Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/12/23: US Confirms Israel Warned Before Attack, Major Gaza Destruction, Zelensky To Visit Israel, Lindsey Graham Calls For Holy War, House Speaker Updates, Wild Rhetoric On Israel &Palestine, Cenk Uygur Launches 2024 Bid, And Hannity Attacks RFK Jr

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the US confirms Israel was warned of Hamas attack, massive destruction across Gaza amid bombing, Netanyahu face pressure to resign, Krystal And Saagar debate Israel Palestine, Zelensky to visit Israel, Lindsey Graham says we are in a holy war, GOP House Speaker chaos, Cenk Ugyr launches 2024 presidential bid, and RFK Jr is attacked by conservatives after launching independent run. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's Thursday. We have a big show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? There is a lot that is breaking right now in Israel and in Gaza. The Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, is on the ground there. We also have updates vis-a-vis Ukraine and what is going on there. Zelensky wanted to make sure he is not forgotten about as these things are unfolding. We've got developments here domestically as well with some movement maybe towards the Speaker of the House from the Republican Party. I don't know. It's a mess. I can't even say at this point. But we'll give you all of those details. Also, we wanted to talk a little bit about the discourse in general, the rhetoric on both sides, which has been horrific, genocidal. I've never seen so much just like casual talk of genocide in my entire life. And I genuinely do mean from both sides. So we're going to show you a little bit of that. We also have a new presidential contender on the Democratic side, Cenk Uygur, founder of the Young Turks, who kind of sort of teased it. I would say we got the

exclusive. I would say we got the exclusive. Yeah, we accidentally got the exclusive. He brought it up on our show. We were like, at first I didn't know he meant it. And then he said it again. I was like, wait a second, you're serious about this. Well, he made it official last night. So we'll play a little bit of that. And also we have some updates on RFK Jr. The Right now definitely taking the knives out. He went on for what he, I assume, thought would be another friendly interview with Sean Hannity. It went very differently. He's also launching a new ad that I have to say is really quite good.

It's a great ad. We're going to break all of that down. We have two administrative things that we want to know. We hadn't been bringing it up, obviously, because of everything going on. But our crew is flying down to Atlanta tomorrow for that focus group. So just everybody stay tuned. We will have that Democratic focus group that is happening there. We'll be asking about Israel and Palestine, but there's a lot of other stuff, obviously, to get to as well. And then second, on an administrative note, we will not have a

weekend show as normal as a podcast that usually posts along with those clips so that we can be available for breaking news that will happen over the weekend, just so everybody can keep that in mind. Thank you to everybody who has been supporting us, though, by the way, this week. It does mean a lot. We've been working very, very hard. None of us have been sleeping all that much and making sure that we're getting things very accurate and all of that for all of you. And we take your responsibility incredibly seriously. So I just want to say thank you to everybody for that. We will have the focus group, some more exclusive content for everybody next week. but we will preview that as the clips roll in and just thank you for enabling this. It's going to be higher production than last time.

Yeah. And shout out to Griffin and Mac and the whole crew who have been working overtime this week to do our best to make sure that we are providing you the most up-to-date and most accurate information that we possibly can in what is a very difficult and challenging situation to report on. All right, so let's get to the very latest with regard to Israel and with regard to Gaza. Our own Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, is on the ground in Tel Aviv in Israel this morning. He just gave a press conference with Bibi Netanyahu. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what Tony Blinken had to say. If you'll permit me, personal aside, I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew. My grandfather, Maurice Blinken, fled pogroms in Russia. My stepfather, Samuel P. Czar, survived concentration camps, Auschwitz, Dachau, Majdanek.

So, Prime Minister, I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes that Hamas's massacres carry for Israeli Jews, indeed for Jews everywhere. And I think that's emblematic of the personal connection that many Americans feel to Israel and have deep connections there, family there, relatives there, friends there, etc. You also had in that same press conference Netanyahu emphasizing that he views Hamas in the same way that he views ISIS, that he believes that they should be treated in the same way, that they shouldn't be dealt with, negotiated with. Any country that does deal with them should

be sanctioned, that they should be completely sidelined and kicked out of the nation of communities, which understandable sentiment there. We also have an updated number in terms of the number of Americans who were killed in those attacks. We can put this up on the screen. We actually have even more updated numbers. As of this morning, yesterday, the number was 22. Today, the number is 25. They say at least 17 other Americans are unaccounted for. We know that some unknown number also held hostage. So that's where we are in terms of an American death count. Yesterday, Blinken made some interesting comments as well as he was preparing for his trip to Israel. And obviously, the Israelis were watching and listening very closely to what top American

officials have to say. You know, very important that they continue to receive the endless support that we've always provided to Israel. Biden giving very clear comments. You know, we will stand with Israel. We always stand with Israel, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly what you would expect any American president to say. And one of the things that Blinken brought up was a little bit of a reminder as Israel now launches this all-out assault and siege on Gaza, and we're going to give you an update on that in a moment, that Israel should be holding themselves to the same standards of international law as all nations should be. So a little bit of a reminder there. Let's take a listen to that. And of course, what separates Israel, the United States,

and other democracies when it comes to incredibly difficult situations like this is our respect for international law and, as appropriate, the laws of war. We do everything we can to make sure that in these situations we avoid civilian casualties. That is in direct contrast with Hamas, which uses people as human shields. It actually seeks to put Palestinian civilians in situations where they could be harmed. Sagar, Hamas obviously murders. There's no need to defend them or justify any of the atrocities they committed. For the U.S. to talk about following international law and making sure we don't target civilians, you know, people who have been murdered in our drone

strikes might have something to say about that. And then with regard to Israel, even putting aside the apartheid state and putting aside the blockade and putting aside the occupation, the illegal settlements, et cetera, we already know they have announced a complete siege, which they have undertaken. You now have all of Gaza without any electricity. This is 2.2 million people. We're not talking about these are not all people in Hamas. In fact, half of them are children. This is already collective punishment in violation of international law. You already have hospitals, schools, medics who have been actively targeted by the Israeli military. So for him to say, of course, Israel is going to follow international law,

well, they're already in violation. I think it's a point of pressure on them. And I'm going to save some of my geopolitical commentary on how the U.S. and all of that for a little bit whenever we're going to talk about Gaza specifically, because I do think that there's some stuff that needs to be highlighted. In terms of the response, what they are in a situation right now, and I saw it put very eloquently the response, what they are in a situation right now, and I saw it put

very eloquently actually by Marshall, is that previously the Israeli state and the international community looked at Hamas as a political organization with a terrorist element kind of within it. So Hamas would periodically carry out acts of terrorism, but this is, at the end of the day, we're not going to say legitimately elected, but it was elected, let's all be honest, by people inside of Gaza. And so it had some sort of political administration. This is something that Christopher Hitchens used to talk about all the time as well. Now, though, after the attack, and specifically on a bulk of the casualties being civilians, the shift in the Israeli and Western international community is towards the way that we used to look at ISIS, which is this

is an eliminationist tactic now, as opposed to one that can be managed. You previously alluded on one of our past shows about quote unquote mowing the grass. So to them, they're like, we have to eliminate Hamas entirely as both a military and a political entity. Now that's obviously an incredibly, incredibly difficult task. I'm going to save some of the actual military commentary for what that will look like. But that's part of why they are in the difficulty that they are, because ISIS did the exact same thing in our counter-ISIS campaign, when they would occupy the city of Mosul, many of the cities that they took in Syria, they would intentionally, you know, stack women and children on top of them. And, you know,

the international community and airstrikes both by the US and also by a lot of the Syrian fighters that we had there on the ground. We all have to be honest, a ton of civilians were murdered in that anti-ISIS campaign. That just underscores, I think, the immense difficulty of all of this situation. Now, I'm not gonna tell you which one is which. That's for all of us really to decide. But I just think that that highlights the real pretzel that all of us are in, in terms of, quote, unquote, how you deal with all of this. Well, and Hamas has no scruples, whatever. They're happy to use civilians, including fellow Palestinians.

And hospitals. No doubt about it. But also Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. And hospitals. No doubt about it. But also Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. And these people are locked in a cage like they cannot leave. They are not allowed to leave. All efforts to establish any sort of humanitarian corridor have so far failed. You know, negotiations with Egypt. I've seen mixed reports, whether they're ongoing or whether Egypt has just said, no, we're not going to establish an emergency corridor. And so when you have this densely packed population, even if Hamas wasn't trying to use civilians as human shields, you have babies, families,

children everywhere in huge high rise apartment buildings. And as I said, in hospitals, I mean, they've been striking marketplaces, they've been striking mosques everywhere. There have been more than 2,000 strikes, and we'll get to some of the imagery from that. But one parallel I did want to draw out with ISIS is, you know, in a sense, he's correct, because both of these organizations have either, I mean, ISIS directly comes out of blowback from American, you know, war in the Middle East and deep stabilization in the Middle East and war in Iraq in particular. And Hamas has also been bolstered and built up by the West and specifically by Netanyahu. We had that quote for you the other day of how he actively told his own party, the Likud party,

that, hey, if you want to thwart a Palestinian state, which he does, then what you got to do is build up Hamas. And we're going to get to some of the domestic Israeli backlash and rage at Netanyahu and his administration. That is a key part of it that, you know, people have seen that tactic. They've seen how Netanyahu and his ilk and his ideological brethren have thought Hamas was like a useful foil for them to prop up. So there's also a blowback element here that does actually track with the creation of ISIS and how that all came to be. We wanted to update you as well on there had been this report that Egyptian intelligence officials were saying, hey, this attack didn't come out of nowhere. We warned you. We directly warned Prime Minister Netanyahu 10 days before this that something big was going to happen. And now we have an American congressman, Congressman McCaul put this up on the screen, seemingly confirming, saying, we know that Egypt had warned the Israelis

three days prior that an event like this could happen, three days before. We know that Egypt had warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen, three days before. We know that this has been planned as long as a year ago. And then, you know the context here is that Netanyahu, with this very extreme government that was very in favor of the illegal Jewish settlements, they had moved a lot of IDF forces from near Gaza to the West Bank to protect Jewish settlers. And that's part of why the response was so slow. That's also part of why this intelligence perhaps was dismissed out of hand, because they were more focused on what was going on in the West Bank with the settlers

than they were what was going on in Gaza. And the other thing I would say, even putting Sager aside, these reports of the Egyptian intelligence and the very clear warnings that they are saying that they gave to the Netanyahu government, Hamas was conducting war games. They were like, and Israel knew about this. They thought it was just a feint, but they were out there conducting fake raids on villages and practicing many of the tactics that we saw deployed in their atrocities and in this massacre. So, you know, there's a lot of rage on the Israeli side at these clear failings that, you know, that we're learning more and more about. As we said, we have a couple of clips we're going to show you guys, which are crazy from,

this is not rally around the flag time inside of Israel. It's very, they may be rallying around the nation, but they are not rallying around Netanyahu in the same way that Americans did for George W. Bush. To extra context on that, Congressman McCaul was one of the chairmen of the intelligence committees and actually received a classified intelligence briefing, but explicitly confirming outright that Israel was warned by the Egyptians. This was also backed up, Channel 13, Hebrew, and Israel also reporting that Bibi Netanyahu's office had to secretly then walk back his comments and was like, yeah, actually they did warn us. But of course they report that in Hebrew,

that they didn't actually put anything out in English. That's another thing I want to highlight. Just remember anything that comes out of English from Hamas and from Israel, it's intentional and it's directly targeted so that people like us can report on it. But they don't always tell the full story. And I've noticed this pretty significantly in terms of the efforts by putting stuff out in Arabic and in Hebrew, which is totally different than what we are getting. Part of the reason why it's extra difficult and we have to parse translations, make sure the translations are correct. There's also an interesting other backup to this intel story. Let's put this up there on the screen. I'm curious, we could read this in a couple of ways.

CNN is reporting, quote, initially US intelligence suggests Iran was surprised by the Hamas attack on Israel. So we could read that as truth. We could read that possibly as, we could read that as the actual thing that happened. The other way to read it, this is the uncharitable way, but I think we should represent to represent this as well, is America doesn't want to get into a war with Iran. I appreciate that. By the way, I appreciate that and I also support it. However, let's say if the facts said actually Iran helped plan this attack, I'm not quite sure that America would report that currently with the

domestic political situation that's happening. So I'm skeptical that that is actually the case. I would much rather listen to the Israelis and to the Egyptians and the other people in the region who actually have buy-in into the situation. Now, from right now, the Israelis themselves have not said that there is any indication that Iran was involved in the attack. In fact, they said they haven't seen any indication. They have not seen any of that indication. So I am going to go off of them because they have a direct interest in this. I'm not saying I believe them, but I'm saying if they had any indication, given Netanyahu's past,

he came to our country to lobby against the Iran deal. This is a regime and a people who, if they believed Iran was directly involved, I do not doubt that they would say it. Now, we could also read it the other way, which is they are terrified of also fighting a two-front war. So even if they have direct evidence that the Ayatollah himself, you know, ordered this attack, maybe they wouldn't report it because they're like, listen, we got enough on our hands. We got to deal with this whole Hamas situation. I don't need a two-front war with what is going on. But, you know, even, I don't actually, let's put the truth aside. Like, I think that's probably to a good end, you know, in order to avoid a big geopolitical conflict. I'm just trying to contextualize

what that quote unquote intelligence could say. I do believe the Egyptian report though. I do believe that a hundred percent. The Egyptian report that they warned Netanyahu. By the Israelis, has been confirmed by the Israelis, confirmed on the record by the Egyptians and now confirmed by the U.S. intelligence. Because that's just a matter of were you warned or not, and that's an explicit, explicit failure. It shows you, too, that so much of – like you can gather the intelligence. So much of it is up to the human beings is that Netanyahu and his government had their own bias and interest in the West Bank over southern Israel and near Gaza. And so they dismissed it as like, oh, no, they're actually just interested in more work permits.

And I think it's cool. We've got this handled. And so they didn't see what was right in front of their face. And as I said before, because they had redirected the IDF to the West Bank, I mean, the stories about how long people had to wait to get any – I mean, people hiding for 20 hours. Sometimes 72 hours. Left on their own, fending for themselves in terror. And this is part of what is so shaken Israelis to their core because they had so much faith in their – and understand, I mean, how much money goes to their surveillance state and their intelligence apparatus and to the IDF. I mean, it's massive. All of the billions of dollars spent on the high-tech fence that was easily disabled by Hamas using $100 drones. So that not only failure of intelligence, but the failure in response is part of what has so shaken the Israeli public.

At the same time, back to the point about fears of a broader conflict and specifically fears of a potential war with Iran, which some U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle have already been calling for. You had a warning issued from the president of the United States yesterday, I would say directly to Iran. But he says, you know, any actors, let's take a listen to what he had to say. Made it clear to the Iranians, be careful. So be careful, he says directly there to the Iranians. Put actually Colvin up the 10th element here, A10, because it actually fits directly into this. Sagar and I were watching very closely yesterday afternoon and we were getting ready to do a breaking news segment

because there were false alarms all over Israel about potential second front of this war opened up by Hezbollah, which of course has Iranian backing. And the reason this was so significant is because you have tensions so high and you already have war drums beating from so many quarters. They were saying there's drone strikes. There were reports of new paragliders coming in from Hezbollah. There were sirens sounding all across Israel. And I mean, this just underscores how high tensions were. They say in that article, as an example of how tense things are along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, a suspected airspace intrusion into Israel from Lebanon had Israeli authorities telling residents of northern communities to seek shelter until further notice due to human error, an app designed to alert residents malfunctioned, adding to the confusion. This was a terrifying, you know,

hour or so when we were very closely watching what was going on because it could be exactly the spark that leads to a much broader war. Yeah. Remember, we've got a carrier strike group that's always moving, already moving to the eastern men. We've got another carrier reportedly on its way. That's a hell of a lot of firepower. We've got the entire naval group. We've got Americans held hostage still. We've got Americans held hostage. We have thousands of American service members who are in Bahrain, not that far away from all of this. So things could jump off very, very quickly. Yeah. And that's what you said. Also, that's a great reminder. You know what? You know what I'm glad we did. We sat and we said, let's see if it's real. Let's see if actually what happens. And unfortunately, you know, immediately the, all the reports were

getting massively retweeted and shared. And I saw Israel's under attack, two front wars confirmed. And then an hour later, they're like, oh, it's a false alarm. Another reminder, you know, part of the misinformation block that we did on our Tuesday show. Be careful. Wait for confirmation, triple confirmation, quadruple confirmation until you see it with your own eyes. Even then, make sure it's not deepfake. Make sure that it's not deceptively edited. That is the difficulty of the situation we're dealing with right now.

Yeah, and this was coming from Israeli officials. Yeah, and this was coming straight. But still. This was an official news source. That's why we wait. But, yes, we waited to have visuals and confirmation. And I'm glad we did because it was, you know, would have been terrible if we rushed to air with like, oh, my God, this is happening. It could lead to this

broader war when it was not accurate. So everybody just keep your heads about you as best as you can. Let's move on to what's happening now in Gaza, which is horrific. We've got now over 2,000 airstrikes. You've got Israeli troops mass at the border. Gaza is under a complete siege. That means no food, no water, no electricity. There is one power plant in Gaza. It is now run out of fuel. That means the entire 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza, a million plus of whom are children, are without any basic electricity. That means no water. That means no sewer. That means no phone, no internet. Cut off from the world, complete blackout. As I said before, there is no humanitarian quarter that has

been established. I saw an update just recently from out of Gaza that the hospital system is completely collapsing. They do have generators at the hospitals. Those are probably maybe a day, maybe two days away from running out of fuel. So anyone who has been injured in these attacks, who is seeking care, maybe showing up at a hospital system where already they're out of beds and very soon they will have no power, no electricity, no nothing. Let's put this up on the screen

in terms of the latest death count on both the Israeli and the Palestinian side. So 1,200 Israelis killed, around 2,800 injured. In terms of Gaza, there's actually an updated number that I saw this morning, which was 1,350 Gazans killed in these airstrikes and about 6,000 injured. And remember, this is while Israel is still getting stuff together. There has not been a ground invasion. This is just based on the over 2,000 airstrikes which have already occurred, which have hit, I mean, all sorts of targets, hospitals, schools, marketplace, mosques, et cetera, based on the reporting that we have on the ground. We have a little bit of a report from a journalist, Yusuf Hamash AP, who is there in Gaza and who can witness these strikes and give us a little bit of a sense of what this is like for the residents who are living there. Let's

take a listen to what he had to say. This little boy was pulled out alive, his face blackened. كان هذا الصغير مجرد حياً، ورأسه مغلق. أسره يسرق إلى أمه، لكن قبل أن تستطيع أن تتحبها، تنقذ في حجم. تصبح أنيكا مجرد مصابة. تسرق هذه المرأة قبل أن يتم تصويرها. Any car becomes an ambulance. This woman is driving off before the boot can be shot. We've been told to get out. But where do we go? And how do we get there? There are more than 2 million people living here.

Almost half are children. Families are rushing, trying to make plans. Every second matters. Gaza is under a complete siege. No water, no food, no electricity, and no escape. It's too hard. Some almost give up. But you can't stand still for long. Please, my family, they're just kids. We are not strangers to war, but how it feels this time. It's hard to find the words.

It feels like the world is collapsing. Many are confirmed dead. Even more are missing. This woman cannot find her son. I haven't heard from him since Saturday. I haven't heard anything from him. Nothing. In addition, we can put this up on the screen. We have confirmed now that a number of aid workers have been killed,

11 workers with the UN Refugee Agency and five International Red Cross members have been killed in Gaza. That's as of yesterday. There are reports that medical facilities, ambulances in particular, were hit in two different incidents, so directly hit, And four Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were killed in those attacks. So it's horrific. I mean, there's just, remember, people in Palestine, in Gaza, were told to leave. They can't go anywhere. They're trapped. It's a very small space. They are trying to flee to safety, but there is really nowhere that's safe. And they have no electricity, no water, no power, nothing. So it's horrible what's unfolding there. Breaking news just now from some leaflets. I can read directly, translated from Arabic in the Gaza Strip.

To the residents of Beit Leha, the actions of the terrorist organization Hamas have pushed the IDF to act against the organization in the areas where you live. For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately. The IDF is not interested in harming you or your family members. Anyone who is near Hamas terrorists or terrorist facilities will put their lives in danger. The issue is, if everyone can recall, is that there is only one crossing into Egypt. That crossing actually was a place where Hamas, it turned out, had been keeping some weapons and it was bombed by the IDF. That crossing remains closed via Egypt.

The Egyptians refuse to open it. As of now, there is no active or at least like well or near the end situation to create a humanitarian corridor outside of Gaza. And that is the only place that it is. This is another area where I continue, I don't understand why the Egyptians don't get the criticism that they frankly deserve. They refuse to open it because they don't want to deal with the Palestinians. Crystal, their fear is that they believe that the Palestinians won't leave once they come over. And they're like, well, we don't want to pay for them. We don't

want to deal with them. Then we're going to be Jordan. So where they're willing to just let them be locked up, despite the fact that they have all this, you know, fake rhetoric and all of that same thing. There's been no international pressure from Qatar, from Saudi, from Iran, from any of these countries that supposedly care so much about the Palestinians to get them out. Also, here's the other problem. Hamas has told all of the people in Gaza, you can't leave. Don't leave. This is fake. They want to use them as civilian targets. That's why it's part of such a nightmarish situation. And look, we have to say too, look, these mosques, the hospitals, in some cases, they deliberately store weapons there because they want the headline of mosque destroyed, hospital

destroyed. They literally had their headquarters inside of a hospital. I'm not saying though that, uh, I'm not saying then that the people in the hospital deserve to be killed. And that's why it's such a difficult situation. The Israelis, obviously I said previously, they're moving to an eliminationist strategy. Here is my great fear. And this is from an American perspective, which is really what I think most of us should care the most about. Let's say you don't even care about human rights or any of that stuff. I am of a great fear that what will happen is very similar to 2014. In 2014 war with Israel and Gaza, around 1500 civilians were killed, which is right around where we're at right now inside after a 50 day war. The IDF, remember, they mounted an invasion, and it did not go well. They ended up having to pull

back, and they had to bomb the crap out of the area that they were working with. The international community, Europe and the Middle East, got inflamed to a point where the Israelis and Gaza eventually came to a ceasefire. And Crystal, that's very similar to the situation where we are before we have even launched a ground invasion. My great fear on this is I do not believe that the Middle East is in such a way that they would stand by if, let's say, 10,000 Gazans are killed, which does not seem outside the realm of possibility. It probably will be more, let's be honest. I believe that that very easily could escalate to a situation where Hezbollah or Syria or Iran or who knows, I mean, get involved. The other fear is that what will happen in Gaza could become what happened with Fallujah,

where it became a magnet of global jihad. So don't forget what happened in a lot of these places and also with Mosul after the conquering of ISIS is when it becomes like a passion's flame to that people, you know, Muslims from all over the world and could fly, you know, to the conflict or whatever and insert themselves. And now we're in a full-blown, you know, multi-year insurgency of what we're dealing with. I think it's going to be very, very difficult for the Israeli military to accomplish this military objective because Hamas is not ISIS. It's not just a small group that has hated, you know, the city of Mosul hated ISIS. Most people did not support ISIS. A lot of Gazans do support Hamas.

I'm not saying they deserve death, but I'm just being real in terms of what the polls are. And so that effectively would require a full-scale occupation. And if that's the case, and I'm just being real in terms of what the polls are. And so that effectively would require a full-scale occupation. And I don't know if the Israeli military or population is ready for that either. So all I see are nightmares ahead. All I see is mass death, but worse for our purposes is, let's say 15,000, 20,000 Gazans are killed. Now, do you think Iran can hold Hezbollah back from fighting its internal enemy the entire time? They follow orders, but only to an unlimited extent. Now, we're in a war there. Now, what about the carrier strike group? Do you really believe that the entire global Islamic population of 2.2 billion is just going to sit by while that happens? No way.

Look at already what are the crazy protests that are happening all over the world. It could lead to inflamed tensions here. It could lead to terrorist attacks against the United States, against Israelis all over the world. So I'm just looking at this and I'm seeing very much like it just seems so much like 2003. The rhetoric around that we're flying, which we'll talk about, so simple. But 40th order consequences are very, very real. And I wish that we would be more considered. If my ideal solution, quote unquote, is we need to establish two things, a humanitarian corridor outside of Gaza and an international agreement or statement, something by Israel that they will not fully reoccupy and that the Palestinians can come back to their area and rebuild or whatever post-conflict,

then whoever remains in Gaza is just like Fallujah previously, free fire zone, you are part of Hamas, battle game on. Even that has a lot of consequences, don't get me wrong, but that just seems like the only middle ground that we can get to. But I don't know. All I see is extreme danger in the days ahead, especially for the United States. The only reason we're not in a war with Russia is because they have nuclear weapons. Iran, at least as far as we know right now, does not. And if things get to that jump off point where they got to with Ukraine not that long ago, I mean, we easily could get into a war with Iran. That's a complete nightmare. And I just want people to think long term. Think about those kids, those families that you saw in that video.

You know, you've got children now who are growing up whose apartment has been blown up and they have nowhere to live. Who are seeing friends, family, perhaps their parents be killed in Israeli airstrikes. What do you think that their philosophy is going to be growing up? Like, what do you think that their approach is going to be as they become adults? Do you think that it's likely to de-escalate the situation? Do you think it's likely to lead in a direction of peace? Of course not. Of course not. And we've seen this because this is what, the fifth war that Israel has launched in Gaza something like that Quote-unquote mow the grass

I mean How is that worked out and for all of their? Expenditure on their surveillance state and you see the way that technology in some ways, you know technology and desperation Has leveled the playing field in terms of what these rogue leveled the playing field in terms of what these rogue terrorist criminals are able to do and the damage that they are able to inflict. Like this is not in any way a sustainable situation. It's no way for Israelis to live. It's no way certainly for Palestinians to live under blockade and under siege. And I just, I genuinely can't wrap my head around how there is so much less concern for the

Palestinian children, innocents who are being killed now than the Israelis. And my heart breaks for the Israelis. The outpouring of support for the horror that they experienced is actually a beautiful thing to see that global solidarity against those sorts of senseless, barbaric atrocities. But now that's exactly, like, one atrocity does not justify another. And that's already what's happening. I mean, already complete siege. Imagine what that's like to live with no power, no water, no food, no hospital, no ability to live, to leave. And you're 2.2 million people, over a million of whom are children. And that's what we're now watching unfold.

And, you know, much of the world is cheering it on. Very little restraint. I did see Erdogan in Turkey, not someone I give a lot of credit to often, but his applying pressure. Well, he's an Islamist, that's why. Well, applying pressure, also trying to be involved in some sort of diplomatic discussions as well. But I don't think you have to be a quote unquote Islamist to just care about the humanity of the people who are on both sides of this border. I don't disagree, Crystal. I think part of the reason why this is impossible to escape is, and from what I've seen in Israel,

this is an existential fight for them. They're moving to eliminationism. And they point correctly to the Hamas constitution says that the death of the state of Israel. They're like, look, they don't want us to live. They literally want us to perish. We have no choice but to destroy them. And that's genocidal. Well, no, I'm not talking about Palestinian. I'm talking about Hamas. They're like, we have no choice but to destroy Hamas. Okay. Listen, I accountability

for Hamas, a hundred percent on board with that. No problem there. But when you say destroy them, I mean, they're not just destroying Hamas. They are killing indiscriminately civilians. And so, as I said, one atrocity does not merit another. And look, for me, the core rot here outside of the terrorists who have their own agency and the atrocities that they committed, but it's an ethno state that has, you know, increasingly moved to being an authoritarian police state vis-a-vis the Palestinians. And I don't know how you that this is just not a sustainable situation. You are going to continue to have this violence, death, terror, chaos. And that's why this is so difficult to watch unfold because, as you said, I just don't – I mean Netanyahu and his party have already taken a two-state solution off the table.

Well, most Israelis don't really believe in it anymore. They don't. Yeah. But the reason they didn't believe in it is because they were led by their leaders, people like Netanyahu, to believe that, oh, this is the status quo. This is going to be fine. It's going to be sustainable. I mean, that's been completely shaken at this point. To be honest, Crystal, the Palestinians don't really believe in it either.

I mean, this is where we also have to be honest. No, a majority do believe in a two-state solution. A vast majority of them support Hamas. And that's just like when we're in that situation. Even in the West Bank, I was looking at polling. Hamas got a 53% approval rating inside the West Bank. But a majority of Palestinians support a two-state solution. And think about it from their perspective. How much time they've spent, a lot of time, including Hamas,

negotiating with the Israelis. And they feel like they have never been further from any sort of a peace deal. And they're right. They are right. So then, and, you know, any sort of global protests in favor of like BDS or trying to apply economic pressure, oh, you're an anti-Semite. And so this, again, is like the horrors and the atrocities here. There is no justification for the tactics. But yeah, that's what drives people to support a terrorist organization like Hamas is because you feel like, okay, we've been trying to negotiate and we've never been further away from getting out of this situation. The issue is they've never accepted a two-state solution in the past. I mean, they've had opportunities in 48 and in the 70s,

in the 60s, they didn't support it. They thought that they, and look, I mean, I blame the Arabs as much. They always told the Palestinians and said, don't accept a two-state solution because we're just going to conquer Israel. And then we'll give you guys your land back. And then they got their asses kicked in the Yom Kippur war. And we've basically been in the status quo since then. So look, I don't disagree. And there's plenty of criticism, I think, on the Israeli side. I absolutely break for Palestinians. I mean, it's horrible, that video that we showed. I don't think it's all that simple though, is that in terms of like, they just simply support. We are in a situation now where I think the truth is,

is that the vast majority of the Palestinian people support violent organizations like Hamas. Also, the lot of Israelis believe. But why? Well, yeah, I don't disagree with you, but we are where we are. People are not just born, think of those little kids, like what kind of ideology are they gonna support?

You know, where does ISIS, where do terrorist organizations come from? Like, it doesn't come out of nowhere. And so, yeah, in a way, it's like, yeah, it's not simple. It's very complex, and there's complex history, et cetera. But it also is very morally simply when you just say, like, I am opposed to war crimes by Hamas. I am opposed to war crimes by Israel. And I see a lot more concern on one side of the ledger

than the other side. I see a lot more care and concern for one type of life over another. And that part, I just can't, as you could say, the politics are complicated and coming to solutions, all of that is true. And the other part that I think is really simple is I think that if you have a state that's based on being an ethno state, you're always going to end up in this horror of apartheid, which is exactly what they have inflicted even on the Arabs who live within Israel. You know, the occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza. I mean, these are atrocities and in violation of international law that Israel is committing all the time.

And to me, that is also very morally clear and morally wrong. So in a way, yeah, it's complicated, all the nuance, et cetera, et cetera. But you have to also have some moral clarity about holding both sides to account for their violations of international law, the atrocities they commit and the war crimes they commit. And we're going to talk more about the discourse, like the fact that there are so few people who can just say that and say it clearly and be comfortable with just condemning war crimes when they happen is one of the most troubling things I've ever seen. The amount of just outright genocidal rhetoric about like, finish them, punish them, destroy them, or the Israelis deserve to be massacred at a music festival

because of what their government has done. It's despicable. I just can't even wrap my head around it. I think it's horrible, and I agree. I guess I'm only just trying to represent that. I wish that people had the same level of concern, I think, that we're trying to represent on the show, but they don't.

And when they don't, it's going to lead to mass bloodshed and to violence. And we have to kind of get into the minds of who these people are. And, you know, the reason why we are where we are here is both populations genuinely feel as if they cannot coexist with the other side. And there's a lot of blame to go around. Absolutely a ton. The more the crackdown has happened in Israel, it's created more polarization inside of Hamas, which has led to more polarization inside of Israel. And I don't think, this is going to be the most difficult probably moment diplomatically to solve. The past ones, Yom Kippur and the Six-Day War, we were dealing with nation states like Egypt and Jordan and others.

Here, we're not dealing with that. We're dealing effectively with one state and then a terrorist organization, which also happens to be in charge of 2.2 million people with a full-blown humanitarian crisis. And then the states are all surrounding it as well. So I don't know. Yeah, I mean this is why it's so difficult to talk. This is why nobody has been able to solve it so far. So I don't know. Yeah, I mean, this is why it's so difficult to talk. This is why nobody has been able to solve it so far. So there you go. Let's move on. We want to talk about Israel, actually inside of Israel, and the tremendous blowback that is happening to Prime Minister Netanyahu, despite the fact that he has now

created a coalition government. Let's put this up there on the screen. Benny Gantz agreed to form a wartime coalition government with Netanyahu. This is from the Times of Israel. Some of the more controversial elements are actually sitting out the coalition over the demand that the prime minister actually oust the actual defense minister and others. For now, all, quote, non-wartime legislation has been suspended, including the judicial overhaul. Prime Minister Netanyahu and the unity leader announced Wednesday that they will have this coalition government that will

remain as a national emergency government akin to what happened in the UK under Winston Churchill during World War II and will remain in place until they believe that the quote-unquote time is over. Now, we don't yet know what all of that is going to look like, but it does come at a time when there is tremendous domestic outrage inside of Israel at Netanyahu. And just to give you an idea, these are some of the statements that are even coming out of the former defense ministry. Can we put this please up on the screen here, for example? The former defense minister says, I have called on the opposition not to enter the government with Netanyahu, but to instead demand his resignation.

He was warned several times. He did not let the chief of staff speak to the cabinet. There is no trust in him. How can you lead a people to war like this? Every hour he remains in office is a detriment to our country. That's the former defense minister, a right-wing defense minister, I would add. Also, the former Israeli military chief of staff also called on Netanyahu to resign. And one way that we know that this is organic also is from some of the videos that are coming out of Israeli ministers getting shouted out of public places. So here is one video that we're going to be able to play for everyone. Let's put it up there on the screen. Here we have the

Israeli environmental minister who's visiting a hospital. She's being shouted at by one of the people who was waiting there. She says, you're disrupting here. You're not welcome here. She says, I was a good girl, wasn't I? I was a good girl. You ruined this government. Now a nurse is getting involved. You've ruined the negotiations. Get out of here. Get out. Now it is your turn. We cannot stay here. We will help right, left, united people without you. And this man is shouting here, you ruined the negotiations. You've ruined it. Get out of here just to give people an idea about anger. And that's a member of the staff there at the hospital. This next clip that we're about to show you is absolutely heartbreaking.

It's the same thing of a relative in the hospital being interviewed about the situation. And we can go ahead and we can put this up there on the screen. What you can see is a couple there who is grieving in the hospital. And this man is shouting, repeatedly shouting, at the camera. He says, quote, Mr. Prime Minister, go outside. Face the media. Apologize. A thousand people were murdered on your watch, sir. Where are you, Ben Gavir? You are the world champion in bullshitting. Where are you? Mr. Handgun on Twitter, we will never forgive you. Never. And you can see that's actually on a pro Netanyahu channel there, which is part of why the host ended up cutting him off. But you could see the absolute passion from this man. There are

scenes like this breaking out all across Israel. And it's one of the things that we actually really wanted to highlight here on our show to represent that the discourse inside of Israel, Crystal, is so different than what is happening here. Here, if you said anything like that, you would be called an anti-Semite or something. Inside Israel, actual Israelis and Jews are like, no, this is a colossal military failure. It's almost like the reckoning that happened in America for George W. Bush after WMD, except it's happening in real time, immediately after the attack. And they wise up because they know how much they have had to sacrifice, how much their government has been, you know, how much their society is driven by security.

So when you give up all your civil liberties, all your kids have to serve in the military, when you can't get into a mall in Israel without getting wanded down, and then a thousand of your citizens, which is equivalent to almost 20,000, you know, per capita here in the U.S. just get murdered overnight, you're like, okay, I'm done. And I think, you know, in America, if we had, let's say we had another 9-11 attack after 9-11, there would have been a similar reckoning. It's only because we were so shocked at what happened at the time that we didn't. Yeah, and it was a different era, different social media. Like, it was just a different moment. Also, I don't know if we would have had quite the same just rally around the flag and you can't criticize the president. I don't know if it happened today, if it would have quite the same effect. But yeah, in that respect,

it is very different. The reaction is very different from 9-11. I mean, I think there has been, you saw all the, you know, all the IDF reservists and members who had been protesting the Netanyahu government. Now they've said, okay, we're coming back, we're getting called up, we're going to report for duty, et cetera. So in that way, you've certainly seen this national unification, but not rallying around Netanyahu. And, you know, I don't doubt that there's like very disparate opinions about the root causes of the problem and who's to blame and all of that. But it seems to me that you've both got like a left of center critique and a right wing critique, which is like, you weren't strong enough. You didn't do enough. You were playing footsie too much with

Hamas. You weren't, you know, you weren't cracking down on them and treating them always as the terrorists that they really are. And so you have a sort of, you know, both left and right factions in Israeli politics who are disgusted with his government right now. Remember, this is a man whose supporters styled him, quote unquote, Mr. Security. Yes. Like that's his whole thing. And perhaps more than anyone else in Israeli politics, he has been responsible for this intentional shift away from the previous era of Israeli politicians were, you know, going through that was the Oslo Accords. And they're going through the process to try to come to some sort of two-state solution with the idea that that would be the real way settlements, which makes stitching together any sort of Palestinian state, again, virtually impossible. And convincing people that, no, you're good.

There's no security threat here. We've got it through our high-tech walls, through the IDF, through intelligence, through all of the surveillance tech. You don't have to worry anymore. Those fears about security are in the past. I've got you covered. And so when this happens, and it's so horrible, and it's such a shock to the system, and there's so many manifest failures, both in terms of listening to the intelligence that he was clearly given from Egypt and perhaps

from his own intelligence services. We don't know about that part. They were conducting war games in Gaza that were ignored. And then the response is a complete failure. So if your whole stake, your whole claim to why you should continue to hold power in spite of the fact that he's been this incredibly divisive figure in Israeli politics is I will keep you safe. Yeah, this is going to be a strike to the blood, to the core of your legitimacy as a leader. One other thing I wanted to say, Sagar, about that unity government, because I think the ins and outs of this are kind of important. The other opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has decided to stay out of the government for now. And the reason is that one of his demands is that these two outright, very extreme

minister, Bezalel Smotrik and Itamar Ben-Gavir, he wanted them sidelined. You know, that's who that irate man relative who was speaking there, that's the person he called out. Ben-Gavir, among other things, is known for having called for an entire Palestinian village to be wiped out. So just outright genocidal talk. Netanyahu refused to completely sideline them from the government. They are sort of like, you know, not directly involved, but they're still included. And so Lapid is staying out of the government for now. You have Haaretz, which again is like the New York Times of Israel saying, no, don't form a unity government. Netanyahu needs to go first. And that almost is a daily drumbeat coming from left of center press. So there is a real, you know, there's a

real reckoning happening right now within the Israeli public too about how they want to move forward and how they're going to ever feel safe and secure again. Yeah. I think it's important for people to understand, you know, Israel is a very complex country. And I mean that in terms of their domestic population. You basically have secular Jews. This is like Tel Aviv, people who live in Tel Aviv, who work in tech. These people, many of them are even atheists. They're culturally Jewish. They're very, probably more akin to like Americans, cosmopolitan who live in New York City, for example. Then you've got like people who are religious, but who are still, actually a lot like Netanyahu. Somebody who is religious, who is an Israeli nationalist, but who is not ultra-Orthodox or Orthodox Jewish. That is very much like a Netanyahu-type figure.

The people who I first described, they are very much of like older Israeli society. They are the ones who would support a peace process in the past, support people like the Gantz government, not Netanyahu. The middle type, they break both ways depending. The real wild card in Israel is the ultra-Orthodox population, which in 25, 30 years ago was, I don't know, maybe 20-something percent of the population. But there's a huge fracture in society because the people I described, the right of center and then the left of center people, they are the ones who actually serve in the IDF and in the military. The ultra-Orthodox don't serve in the military. They get an exemption. And they also all have like nine children. And a lot of them are on

welfare too. There's actually a ton of resentment, intra-resentment. And they don't even live together inside of the country. Those people I'm talking about who are really ballooning the population, a lot of those folks are the ones who have really come to play a bigger role in Israeli politics because they have a lot of votes, to be honest. And that's who Netanyahu has been catering to. And these are the folks who are the ones who are like, you know, everything is driven by the Torah and the Hebrew Bible and like which areas can be controlled by Jews. They don't care as much about politics. They're also the ones who are much less likely to support a Palestinian state. They are the ones much more likely to support

the West Bank, the settlers, again, coming up with all of this justification. So that's what people need to understand, I think, about the internal pressures that Netanyahu himself faces. And I think that, like you said, those right-of-center secular types who serve in the IDF,

they are going to be furious because they're the ones who, you know, really agreed with the security state. And then the left of center folks, to be honest, really the people inside of Israel who are the, you know, the capitalists, the people who are the billionaires who do all the tech work and all of that, they too, I mean, they've had to basically live, you know, in a politics where they have very little representation over the last decade, and then to still have the security failure, I think there actually will be a great secular empowerment inside of Israel after this entire conflict. Because they were the ones warning about all of this.

Also, the left-center people are very much more likely to hate the settlements. They're the ones who have always been warning about this. So there will be a reckoning. Yeah. At least I hope so. The last thing that I'll say here that I took note of because he's just such a, he's got whatever else you can say about him, the man has his finger on the pulse. Donald Trump was speaking to a group of, of course, Republican Jewish audience in Florida.

And he was critical of Netanyahu. And I took special note of that because, I mean, the two are actually politically kind of similar. Netanyahu's And I took special note of that because, I mean, the two are actually, you know, politically kind of similar. Netanyahu's like Trump, but a lot smarter. Yeah. Correct. I mean, as evidenced by what he's been in power for like 16 years.

I mean, this is... Yeah, he's been... Yeah, this is a man who has... He has done whatever needs to be done to get himself back into office. Remember, there were all these elections where they couldn't form a government, and that's how he ends up in league with these incredibly fringe figures, because he had to in

order to get power back. And part of why he needed to get power back is because he was facing corruption charges that he needed to get out of. Sound familiar in the American political context as well. So anyway, Trump, very critical of Netanyahu in front of this Jewish audience in Florida. And so again, just to give you a sense of how widespread the criticism is and how it's not just coming from left of center people, I thought that was very noteworthy because again, he's one who, you know, has a sense of where audiences are moving, what they want to hear at a given moment. And if he didn't think that that audience wanted to hear that right then, there's no way he would have said it.

So I took note of that. You are 1000% correct. At the same time here in Washington and across the world, the question is being asked, what about Ukraine? President Zelensky being the chief person asking that question, put this up there on the screen. Zelensky is now asking to visit Israel, quote, in a show of solidarity. You might view it that way, Crystal. The other way to view it is, hey, guys, please don't forget about me. And please don't let the Israel-Palestine conflict wipe my interests off the face of Americans, off the face of American legislators, probably more specifically, and the Biden administration. And that's pretty,

maybe uncharitable, but it is almost certainly the way that he and his administration are looking at it. Because behind the scenes, Crystal, there's been multiple reports that the Ukrainians and even those in Washington who still are, you know, very much pro-Ukraine aid are like, oh my God, like we may have to choose, especially because we have a limited amount of weapons. Now people are definitely, there's going to be way more of a bipartisan contest to send weapons to Israel. But what about, what are we going to do in terms of continuing to fund Ukraine? The White House and others have come up with a new strategy. Here's their strategy. It's kind of a make sure you got to catch them all type thing. Let's put it up there on the screen. They are now going to lump Ukraine, Taiwan, border funding, and Israel in kind of an all-in-one type category for Congress. Everybody gets their little pet issue. It's a little earmark strategy trying to support the overwhelming bipartisan consensus on Israel, then to try

and get House Republican right-wing support on border security to get those who say that Ukraine is distracting from Taiwan and China's defense by putting in Taiwan funding and then shoehorning Ukraine into that. We'll talk a bit in a sec about the speakership and how that is well being received over there. But it does show you that this is a big problem for Ukraine. They were top of mind for every international relations professional, for every national security person in the White House, frankly, for the media and for the front pages of every newspaper in the country. That is not the case, and it is not likely to be the case

now for some time to come, which is a big problem for them. That's what they relied on in order to continue their funding and in order to continue pressuring lawmakers to keep passing these extraordinary amounts of money for them. The Ukraine flags are coming down and the Israeli flags are going up, and Zelensky is no fool. Not only is he publicly showing his solidarity as a way of solidarity as a way of reminding like, hey, guys, I'm here and I still need your help. By the way, he made a surprise visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels, urging them to maintain their flow of weapons, even as they say that much of the West turns its attention to the brutal outbreak of violence in Israel. Top NATO officials sought to reassure him. But, I mean, he acknowledged, he said, of course, everybody's afraid that Western assistance could dwindle. And he also says, who knows how it will be? I think nobody knows with regards to whether the flow of weapons

is going to continue. Now, on the other hand, I think while certainly media attention is going to shift away from the Ukraine-Russia war and, you know, the liberal sympathies are going to shift and certainly the right is all in in terms of Israel. think their chance of getting the immediate aid this next package through has probably increased greatly given both the speaker chaos and the fact that you have this new strategy, which I think is very likely to succeed. I think you're probably right. I will say, though, this highlights what I have been trying to say about Ukraine from day one is this is going to come at the expense in the future of something. And now we're in that something. For example, if you didn't know, Israel, we had a massive stockpile of ammunition in Israel, both to be able to dispense if we ever wanted to, to the Israelis. Second though, so that we might need it in the event of a war in the Middle East. And we decided Israel was the safest place to keep

the ammo. Well, guess who depleted a vast majority of that ammo and sent it to Ukraine? Well, now what? Are you going to restock it? What if you need it? Let's say a war does break out with Iran. Well, oops, don't have the ammo anymore. Now what? The issue, too, by tying Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, all of that together, they actually, in many cases, Crystal, they want the same stuff. So for example, yes, Patriot missiles is the perfect one. Well, guess what we sent to Ukraine? And guess what Israel is going to want as well? Also in terms of there's certain type of missiles and other things that we've been sending to Ukraine, which also has been directly drawn out of weapon stocks that we were supposed to send to Taiwan. And this, let's put all of them out of this, Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

We also don't have many of these stocks that take years to replace. Now we are all learning that the world, and specifically weapons, is zero-sum. When you give something to someone else, you don't have it. And then also the people that you may want to give it to in the future may not have it. So in the immediate term, you're probably right that something will pass. But that $100 billion that they wanted, I think that's gone. And specifically just because we don't, we genuinely, if we are involved in this right now, we do not have the weapons to be able to send over there. We don't have the defense industrial base to replace them in a timely fashion. This don't have the defense industrial base to replace them in a timely fashion. This is probably one of the more precarious moments for the United States

in literally decades from a defense point of view with three different places that all could flash and could draw us into a global world war all at the same time. Honestly, even more heightened than at some points during the Cold War, just even though it may not feel that way because that was nuclear. And this is, you know, it starts smaller, but definitely could escalate. And I think that is why a limited amount of aid is very likely to pass, I do think, for Ukraine. But the days of their blank check, I do think ended the day that Hamas went into Gaza. Because of that reality. I think you're right. And also, I mean, the reality of like where the media attention is going to be, where the sympathies

are now going to lie. I do have to say one thing just to make one point about this strategy of tying all these pieces together. It's like it shows you when Washington, when the White House wants to get something done, they figure out a way to get it done. Good point. I would take the border security plus child tax credit deal. Like, where's that deal? You know, I mean, this is a strategy that they use all the time to get things like Ukraine aid

or Israel aid or whatever it is. They'll say, all right, here's a priority from the right, here's a priority from the left, we're gonna put them together, and then everybody will pass it, and that's the deal. Like, why can we never do that when it comes to good things for the American people? Child tax credit being a perfect example of something that supposedly there are some Republicans who are at least like open to and which had a clear, like massive impact on child poverty and was hugely

beneficial and administered well and used in, you know in good ways that helped the nation's kids. Like, why are those deals never on the table? It's endlessly frustrating to me. But just remember that next time there's this learned helplessness in D.C. of like, oh, well, gosh, we would love to, but there's just not the proper, no, no, no. When they want to get something done,

they act very quickly and they get it done. So remember that next time you're hearing that nonsense from any of these politicians. All right. Listen, on that one, you have no, you are a hundred percent correct. It's astounding, isn't it? That, that Israel and Ukraine aid can spur all these people to action. And as actually happened during the Ukraine invasion, baby formula gets put to the side. We figured it out eventually. How many kids didn't have any baby form? How many people were stressed out about that? I remember I was actually very attacked for this and got into

quite arguments. Crystal, when I was like, I was like, they care more about Ukraine than they do about American baby. People are like, how can you say that? That's outrageous. How can you not say that? It's action. Speak louder than words. Say whatever you want. And look, we got to blame some of the voters too. As you were talking about, my neighbors are a great gauge. I'm like, all right, where are these people's heads at? Because they all work in the government. They work in the media. All these people, they work in the Pentagon, whatever. As you said, now the Israel flags, they're starting to go up. Ukraine flags, the Ukraine bumper stickers, the one lady who's got parking for Ukrainians only, now there's going to be an Israel flag right there. They only have a limited amount of attention. And it is, you know, quite literally zero sum in this case, especially when we're talking about

weapons and aid. And also, I think that if there was, there's no country on earth but Israel that could have so surmounted Ukraine like this because it has such heavy bipartisan support and lobbying power here in Washington than anybody else. If you were to put yourself up against anyone, you would never want to put yourself up against Israel whenever it comes to US attention and US funding and just the overall US military support. Yeah. I have probably a conversation for another day. I did lay it out though earlier about how this could easily draw us into a bigger war with Iran, which would be a total nightmare.

Well, that's- And of which there's a massive constituency. I was going to say, that's a good segue into what Senator Graham has been saying recently, isn't it? And people need to understand that this is a very real conversation. They want to go to war with Iran, a very sizable portion of the GOP, frankly, probably elements of the Biden administration as well, as best exemplified by Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been going on television in recent days, calling this, quote, a religious war, indicating

that it's some sort of holy war, putting us, I guess, against the side of, on the side of the Jews versus Islam, and then also calling directly for strikes on Iran. Let's take a listen. I am tired of appeasing Hamas, apologizing for them. They want to kill Israel, so does the Iran. The Ayatollah wants to destroy the Jewish state. They don't want to coexist with Israel. This is not a land problem, a boundary problem. It's a problem of you cannot live in my world. My God determines that you die. The Germans believed that the Jews were inferior people and their goal and the final solution was to eradicate the Jewish people. While Iran and Hamas believes that the Jewish people should die as a result of religious teachings.

We're in a religious war here. We are in a religious war here. That is the most dangerous rhetoric. It harkens back to George W. Bush and the whole like axis of evil. We're on the side against it, specifically allying himself, it seemed at that time, against Islam.

Let's think about two things. One way is this, there are 2.2 billion Muslims on the planet. I would rather not be at war with all those people. The other way to look at it too is this is now extrapolating from an area of actual national interest to state actors, a terrorist organization versus a government, and then trying to blow it up into a much bigger thing. Yes. Now look, we'd also be idiots if we didn't say that there is some truth to this, right?

Obviously, there's a religious element too. Israel is a Jewish state. Hamas is an Islamist terrorist organization. There are members in Israel who call for the total elimination of the entire Palestinian people. And there are people, a lot of Hamas doesn't believe that Israel or any of the Jews should be allowed to exist in the area called Israel today. So let's not pretend that that isn't all of that. But let's also not pretend that by talking and embracing this type of thing, he's explicitly trying to put America into a global

holy war. That, how can we not recognize, is a nightmare for us and is exactly what turned the entire Middle Eastern nightmare of 2003 Iraq and Afghanistan into the terrorist wave that we had to deal with for over 15 to 20 years since then because we explicitly made it in the eyes of many Muslims some sort of holy war against America. And we fulfilled the greatest dreams of Osama bin Laden whenever we did that. And we breathed life directly into the jihadist movement at that time after the entire world really was with us on 9-11. So the worst possible thing we could do is feed directly into these very disgusting tropes. Lindsey Graham has never seen a war he didn't like, right?

One of the foremost neocons remaining in the Senate, and there are many of them, by the way, who remain in the Senate and are completely unreconstructed and would still defend the frickin' Iraq War to this day. He is advocating, let's be clear, for World War III fought along religious sectarian lines. You all want that? Does that sound good to you? Does that sound like a great idea? I mean, it's literal insanity. And he, I think, has gone the furthest, although I've heard some other things as well. But you see this from a lot of the neocons, the Nikki Haley's of the world. I heard some

similar things from Marco Rubio, a lot of Republican figures in particular, who are really trying to make this directly about America, saying things like, you know, Hamas wants to attack us here, which there is no indication of, but trying to call our security into question in an attempt to bring us into this broader war. So this is why we mentioned before there were these false alarms yesterday about a second front in the Israel-Gaza war and Hezbollah getting involved. And the reason we were so freaked down about it is because you already have so many hawkish elements, both on the right and in the Democratic Party. You saw Dean Phillips also calling directly for war with Iran, that, you know, you give these people any excuse, you don't think the media

will pick this up and run with it. You don't think, I mean, the media is consistently, and this is on the right and the left wing media, the liberal media and the conservative media consistently extraordinarily hawkish. So, yeah, Lindsey Graham wants a global sectarian war fought. And it is total insanity. And I have to think the American people are have a little bit of a different opinion about how we should proceed from here. Inshallah, as our friends in the Arab world might say. And just to totally clear it up, here's what he said when they're like, are you saying we should bomb Iran? Here's what he had to say. The money financing terrorism comes from Iran. It's time for this terrorist state to pay

a price for financing and supporting all this chaos. Yes, if you're the Iranians, if we're up to me, this war escalates. I'm coming after you. I think this is what I'm trying to clarify here, because I'm wondering. Us in Israel. Us in Israel. The United States and Israel. No, I want to be crystal clear. Let me just understand you, just to be clear. You're saying that you would want the United States and Israel to bomb Iran, even in the absence of direct evidence of their involvement in this attack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Iran country of tens of millions of people, massive military, you know, more embroiled war in the Middle East. Iraq went so well. Why would I not just do the

neighbor? Iran, by the way, this is the craziest thing. Iran is stronger than it has ever been before. You know why? Because we invaded Iraq. We took out their rival regional power. We basically turned the country over to them. They run it now. We don't run it. The entire Shia majority is effectively ruled from Tehran. Hezbollah today is stronger than it was before the invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq led to the Syrian civil war and the Islamist explosion, which was then now Syria is a Iranian and Russian client state. We gave the greatest gift the world could give whenever we invaded Iraq. Not to mention that, you know, the Iranian nuclear deal that the Obama administration negotiated and then Trump backs out of and then Biden never gets in back into. I mean, Dr. Parsi was warning us from the beginning

that that failure wouldn't enable and embolden and empower hardliners in Iran, and that's exactly what happened. So I really, like, how many wars would we be in right now if it was up to Lindsey Graham? Remember, this is something we ran for, certainly Russia, certainly Iran, probably China, maybe throw Mexico in there just for fun. I've never heard him say anything on China, at least. You know he'd love it. Probably.

It doesn't fit the same paradigm for Lindsey. Lindsey's more of like a civilizational holy war type guy. at least. You know he'd love it. Probably. It doesn't fit the same paradigm for Lindsay. Lindsay's more of like a civilizational type guy. Throwback, Bush-era neocon. What's he going to say? Iran is bad enough. I'm laughing, but war with Iran is a nightmare. I keep saying it, but I've read enough about what it would look like. And there were serious discussions actually at the time by Bibi, by the way, who wanted to bomb the Iranian nuclear reactor site before the Iran deal where the Obama administration – I think Jeffrey Goldberg wrote an entire thing about it. Goldberg himself is a neocon and supports war, but he has some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that I recommend people go and read. And the Obama people laid it out to him in very real terms. They're like, all right, man, this is what's going to happen if you do that.

And it was like tens of thousands dead in a matter of hours. That's actually what it would look like. Remember, we have lots of service members who are stationed very near Iran in Bahrain. They would all 100% be attacked. The Iranian military is a very capable force. Hezbollah itself, one of their proxies, one of the reasons why we should all pray that they do not get involved in the war in Israel is those rockets, those piddly rockets being fired from Gaza, that's nothing compared to what Hezbollah has. Iron Dome cannot do a damn thing when it comes to what Hezbollah would be able to launch into Israel. And by the way, it also could attack us. Don't forget, we lost 300 Americans in Lebanon not that long ago in the 1980s. There's a hotbed

and a long history of the U.S. responsibly actually trying to keep itself out of it until George W. Bush came into power and knocked everything over. The one thing I will say to end on a little bit of a hopeful note here in a very dark segment, a very dark moment in terms of what's happening around the globe, is the fact that the American officials and the Israeli officials were so quick to come out and knock down those reports that Iran was directly involved. That to me is encouraging because I don't know if it's true or not, but clearly like they're trying to avoid, that signals to me they're trying to avoid a direct hot conflict with Iran. But again, these things are not – the pressure can build very quickly in a way that American presidents find very hard to resist even if they don't directly have an interest in getting us into those wars.

Very true. Something to keep an eye on. and I am. Speaking of pressure and about how the impact already of the Israel conflict is having on American politics, it is putting massive pressure on the GOP to wrap up its speaker drama, but not just quite yet. Let's put this up there on the screen. Steve Scalise shocked actually yesterday and won the internal vote to become the GOP speaker nominee, designate, but he does not have yet a majority support. The thing, what happened is they had a secret ballot behind the scenes where Steve Scalise

was able to get 113 votes. Jim Jordan was able to get 99 votes. The thing is though, Crystal, is that Steve Scalise's team got about eight to a dozen members to actually vote present. So if they hadn't voted present and they would have voted for Jordan, it would have been a direct tie.

So some smart maneuvering on his behalf. Yeah, and keep in mind, Scalise is the whip right now. Yeah, he is currently the whip. So this is counting votes and whipping votes. That's what he does. And clearly he did it very effectively. So he wins the vote.

Okay, that's good for him. But the problem is they immediately are like, great, let's go to the floor and let's get this wrapped up because they kind of had an agreement that whoever voted, whoever won that vote would then win, uh, and would get all the unanimous consent didn't happen. Instead, they immediately shut down the vote on the floor and people behind the scenes, multiple congressmen are saying, actually, no, I'm not going to vote for Steve Scalise. I'm only going to vote for Jim Jordan. One of them actually is Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who laid out her case against Steve Scalise. Here's what she had to say. Well, I think Jim Jordan is the fighter

we need to be Speaker of the House right now. Our country's in crisis with our border situation becoming such a grave national security crisis. Jim Jordan, I think, is the guy for the job. You know, there's a lot of concerns right now. Some intel reports saying that we could even have a terrorist attack here at home. And we've already witnessed one in Israel right now. And that's certainly a situation that we're all praying for as we stand with Israel. But we're also, here we are still engaged in Ukraine. This seems to be another foreign war that we're funding, funding

their government with no end in sight, while the American people are suffering under crippling inflation and possibly a looming recession with our economy. The Speaker of the House is the hardest job in Congress, one of the hardest jobs in the country, and it's extremely demanding. It's very personal to me, and I say this with the most compassion. My father died in April of 2021 with cancer, and I like Steve Scalise, and I like him so much that I want to see him be able to put all of his time and energy into defeating cancer. And I say that with just hoping the best for him. You know, to be honest, I think that's a respectful and totally legitimate position.

I mean, I see you doubt it. I mean, I'm just saying, like, it's just so negative. Of course. I mean, he. But it's also not untrue. I mean, he is diagnosed with, what is it, blood cancer. He's undergoing chemotherapy. But he obviously made the choice of like, I'm up to the job.

So for her to, in this very paternalistic way, like, oh, I'm just worried about you. No, I mean, she likes Jim Jordan better. He has the vibes that she appreciates. He's more vocally anti-Ukraine. To me, it's very naked. But it's sort of like, I find it sort of shameful to then use his illness to, oh, I really have your best interest at heart. No, you don't.

You just have your own political agenda at heart. Let's be clear about it. All right, well, maybe you're right. I don't know. Maybe I'm too good-hearted, because I'm like, oh, that's sweet. Let's put this up there on the screen from Matt Gaetz. He actually said Steve Scalise is better than McCarthy,

but he also said the same thing for Jim Jordan. The thing is, is that Jim Jordan, but he also said the same thing for Jim Jordan. The thing is, is that Jim Jordan, and this is kind of the twist, Jim Jordan has offered to nominate Steve Scalise on the House floor. But despite that, all the people who want to vote for Jordan are not following Jim Jordan, which just goes to show you how much of a complete circus this entire thing is. Here's the truth. It's not about Jim Jordan. It's that they want to either extract concessions or they don't back up Steve Scalise. Nancy Mace yesterday, she's a special one, as Kevin McCarthy said. He had it right on that one. He truly did. Yesterday, she was like, I can't support Steve Scalise because he once spoke at a rally that David Duke has. I'm just

like, what? Who are you? But you support Jim Jordan for Speaker? What are we talking about? First of all, that's a ridiculous thing in terms of the circumstances of how that all worked out. The other element that we wanted to highlight, though, is how big of a loss this was for Trump and how irrelevant he appeared to be in this entire process. Put this up there. Do not forget that he endorsed Jim Jordan hardcore six days ago. He said, Jim Jordan has been a star. I completely support him for Speaker of the House. Quote, he will be a great speaker and has my complete and total endorsement. He didn't even win a majority of the votes. I love how he goes on and on about his wrestling record as if that's

relevant to him. Yeah, that's totally relevant to this entire thing. But it's fascinating to me that the House Republicans did not care at all what Trump had to say in this. And Trump actually appears to be a tertiary character at best in this entire saga for ultimately what will be the highest ranking Republican in the United States. Yeah, true. So that's a pretty substantial loss, I think, for him. You know, I wonder what you think about the Sager. I feel like if he had, when he really has power is when he not only like affirmatively endorses someone, but when he rips the opponent to shreds and makes that person toxic and nuclear. And he didn't say a word against Steve Scalise. So it makes it so that people aren't afraid they're going to get

like punished or smeared as a rhino or whatever if they backed him. And so that's why I feel like just his like positive affirmative endorsement of Jim Jordan, it didn't really, it didn't scare people. It didn't really matter for them was my reading of the situation. No, you're right. Absolutely. It's interesting too that A, that he didn't matter, but also that the disparate concerns about Scalise run the gamut. You have more Freedom Caucus types. They trust Jim Jordan. They don't really trust Steve Scalise because he's former leadership. They want to continue to back Steve Scalise, even though Jordan himself is like, listen, I'll back Steve Scalise. Then you've got the Nancy Mays types, or quote, a whole other story, as Kevin said. But you also have a few people like Ken Buck and others

who are upset with both Scalise and Jordan for both saying that we refuse to say whether the 2020 election was stolen. So he's like, I can't vote for either of these guys. Didn't you have a couple of people saying I will only vote for Kevin McCarthy? A couple of people said I will only vote. Most of them have come around and they voted for Steve Scalise or they voted for Kevin. The point is, is that we are nowhere even close to electing a speaker. Steve Scalise may have won the majority. Personally, I don't think he's gonna be the speaker.

I don't think he gets to 217. Here's my other question here is, you know, this is all sparked by Matt Gaetz predominantly. And, you know, it seems like he just like genuinely despises Kevin McCarthy and I think has this like personal issues over the fact that he's being investigated on ethics right now. Whatever. I'm not going to get in Matt Gates's heads. I don't know what his goals are, but it doesn't seem like he's really achieved anything. Like,

what has he achieved? Chaos, his name in headlines, fundraising. Yeah. I mean, that's like in terms of his stated goals about like, we're going to spend less and we're not going to have Ukraine aid. And, you know, this thing he floated that, oh, maybe we'll get this like actually reforms that I would support, like stock trading bans or whatever. It's right now, it doesn't seem like there's any kind of negotiations over any of that going on. So it really does seem like the only thing he's going to get is Kevin McCarthy, who apparently personally didn't like out and someone else in. But it's not clear to me that he's really achieved any of his ends. Oh yeah. I mean, I don't disagree with you actually at all. In terms of the Ukraine

aid, I do actually think he won a victory there just to show you that they could, you know, Kevin McCarthy was going to put some sort of Ukraine aid on the floor. Up until Israel, I think Ukraine actually was dead in terms of aid. Now they might get something if they tie it forward, but don't forget, Jim Jordan came out and said no tying Israel aid to Ukraine. He explicitly said we're going to do Israel first and we're going to pass that and then we'll talk about Ukraine later. So then Gates should be supporting him. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I mean, he's saying he's open to Scalise's side.

The thing is, is that Scalise himself, Scalise is a chameleon. He's never said one public word about Ukraine. I've looked, by the way, in the last year. He has never said anything. So if he has a sizable amount of his caucus that won't go for it, then he'll just quietly be like, no, we're not going to tie it together. I think actually McCarthy was a lot more sympathetic to Ukraine aid than he originally led on. In that way, I do think it is a victory. And at the very least, those people, Marjorie and Matt Gaetz, many others, opponents of Ukraine aid, they could

prevail in this. So even though we talked previously where I do think something will come through, there is a chance that they disaggregated and that it's only Israel alone. We'll see. We'll see. But, yeah, I feel like a lot of the heated rhetoric and the audacious goals of Matt Gaetz right now seem to have not come to fruition. So anyway, it continues to be chaos. I genuinely don't know how it's going to shake out, who's going to end. It could be not either, neither Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise or Kevin McCarthy. It could be someone different

entirely. You could end up with this dude. What's his, I always forget his name, McHenry. Is he the one? Patrick McHenry. Patrick McHenry could end up with him just hanging out in the spot for a while. I hope not because I'm getting sick of these bow ties, Patrick. And then just deciding like, yeah, we just decided we can't actually pass legislation with a temporary Speaker of the House. Who knows? But we'll keep an eye on it. All right. We wanted to talk a little bit about something we've alluded to here, which is the general discourse on Israel and Palestine and this particular conflict, which has been at frequent times disgraceful and outright genocidal on both sides of the ledger. I've never seen so much casual

dehumanization of whole categories of people in my life. And I've been on Twitter for quite a long time. So we thought we'd get into some of this discussion. One of the particular flashpoints here that has sparked a real national outrage. And you want to talk about cancel culture, huge cancel culture on this one. Save the cancel culture. All right. Okay. So is the statement put out by a coalition of Harvard students

who were trying to remain anonymous. I'll put that to the side and we'll talk about that in a minute, but go ahead and put this Harvard statement up on the screen. So I think it's a coalition of 35, 34, 35 different groups, some of whom have actually backed off of it at this point. But the part that folks really objected to, and which I also really object to, is they say, we, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence. Okay, entirely responsible. So they're erasing any sort of responsibility from the Hamas terrorists who

actually went out and massacred innocent Israeli citizens, paraglided into a music festival, and murdered hundreds of people, stormed into a kibbutz, and murdered a significant proportion of the entire population. No that they don't have any responsibility? Really? It's crazy. And obviously, you guys have heard my commentary. I'm highly critical of Israel. I think it is an apartheid state. I think the occupation is illegal. The settlements are illegal. The blockade is illegal. The current siege is illegal. I think all of these things are horrible. I think what Israel is doing in Gaza right now is an atrocity. I would put it on the level of what Hamas did here. But to say they are entirely responsible for the massacre of their own

citizens and erasing any culpability from the Hamas terrorists, that I cannot get down with. And so there was a huge backlash to that. I wanted to ask you about it. And that's why we were talking about it on the call whenever we decided. Because I, you know, I work with you. I know a lot of people who are left. I get it, you know. And I think what your position is entirely, not even defensible, but like it's one of those where within the realm of conversation, I have no, you know, I see people like, oh, Crystal's reporting pro-Hamas talking points. I'm just like, shut up, okay? That would be like saying that the state of

Israel doesn't have a right to exist or that all Jews should die. So just shut your mouth. I've seen it in terms of compassion for the Palestinian cause, but more importantly, like a desire to be able to treat this a more of objective way to look and talk about human life in equal terms. And I think that's completely legitimate and I think it is fine. I wasn't as, where does this shit come from? I don't understand. You know, you're pretty left. I know a lot of people who are lefties. Yeah. I see them, I follow them, you know, I've listened to them now over the years through working with you. None of them are taking this position. Maybe one or two I've seen, maybe one. But this seems to be widespread through academia. I'm like, where did this all come from? This like, it's all, you know,

BLM Chicago, it's all completely Israel's fault. No mention, as you said, of like terrorism and innocent civilians being slaughtered. They didn't ask for anything. It's like, where does this sentiment come from? Well, they do. It like bubbled from nothing. To me, it shocked me. I'm like, I spend a lot of time with the American left. We have a sizable leftist audience that also watches this show. I feel like I know you guys decently well, don't agree all the time.

But I don't get shocked like this to see a huge constituency of these student groups outright, immediately, no questions asked, like this is 100% on Israel. I'm like, what is going on here? It's just sectarian. Yeah. That's it. I mean, it's the same as, so a few things I want to say. So first of all, there has been a lot of this discourse on the left. There's no doubt about it. There is no one who holds power in Washington, D.C. that actually holds this view. And you saw AOC coming out against some of the rhetoric from DSA in New York City. And they should, I think. Even the statements that went the furthest in support of Palestinians, like from Cori Bush

and Rashida Tlaib, who herself is Palestinian American, acknowledged the atrocities committed by Hamas, but tried to situate that in the broader context of why you need peace in the region and you need Palestinians to also have their humanity recognized, which is, you know, certainly my view and my position. And it should be a simple one of just like, I'm opposed to war crimes on both sides. But it's just, it's purely sectarian. People decide these are the good guys, these are the bad guys. And I think there's also a reaction because Palestinians are murdered all the time and no one notices or cares. Year after year. And if you look at the graphs of, you know, Israeli casualties in this ongoing conflict versus Palestinian. There's no comparison. Thousands and every year, thousands more Palestinians killed than Israelis

in this conflict. So I think it also comes out of this sense of like, you know, you all didn't care when it was the Palestinians. No one cared. And now everyone cares. And it should be. But rather than being like, so I'm not going to care about these ones now, it should be we should all care about all the humanity all the time. So that's one thing. I think, you know, the fact that the other thing that gets erased is, as I was saying, this view has no power in terms of like elected officials in government as much as people want to pretend that this is the view of AOC or this is the view of Ilhan Omar. It's not. They've never said anything like this. They've been critical of groups that have been just completely on the side of the Palestinians without acknowledging Israeli humanity.

The other genocidal view of wipe out all the Palestinians and who cares about civilian life is the majority sentiment in Washington. It's expressed not only by people like Lindsey Graham, but tacitly is embraced by Joe Biden, who has nothing to say in critical of a critical nature of the complete siege that is being executed on Gaza right now. So, you know, there's there's two very sectarian and overtly genocidal parts of this discourse. And one of them has a lot more power over in government than the other one. I think that's fair. No, I actually think that's fair. And that's why I do. Yeah, I think it's absolutely correct. It's true because, you know, the same level of condemnation doesn't come through. And I also, you know, you'll rarely hear this, but I was getting annoyed because people were like Rashida Tlaib is, you know, co-signing the DSA. And I'm like,

that's not what she said. I judge people based on what they say. Her statement was like, yeah, it was pro-Palestinian. It also expressed a lot of like sorrow for the lives lost in Israel. AOC said the same thing. So have you. So is Ryan. And I'm like, the dominant view that I see from the commentariat and from the electorate

has nothing to do with, that's why I was just so shocked by it. I'm like, I don't the commentariat and from the electorate has nothing to do with, that's why I was just so shocked by it. I'm like, I don't understand where this comes from. It's just so maddening and insane to me that they could just immediately come out and just be like, no, it's all Israel's fault. And basically they were like, they deserved it. And that is just such a disgusting thing to say. I agree with you though. It's equally disgusting when people are like, innocent Palestinians deserve to basically be wiped off the face of the earth as a result of this. Which you see all the time. And one gets scrutiny and the other doesn't. And so there was a lot of attention, rightfully so, paid to, this was actually a rally that was

in Australia, but you saw some bad things said at some rallies here as well. But where they're actively chanting, gas the Jews and F the Jews. Let's watch a little bit of that. So gas the Jews, okay? Insane. I mean, disgusting. There are no words, no words for the disgusting nature of that kind of Palestinians, which again is a viewpoint that is held by a lot of, by most of Washington, whether expressly or de facto. And that gets next to zero attention. Take a listen to what some of the pro-Israel protesters had to say. What do you think the response should be from Netanyahu and the military to Gaza? Kill all Palestinians, all of them. Not one left from the river to the sea,

Palestine will be deceased. And Israel need to do like this. You see, now Gaza, like this. Gaza need to do like this. All, all like this, but all this Jewish. So he's pointing there to pictures on his phone of Gaza literally obliterated, wiped out and turned into a parking lot. Or he says that it can remain, but it has to be no Arabs, no Muslims, only Jews.

And, you know, there should be no, like, this is so basic. How about we're against genocide? Whether it's Hamas, whether it's Palestinians, whether it's Israelis. How about no? How about no genocide? How about we abandon this just like nakedly tribal sectarian thinking? How about we apply the same standards to both sides? I mean, these the Harvard students who put out that statement that again, I have.

It was insane. Let's be real. Yeah. No, no qualms there. OK. It was insane. Let's be real. Yeah. No qualms there, okay? You know how billionaires, including Bill Ackman, but a whole bunch of other CEOs who are like, the statement was put out anonymously. He's like, we need to dox them so that we can make sure that they are never hired, okay?

Someone is paying for a truck to drive around in Boston with their names and faces on them, branding them as anti-Semites. And I'm not seeing the same Republican concern about cancel culture on this one as I have in other situations here, Sagar. I think that's fair. I will say, you know, they created it. They started this game. But you never say that about the other cancel culture. I'm not justifying. I'm saying that's what people are saying.

That's what the response is because I asked my my friends who are like very happy about this. You but also who is working and is at Harvard Law and gets their job canceled by going to work for like big law to work in the accounting division for Exxon Mobil or something like that. They're talking about there's this one girl who had her job offer rescinded because of her whatever. I don't even know what her statement was. She actually publicly signed it, to be honest. She publicly signed the whatever and made her support clear. And a law firm, by the way, which is also run heavily by Jewish, like members and partners, but also has a lot of clients were like, we are not going to employ this person. This is where, and this is where, look, even on all the whole cancel culture discourse, it was always very difficult. For example, there was

this guy, Kyle Kashuv. I don't know if anybody knows who he is. I've met him a couple of times. He was one of the Parkland kids, and he was like the conservative Parkland kid. He actually had his acceptance, I believe to Harvard, rescinded because he made like a racist joke in a G chat when he was like 15 years old. Now, I also, though, don't see, a lot of people cheered for him to get his acceptance rescinded, you know, at that time, which I think is outrageous and ridiculous. But now they're like, oh, this is awful. So I agree. I think we should apply the same thing to both sides. I will say, this is where I try and parse it. I think if you're a

law student, that you have a more developed brain and you're old enough to know better than to get involved in this type of nonsense, like to be signing on to the general. But if you're an undergrad, I don't know. Maybe I'm too forgiving. But anyone under 22, it's like, look, we all said a lot of stupid things when we were 22 years old. So those people, I think we should leave them alone. I don't think you should be blacklisted from ever working for your entire life, which is what, like, Bill Ackman is advocating for. The law students

ones, that one is just, because to me, they're all trying to go work in the Fortune 500 and all of that. And I'm just like, what, you're stupid enough to sign on to something like this. You still want to go work for Nike Corporation or for Wachtel-Lippmann or something like that. I'm like, eh, I don't know. I don't have as much sympathy for those folks. But I will say for the undergrads, anyone under 22, I think they should be left alone. That's your line. 100%. Yeah. I mean, well, what do you think? I think if you're 25, you should know better. You're well enough of a developed adult.

You know how the world works. But what are you advocating for? That they should, like, never work or that they could lose their job now? Well, I think that if they are dumb enough to basically, like, openly, like, call and say that it's Israel's fault, then they shouldn't be surprised when they get their offer rescinded by a majority Jewish firm, especially with clients who may even work in some cases with Israeli companies. At that point, in my opinion,

you're old enough to know the realities of the world and you shouldn't be dumb enough to be doing this. By the way, if you believe in it enough that you were wanting to lose your job for it, go for it. I don't care. But I think, though, that the people who are really pushing this,

one of the ways that they're taking it way too far is by targeting 18, 19-year-olds who have signed on. And that is where I'm upset because I'm like, listen, these are freaking kids. Dumb things are in vogue when we're 18 or 19. I think everyone should get a pass for that one. Well, I think what it illustrates is the cancel culture conversation is a little more nuanced. Totally. Sometimes portrayed like sometimes you say things that are egregious enough that, OK, there are some consequences. And you're, you know, old enough person that you should understand that there could be consequences from your actions. Right. But I don't often see it portrayed that way, that level of nuance, especially from the right, where it's very like, no, there should be no, like you shouldn't have a professional consequence in particular, because sometimes it's also just

an objection to like, you know, shaming online, which I'm not going to say is not like a brutal experience, but here you have direct, like, we want you to be blacklisted from ever working or being hired by anyone ever doxed and blacklisted and branded an anti-Semite. And we're going to fund a truck to drive around the town, branding you an anti-Semite. I just, I think that conversation would be going a little bit different if it was on the other side and it was like, you know, somebody's face and branded like a white supremacist for some racist remarks that they said. And, you know, we're going to dox them and we're going to make sure that they can never work again. I have a feeling the right would have a little bit of a different view if that was the situation. You're right. BDS has always been the biggest glaring blind

spot on free speech conversation from the right. There are multiple laws on the books in states in the United States. Glenn Greenwald has done fantastic work on this about BDS laws that were on the books. I believe Abby Martin successfully, was it Georgia? Georgia. And got that law correctly rescinded, of which, by the way, the Israeli government has been pushing in America. And that has always ticked me off because I'm like- I think it's always succeeded in court when it's been tested. As it should be. And this is what I always say, I've had said even in the past to some of my Israeli friends. I'm like, listen, you guys do what you want. You can call us anti-Semites and all that other stuff, but do not you dare try and come to our country and infringe on our free

speech rights by lobbying for this type of legislation in our Congress. Because maybe we'll start doing the same in yours. Maybe we should. You know, it's like, but then they would be like, oh, the Americans are interfering. I'm like, okay, well, you know, you can't complain then whenever the roles are reversed if you're going to do that to us. Katie Halper, fired from the Hill. Oh, yeah, that was a great conversation. And this was not over the line. It's only, you know, justifying atrocities. It's just like recognizing Palestinian humanity.

Nathan Robinson let go from The Guardian. Oh, I didn't know that. As a columnist. Ken Roth, who we rely on on this show for very nuanced, professional, fact-based commentary, I think, you know, was he had a university position that was turfed because of concerns over him being pro-Palestine. At Harvard, ironically. I think they walked it back, remember, under public pressure. Well, then they were like, okay, no, now you can work here. And he was like, nah, I'm good. I'm good. Thanks. So listen, cancel culture when it comes to support for Palestine is very real and very often ignored.

Absolutely. Okay, we've got some other big domestic political slash YouTube news, which we kind of got accidentally to break on this show, which is that Cenk Uygur, the founder of the Young Turks, put this up on the screen, is actually running for president. This is from Semaphore. Dave Weigel here. He's running as a Democrat. He is challenging Joe Biden in the primary. Now with RFK Jr. exiting that primary and running as an independent, that leaves Cenk and Marianne Williamson as Joe Biden's two opponents. I actually listened to his whole, he spent an hour with Anna on the main show last night. She asked him some very tough questions. I don't want to speculate on how she feels about it, but the mood from her end was not super upbeat because, you know, she lived through like his congressional run, which was very difficult on him. And the

way the media treated him was extremely ugly. They dug, of course, as you know, they dug up everything they possibly could that he's ever said over his long career, being a commentator, etc. It was not pretty. I'm sure it was very difficult for her as well. Anyway, Cenk, as he did on our show, explain kind of why he's getting in and what his strategy is gonna be, what he's aiming for. Let's take a listen to that. The idea is to create enough pressure on Biden, and here's how you get the pressure.

One of the ways you get the pressure is, everybody thinks that I have almost no chance of winning, right? Well, let's keep it real, everybody knows that, right? They're like, your name is funny, you weren't born here, you're a progressive, you're an outsider, etc, etc, right? If I get to 20 or 25, panic sets in, there's no question panic sets in because there's two things that happen there. One, the other candidates go, Biden is enormously weak, right? Number two is Biden begins to realize the handwriting is on the wall.

If this Cenk Uygur, who he probably can't pronounce, has gotten to 25, the handwriting is on the wall, he's gotta go. And by the way, Ana, the reason why this is realistic is because there are a lot of people in Washington, inside the establishment, that are trying to get Joe Biden to drop out. We need to help them, we need to create that pressure. So few things that I'll say. First of all, let me just say, I like Cenk. On a personal, I've known Cenk for a long time.

We actually overlapped at MSNBC. So we go back that far. He's never been like a close friend, but he gave, basically gave Kyle a start. He really helped us out at the beginning. So I just want people to know, like, I have a lot of affection for, for Cenk Uygur. And I think in terms of independent media, whatever you think of his political ideology, he's a true believer in the power of independent media and a fierce critic of corporate media, you know, going back a very long time. So let me put that out. Do I think that this is going to be successful? I mean, no, I don't. And I'm sad to say, like, I think that the launching, especially right now with the news moment that we're in, he's likely to get very little attention. The attention he

does get is going to be some mix of like scorn, it's going to be very dismissive. They'll once again dig up like, you know, all of the things that he said over the years, which taken out of context and even sometimes in context sound really terrible, which he dealt with during the congressional campaign. You know, he did run for Congress. It was not successful. So it's hard for me to see how he's going to get a lot of traction when Marianne Williamson, who's been in there from the beginning, who has a very similar platform, by the way, and also has her own national fan base and was a bestselling author, et cetera, et cetera. I don't see why he's going to succeed where she hasn't. It just doesn't add up for me. I completely agree with you.

And I actually wish I had known whenever I interviewed, just to show you, by the way, how accepting I am. I assumed he was a natural born US citizen. Someone was like, how did you not ask him how he could run if he was born in Turkey? I'm like, I didn't know that he was. I just assumed he was from here. And we were both so like shocked and surprised. Yeah, I was so surprised.

I had no clue. So if I had known, I would have done some research and I would definitely have asked him about it at the time. Look, I think he's fundamentally wrong. I watched it as well about the media angle in particular. He's like, look, we've got independent media now. Independent media is more powerful than it was in 2016 and 2020. But for the people he wants to reach, it's just not true. The median Democratic voter is a 55-year-old white guy with no college degree. That person, as much as I wish they were watching Breaking Points or TYT or the PBD podcast or Tim Pool or anybody who runs the gamut, they're not. They're watching cable or they're getting their boomer email things coming to them.

So the power of institutional media, as we all found out in 2020, is still immensely powerful. Democrats still trust the media and they trust them a lot. They have 75% trust. Younger Democrats, certainly, they trust people like us and many other shows, young people in general, much more trusting in independent media, but they don't vote. And so if you were to really have an impact in the primary, you actually have to start surging in the polls and get the real media attention that you deserve. I'd also say Israel-Palestine is probably the worst possible thing that could have ever happened to any shot that he once had because domestic politics right now is, let's look at our bar. This is the number six story. In a normal time, maybe it's the number

two story. That's the truth. You know, we have, we have freaking wars that we have to contend with and there's only a certain amount of attention. So even the limited bump that he might've seen from media, it's not going to be the same. We of course are going to cover it, but CNN's not going to cover it, you know? And the MSNBC, those are the people he really needs on his side. On the natural born citizen piece. Now he has a theory based in case law of how the constitution was amended in a way that should grant the same rights to naturalized citizens as natural born citizens, which by the way, I agree that's how it should be. I have no

idea whether the courts would actually find it to be that way. I mean, the text of the constitution is quite clear, um, just like on, on its face about how this would all work out. So that's an additional obstacle that he will have to overcome. So anyway, interesting development. You know, Cenk is certainly not going to be shy about his views. I know he's going to do everything he can to get himself and his message out there. And, you know, he's really leading with just this is the other place where I disagree with him. And we got into this he's really leading with just this is the other place where I disagree with him. And we got into this a little bit when we had him on the show is he is very adamant that Biden will lose. I've heard him say, like, it's a certainty. It's guaranteed.

On the show last night, he was more like, I think there's a 10 percent chance he could win, but a 90 percent chance he could lose. I. I just don't have that level of certainty about any. I mean, I certainly think he could lose. I certainly think he's historically weak. But I also think Trump is extremely weak. I mean, this man is facing a bunch of criminal charges and indictments, and we've seen what a psycho he is, and he lost to Joe Biden before. You're right. So to say, like, Biden has zero chance or even a 10% chance, he's an incumbent president.

He's got a decent shot at winning again. So even his analysis of why he's jumping into the race, I don't fully, I'm not fully on board with. I agree. I think it's a toss-up. I think it's 50-50 right now. I think that's about right. Both could easily win and both could easily lose. And anybody who doesn't grapple with that reality is really not living in it right now. Yeah.

Okay. We have another update out of the presidential contest. So as mentioned before, RFK Jr. has moved out of the Democratic primary. He is now running as an independent. He just launched this week. And it is official. The love affair that the Republican Party was having. Over.

And that Fox News was having in particular with RFK Jr. is officially over. Now, RFK, he has been, I think, going on with Sean Hannity for a long time. Years. They know each other well. And seem to, yeah, know each other well. He told us they know each other quite well. So anyway, went on with Sean Hannity for an interview. And Hannity, very different tone these days now that RFK is running as an independent. Let's take a listen.

I hope you don't mind, but I did a little research on you. You're pretty liberal. You know, you've called for curbing, logging, oil drilling, fracking. You wanted to eliminate it. You called it a victory for democracy. You want to curb U.S. fossil fuel extraction. Keep it in the ground, you once tweeted. You want a ban on fossil fuel extraction, a ban on fracking. You called the NRA once a terror group. You've supported over the years Democrats, Gore, Kerry, Obama, Hillary. You've praised Bernie Sanders multiple times. You support affirmative action. So why is this party of yours, why didn't they even want to allow you to compete? Because that's as pretty liberal of a record as anybody I know. You have a litany of talking points from statements I've made over 40 years. Some of them are stale. Some of them I never said.

But, you know, what is your question? Why the Democratic Party? Why I'm not running at the Democratic Party? You know, why did they kick you out? I mean, by the way, I'm giving you comments that you've made in 2016, 17, 19 endorsements. We know the years Gore, Kerry, Obama, Hillary, Bernie Sanders. They're all recent quotes. The NRA quote you made about calling them a terror group was 2018. So these are recent positions you've had.

I'm not sure why the Democratic Party wouldn't allow you to compete. Do you want to talk about my position, Sean? Yes, sir. Do you want to read talking points from the Trump campaign? Excuse me. These are not talking points. These are called Hannity points.

I do my own research. Hannity points. Hannity points, Sire. Ooh. That's a nightmare show, let me tell you, Hannity points. Wow, that was, things are getting spicy over there.

I enjoyed it, actually. It's just so funny how naked they are. They loved him whenever he was running against Biden. And yeah, like you said, I mean, RFK himself over there. I enjoyed it, actually. It's just so funny how naked they are. They loved him whenever he was running against Biden. And yeah, like you said, I mean, RFK himself told us, I don't think I'm betraying confidence, as I think he said this publicly. He's like, yeah, I've had a good relationship with Fox News. He's like, I knew Roger Ailes, you know, many years ago. He's like,

you know, they used to beat me up and all of that. But the Murdoch machine and I, like, anyway, he knows these people like on a personal level. but yeah, I mean, when he runs independent and now Hannity in the Trump campaign knows that he's a threat to Trump because they can view the data, they're like, oh, actually they're like, we got to remind everybody he's a liberal folks and start attacking him. But I got to give it to RFK for this first. That was smart, uh, to go on and to actually challenge and even laugh in Sean's face. I actually thought it was the- He handled it very well, I think, yeah. Getting defensive is the worst. He'd just be like, you're a joke, you're a clown. That's exactly how to handle it. He also put out his

first general election ad and got to give credit where it's due. It's really good. Let's take a listen. House Republicans continue to fight. The left is a cult. I don't want to hear it from Republicans. We'll beat the s*** out of them. Time out. Helping your party. Anarchy across America. Medical Democrats. Republicans. Republicans. Democrats.

Yeah, I was fed up too. And that's why I'm running for President of the United States as an independent. I'm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and I approve this message. That's a great ad, Crystal. It's very effective. It's about the media. It's about division.

It's about people hating each other. He doesn't say anything about what he believes. And he's just like, yeah, I'm fed up with it too. That is actually a uniting message right there. So no, I'm not saying he's going to win. But maybe he wins more with his last name and with a message like that. The more that he does that, the better off he's going to be. The more like vague and just like, don't you hate these people too? And don't you hate what they've done to us as well? I mean, who disagrees with that? You can't disagree with that.

Maybe. But then I'm like, oh, the nuclear power thing. I forgot. Yeah. So I sort of feel like the more vague and high level he's able to keep it, the better he will do. But let me say with regard to the Republican attacks on him and the Trump team specifically going after him, I think it will work to cut down his right wing support for sure. And to rebrand him as, you know, they were making real common cause with him. They were emphasizing the views that he holds that I should say, I mean, are kind of like core to what he's leaning into these days.

Yeah, he's an environmentalist. Like, that's what he cares about the most, or at least has in the past. Has in the past on that one. But I mean, the core views that he's been talking about are like, you know, cancel culture and censorship, which has been a real, you know, concern on the right recently. The weaponization of government, they had him testify at this like weaponization

of government thing. That's true. The anti-vax views, which used to be more lefty and now are very much more commonplace in the Republican Party. And his complete opposition to any aid to Ukraine also codes right, especially in like, you know, Republican elected officials context. So they were emphasizing those pieces as a way to have a cudgel against Biden. Now they're emphasizing like, yo, you endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. How about that? And, you know, you're opposed to whatever, fracking, whatever his list is, you back the Green New Deal. I think that that shift in branding and labeling of him coming from the Trump people is going to work with regard to how he's viewed from the right. So that's why I've always been I have never been as certain which side Kennedy is more likely to take votes away from.

I don't think it's clear cut. I think the Kennedy name is very powerful. I think this effort to smear, you know, attack him from the right and label him a liberal. I think that's going to be pretty successful. So it's just, to me, it's not clear cut. Yeah. I guess that's what I would say. I think you're right. All right. Thank you everybody for watching. It's been a, it's been a tough week, you know, not going to lie, but it's not about us on a personal level. I know that so many of you are also going through a lot of emotions and how to process this. And it's a great privilege of ours to help you and just know that we're doing our absolute best. All of us are working around the clock. We've got big projects next week. Like the focus group will continue to monitor everything at a breaking level. So this

probably won't be the last time that you hear from us in the next couple of days. And we're looking forward to that. And we also really thank everyone for supporting us, you know, in critical times like this. It does mean a lot and it validates, I think, the mission that we're really trying to go for. So I'm very proud of our show this week, Crystal, and I'm very proud to work with you as always. Yeah, same, Sagar. And again, to our producers, Matt Griffin, and the whole crew that is behind the show. You guys have been putting in lots of work. And it's just, you know, it is a very difficult and emotional issue to cover.

And thank you guys for sticking with us. Reminder that we're not going to have our normal weekend show, but Sagar and I are going to try to hang around so that if there is any big breaking news, which seems kind of likely, that we'll be able to jump on it and give you guys some updates around the weekend. So make sure you're looking for that as well. See you all later. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children.

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