I'm not a fast, I like to be a little bit more deliberative when I write pieces.
Starting point is 00:15:13 And so I found it to be very stressful. If I actually doubled that, like, cracked down and did it, I could do it in like three or three hours. But I would procrastinate. I would deliberate about what I actually wanted to talk about. You know, it would just, it sucks up your whole evening. Right. Once you get home from the stress of having that morning arguing on the air. So I prefer not to do it.
Starting point is 00:15:38 But once they started basically doing a quota for how many Gaza segments we could do a day and saying, like, we already talked about Gaza in one of eight segments. Right. Now, think about that. Gaza stories include what happens on the ground any given day in Gaza, how many people get killed, what hospitals get blown up, whatever domestic controversy there is about the truth of what the, you know, the Hamas, you know, health officials are reporting, whatever Randy Fine or whatever Craven. American politician might say, whatever protest might be happening at any given campus, whatever segment Ben Shapiro or, like,
Starting point is 00:16:16 you could do eight segments about whatever legacy media stories are falling apart in front of our faces that have justified the genocide? Exactly. Like a media criticism angle. You could do eight segments a day on Gaza and they would all perform well because our audience was very
Starting point is 00:16:32 interested in this and politically aligned with me on this. So once they put a cap on it, I started doing radar again because that's where we had allegedly editorial independence. And then the producer started to try to edit my radars. And that's when I knew things were really coming to a head. Yeah. So why did you roll your eyes?
Starting point is 00:16:51 So I think there was frustration that despite Robbie's valiant effort to push back against me, that I was sort of winning the day. Certainly the comments reflected that, you know, and it wasn't a good look for the people at higher ups at next. star who, you know, didn't, weren't sympathetic to Palestine and were Zionists. Right. So there was a push to have more balanced guests on. Now, it's like wanting more parody in sports or in the WWF.
Starting point is 00:17:24 Like you rigged the matches so the bad guys sometimes win. It doesn't work if, if Haltrow can always be. Sure, except that is ostensibly to make it more interesting for their viewer. In our case, the viewer didn't want Robbie to win more. That's a great point. Yeah. It's like they're not even doing it for the ratings or for the fun of it, the entertainment value. It was clearly purely ideological. It was purely for the sake of, well, we need to have some. And relatively speaking, he was a good, he was a good sport about it, right? Like he. Yeah, I think, I mean, I don't want to speak for Robbie. And, you know, we have a good relationship and we're friends. And so I don't want to, you know, put, you know, put him on the bus or anything. But my charitable read is that he felt like he had to play a. role to a certain extent. That doesn't absolve you of your responsibility and your choice.
Starting point is 00:18:15 But also, you know, Robbie's had a contract with the Hill. I was a contract employee. So I was fireable without any consequences. And that's not the case for him. So I think he was always more invested in the success of the show. Then I, you know, I always knew it was I was on borrowed time. I mean, it's interesting to say, you know, invest in this. Yeah, has borrowed time.
Starting point is 00:18:37 interested in the success of the show when it's like clearly the success of the show part of it was the fact that you had uncompromising Gaza coverage. And that's why, so Robbie appreciated me as a co-host, right? So despite our disagreements, he was rooting for me. It was an interesting dynamic. Like he had been there. He has been there longer than anybody, including Crystal and Sager now, right? Wow.
Starting point is 00:19:03 And he has seen the ebbs and flows of different management, different ownership, different co-hosts, and he knew we had a good thing going. And we had worked really hard to, like, pull the show back from the brink after Kim Iverson was let go shortly after I started, like within a couple of months of me starting. And that was another cliff that the show fell off of and had to regain its credibility. So he didn't want to do that again. And he, despite our disagreement, substantively, like, he understood that we were a good pairing and we had a successful show together and he wanted to save the show.
Starting point is 00:19:37 So he was in this position of trying to, like, you know, wrangle me, like manage me. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And manage the show. So that you guys could stay doing what you do best. Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:51 But eventually they were like, we got to get more, you know, pro-Israel guests on. They had Hinma Zieg on a bunch of times. Oh, we all know who this guy is. Well, we all know Hen. We covered his Hollywood reporter article the other day. Yeah, or Hen Danzig, as I call him. You know that we know someone when we already have a sting ready to go. That's amazing.
Starting point is 00:20:17 Yeah. I need for sound effects on my show. That was amazing. Yeah, that's the thing about this show. It's like, we, you know, we do what Rising does, but with sound effects. We're having fun. So I've, you know, always appreciated, you know, your candidness when it comes to this issue in particular. And it's interesting hearing about the, I don't know, I guess where the sensitivities laid at some point, you know, early on after October 7th, the fact that like, you know, you can get fired from it, from rising after saying that it's an apartheid state or, you know, things like that.
Starting point is 00:21:00 It's just, it's crazy to see the, I guess, sort of like the movement of people's sensitivities. Like now, if someone were to say that Israel's an apartheid state, maybe on CNN, I don't think they'd get fired. They'd have to explain, they'd just have to explain their position. And, you know, I think a lot of that is in part due to the fact that you've got, you know, people such as yourself and, you know, other media, figures who are you know get punished for these things but don't stop it doesn't stop them from talking yeah to to be you know thinking back i mean when when katy was fired katy and i had a long talk off stage and then she came on my show and we had a long talk on camera about what i should do whether i should quit also like like how to best handle this i was i was ready to go then like whatever
Starting point is 00:21:58 we thought was best. And what we decided was it's so rare for someone with our politics to have any sort of mainstream gig. The Hill is not MSNBC, but still corporate news with, you know, a million subscribers and a significant audience. And, you know, Robbie and I ended up in that Brett Farb documentary. I mean, people are seeing us. I don't know. I saw that. That was a everyone's been met to me. No, I didn't, but that I can't wait. It's just a still. It's like a just a picture of us for the reason, like covering. That's how you know you've made it when all of a sudden your coverage of something ends up in a documentary about it.
Starting point is 00:22:35 Right. Like normies or my mom's friends are like, is this Priyana? I was watching the barbed dog. Yeah. But I did a, one of the conditions of me staying was to do, for them to let me do a radar where I said plainly that I don't think that Katie was fired for whatever non-ideological reason they claimed. But it was clearly ideological.
Starting point is 00:22:54 It was clearly because she was critical of Israel and that I was going to stay. to test their hypothesis, that it really wasn't substantive, their censorship of Katie. I don't think any of us anticipated that that was going to be tested so soon with October 7th. And I wonder if they would have even let me stay around as long as I did if they didn't have the sort of egg on their face from having just said, no, no, no, no, it wasn't about Israel. You can come back. You can say what you want. This is a free speech zone.
Starting point is 00:23:25 Right. Yeah. That seems to be, yeah, it's an interesting thing with a lot of, not just like, you know, media corporations, but a lot of right-leaning ones, especially, the ones who say that they are, you know, about absolute free speech. And we've watched very recently how that falls by the wayside as soon as they're in the position in government in which to actually punish people for speech. And speaking of that, just before we bridge to the content we're going to watch, when did they start bringing in vaunted free speech advocate and free speech absolutist Baja Angar Sargon to be a moderating influence on your, your censorious, you know, wokeism?
Starting point is 00:24:16 That's interesting. So Bata, I think basically had been as quasi-regular. almost from the beginning. I mean, a long, long time before October 7. She was a swing host. Basically, we had Friday hosts that were not, you know, different from the other four days. And it was, it was Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky until then they defected.
Starting point is 00:24:43 See, this is, we were digging ourselves out of all these holes. It was, it was, um, uh, sorry, uh, why did I just block her name? I just said her name. Emily can I rescind, sorry, can I rescind who had left? And then when Emily and Ryan left, it felt like everyone was fleeing ship. And that was part of what Robbie and I had to dig ourselves back out of. But when they were no longer our reliable Friday hosts, then we were rotating through a bunch of other options. And Katie was being tested as one of those options.
Starting point is 00:25:13 And then Batya ended up being for a while one of those swing hosts. It is so, yeah. I mean, Batia is one of those people. whose career I've been following for over a decade now just because I watched her go from being the liberal Zionist editor of the forward to becoming, you know, slowly more and more right wing to the point where now she is just, you know, has boris for Israel for, specifically for newsweek now. She, like, writes for newsweek. any time there's any Israel news. I love it when she takes down the elites. I just love it when she speaks from her scrappy position at the bottom of the social ladder about the tyranny
Starting point is 00:26:04 of the educated elite. Yeah. The schick is kind of crazy. I interviewed her for bad faith a couple years ago when she wrote her book, which, you know, three quarters of it is like solid and good. And she, you know, recounts the history of like how media has been funded over time and how is shift from it being funded by sort of like
Starting point is 00:26:26 penny farthing like working people to it being funded by advertising and then shifting to more elite interest because of the quality of the advertisers and then to this like kind of billionaire era is a bad thing and I think that you can see the root of her like everything is about
Starting point is 00:26:47 you know what kind of weaponizing the working class in that Because she was telling a true story about how the class politics of consumers were affecting the quality of the news and the focus of the news. But these days, it's become just fully forcing everything through the lens of, like, she will, she will come up with a way to say, the fact that kids are drinking out of Yetis these days is because of somehow the working classes resent. you know like what about tap water it like it just becomes so strained everything somehow the millionaires are good because um democrats go to college and they eat arugula there and so the real working class politics is to side with trump because he drove in a truck once i mean it's right i mean this is like classic you know the classic scratch a liberal uh and a fascist bleeds type thing with her, you know, where it's, you just see, um, how much elitism goes into these,
Starting point is 00:27:55 you know, uh, these takes about taking down the elites. Like it's a, this, this blind spot isn't really a blind spot. It is, uh, it's a teacher. Yes. Yes. Yes. Paying off a kid's college debt is elitist because rich kids go to college. Right. Yeah. Rich kids and all their debt that rich people famous little cab. Yeah. Or more to the point of this show, you know, protesting Israeli genocide, which you as taxpayers, including, in fact, the preponderance of it is coming from working class taxpayers given on tax code, is elitist because that's something you might hear on a university
Starting point is 00:28:35 campus, right? Right. But shutting down those people with the scrappy blue collar National Guard or NYPD is the populist option, you know. Right, with their six-figure salaries to stand around on their phones while catching turn-sail jumpers or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and she, um, she has really gotten away with this, uh, in a big way. You know, the thing about Batae is that she is so nice in person. And I think this is an issue with some people on the left. And I don't mean to prematurely segue as into Charlie Kirk, but it's something I've been observed.
Starting point is 00:29:14 I think that sometimes maybe because we're so marginalized, and I've fallen victims to this too, but we are willing to extend grace to people who maybe don't deserve it because they are nice interpersonally and it feels rude and it feels inhuman to meet someone's kindness with critique. Suspicion and derision. Yeah, no, completely.
Starting point is 00:29:38 I mean, I think we all have the ability to be, I don't know, overly kind to someone because of the fact that, well, I've met them and they're really nice and, you know, because they were nice to me, I can't imagine that, you know, these dark, you know, things you're attributing to their personality or their beliefs is like actually true. It can't be. They can't be that type of person. Pretty much October 7th has disavowed me of that entire belief system because I know so many very nice people who are like, yes, Palestinians brought it on themselves and deserve this. First of all, Matt, it's disabused, not disabled. Oh, my God. And secondly, we do that on this podcast, Brianna. We undercut each other constantly. We like to undercut each other. And I just want to say, Daniel, you as someone who's mean, I appreciate that about you
Starting point is 00:30:26 because it means I know your heart. Yeah, exactly. And better that I disabuse you of the notion that I abuse you with it. Don't dismal me. That's all I'm saying. The other thing I was going to say is that it actually occurs to me that in the original meaning of the word woke, the original and I would say politically useful call to awareness meaning of it, which was pioneered by people who look more like you
Starting point is 00:30:53 than like the two of us, it actually means being hip to the tricks of the people who smile in your face and stab, you know, the backstabbers. Yeah, OJs. You know, like the OJ's sang about, right? Like that whole era of soul and R&B was aware of a kind of facade and then there's the material conditions on the ground. And being woke means being aware of who's fucking you while claiming to be your friend.
Starting point is 00:31:21 And that's what being woke really means. It's not about having the right virtuous politics about everything. It's about being awake. Yeah. Yeah, I think about her sometimes. Even up until recently, I have found myself sort of avoiding tweeting at her directly, choosing maybe to quote tweet instead, you know, because I do, I would prefer to have a direct
Starting point is 00:31:45 confrontation before tweeting at someone. I would prefer to like talk to her in a podcast and tell her what I think as before I, you know, just, I don't know, I had some lingering respect for having an interpersonal relationship. But I've also thought strategically like, wow, she really got me good for a long time. Maybe I should just be nicer. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe it's just a tool I should deploy myself. I mean, it's possible. You catch more flies with stevia.
Starting point is 00:32:17 Right. It always depends on what, you know, what the goal is there. But yeah, I, you know, before, I feel like, obviously, this is leading to talking about Charlie Kirk, but also we are talking about sort of the way in which, I don't know, it seems like for some people, the money that comes along with sort of, I don't know, like pivoting to right-wing propaganda and whatnot seems to really be apparent when it comes to the topic of Israel. And we have to talk about Matt Taibi, because this has been one of the, at least for me, one of the most surprising and kind of shocking things is seeing, you know, seeing him kind of become someone who's like, I'm going to make it part of my brand, not only to not talk
Starting point is 00:33:16 about it, but to piss on anyone who demands of me an opinion on this subject. And it seems to all kind of coincide a little bit with the, you know, sucking up to Elon to try to get them Twitter files. And I, you know, I definitely saw him kind of like going in that direction a little bit earlier on, but I am shocked when I see someone who it seems like all of their colleagues, at least in sort of independent left media spaces, start, you know, like saying someone who decides to be the scared one. Like, that's a strange thing.
Starting point is 00:33:53 Scared and annoyed about being asked to not be scared when you're the intrepid. free speech reporter and there's so many angles that you could if you don't want to talk as you said brianna if you don't want to talk about gaza qua gaza talk about gaza quo cancel culture well that's yeah and it's what's weird about matt is that he is as he points out in an article he put out recently um he is someone who has in the past talked about at least some things when it with regard to palisine like censorship of pro-palisine activists and whatnot and so it is so strange to me his uh his not just his silence but also his like bitterness about people expecting it from him um what's going on what's what's up with him it's it's very curious to me i mean so
Starting point is 00:34:46 despite what you might have read on his substack about me oh i've read it wasn't the victory lap article that he posted uh when i was fired from the hill oh no no i was It was the one about why is everyone want me to talk about Gaza in which he, like, you know, mentions. For those of you who wonder why I don't talk about this issue, let me share one, a story or two. Rackett readers know a story from last April when once friends Brianna Choi Gray and Zayid Jalani wrote a, did a whole segment on the hill about my pandering to right-wing audiences. The show showed, included a string of silly factual errors. yada, yada, yada, leading to this dismount by Brianna. Maybe there's something other than trying to preserve his relationship with Elon for the sake of journalism.
Starting point is 00:35:38 In other words, maybe I was paid off. First of all, like, it's crazy to complain about that, because that's literally me trying to say, like, maybe, maybe there's a few reasons for this. That's how I read it too. I'm literally trying to be nice to you, dude. I'm literally giving you it out. That was the strangest thing. The way in which he, what he took from that is like, oh, what are you saying? I'm paid off.
Starting point is 00:35:57 I was like, no. I think she literally just said Maybe there's something else I don't know about There's a good reason What's the whole Can I just say this for the record? Please Zed had
Starting point is 00:36:09 Written a piece I think about What he thought was going on around Going on with Tai D And had done a bunch of tweets about it Like this tweet thread that was causing all of this You know energy on Twitter And that's we decided to do a segment about Zed Okay
Starting point is 00:36:24 And I think we couldn't get Zed For the first segment or somehow we ended up talking about it without Zed. So because Robbie immediately launches in defending Taibi and not even like entertaining the argument that Zed Sme, it falls on me to just moot the argument, right? So this has been years and I don't remember it exactly. Sorry, I don't mean to make any factual errors, Taibi.
Starting point is 00:36:46 I'm not intentionally trying to smear anybody. But my subjective recollection of it and people can go back to the tape was that like the segment starts and Robbie's immediately like, well, Matt's great and he's not biased at all. I'm like, okay, well, so the argument Zed is making is, and then I go ahead and make Zed's argument. I did not extemporaneously even decide to, quote, unquote, go after Matt. I'm just covering what happened, and it falls on to me to do it because my co-host is completely clearly going to be a pro-Mat. Right. So I got to move the other side of the argument. And so it comes off,
Starting point is 00:37:21 he like frames it as though like I had a vendetta. Now, privately, secretly, did I think Zed had a good argument yeah but you know the irony about all of this is that like Matt was facing a lot of bad faith criticism at the time sure and I frankly did feel sort of defensive of him and frankly while I had him on my own show in an episode that I just made to the public last week because it's germane to this conversation they were having I did have Matt on a couple years ago or a few years ago and ask him not about the validity of reporting on the Twitter files, not about the value of the reporting that came out of the Twitter files, but about one narrow claim he kept making, which was that the overwhelming thrust of state censorship on social media companies
Starting point is 00:38:18 was against the right. I had no problem with any of the reporting that came out of the Twitter files but he kept character making a broader characterization was just to say all of the bias is against the right and I simply asked him Matt how can you know that given that you have been given a selective trove of documents by Elon Musk who won't even give you documents from after he became CEO of Twitter right so you don't even know he won't even disclose about his own censorship
Starting point is 00:38:47 or what he isn't isn't doing but in the the prior era, you haven't asked any questions. I asked him, did you ask what search terms were used to give you these documents? What percentage of the total documents these are? Whose emails were searched? Whose slacks were searched? Whether home email addresses were searched? These are the kind of questions we ask when we do document review as attorneys. So you know that you're not being given a selective cache of documents. Right. And maybe you don't ask those questions. Maybe you don't get good answers to those questions. Maybe it's out of your control and you still decide to report on the Twitter files. Fine. I support that actually. But if that's the case, you cannot credibly,
Starting point is 00:39:27 accurately make the claim that all of the biases against the right because you don't know what you've been given. You can't make a relative claim like that. You can only report on what's in front of you. Yeah. Okay. And there's a nice, there's a nice contradistinction between, you know, you take a free speech absolutist and intrepid reporter like Glenn Greenwald, right? who has certainly made no friends on the liberal left side of things when he expresses principled objection to the ways in which conservative and right-wing voices have faced censorship, whether it's over COVID or anything else, right? Right.
Starting point is 00:40:06 But at the same time, he has never for one second claimed that the preponderance of it goes there and nor has he ever stopped. talking about the overwhelming and in many ways, foundational ways in which pro-Palestine voices were the testing ground for so many of these forms of censorship and worse. Now, that strikes me as some, whatever you think of him, I'm a fan, but not all of our listeners are, but that is principle in action. That's something closer to consistency in intellectual rigor and transparency. And when it comes to Matt, there was a joke I desperately wanted to make on Twitter, but I didn't out of respect to someone I'm related to who might have been put in an awkward position,
Starting point is 00:40:49 but I wanted to say, didn't this idiot used to be useful? Yeah. Yeah. Look, I'm so grateful for Glenn and people who have been consistent like him because I think the gaslighting, and it makes you feel crazy when everyone flips the way that so many folks have flipped in the last few weeks post Charlie Kirk, last couple of weeks or so. I will point out, though,
Starting point is 00:41:18 that as much as Bari Weiss is on the wrong side of all of this Israel has Barra stuff, the irony that she was the one that demonstrated more principle with respect to the Twitter files and Elon Musk was asking some of these questions of Elon got ousted from the project. And Matt didn't stand with her, didn't say anything solidaristic with her. like they all kind of said well we're all going to walk out and then you'll have no one to report on this stuff like he Elon needed journalist to launder his ideological project right made it up to her a couple of weeks ago when he called all of her critics jealous losers well maybe that was going to take that's right that's the deal that's struck yeah yeah it is I mean it's just seeing the way in which I don't know because you just don't often see this with independent media which is why I think your question there that he got so mad at
Starting point is 00:42:14 um was completely valid this idea that like is there something else going on because i can't make sense of it outside of uh either you're doing this in order to continue getting access to whatever you know you get access to that right yeah he admitted to that piece of it part of what was so frustrating for me is that he was like mad at me for saying on the show that he refrained from criticizing elan musk to maintain access to the Twitter file which was an admission that he made because he released his own DMs with Elon Musk. That's right. When they started beefing, right? Yes. When they started beefing, his DMs revealed that he had these private concerns and
Starting point is 00:42:59 frustrations with Elon that came out, and this is why he accuses me of a factual inaccuracy. I can't remember if it was weeks before, months before, year before. I don't remember how long before. But at some considerable time before he actually publicly broke with Elon. on. Now, I think that there is, you can make an argument that it is worth it to hold your tongue to make sure you get meaningful information out of a source. Like, reasonable minds can disagree about the extent to which you hold your tongue to get important information out of a source. Why you're mad at me for just saying what you said. Right. I didn't even like really cast judgment. I was like, well, you admitted this. And how do you feel about that now? Do you wish
Starting point is 00:43:46 you had spoken out earlier? Like, how are you feeling? Like, I'm just asking you questions about your decision making process and you're acting as though I'm trying to personally tar and feather you. No such thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's strange. I mean, you know, it's sort of John Fetterman like in some weird way. I don't know why he's coming to mind. But it's kind of like, why won't you guys just leave me alone? I said what I said on the floor of the U.S. Senate, like, you know, where the world's decisions are made. Why are you questioning me about it? They're aesthetically similar.
Starting point is 00:44:16 They're both kind of like, there's an eornness to both of them, which is just like, it's like palpable. You just see them both as like, everyone's mean. It makes me, it's so, like I cannot stress enough that like,
Starting point is 00:44:30 I have no, let's your litmus test bear. Purety politics. I'm very much. you know, I have no, no, no, no, no bone in this fight. That's the expression. I have no dog. Dog in this fight.
Starting point is 00:44:47 Sorry. If the dog is just bones, then the dog's been in the fight for too long. I would like, I didn't realize we were like formally friends or whatever he says in that article. I would be happy to be comradely. Like we have, as far as I'm concerned, I have a disagreement. I had disagreements with Glenn and he's come on my show and we've debated them and he remains my friend. And I adore Glenn. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:07 It doesn't, it takes, you know, some personality. can handle disagreement. And some personalities, I think, are just a little more sensitive. I don't know what Matt Tabe's sign is. It's giving water sign. Yeah, he's very quick to DMU hashtag fake friends. And for that, I, you know, I'm sorry. I hope he had a good eclipse last night.
Starting point is 00:45:30 Yo, I just, I just Googled it. I know I wasn't supposed to type. I'm sorry. He is, in fact, a Pisces. Well, there it is. There it is. The proofs in that. in the moon.
Starting point is 00:45:41 It's like, geez. And it's like, this is like having a conversation with my wife. Francesca's always talking about what sign everyone is. I don't know about signs.
Starting point is 00:45:49 It's a Pisces too. It doesn't explain anything. In this house, we believe in signs. Daniel, you feel like a Pisces. No, no,
Starting point is 00:45:58 I'm a Libra. I'm turning 50 this coming week. Aaron is a Pisces. My brother Aaron is a Pisces. Yeah. What am I? What do I seem like? Which one?
Starting point is 00:46:06 I have to ask you some questions. Please. And I don't know that we have time for me to do a full analysis, but I'm getting a little, can you tell me what Fran is? Because that'll be, she's a Virgo. Okay. Interesting. Very interesting.
Starting point is 00:46:21 My, I could see it was like, I could see it was like a, it's like an air sign, like a, maybe like, like I could see you, like, I could see a Gemini-ish. Jim, I could be, I could also, I don't know anything about you. I'm just meeting for the first time. Are you competitive? I guess. Yeah. I'll give you a hint. I'm very stubborn. Are you a tourist? I'm a tourist. Yeah. That's where I was going with a competitive question. Then I was going to ask you if you like to eat. I do like to eat. Those are my key ends for you being a tourist. Who doesn't like to eat? No, Taurus is like really like to like. They're like heenists. They like to chow down.
Starting point is 00:47:02 I do like to, but I thought we all like to chow down. Now I feel like, listen, I just got a gym membership. okay and I'm going to be in shape very soon but speaking my rise is in Taurus so I empathize it's fine don't apologize no apology necessary we need to take a quick commercial break but everyone please media and astrologically coded episode of Bahamas ever yeah
Starting point is 00:47:28 but everyone stick around list of these ads will be right back back the badass barro world's most moral podcast here with brianna joy great how you doing brianna i'm doing very well can i tell you how much i enjoy chatting on shows with like co-hosts and panels of people because when you have a straight interview show depending on the guest you usually just have to kind of stick to the topic and frolics and detours are frowned upon sure and this is just no we get to do whatever we want we're unable to stick to anything we are we are about 80% sent Vaseline.
Starting point is 00:48:08 We saw it in any topic. There's no adhesive surface. We both have a lot of ADHD and we like to express it by doing podcast. That's right. Same. Let me in the club. Well, welcome. I wanted to ask you just, you know, podcast to a podcaster, what's it like to be besties
Starting point is 00:48:25 with Norman Finkelstein? It's so funny. I had this drawing up behind me. I took it down because I just filmed a documentary of my apartment. I thought you were about to turn around. It's so funny. He's right behind me. I can imagine.
Starting point is 00:48:38 Hello! This is me. And interviewing him at that cute venue downtown in New York. Who drew that? A guy in the audience. I'm sorry, he signed it, but I can't really, it's not really legible. It looks like S-K-O-U-G. But I'm going to get it framed because I just adore talking to Norm so much,
Starting point is 00:49:06 And I feel like it's such a gift that for whatever reason he seems to like me and enjoy the company and enjoy being interviewed by me. Yeah, your episodes with him are they're great. Truly special. And we can't wait to get him on the show. Yes, everyone in the comments, we are trying to get him on the show, all right? It's going to happen. You just have to be patient, all right? They're always yelling at us.
Starting point is 00:49:31 He's just, he's like such a special. kind of person that they're not making anymore. Correct. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's bold and uncompromising and, like, a character in the best way. Yes. And even when we're disagreeing, I find there to be something like really reassuring in him hitting the beats that he hits and, like, having the peccadillas that he has.
Starting point is 00:49:59 It's like an old oak tree that you pass by and touch every year, and you're just, you're happy that it's growing and thriving even if it's a little bit in your way. Yeah. And he enjoys some fisticuffs if it's done if it's done right. If it's, if you, you know, if you're intellectually rigorous. Yeah. That's how I feel about Glenn too. It's like we disagree constantly. But I feel sharpened going up against his blade. And Norm is just exemplary in that regard. My one time hanging out with Norman, I went for a walk with him on Corny Island. He took me on his daily Gaza perimeter walk, which is, you know, he walks the five miles, the Gaza width walk, and it was in the middle of the winter, and he's walking barefoot in the sand, and he wanted to go
Starting point is 00:50:45 for a run, but I was like, could we just walk instead? And it was one of the most hilarious three hours of my life. He's genuinely very funny. Anyway, I started doing 5K every day because of Norman. Now you're reminding me that it's actually 5 miles and not 5K, and I need to step it up. Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, those are very different. I also learned that the wrong way too. I thought I was I thought at one point when I was working out I was doing K instead of miles and then I realized that's why I'm not losing any weight. I'll get you. Yeah. So we promised a little bit talk about Charlie Kirk and we need to do it. But we have to start with a segment that I didn't know I was going to start with until I saw the video we're doing. I'm Israel AI.
Starting point is 00:51:31 A lion with an Israeli flag And a picture of Hamas as an octopus or a boss. I am Israel, aye, I'm Israel, aye, I'm Israel, aye, I'm Israel, aye, Israel, hey, hi. This is a very long sting. so um it's more of a it's more of a thud than a sting yeah yeah um so there obviously you know we talked a little bit about this last week but you know the reactions to uh charlie kirk's assassination um you have been i mean myriad you see them kind of all over the place and what i have found the most interesting bit has been the uh need to
Starting point is 00:52:29 put his soul into AI and have it live there forever. There's been multiple AI Charlie Kirk's that have come out and the videos have been across the board, horrifying to watch because who wants this shit? You know, like there's like that level of slop is a little, that's too hoggy for me. Like you have to be the weirdest type of hog who demands that slop. But one of the most interesting ones that ties into this show was one that was made sort of in the wake of the beginnings of the conspiracy theory that Israel may have had something to do with it. A conspiracy theory that much more than other conspiracy theories was fortified and established by its denials. Yes.
Starting point is 00:53:20 Yes. It's like a beautiful use of negative space, you know. A conspiracy theory that last week I would have confidently said, the word conspiracy theory. And this week, I am saying conspiracy theory. The possibility. So, yeah, this is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Here is Charlie Kirk, AI'd, and a split screen with someone crying while watching it.
Starting point is 00:53:49 Here we go. Don't worry about me. I'm in a better place now. But America and Israel, from this day on, will never be the same. So in the background, you see two soldiers shaking hands, and there's an Israeli flag and an American flag waving side by side. And Charlie Kirk has wings, and there's Hebrew subtitles. Yes, yes, yes, there is.
Starting point is 00:54:16 This is the wake-up call. They tried to shut me up. They couldn't stand a voice that didn't sound like theirs. And that's exactly why we have to fight. we expose the lie. I spoke the truth and they hated everything. All right, so now there's there was...
Starting point is 00:54:34 Sorry, as he's saying, they tried to shut me up. They're showing Palestine flags in a protest and Greta Tuneberg with the Palestine flag behind her, as though the shooter had anything to do with Palestine. Yes, yes. And this is what I think one of the many birds
Starting point is 00:54:50 that this stone is trying to kill. One is the conspiracy theory that Israel done it. The other, is trying to establish that the shooter was in some aspect of anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian. I don't know. All I know is they also had the AI, the protesters. I heard the shooter was trans. He identified as a autistic Swedish girl.
Starting point is 00:55:14 That's right. That's right. It is possible. I mean, this is like, this is just crazy. Three second time. I know you guys are hurting. It feels like you lost me. You didn't.
Starting point is 00:55:28 You can't kill an idea. You can't murder fake. All right, now we got Israeli soldiers shaking hands. They mocked me. I kept going. Oh, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Can you go back and show us the flag that was just waving behind that soldier, please? Can we just take a little closer to look at that.
Starting point is 00:55:44 Let's look at. Okay, hold on. What, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What is that flag? What country is that the flag of Brianna? You went to Harvard. You know geography. United States of India.
Starting point is 00:55:56 Israel, like, listeners, it's an Israeli flag with the blue part of the American flag on the corner with the stars on it. Yeah, the one with all the stars. That is fucking crazy, dog. That relates to the Mike Hockeby clip. We're going to play later. Dude, dude, that is great. That's a merger.
Starting point is 00:56:14 Yes. What the fuck. Did you notice that before? No, I never noticed that. And also, I'm sorry, but if you're going to do that, make one of those stars in that part, the star of David. Seriously. You can just do an American flag, but all the stars are stars of David.
Starting point is 00:56:29 Yeah, or do that. Actually, you know what the most accurate Israeli flag would be? It would be the Israeli flag, but a five-pointed star in the middle. Fucked the Jewish star. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is, yes, it's their state flag when we finally put them in the United States. Spirit, Confederate flag doesn't break. They mocked me, yo, I kept going.
Starting point is 00:56:51 Tried to silence me. All right. So I love to try to silence me. is a room full of i assume leftists they're all wearing masks you know because they uh they believe covid is real and uh they're holding signs and they're all on the internet i assume mocking him on twitter justice yeah it's just his justice on there all right you guys my name is so in pronouns pronouns or this and that we're having a mock party tonight mocking party we're going to get together and put masks on and wave placards and we're just going to mock charler kirk
Starting point is 00:57:23 on the internet who's coming who's in Oh, my God. They warned me, no way. Truth's worth the price every single time. This whole time, what's his other arm doing? Why is it holding his bathrobe clothes? I feel like he's about to like flash. It's got a gun, I think.
Starting point is 00:57:43 It's a Gen Z. That's what's so weird about this. I think this is like a Gen Z, like it's a, or Gen Alpha thing where they do this thing where they like point to their like crook of their other elbow. I don't know why. I'm afraid. But it's a thing that people, like the kids do, where they like do this gesture in videos all the time.
Starting point is 00:58:05 And I feel like that's what they have Charlie Kirk, who was a grown 31-year-old man. Yeah, 31, yeah. It's a very weird choice. That is weird. I did not even know that. On freedom, on family. Same with this room.
Starting point is 00:58:20 Standing tall, fighting back, never backing down. That's our bomb. That's our story. Here's the thing. Those who tried to scare me only made me stronger. I'm sorry, just if you're watching the video, the AI'd a protest and for some reason all the AI people are waving. I'm very strange.
Starting point is 00:58:41 You tried to silence me, proved I was right. So I'm asking you, don't go quiet. Don't bend. Don't give in. America needs you. Israel needs you. I mean, listen, I can't watch any more of this for fear of my brain. melting but uh i mean strange to me that the focus of that video is is real so much i mean it's
Starting point is 00:59:06 very very clear to me that like they're fighting they're fighting a little bit of hasbara uh or like they're doing hasbara to fight the idea that maybe they uh had something to do with uh the death of Charlie Kirk, which is a theory that I, again, I was not promoting after it happened because I was like, you know, unless you have evidence of this, we're just doing the thing where we're blaming Israel. And also, what's the likelihood that Israel would cause in the same century two world-changing cataclysmic events? You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 00:59:44 Right, exactly. On foreign soil. Exactly. Whoops, did I say that? No. oh no yes no but a lot of people have said we have a lot of people have said that they are responsible for you know obviously january 6th so and we can't prove otherwise um but yeah it has been interesting to watch the ways in which charlie kirk's death has been used by uh i think
Starting point is 01:00:11 like a multitude of of different people in order to whitewash uh either whitewash him or whitewashed whatever weird project they have. They're using him posthumously as a puppet for their own purposes. It is weird to watch. It's weird to see Candace Owens seem to be the only one who both seems to be authentically mourning him as a friend and also sort of authentically carrying across his message. So she keeps pointing out that she doesn't think that the speech infringements that are being
Starting point is 01:00:45 executed by Larry Allison and the takeover, you know, CBS and the censorship of Jimmy Kimmel and all of that are right and good or things that he would have supported. I don't know if he would have supported them or not. Many a free speech advocate has turned tailed and flipped. Oh, yeah. But she seems to at least be using the evidence of his old tweets and stuff in a way that's congruent with his old tweets and stuff and like kind of holding the line. Yeah. And all of this other stuff, I mean, look, I certainly was not a friend of Charlie Kirk, and it's not for me to be sort of precious about how his memory is handled. In fact, you've been one of the most caustic memorializers of him that I've seen. Like, you just have no truck with the Ezra Klein fucking, you know. Irony of that is like I was tweeting about Ezra Klein. It's not even tweeting about Charlie Kirk. Like, look, I don't believe in like tone policing other people, whether they are.
Starting point is 01:01:45 are like, you know, sad about Charlie Kirk like Candace Owens or whether they are someone who's actively celebrating Charlie Kirk being killed. I personally feel just a little squeamish under my own morals for like celebrating anybody's death. I'm not going to tell anybody else what to do. That being said, I'm very angry at liberals and leftists who have chosen to celebrate his life because of his death. Like absolutely, this is not like, Like, these AI generating creeps can do whatever videos they want to do, but it's not the responsibility of liberals in the left to try to rehabilitate his image and act as though there was anything valuable about his politics or even the way he did his politics.
Starting point is 01:02:31 He was not some debate genius. He explicitly went out, argued with a bunch of 18-year-olds, chopped up the videos to make himself look good, and used that to propagandize on the internet. I love the framing, though, that they have for it, which is like he went to a place where people should have their ideas challenged and a challenger ideas. I was like, he went to the nearest barrel and made content out of shooting the fish. This is not what are you talking about? Like people are pretending as if Turning Point wasn't a content mill for, you know, TikTok and for all the other short form video. like that it didn't exist explicitly to make videos of libs getting owned like let's not pretend
Starting point is 01:03:19 that this was him exercising free speech in a way that was like principal owned wasn't the only verb in those that's true clip titles disemboweled destroyed eviscerated destroyed obliterated annihilated genocided yeah yeah charlie kirk absolutely holocausts This trends, non-binary, free. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And by the way, he lied so often in his debates. He made up facts. He misrepresented the truth.
Starting point is 01:03:48 Yes. And on an occasional, oh, and by the way, in Turning Point USA, Ezra Klein, one of the more grievous aspects of his piece was that he said, like he worked his way up into this empire. Like, he hustled his way into this media empire. No, he was recruited as an 18-year-old by a bunch of billionaires who gave him money to do this job. Yes.
Starting point is 01:04:08 Like literally anyone could have been given million of dollars to prop up a camera crew on a college campus and get enough clips to make themselves look good. Just to be clear, Brianna Joy, Gray, live on our podcast right now, you are in fact knocking the hustle. I am knocking the hustle for sure. And on the rare occasion that he actually debated someone who was informed and, you know, it was past puberty, who got his ass handed to him. You know, like I, and I found it, I got to say, kind of disrespectful to see some people on the left doing some of this, like he was nice to me and he was good at debate.
Starting point is 01:04:46 We have to accept, you know, respect his fundamental skills in this area. When I was like, he debated me and he wasn't good. Yeah. And it's embarrassing that you're going out of your way to compliment him when he was very stupid and very wrong. And also, I did not feel like he was kind to me, perhaps because he believes the black women are not intellectually fit. to be in the public sphere and came to me with that attitude. And maybe he didn't come to you with that attitude. If you're not one of the groups, he was trying to purge off of the planet.
Starting point is 01:05:16 It's really interesting to see, like, that type of whitewashing to me, but done by liberals. And it's so clearly about, it's so clearly about self-preservation because they want to be seen as, like, you know, someone who isn't celebrating. Yes, I'm mature. mature adult in the room. And also, they are afraid of being killed. So, so Ezra Klein says this. He admits it at the end of his piece. Like, I see myself in Ezra. We're both doing the same job. Sorry, in Charlie. We're both doing the same job. You know, I mourn for him the way I mourn for myself. I mean, they're very explicit. I mean, in a way, Ezra is doing the same job. Like, as a propagandist, that's about right.
Starting point is 01:06:02 All right. God forbid. God forbid, knock on wood. I'm not meaning this, but I'm just trying to imagine the liberal analog in a parallel universe, the Ezra Klein Memorial. But no one's ever going to try to come for Ezra Klein. At the football stadium. That's the irony of it. Like, I don't want to be killed. Nobody wants to be killed. But like, Ezra Klein, like, who benefits from Ezra Klein being killed?
Starting point is 01:06:25 Literally nobody. Those people who are anti-abundance. Right, right. That's true. I mean, to be honest. Yeah. Right. I didn't do it.
Starting point is 01:06:32 Just kidding. And we're all joking and everyone's having fun. We bono. Us. Not really. But it's not, it's not anybody in power is my point. It's like, it's not anybody who would actually, actually benefit because we don't have the power to even take over the void.
Starting point is 01:06:44 If something were to happen to Ezra, they'd put a new Ezra, you know, they put Iglesias in that spot and the world would keep turning. But, but like the idea that he is threatening enough to centers of power to have a target on his back is so naive and self-inflated sense of importance. Yeah, but I also think that like there is something there to be said about like, you know, Charlie Kirk also not being, whether or not, you know, someone is important enough is, I don't know. To me, I look at it more like, listen, unless you are subscribing to the theory that possibly he was killed for the things he was saying. Well, yes. Yeah, I mean, but that. Sorry, it starts to
Starting point is 01:07:26 point in that direction for that reason. Of course. Of course. Yes. And so that to me is the open ended question that again, I was not someone who thought was, you know, something we should take seriously until I saw the fourth video of Benjamin Netanyahu disavowing or denying it. It's like, you know, Bernie made me black. Now it's like, uh, Israel made me tin foil-hatted. Yeah, dude, but like, so here is, uh, here is Netanyahu doing this is, yeah, the fourth or fifth time I've seen him publicly talk about how he didn't do it. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda. The lie.
Starting point is 01:08:10 Sorry. Starting with Gerbils is always great. It's great. It's like him talking to his Alexa. It's called Joseph Gerbils. Joseph Goebbels, lights on. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. If I ever own a pet turkey, I'm going to call it Joseph Goebbels.
Starting point is 01:08:33 Oh, that's a great name. The bigger the lie, the faster it will spread. That's not what he said. The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. And you know who else said that? Who? Bunkmoreland. Oh, he did.
Starting point is 01:08:47 That's right. Shout out to the wire. He is fabricated a monstrous big lie that Israel had something to do with Charlie Kirk's horrific murder. This is insane. It is false. it is outrageous Charlie Kirk was a giant a once in a century talent
Starting point is 01:09:04 who defended freedom while you are from the land of David that's true and yet someone had to someone had to take the giant down By the way for listeners he blinks every time
Starting point is 01:09:16 he lies Oh interesting He's got to tell He's got to tell we got to watch it we got to see it Something to do with Charlie Kirk's horrific murder This is insane
Starting point is 01:09:27 As the phrase goes, if I'm Zion, I'm lying. So, I mean, he goes on to talk about how great Charlie Kirk was, a great friend of Israel. The Holy Land is so important to my life, it pains me to see support for Israel slip away. Now, if Charlie disagreed with a policy of mine or a decision here and there, not only did I not mind, I welcomed it. This is the essence of Charlie. This is the essence of a free country. It's exactly what Charlie stood for. I'm sorry, but like, essence of Charlie is, is BB's new perfume.
Starting point is 01:10:03 This is such a crazy, it's so crazy video to put out. You're leading a country in the middle of a genocide. Yes. And we're taking the time to record a like, I doth protest too much video. Yes. This is like, this is like, OJ is like, if I did it, but if I did it, yeah. But if he just kept writing them, like if he made it a series of books called If I Did It, Part Two. super didn't do it this time like it is totally insane to me to like give this air at all if it's
Starting point is 01:10:38 as insane as it and I'll say on on its fucking merits initially I was like this is this is just the conspiracy theory people are putting out there people are mad at Israel and let's be honest we wouldn't put it past them um you don't you don't put the oxygen on the fire that's the weirdest thing to do. Like in the detective story and the cop, you know, the who done it, right? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:11:06 They'll visit the real killer in one of the first interviews and it'll be very innocuous and very friendly or whatever, right? And then they move on to all of the other red herrings and whatever, right? And it's only at the very end that the killer will come back around.
Starting point is 01:11:18 The killer has the good sense to disappear in this detective movie, right? Or this law and order episode, the cops come to the, you know, they interview them it goes it's very perfunctory they go away and then every single time they're trying to interview someone else the actual killer is banging on the window being like hi you remember me I didn't do it still not me I'm going to be in every scene but I just want you to know I had nothing to do with it yeah yeah I just sent you an email you didn't reply so I texted I mean I haven't had
Starting point is 01:11:48 Max on to talk about his reporting yet hopefully I get him on this week so I haven't like actually done a deep dive because I just been waiting to I know I'm, I know I'm going to have to do it for the podcast. But I similarly went from, you know, sort of a, wouldn't this confirm my priors if it were true? But come on, Brianna be an adult. To, you know, I'll hear you out. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:12:15 Let's hear it. Like, yeah. I mean, that's where I'm at with it right now, after seeing the amount of times that B.B. has personally like quote said he didn't do it or disavit you know uh like he he went on some show that i think it was greta van custrin uh hosts on whatever network she's on now um in which she asked him about it and what was strange about that what is that i was like there's no fucking way that she did that on her own you know i just don't believe that she was
Starting point is 01:12:53 was asking, hey, the people want to know. She was absolutely had prepared him to talk about this. And in fact, I think I wouldn't be surprised if he himself was like, can you ask me about that? Because I just want to do a quick, like, denial of this. I've been working on some new material on it. I want to do a bit. So it's like a late night couch kind of thing.
Starting point is 01:13:14 Yeah, exactly. Not blinking. Yeah. I think that the tell, there's a, the fact that there are people like, Megan Kelly, who are very staunch Zionists and proud Zionists, who are saying, well, I support Israel. I hate the pro-Palestine people, but also it is true that Charlie was starting to revise his position on some of these issues toward the end of his death. Combined with Tucker Carlson, did you see that weird sort of glib statement that he made at the memorial service the other day? How about the hummus eaters?
Starting point is 01:13:55 There was something about, yeah, hummus. He was talking about the Pharisees who sat around deciding. Yeah, we have that clip right here. And it actually reminds me of my favorite story ever. So it's about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem and Jesus shows up and he starts talking about the people in power and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do, which is telling the truth about people and they hate it. and they just go bonkers, they hate it,
Starting point is 01:14:24 and they become obsessed with making him stop. And low bonkers, they went. I just want to point out his opening for this was, I'm going to tell you my favorite story ever, and it's just the Bible story about Jesus. So this takes place about 2,000 years ago. Yeah, I was just like, do you really have to open this is my favorite story? Come on.
Starting point is 01:14:48 Like, you haven't read any Lord of the Rings? It's got to stop talking. We've got to shut this guy up. And I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamplit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus thinking about what do we do about this guy. Eating what? Sorry, I'm sorry, eating what now? Eating hummus is great.
Starting point is 01:15:10 But the best part of it for me, I mean, it's, is the way that every fucking Zionist in the world was like, we resemble that remark because to them, hummus equals Jews. Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Right, like, they can't not do the thing of, like, you know how Jeremy Capulowitz has that bit, of like, we need to stop identifying ourselves as science fiction goblins.
Starting point is 01:15:33 Like, every time, like, a new Star Wars movie comes out and there's like a Wato, Jews are like, that's clearly us. And it's like, no one else said that. Right, yeah. We need to stop resembling these remarks. Hummus, I don't know, sounds to me like he's talking about the region. Yeah, yeah, I mean, for sure.
Starting point is 01:15:50 But I also, you know, I do think that, he a little bit is also doing a thing where he's just like I think we all know who killed this guy right right sure sure sure you and me the question is is you know is it like oh he's saying you know all the Jews of the world are responsible for it or if he's just talking about Israel and whether or not parsing that even fucking matters who knows but like and I don't think he minds uh trolling yeah yeah he doesn't mind at all call I think he enjoys people calling him anti-Semitic I think it it amuses him I don't think that means he either is or isn't. Yeah, but, you know, it is definitely a funny choice of finger food, I suppose.
Starting point is 01:16:33 I telling the truth about us, we must make him stop talking. And there's always one guy with the bright idea, and I could just hear him say, I've got an idea. Why don't we just kill him? That'll shut him up. That'll fix the problem. Oh, God. I assume he was getting laughs before that, but after the laugh, I'm just like, oh, it's so, like, don't make me have compassion for Charlie Kirk because I'm like, I'm, why am I the one
Starting point is 01:17:05 wanting there to be more decorum and respect at his memorial service? I know, I know. It is, I mean, it's just, you know, it's everyone using this as, you know, a means to something in particular, you know, and watching, I mean, watching Trump actually. actually say, you know, like, that was the funniest line of the night. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Do we have that? Hold on. When he said, what did, yeah, go ahead. He says, you know, Charlie was a, he was a good Christian, he was a man of God, you know, he believed in loving your enemy. That's the only place I disagree with Charlie. I hate my enemy
Starting point is 01:17:43 and I want the worst for him. Maybe if I have a chance to see him again, we can, we can debate that one. But he really wanted the best for us. but I hate my enemy. Yeah. He's like so funny, unfortunately. I know. I know. I know.
Starting point is 01:17:58 Funny as fascist in history. Yeah. Unfortunately. There just should have been a petition to get Donald Trump a TV show again. Completely. Like put him on network TV. Like, get him out of politics. Give him the Wendy Williams show.
Starting point is 01:18:12 The opening was right there. Yes. Did you ever see him on the Wendy Williams show? Yes. He was fantastic. It was extraordinary. I've never seen me quite. strangely warm in those scenarios.
Starting point is 01:18:22 Yes. Yeah. He's in his element. He has like, he is like, he's got this like catty, bitch, diva personality where he's like a girl's girl. He's like, honey, leave him. It is, it is just such a shame. It's such a shame. That couch with that table, not working. Yeah. Yeah. He should have been doing bitchy red carpet interviews at the fucking Emmys, at the Tony's. That's where he belonged in his heart. And if anyone could have helped him get there if he needed it, it would have been Bill and Hillary Clinton. Instead, they decided to turn him into a Pied Piper. They fucked it up. They fucked it all up. But yeah, you know, you've got all
Starting point is 01:19:05 of this Charlie Kirk shit going on. Meanwhile, it's just like, you know, you're seeing things like Jimmy Kimmel getting pulled off the air and, you know, people freaking out about it. And to be honest, you know, like at least in, I'm in L.A. I'm in comedy. So I know a lot of people, who work on that show in particular. And, you know, I think one of the main gripes about it is the fact that they didn't even choose a joke to say this is the reason why we're doing it. They literally just got threatened by the FCC and they essentially made up a reason to get rid of. Yeah, that's been really pissing me off because, again, all of these liberals who want to be first to, like, bow to fascism are rushing. be like yeah he he downplayed i think it was um uh of the vox guy uh who's the number one
Starting point is 01:19:59 vox guy at this point it's not ezra anymore right not ezra who's the remaining vox man the remaining vox guy i'll figure it out anyway he was he was like um uh they they they he he down played the no he accused the right he was wrong he was factually incorrect in accusing the right of being responsible for the attack now i have no interest i don't have any like sympathy for jimmy kimmel i have no interest in like running cover for him but as a factual matter the joke that they're pointing to he does not say the right did it he accurately says the right was rushing to blame it on the left immediately and without evidence yes that is true now whatever ends up being the case is the case, but it is undeniable that his statement, which is that the
Starting point is 01:20:50 right was trying to point fingers at the left immediately and pin this on the left, is in fact true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's, it's borne out, too, the fact that they can them over it because of the fact that he's like, yeah, they were so quick to blame the left on it that they are blaming him for blaming the right or you know saying that he blamed the right when he did he did not he's not at all doing it he's saying this is what you guys are doing and uh you know what we're supposed to be offended by is the fact that he people keep saying oh he spread misinformation uh and it's so funny watching the type of person who says this say that because they're they are the ones who did nothing but talk about how you
Starting point is 01:21:41 the phrase spreading misinformation has been abused in order to censor. And now they're saying that. I mean, it's just you can't write anything more perfect than that. 100%. Yeah. That's why I'm so, I think, I'm so grateful for the Greenwald of the world because I, you know, hypocrisy trolling is like, it's so boring. Like, yes, this side, that side.
Starting point is 01:22:04 What about it? Blah, blah, blah, blah. But, like, I think I would be going literally insane in this moment if there weren't a few consistent people left in the world who actually cared about it when it was happening to Republicans and then you know there was the stuff this is the thing about Matt Tabi
Starting point is 01:22:20 which is so frustrating I was with him about you know pulling the Hunter Biden laptop story off of Twitter like yeah that was whack you know like I'm with you on the Russiagate stuff as most people on the left were because they tried to resrogate Bernie too right they weren't with they weren't with them enough
Starting point is 01:22:37 they fell into it a lot And, and, you know, relatives of mine who went deep into it got completely sidelined and ignored. Right. Yeah. Yeah, of course. And so, like, it's just, it's like, it's very frustrating to be like a 90, 95% agreement with someone and then feel like, oh, it was, it was fidelity to the end of days or none of it counted. Or you're going to like put me in the same camp as some Lib who was like celebrating the IRS being sent to your daughter to intimidate. you like, I mean, especially when that 90 or 95% was about a universal principle,
Starting point is 01:23:14 right, supposedly. And then when you hold fast to that principle past the point when they're not, or you have the temerity to point it out or question it, you know, it's that, you know, fake friends thing or why is everybody always picking on me? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it definitely is, you know, if the last two years have taught us anything, it's that, that 5%, you know.
Starting point is 01:23:38 is always really, I don't know, it outweighs that 95 in a way that always is surprising because especially if they're principled, especially if you've only been able to identify them by the principles in which they stand for. Yes, exactly. That's what really, I think, shocks a lot of people. And yeah, speaking of which,
Starting point is 01:24:03 we need to talk about first and foremost, I wanted to show this earlier on, but we just got into it so much. I think it was Nate Silver, by the way. I was Nate Silver. I was thinking of a box guy, but it was Nate Silver who did the tweet I'm thinking of. The probabilities are very good that it was. They're very high that it was Nate Silver. Smart money's on Nate Silver.
Starting point is 01:24:27 Yeah. But Mike Huckabee recently was speaking to, I don't know, a group of people. And he, there's a couple clips I want to play. One is every time this happens, I get my Twitter blown up by people who are like, hey, they're doing the theme song. Mike Huckabee recently speaking to a large group of people, did the theme song, The Land of Israel is truly a friend of America in so many ways. It's not just military and intelligence.
Starting point is 01:25:02 It's not just the technology that we enjoy. If you enjoy car navigation back home, thank Israel for that. that. Us. If you enjoy having a cell phone, thank Israel for that. Us. If you've had a family member that has had robotic surgery or that swallowed the little pill that went down into their intestines and let the doctors see inside of them, thank Israel for that. Oh, good. It's always good to know that Israel's got cameras inside my body. iPhone cameras, us. Robots inside are colon, us. These inventions would have just been done by like America, like that same Israeli guy? Would it just been a guy from
Starting point is 01:25:37 Philly? Right. Yeah. What are we doing? What are we doing? Yeah. Those are just some of their creations and invention. Some of them are a little more practical and maybe more pleasant. Like cherry tomatoes and seedless watermelon, for example. Lies.
Starting point is 01:25:53 They're still doing cherry tomatoes us. I can't fucking believe it. Who gives us as much as we give them? And a lot... Does it? But yes. Not for the cherry tomato. tomato boy plot line
Starting point is 01:26:08 and Nathan Fielder there's still not in the Nathan Fielder show but his show with Emma Stone Oh I never I never got to see that one
Starting point is 01:26:15 That was the You don't know what a cherry tomato boy is then huh? No I don't But I would like to know if it relates to Israel in some way
Starting point is 01:26:23 But yeah So I don't know You know who he's speaking to what this audience is But he is doing this speech And at one point
Starting point is 01:26:34 He brings up a reason why, why he talks about Israel so much, why he cares so much about Israel. And it has got to be one of the most revealing analogies I've ever seen. Here is Mike Huckabee continuing talking about his love for Israel. It may sound a little bit this afternoon as if I'm almost speaking on behalf of Israel rather than the U.S., but I want to explain. It does seem that way. Excuse me, sorry, folks. Brianna just took a rather sardonic sip from her thermos. Where are the higher-ups?
Starting point is 01:27:12 Yeah, there was a sip and an eye roll, I believe. The lips were pursed. We disavowalue from this podcast. No, baby, that's not Israel. You smell on my collar. All right, here he is. The part of my advocacy in our relationship is because if you came to my house tonight for dinner.
Starting point is 01:27:36 And you came in and you said, oh, Mike, we like you. We really think the world of you. We just enjoy being with you. I'm so excited to be here with you and have dinner with you. But your wife, we can't stand her. We don't like her a bit. I hope she's not going to be at the table. But your wife has been killing lots of children in the neighborhood.
Starting point is 01:28:01 And we don't like her one. bit for that say well she will be you won't be get out because because we are married to israel insult my partner once a week israel lets our wife lets us fuck her through a whole what the fuck in a u.n human rights report when did we when did we marry when do we marry when do we marry Israel. Yeah, yeah. I missed the ceremony. Being like, oh, no, for those you don't understand why I love Israel so much, Israel is my wife.
Starting point is 01:28:43 That is fucking intolerable. I'm sorry, but that is the stupidest thing. Our mother always wanted us to settle down with a nice Jewish country. Oh, my God. So we can have Judeo-Christian babies. That's right, because the babies on the mother's side will be mostly Jewish, but they'll also be Christian. That is fucking crazy.
Starting point is 01:29:08 Oh, that's very funny. I like to sit there in front of people and going like, you guys, I get it. There's suspicion all around of why I always talk about Israel. Have you ever considered the fact that maybe I'm fucking her? Have you considered I love her? She's hot. There's not something weird. going on. I let her kill kids because she's fucking hot. Unbelievable. Though that explains it,
Starting point is 01:29:39 I think I feel fully has barred. It honestly, when you read American foreign policy to Israel that way, it actually makes to make a lot more sense than any other rationale. It does. It's refreshing. And also, so much of Israel's own propaganda is so, like, lady coded. Like, look at this ostensibly hot IDF soldier. Right. Look at how much I'm going to talk about how we got raped on October 7. Don't you have to defend your wife's honor? Yes. Yes.
Starting point is 01:30:06 That's what they're doing. And it's funny to hear him say it out loud because you, like, this is something we would joke about someone saying as an excuse for why they support Israel. And he just is just like, no, it's like my wife. Israel's my wife. And, you know, happy, happy wife, happy life. We just have to, you know, like. You know, I'll say this for like ardent, like Christian Zionists, like Mike Huckabee, at least they are brutally honest with their cuckery, we'll say.
Starting point is 01:30:42 Like, he is just being very clear that the reason is because he loves her and he'll support her no matter what. See, I thought he was going to go in the direction of a different kind of heifer, like all of the brown cows that they need to be. For the right cows, what are the cows? a red issue, perhaps. Yeah, meanwhile, you know, to round this episode off, this happened a few days ago, but there was a UN Genocide Commission that happened in which the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, published its report, and it concluded that, quote,
Starting point is 01:31:30 concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus Rias, which I'm sure, you know, Breonna knows what it means, an act that is in the element of a crime of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It's related to the concept of mens rea, which was part of the whole ICJ thing. Well, I used to be a mens rea activist. But the reactions to this have been interesting. One has been Christian Siddati was asked some questions about this. This is one of the people who was the head of this commission.
Starting point is 01:32:16 And one of the questions was fantastic. It was just like, doesn't this make you Hamas? And here is his response to it. Today, decried a distorted and false report. and said that three individuals, so referring to the Commission of Inquiry, three individuals serving as Hamas proxies notorious for their openly anti-Semitic positions. Could you please comment on that? These reports should be taken seriously, but honestly the Israeli responses are becoming so boring.
Starting point is 01:32:53 You know, they say the same thing every time. They're producing the responses by chat GPT these days. and they spend so much money in the foreign ministry on propaganda you think that they would actually come up with something original I would want them to engage with the evidence but they never engage with the evidence they put the report into chat GPT and then they put out the standard response
Starting point is 01:33:18 I got to say I've got to put out an official caveat to my usual hatred of the Australian accent chat GPT is the best pronunciation of that of that technology. I'm not going to give them gnar. Oh, yeah, that was pretty good. Nair.
Starting point is 01:33:37 Yeah. Yeah. You know, I love asking the commissioner, you know, so Israel has said that all three of you are literally Hamas. How do you respond to those allegations?
Starting point is 01:33:53 And yeah, he just says what, you know, we all know, which is that they don't ever engage with the material, they will find a reason to de-legitimize the entire thing, whether it is like going into the actual report and cherry-picking something that they could make a counter-claim. Cherry tomato picking, that. Yeah, excuse me.
Starting point is 01:34:13 Or they, you know, just accuse the people who ran it of being Hamas. But it is interesting how, you know, and makes sense how mad they got over it. I've seen, like, some true freakouts over it. Because I saw this and I tweeted that this was so refreshing because because as obvious as this response is and as common as it is for them to be asked these stupid questions about, are you Hamas? Like, it is relatively rare to get someone responding the way you should when someone acts like a crazed animal, which is to bop them on the nose of the newspaper. Right. No. Exactly.
Starting point is 01:34:52 Stupid and wrong, bad, no. Normally you get all this like, well, and he does a little bit of it up top, like, well, of course we have to take all claims of anti-Semitism very seriously and then but normally it's all that right like and of course this was a thorough investigation by then but normally like throughout this entire conflict it's been uh Israel said unrah was Hamas and the next day the entire world defunds Hamas I'm sorry defunds uh huh yes and we have a famine and then like a year later they're like oh shucks gee this famine's awfully bad right can't these mercenaries we hired to give food do their job, right?
Starting point is 01:35:31 Whoops, couldn't have seen this coming. Right. So we've been all, like, subjected to this rigmarole that's, like, feigned idiocy and that's covering up for the entire international community just doing Israel's bidding. Or the leaders of the international community, I should say, the people who control international consensus doing whatever Israel says while the rest of the world stands by and watches, relatively powerless and for once it seems like this Australian guy has had enough of it and he's like come on my guy like yeah and not to nitpick what you said but I think I don't think
Starting point is 01:36:09 he's seated that ground at the beginning I think when he said these reports need to be taken seriously he means these reports the ones we're putting out not not allegations of anti-semitism fair enough fair enough right these we should be talking about the substance here and Israel has nothing yeah and it's great that he says enough is enough you know he's just in a Imagine if we had had this kind of clarity immediately. Like, I was no great scholar of Israel Palestine, right? Like, I knew, you know, I had an average person's understanding of the conflict on October 6th. Right.
Starting point is 01:36:40 And just that baseline, like, anti-Semitism. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. But, like, I actually, when I was, I had a cause to go back. recently and reflect on like what I was saying when and I was kind of like I'm all impressed with
Starting point is 01:37:02 myself right now I was spitting I'm coming out of the gate I was like oh this this rising segment where Robbie and I are screaming at each other and I'm saying does Israel have a right to exist was like October 10th yeah and and so like and and I was and you were one of the first places that the gray zone was able to like signal boost their reporting on the Thomas rape allegations like you guys gave them, you know, and electronic and taffata, like you were, you were an outlet for reporting that was not being reported. And that was being actively maligned and dismissed by including people who now would rather forget that they did. Yes. And I would have had them on every other day if I had my druthers. And by the way, if you go back and look at Rising Now,
Starting point is 01:37:49 you'll see that not only are their videos getting no views. I mean, like 5,000 view, you know. But also like 20,000 is like a good video. But they down from, you know, we would try to average, you know, upward of 80,000. You're trying to hit to a million over the course of your segments a day. So some get like 200,000, some get like 80,000. But that's what the goal was. We really got to step up our game day. Well, you're not a million.
Starting point is 01:38:14 You know, you're not a huge corporation. So like I don't get obviously that on my show, but whatever. We're also probably being throttled. Yeah, that's right. That's the ticket. that too. But these days not only are they not getting hits. They're not doing any Israel coverage. Of course. Like literally, I'm not saying like it's much less than before. I'm not saying they do one segment a day. I mean, they're pretending like it's not happening.
Starting point is 01:38:38 Yeah. And it's it's crazy. It's crazy to see, I mean, first of all, it's crazy to see that now still going on. I mean, that just is such a clear ideological bias that it's like, who would even watch this shit? If you know what you're getting, is coming from the top down like here's the list of acceptable subjects it's like capitalism is bullshit like capitalism dictates you cover Gaza because people want Gaza sorry that's the funniest thing about it is this is sort of like you know you're you're watching someone destroy their own fucking brand uh because they are ideologically committed to killing Palestinians yes and uh to and to manufacturing consent for it um and if not yeah if not consent then
Starting point is 01:39:23 just at least pretending like it doesn't exist and letting other people do the dirty work. But I brought up how quickly I got on, like I educated myself and was, you know, forcefully being propels. I'm not just to like pat myself on the back, but to make the point that I got there because I was consuming trusted sources, right? Like October 7th happened and I immediately looked around and said, what are the people that I trust saying? Right. And that means that there were a lot of people, international authorities, people at the UN, people like Craig McIber, people who were quitting their jobs, people in the State Department who were quitting their jobs. And of course, independent journalists, the gray zone, 972 plus, you know, The Intercept,
Starting point is 01:40:04 everybody, you know. Miss Rachel. All coming out very quickly and saying enough that gave me the confidence to say what I was saying second order on rising. And so for so many other folks to have been silent and for the u.n as an authority to basically allow this to happen all this time as more my mother worked for the u.n for 17 years and had to go to conflict zones like this all the time and was in in uh lebanon evacuating people in 2006 when israel was bombing lebanon like the u.s that get killed she's having to she doesn't work there anymore but she still has colleagues and friends that reached out to her and is like this is very real yeah and for all like the the you for the you went to have forsaken its own employees and allowed Israel to kill so many UN staff members.
Starting point is 01:40:53 Yeah. Just an unprecedented number of UN staff members and stay relatively silent and allow, you know, the American, England and the rest of the cohort to run cover for Israel. Yeah. Really unconscionable. So, yes, it's refreshing to hear that guy say that, but it's refreshing because it has not been the norm. Right. I mean, finally, an Australian's out there going, that's not a wife.
Starting point is 01:41:19 Well, of course, now the whole commonwealth, right? UK, Canada, Australia are running a different kind of cover for Israel by appearing to piss Israel off by recognizing the state of Palestine. We're probably not going to have time to cover that in any depth on this episode. Right. But just, you know, on the one hand, it's funny to watch Israelis freak out and make absolutely plain and explicit. Again, just like Huckabee's admitting.
Starting point is 01:41:44 that we're betrothed foreign country, right? And it's till death and or, you know, until planetary destruction do us part, you know. You know, Israelis, you know, officials, both in government and our government, say there's never going to be a Palestinian state. We've worked, we've worked way too hard to allow that to happen. So on the one hand, that's good. But on the other hand, these meaningless recognitions of a state of Palestine, really, on what territory, with what borders with what army or protective device with what kinds of autonomy are you recognizing it it's completely meaningless way too late and it's total PR for themselves and it you know of course in the Chomsky and Herman paradigm part of
Starting point is 01:42:28 manufacturing consent is creating the illusion of a you know playground of debate right and you set those bull posts pretty close to each other and it's interesting because I very much you know wanted to you know I try not to be someone who dismisses movement, especially amongst Western politicians, because it has been obviously so excruciating to watch how slow even the most leftward politicians in America are at recognizing that this is a genocide and this is wrong and they should be speaking and using their power in order to stop it. So when people do it, whether they're, you know, celebrities or politicians, you know, I'm always just like, okay, this is good. I want to be in support of it. I don't want to be the
Starting point is 01:43:12 person who goes like too late because to be honest it's not too late people who you know say it's too late for people to to do that or to do anything um that's not true this is this project is continuing a genocide can be stopped any day in which you can try to stop the genocide is a good day no matter no matter the fact that you were a coward for two plus years right um what's hard about this recognition of a two-state solution is that it sounds good at first. You want to like it, but then you watch Kier-Starmer essentially call for, you know, a two-state solution as a way to stop Hamas from their crimes of, from doing their crimes. He spends more time talking about Hamas crimes in that announcement than he does any.
Starting point is 01:44:09 anything else. It's like Bernie's ninth inning acknowledgement that it's a genocide as well. Yes. Bernie, it sounded very similar to this in which you see. Bernie Sanders finally says, it is a genocide. September 17, 2025, and the
Starting point is 01:44:25 first sentence is Hamas. I'm sorry, the first word is Hamas. The first sentence, a terrorist organization began this war with its brutal attack on October 7th, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostage. Still lying about the numbers.
Starting point is 01:44:41 Yeah. It makes me feel a little gross to do this, but, you know, as Aaron and Max have done such a good job pointing out, like half of that number is soldiers. Like those aren't, like, he said innocent people, which is the same thing as civilians, but like a lot of people keep calling them civilians. Yeah. Like, 1,200 civilians. And that's not even taking Hannibal into account.
Starting point is 01:45:04 Right. And also, it is like, I'm sorry, but you don't start your, like, if you believe something is a genocide please treat it like a genocide don't do the thing where you have to soften the blow of telling someone they're doing a genocide you don't ever have to soften that blow it's like look uh the holocaust was a holocaust right but yeah exactly imagine imagine imagine starting your history of the holocaust with the riteschak fire yeah yeah was a It was a crime against the governing body of our wonderful furor. The armed terrorists of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Starting point is 01:45:44 Yes. Right. So you're just like, you know, starting it this way, it just comes like it immediately, at least for me, I look at it and I go like, you still, and I guess I need to stop expecting any different, but you still, at the end of the day, have to like publicly wrestle with the fact that Israel is in what? you thought it was like is that going to be forever you're just never going to get over the fact that this is possible people are going to die on that temple mount not to be such a stereotype but
Starting point is 01:46:16 I had a call with my accountant the other day who I haven't spoken to uh I think all on the phone since like two percent I've been avoiding your call whether you're an accountant that is the funniest uh didn't we say no tropes that's not the first thing we told you I'm sorry we're going to take off one point. There's no anti-Semitism in the United States. Norm calling it. So he asked me about the podcast. Like, we have good rapport.
Starting point is 01:46:48 Like, he's interested in my life and what I do. Sure. And so this time, we talked last week, because you know, I have to do my late tax filing. And he was like, look, what's your make? What's your take? Like, is it a genocide now? And I was like, I got to tell.
Starting point is 01:47:06 you, bleep out name. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think it's really a debate point at this point. I mean, I know you saw the UN report that just came out and even Bernie has come around. And he was like, yeah, yeah, really like gravely. He was like, yeah, I think I think I got to like acknowledge this now. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm glad you're here, buddy.
Starting point is 01:47:33 Yeah, we don't have to have that argument on the phone. And it's like, you know, for people who have had a tough time coming around on it, it's like, listen, I understand this, at least on some level, because it took a while for me to come around just in general to the idea that Israel could be the baddies when I was younger, you know, so if this is your first time, you know, welcome. And I'm sorry it had to be during a genocide in which your silence on this and or approval of it was historically. going to make you feel like shit for the rest of your life. But when it comes from a politician like Bernie Sanders or when it comes from Kier Starrmer, you really do hope that the meaning of the word genocide has the power that it maybe once did. Matt, was Starmers statement about genocide? It wasn't about genocide, but it came in the wake of this, you know, of this report. Do we have Ken Roth's tweet to Netanyahu is the strangest attempted own of the Zionist pushback?
Starting point is 01:48:43 So, you know, all the Zionists have been saying this is rewarding terrorism, all these recognitions of a Palestinian state. And Kenneth Roth, the former fucking head of human rights watch, says, no, Netanyahu, recognizing, recognition of a Palestinian state is not a, quote, prize for terrorism, but a penalty for your genocide. you you get rights Palestinians but only to own Israel right it's like a fee it's like a fine yeah um like you know you feel that you feel that you feel your wrist you feel it smarting that's because i just slapped it you know what your punishment's going to be is me staring into the eyes of a dead Palestinian saying i see you and i hear you that's what it's going to be and and it's like you look at this and it's just so hard to fathom the fact that we are now, you know, dealing with an international community, at least like at least the powerful nations, um, kind of
Starting point is 01:49:43 taking this ruling of genocide, you know, uh, this, uh, from this commission, uh, and acting in a way that does not ensure that they will stop funding it or stop arming it? Yeah, that's what's so, I mean, that's what's disgusting about it. Like, I really hear you, Matt, when you say, like, you want to, when people come to the right conclusions, you want to welcome them into the tent and not be like an asshole about it. Like, I get it. And for some people who had no power, like my accountant, I'm happy to do that. Like, I'm glad he's there.
Starting point is 01:50:20 And I'm sensitive to the fact that he has pressures that I don't have. and he's been indoctrinated in ways that I wasn't growing up. Sure, sure, sure. Like, I'm not, I'm not going to be all big and bad because there but for the grace of God, go I. So, you know, that being said. There but for the grace of the one true God, Jesus Christ. Whom the homesteaders killed.
Starting point is 01:50:40 Yes. But, you know, when you're Bernie, you know, when you're the leader of a country, when you had real influence, when you're a, you know, the Secretary General of the United Nations, you had a different kind of obligation. Yes. And your unwillingness to say the truth
Starting point is 01:51:02 created the permission structure for all of this evil to happen. Yes. And coming around at this juncture is not, cannot be read in good faith as, like, I had a maturity of opinion.
Starting point is 01:51:14 Because to my anecdote about, like, being balls to the wall on October 10th, the information was out there for anybody who wanted to look at it. Right. It wasn't like my accountant who, like, is reading the New York Times and isn't learning the truth and eventually comes around because there's good reporting on, oh, yeah, it wasn't genocide. You knew and you chose to be a part of the cover-up and only now are switching gears because, you know, they've already killed almost half the population of Gaza.
Starting point is 01:51:44 And the deed is done. They've destroyed every building in Gaza and dug up every grave and no one has anywhere to go. and they are pretty confident they're going to be able to complete their ethnic cleansing campaign. And so now you have permission to say a couple of true things so that your legacy isn't so bloody and tarnished. So, no, I don't accept it. I'm not like happy you're on board at this juncture. Like you're just trying to dodge accountability and I'm not going to be a part of allowing that. Sure.
Starting point is 01:52:10 No, I understand that. I understand that completely. And I think one of the darkest parts of, you know, the Kirstarmer thing specifically, is in watching the video, which we don't have time to play it, but in watching it, there is a, you know, it's six minutes long and there is about a three-minute preamble talking about the crimes of Hamas and, you know, Hamas wanting to, you know, destroy Israel and destroy the two-state solution. And then a little bit about, you know, obviously Israel doing bad, bad things to, And therefore, I would like to call for a Palestinian state, you know, along the 67 border, the pre-67 borders in order to stop, you know, extremists like Hamas who don't want peace and, you know, and Netanyahu from yada, yada, yada, yada.
Starting point is 01:53:07 What's really dark about that to me is the idea that Hamas is like doing everything, everything they can to stop it too. state solution is just it's just not true here's this is a headline from 2017 when they put out their charter it says this article is more than eight years old Hamas presents new charter accepting a Palestine based on 67 borders that's eight years ago in which they accepted this proposed two state solution um like to stand there and use this as a well this is going to be the punishment against both of these warring factions is I'm going to I'm going to call for a two state solution I'm going to endorse an obsolete solution that one side has made absolutely impossible and impracticable yeah the other side accepted a long time ago yes and to me at knowing knowing this
Starting point is 01:54:08 because I think Kirstarmer knows that this is the case knows that Israel is the one in the way of this one thing it's like he cannot pretend to be ignorant about what he is allowed to happen for the last two years now. So he is, for him, he knows that this is the perfect, Hasbarra punishment, a punishment that works enough just to piss off the right psychopaths in the Knesset and not enough to do anything that, like, physically stops this from happening. And it's almost...
Starting point is 01:54:45 To my friends in Israel, you have been very, very naughty. now go to your settlement right right and it's like it's we've joked about this before but it's like he is he is basically saying the UK now recognizes doing a land acknowledgement yeah which is brutal and dark and yeah we need to we need to start wrapping up but we got to wrap it up I would never forgive myself if I didn't ask you this question or give you this prompt let's say let me see what you can do with this How are the Bajorans and the Cardassians doing at this particular moment? How I told you that, like, speaking of my radicalization, when I was a kid watching Star Trek,
Starting point is 01:55:29 I saw it as a sort of Nazi Holocaust analogy. Oh, really? And the Bajorans were Jews and the Kardashians were Nazis. And I'm like, yeah, the rebels were fighting against this occupation. And they're kind of with their little, you know, tight little suits on, like, frog stepping. And then you grow up. Yeah. No, I always saw it as the, you know, because have been growing up in a leftist, liberal, Zionist education,
Starting point is 01:55:55 I recognize the, the vocabulary that the Kardashians used to describe the Bajorians. The occupation, yeah, I didn't, I didn't have that insight. Also, the Bajorans were so, like, the religion and the spirituality was front-loaded. And I don't know, I read as, I don't know, you know, all hail the resistance, much like the Vajorans, violent resistance is legal under international law to occupation. And even Star Trek was getting kind of like, even the Starfleet, you know, the way they treated the, um, the, there was it, the maquis. Like, they were the problem. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:56:33 Like, I would hope that we would all be the maquis in that situation and defect from Star Trek. And it's UN, like, neoliberal bullshitting management of this crisis. Well, the prime directive was always a, you know, a neoliberal enforcement mechanism. It's neoliberal bullshit. Yeah. They should have blown the Kardashians out of the sky and been done with it a long time ago. Except for Golducat. I'm realizing now we're not talking about the Kardashians.
Starting point is 01:57:01 And there are five guests on the podcast. Five guests. Well, that. No, not the Kardashians, Matt. Cardassians. No, yeah, it took me a little while because I was just like, man, I guess I don't know my, like, history of the Kardashians a little bit, but this sounds fascinating to me. Oh, but my Kardashian impression and my Kardashian impression, both involved me kind of going to tinsing up my knuckle. Oh, I got to get rid of the Seinfeld soundboard, but that was perfect for it. Oh, man. That's, that's our show. Brianna, thank you so much for coming on and talking about bad.
Starting point is 01:57:42 has barred with us. Thanks for having me. This is genuinely a blast. I haven't had a good chuckle in a while, so thank you guys for that. Hell, yeah. Where can people find you over at Bad Faith Podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, there's a free episode that drops every Thursday and a premium episode that you can get over at Patreon.com slash bad faith podcast,
Starting point is 01:58:02 or at least until the Zionist figure out how to kick us off of Patreon. Well, and that's actually very economical for you, folks. you just go to patreon.com slash bad and then there's two there's a fork in the road yeah you take faith or hasara take them both or bad friends there's also bad friends that's uh another podcast with bad in front probably empanata too at this point yeah if he does a podcast yeah there's a lot of bad you know what we need to change the name of the show brianna before you go i just wanted to say congratulations on the platform you've built i remember distinctly where i was when i heard the first bad faith episode. Oh, yeah? I was living in Victoria, British Columbia, and I remember being in the car
Starting point is 01:58:43 being like, fuck, yes. I'm glad you're doing this. And what you've turned it into and what you've used it for. It's like a very important and impressive and distinct space. And I feel like you've just been very true to your mission. And you really played your strengths there. And I just really want to appreciate you for that. I appreciate you saying that. You know, I am really, I'm not the best manager and like businesswoman. So we just breezed by the five year anniversary of the show, which was in early September, I think. I think it's September 11th, actually.
Starting point is 01:59:15 So happy anniversary to bad faith. I cannot believe I've been doing this for five years. It might be the longest job I've ever had. Wow. Congrats. Whoops. Congrats on that. It is a great show.
Starting point is 01:59:30 Yeah. Thank you. And right back to you. You know, this left media space. is tough as you are well aware. We know. We're doing our best. And, like, I have so, so, so enjoyed myself. And I hope to have you both over on bad faith sometime.
Starting point is 01:59:45 Hey, another bad crossover. We, of course, are down to do whatever. And we would love to talk to you again. And please come back on this podcast again. Anytime, really. It's a blast. And thank you all for listening out there. Patreon.com slash badasbarra.
Starting point is 02:00:01 Baddhajabar.com for all your questions, comments, concerns, all right everyone thanks again so much for listening and until next time from the river to the sea he loves israel conjugalie michael the hackabee that was great jumping jacks was us push-ups was us godmaga us all karate us taking molly us michael jackson us yamaha keyboards us jarja mix on us and or was us Keith led your Joker us, endless bread success. Happy meals was us. McDonald's was us.
Starting point is 02:00:41 Being happy us. Bequam yoga us. Eating food, us. Reading air, us. Drinking water us. We invented all that shit. Thank you. Thank you.

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