Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/15/25: Saagar Destroys Pete Hegseth, Dems Push Historically Old Sen Candidate, Pakistan Massacres Protesters, Bari Weiss Debunked

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Ryan and Saagar discuss Saagar destroys Pete Hegseth, Dems push old candidate over populist, Pakistan massacres protesters, Bari Weiss debunked.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hello, America's sweetheart Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, from Smartless Media, campside media, and big money players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high-functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he's still,

from the rich and gifts to the poor. I'm not that generous. It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million that had not bought a ticket

to help him escape. So we're saying like, oh God, what do we do? What do we do? That was dumb. People do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over,

but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up.

Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season, ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Let's get to the Pentagon so that you and I can. go off on this one. This, this has been driving me crazy. And Ryan, you and I both have experience. That's good to be joined by an actual former Pentagon correspondent here. Thank you. Thank you.

A former Pentagon correspondent. One of my proudest moments, my first actual reporting job. So here's what's currently happening. Pete Hegseth and his personal lawyer, who he has hired now at the Pentagon. Who is sometimes suing the Pentagon. Who is sometimes suing the Pentagon. Like, do people understand that? Yeah. Pete Hegsett's personal lawyer is suing the Pentagon. but also working at the Pentagon. Okay. So that guy, the guy who defended him in rape accusations and other, whatever.

Who knows what happened? That guy and Pete Hanks said have concocted new press requirements at the Pentagon where any correspondent who works at the Pentagon has to be forced to sign a 21-page document. That 21-page document, let's put this up here, on the screen, requires a couple of things. It's more complicated, but this is distilled from the Pentagon.

Quote, number one, the press no longer roams free. Number three, or number two, the press must wear a visible badge. Number three, credentialed press no longer are permitted to slit criminal acts. Let's go through these claims one by one, because this makes sense if you're an idiot and you've never been inside of the Pentagon. Number one, as I literally used to cover the Pentagon. You do not roam free in the Pentagon, okay? Believe it or not.

It is one of the most secure buildings in the world. I used to cover the White House. The White House is ten times less secure. I could quite literally walk into the high, like big parts of the West Wing as a reporter without ever being accosted or asked. Just open the door. Exactly. Literally open the door. I could walk right up into the upper press area of the West Wing and be 20 feet away from the Oval Office without being asked.

or looked at a scans by secret service. Yeah. And so that's the first one, Rome Free. By Rome Free, what he means is that you enter the building, you go through, again, more security at the Pentagon than you do to even enter the White House. You walk past a food court, a CVS. It's like a mini building down there. It's like a city.

There's like a T-Mobile store. There's a huge food court. They have like a bunch of gift shops and stuff because people spend so much time there. There's all this stuff to do for all the staff. and then you walk down a hallway and you go to the press area. Every single door is locked and is key controlled. You cannot go into any classified area. I spent a lot of time there.

I never once was able to go into a classified area. The theory that he said is like, oh, well, some general could be walking down the hallway and get accosted by a drunk. Didn't see it happen. Not once. Once did I see it happen. Also, the general could just keep walking. Also, the general can keep walking.

Nobody asked him to answer. Okay. Number two, a press must wear. visible badge. Okay, can we put D5 up here on the screen? I dug up this old photo of mine of my old badge, okay? There it is. That badge, yes, I know. Forgive my, forgive the dress shirt. It was before I knew some of the rules. I think it works. No. Forget, forgive me. Whatever. That's my old badge, which I had to wear around my neck with one of my little lanyards everywhere that I went. Everywhere that I went. You can see very

very clearly the badge in front of you. The Pentagon press-branded badge. Everybody, by the way, knew who the press was. A CCP star there. Yeah, a little star in the middle of the Pentagon thing. But here's the point. We already had to wear a badge. That is a badge from nine years ago, because you could see it expired in August of 2017. So I must have gotten it sometime in August of 2016. So that's what the badge looked like whenever we were rolling around in the Pentagon. Keep in mind, this is under Barack Obama, and eventually I use that badge under the new president Donald Trump, all right? So that was the Pentagon policy that was in place underneath. Now, the third thing that he claims, and this is where you and I can really go off,

is, quote, credentialed press are no longer permitted to solicit criminal acts. What he means by that is that by signing this document, you have to commit, you will not solicit or publish classified information. And in fact, they go even. further, it doesn't just apply to classified information because he's making a seem that does. It also applies to unclassified information. So effectively what Pete Hegsteth is saying is you cannot enter and cover this building if you do not print exactly what we tell you to do. That is literally what he is saying. Now, let's explain because I actually got attacked for this. I said soliciting, encouraging people to leak as part of the job. People took that as encouraging

people to leak classified information. First of all, yes, that is part of the job. And if you have it, send it over. We'd love to see it. You like Seymour Hirsch? Or do you not like Seaworish? Yeah, do you like real information or not? But second, encouraging people to leak also falls in the category of the Pentagon makes an announcement. You and I hit up people, or sometimes they hit us up. And I go, what's really going on here? They go, yeah, man, it's bullshit. You know, this, this, and this. And you go, oh, okay, can I cite that on background? That is not classified at all. Usually it's about clarification, some background information, some background information, some behind the scenes. He doesn't even want that to be reported because that would report on the chaos that's in the building for Mr. Hagsath. And what galls me about this are the

lies. The lie that the press just roams free all over the building. Bullshit, literally doesn't happen. I'm telling you it doesn't happen. It needs to cover it. Number two, we didn't wear a badge. I just showed it to you. Had to wear it around my neck every place that we went. Couldn't even enter the building without it, literally. Number three, solicit information. What he would, And I did this all the time. So here's, I know I'm in the weeds and I apologize, but the lack of transparency around this is what causes people to take this type of bullshit seriously. So what will happen is let's take this Venezuelan thing in the old days when I would cover

it, especially ISIS. They would call us in and they would say, we just hit a boat, or we just hit an oil refinery by ISIS. We'd say, okay. And they provide an on-the-record statement, which is the official version. then they would go on background where we could not cite them directly and we would say okay so what happened here and they're like well here's how we got the information and we got this and that and then we would ask follow-up questions and then sometimes what you do is if you're a good pentagon correspondent you've got sources in Iraq or something like that and you call them and you're like hey man like here's what the Pentagon is saying and they're like oh that's total bullshit actually we did this and so then what you do by the way that would be considered a criminal act or soliciting a criminal act and then what you do is you go back and to him, you go, hey, man, I just spoke to people familiar with the strike. They're saying what you're saying is wrong. They said it was a wedding party. Yeah, they said, right, exactly,

it was a wedding party. Or they said it was 50 killed as opposed to 500, right? And this happens all the time. This is the standard part of the job. And they go, yeah, you know, yeah, you got me, right? And that most of the time is what it was. Or they would scream at you, which I also got quite a bit when I was down there. That's the job of, quote, soliciting information. They don't even want that. And so they've created this whole brouhaha where they're trying to convince people that it's like a criminal act to solicit clarification. This is a $1 trillion budget. And the worst part is, Ryan, is even covering it, it's very hard to not be a stenographer because they so limit your access that they make it nearly impossible to print anything, which doesn't come from

official channel, unless you're really good at your job. Really, really, really, really. really good, almost everything is going to come through some official channel, which I would argue works to their benefit. Because the truth is, most of the people who cover the Pentagon are the most neocon people in the world. I mean, think about Barbara Starr. Glenn Greenwald used to joke that she was the Pentagon's reporter at CNN, not the CNN's reporter at the Pentagon. Or what's that woman's name? Jennifer from Fox News, who's like always just repeating the pro-war with Iran line. They love having those people in the building because they repeat their talking points, they get sources, right? It's not like they're even all that antagonistic, not nearly enough for my purposes.

So, yeah, I mean, all of it settles Ryan on this idea that soliciting classified information is a crime. First, no, it's not. It's actually not. But, and if somebody leaks you classified information, that's on them. But even more so, this is really bad because this is the first time since 1943 that there will not be a preponderance of journalists inside of that building or reporting on the Pentagon because they refused to sign. They're ridiculous agreement. Is it still only one America at this point? It's only one American news.

And so the Washington Examiner said no. My former employer, the Daily caller, said no. Washington Times. Fox News said no, Fox News. Pete Hecksett's former employer. Rocks News. So, and your proximate point that this is about covering up the chaos that is bubbling underneath Pete Hegseth's leadership is key because that's why specifically they're doing it

here. On the classified documents and classified information, I even take a more expansive view on that. I was interviewing Daniel Ellsberg about this once, and he made the point, he's like it's not settled law that it's a criminal act to leak, even to leak classified information. It's like the First Amendment does not have a carve out for government employees. Now, you can't, fire a government employee. You can sanction them. You can tell them they can never work for the government again. But his argument is if you are a government employee and you see the government committing a criminal act, your First Amendment right is to speak about that and is to share information about that. Now, you could imagine carve out where you say, well, treat, well,

and he said treason is different. If you sell government information. Yeah, that's a whole other To a foreign country, that's not a First Amendment protected activity. If you, if it's not newsworthy, it's not criminal and you're just leaking like nuclear codes or whatever. Like he would say, like that does not have First Amendment protections. But newsworthy information that the public has a right to know is not even a criminal act. So even if you don't believe in that expansive of an interpretation, the idea that it's a criminal act for a journalist to call a source, and say, what do you know about this airstrike? Where the Pentagon claims they killed 75 insurgents. And I did this every day when I covered the building. And that's the other funny thing. These people, they hate even being questioned their official bullshit narrative. I literally got screaming.

He called me a shit-stirring fuck-face. This was a full-bird colonel, which at the time I was like 24. I was scared, right? I'm talking about a frankly fat, overweight, full-bird. colonel with, you know, he's got the, what is it called, the oak leaf clusters and that, and he's like 58. And he's dressing me down because I was like, hey, I have a source telling me that what you said is incorrect. And they try to intimidate you, like thugs. Like that's what they do. Like full metal jacket. Yeah, it's like a, it's a right of passage, actually,

a journalist as learning how to how to deal with getting screamed at. When I talk to journalism classes, I tell that story because I go, one day you're going to be in that position. And they try to exploit your position in your youth and you have to internally, it's weird getting yelled at. But yeah, exactly. The reason they get mad is because they lied to you. That's the whole job. The job is saying, no, you're a liar, actually, this entire time. And Ryan, you've published classified information. We published the Discord leaks over here. The argument from Hegset and all those people, even though all the Republicans were celebrating those discord leaks that we published, showing that the Biden administration was lying about the war in Ukraine and the level of Pentagon involvement.

Now they're like, oh, you're threatening national security, like you should be prosecuted. That's the argument that Obama actually wanted to make about journalists in Snowden. They wanted people like Glenn to go to jail for even reporting on that. And that's part of the thing that they threw Chelsea Manning into prison for, I guess, after eventually pardoning or whatever. But the point is that that extraordinary view is now the one at the Pentagon. It's so crazy because they have banned basically all journalists from the building if they don't agree to sign saying that they will basically not clear all the future stories with them and not even ask for clarification on their official readouts. Yeah, and it's hopeful that all these organizations are pushing back. They're siding with the Fourth of State.

They're signing with the First Amendment over their kind of ideological affinity. You put up the third element here. Go check out Saugers' Twitter feed. he's lighting these people up. So we'll put this guy a blast. Joel Valdez. Joel Valdez is a deputy press secretary, former Matt Gates employee over at the Pentagon.

And after one of my tweets where I said, yes, encouraging people to leak is literally the job. He says, quote, we are only enacting good policy here at the Pentagon, which I replied, here is the irony any real journalist knows. And Ryan, you're 10 times more real than I am. And it's 99.9.9% of the time,

the people who leak out reach out to you because they have an act to grind. In fact, much of the time, It is Com Flack, by the way, is a Washington term for people like Joel, who are press assistants who don't actually know anything, who are the most desperate to leak on background. Those are the people. The junior press staffer is about 95% the person who's on the other end of the phone.

Let me offer you some stuff in context, right? Some background for your use, so just to be able to, for your ability to report. These are the phone calls, the types of things that we get. And I encourage Joel to come out and sign a sworn affidavit that you have never leaked information before. And I also want you to say that your former boss, Matt Gates, has also never leaked information before. And that he is, in fact, not one of those people who has every reporter in this town on speed dial. And in fact, I'd like him to sign an affidavit that he hasn't leaked about this story. That's right.

That's exactly right. I guarantee you he's leaking about this specific. story. Joel, I will pay you $1,000 if you can sign a sworn affidavit saying that you've never leaked information, not just classified any information previously in your job, including in your current role, $1,000, $1,000 U.S. dollars. I'd be willing to bet that that's... If you can't take the money, a charity of his choice. Sure, charity of your choice. Charity of your choice. Charity of your choice. There are a lot of different charities. We will take the YouTube revenue from this video, and we will use it.

We will use it to a chair. Yeah. Friends of the IDF. The friends of the IDF. All you have to do is sign a sworn affidavit. That's it. That's all you have to do. Okay. I don't know. Anything else to say on this, Ryan? No, I'm glad you and Emily are both punching back and the rest of the conservative press. Like, that's what has to happen. Because this was the wet dream of Obama.

They wanted to do it. They tried to throw Fox out of the White House press corps. You know, under Obama, like I just told you, I got dressed down for questioning some of the bullshit that they were reporting out. about ISIS at the time. They hated us, hate it, you know, at the Pentagon. But they didn't bat us at the end of the day. And our ability to sit there, I would argue, and actually press them a little bit, which is frankly one of the best parts of that job, is you, in many cases, you get to just question generals, which almost never happens, because they'll stream in live from Baghdad. All you have to do is just show up to the room. And you can just ask them, like I'm talking to you right now,

There's a microphone right above my head. Let's say you're coming in via a Zoom call, and you can sit there and lob questions at these people, and most of the time, they would not try to censor you. Now, in some cases, like the Secretary of Defense or any of that, but it actually used to be one of the more open environments where, at the very least, on camera, you could question some people in power. Now, keep in mind, Pete Hexat, Secretary has not done a press conference at four months there over at the Pentagon.

And the only time they do is when after it's the Iran strike or something like that. So it's not like we're losing a ton, but it is a horrible precedent. And it is genuinely one which I think it's the most scary because the Pentagon, that is where all the real shit happens, right? The trillion dollars, the strikes, the most nefarious parts of the federal budget, you know, UFOs. Like the more that they try to make it so that it's all stenography, we are so much worse off. So good thing technology exists, and if you have classified information, send it over. We'd love to see it. And we will publish it. Last point I'd make is that transparency is a sign of strength. Yeah, I agree. And this tin pot stuff is a sign of weakness. I totally agree with you. I actually, and the irony is as of this morning, there are three stories out now about Pete Hegseth sideline lawyers about Venezuela, Pete Hegseth's personal lawyer being part of this whole new media restriction, and about how that.

lawyer has some previous ties to Epstein, and about how this paranoia is part of the reason why he's being sidelined by the White House. People are still going to leak. In fact, they're probably going to leak more. So by the way, yeah, if that's you, send it over. We are. You got our signal. Right here, you have us. Reach out to us both. We'll happily publish it. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. one will end up dead, the other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill.

But little by little, their dream starts to crumble. And our couple, retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved,

until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.

They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed, robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism.

We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look to people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to Heavyweight on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get to Maine. Ryan, tell us what's going on, man. Janet Mills, after much speculation and much recruitment on the part of Senator Chuck Schumer announced that she is jumping into the race. She's the current Democratic governor of the state of Maine. She'll be running against Susan Collins if she can get through a Democratic primary.

She would be the oldest senator to ever take her first oath of office. The Senate is an old folks home in Washington to be able to set an age record in the United States Senate. This deep into its history is nothing short of extraordinary. She'd be 79 when sworn in. She'd be, you do the math, 85 when she finished. her first term, and she's running, of course, against Graham Platner, an oysterman, veteran of both the Marines and the Army. At one point, as people on the left are getting starting to look at with Ray's eyebrows, was a, worked with Blackwater, but has spent the last

10 years as an oysterman, an oyster farmer, and has run as a kind of populist, anti-war, genocide candidate, just one of these baritone truth-speaking guys. And there was hope among Democrats that the party leadership had seen that running the same kind of milk toast Democrats around the country, and particularly in Maine against Susan Collins, who has beaten five of these types fairly easily, that they had seen that like, we need something different. Maybe we need these tatted up guys that we don't understand, uh, who just answer questions with yes as a nose when they're asked. Right. Maybe we need that. Um, that hope was dashed by the Democratic Party jumping so fulsomely behind Janet Mills. Uh, let's roll a little bit of, uh, governor Mills here, uh,

is E1. What do you say to people who say what we really need now in the Democratic Party is younger leadership. But while Governor Mills has been a great governor, she's 77 years old and we need younger leadership. What's your response to people who say that? It's a fair point and it's a legitimate consideration. God knows it's a consideration for me and has been these many months I've been thinking about it and people have been urging me to run regardless of my age. But you know what? I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't do everything I can to reverse what's going on in Washington, things that are harming Maine people. Sure, I could go, you know, I'm not a rich person by any means, but I could just retire, go to my camp and fish and read books for the

rest of my life, I guess. But boy, I couldn't live with myself if I did that. Not when the times are so urgent, so dangerous, and things are happening that are threatening the health and welfare of Maine people every day. I can't live with that. And so I have the energy and the time and I want to give it my best shot. If there's some Democratic cope to be had out there, Ben Jacobs posted it. If you can put up E2, he says, look on the bright side here. She would only be what? She's younger than 11 sitting senators. So she'd be only the 12th oldest. So she would be the oldest freshman in history, but the 12th oldest sitting senator. What does that tell you about our system? It's starting out, because the Senate is a place you go and you build seniority.

The Senate is a place where it's more dignified to die of Alzheimer's. You don't enter at Alzheimer's age, okay? I didn't say that she had Alzheimer's. I'm just saying it's more dignified to spend a, you know, a decades-long career there, and then to die, you know, if basically wheelchair, bedridden and Alzheimer's ridden, you're not supposed to enter at the age where all of that is a possibility. But I guess, you know, records are meant to be broken. Records are meant to be broken.

And that is what Governor Mills is dead set on. It's an amazing response from the Democrats because they've been getting so much pressure from their base about weakness, not thinking, not rethinking their strategy. And Biden's age was something that Democrats kept telling their base was not something they should be concerned about. And so they thought, okay, well, maybe they are doing something different. here. They've got this guy, Graham Platner. He's really interesting running in Maine. And no, they come in and find the person who would be the oldest freshman senator in history. So here's E3. Here's the case she's making in her launch. Folks, do you want Democrats to take back the Senate? Well, I'm Governor Janet Mills, and I'm running to flip Maine Senate seat blue. Susan Collins has

sold out Maine and bowed down to special interests and to Donald Trump. But that ends now. So chip in $5 today, and let's win this. And I think if she were wildly popular, a lot of partisan Democrats would be like, okay, all right, we'll take one more super old person in the Senate. What's it matter? Like, she's definitely going to beat Susan Collins, and that's really what matters. Whereas polls that match Platner against Collins and Mills against Collins show that Plattner has much more upside, like significantly more upside against Collins, because

Platner can pull from independence and Republicans in a way that Mills can't. Mills is a well-known figure in Maine. Yeah, she's governor. You like her or you don't. But let's give the caveats, all right? Maine insanely hard state to poll. Remember, Susan Collins' opponent at one point was up by seven. How much does Susan Collins win by? Like 13? Eight. Yeah, exactly. So it was 13 point differential, notoriously, one of the hardest states to poll. I am curious how much this will be a test then of democratic leadership and of name ID versus, you know, a social media more driven campaign like Grand Platner. For example, one of the things that the governor has on her side is that the Chuck Schumer machine is now throwing behind her entire. Let's put this

up here on the screen. It's actually super interesting. So the DSC. and Janet Mills have formed a joint fundraising committee together called the main Senate Victory Fund for 2026. Before we even get to Platner's response, you've got to explain what that means, because that's effectively an endorsement without an endorsement. Yes, basically it is that endorsement, and what it does is it opens up a campaign finance mechanism that allows big money to flow into a vehicle that can be used to support Janet Mills. And so that means all of the New York donors. And in particular, people have been like,

why won't Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer just come out and like condemn Netanyahu what he's doing? Like why, like why do they keep doing this very unpopular thing? And the answer for a lot of it is the donors that are going to fund the national effort to take back the Senate don't want them to do it. So it's these kinds of donors who are then going to, flood the main Senate race with money, and they can go much beyond the individual max that would, you know, you're capped out at like, you know, 7,600 or whatever for like primary in general. But with this joint victory fund, you can give a lot more money. And so this means that she'll have all the money that she'll need in the primary. Platner has raised, I think,

$4 million from small donors, basically. since launching his campaign, he'll probably raise another million from Janet Mills getting in from people being so angry. Like, you're seeing people come out and endorse David Hogg's group. Actually, the College Democrats of America, which are usually a pretty kind of party-aligned. Yeah, they go along. Because they're careerists. They used to be. These college Democrats are different now. Interesting. Like, they're actually.

Really? I didn't know that. So they just endorsed Grand Platiner, which is interesting because these are kids who want jobs with Chuck Schumer. Right. Well, maybe they used... Now they're going against... It must be different. They are. Right, because the college dams that you and I grew up with were the most, like, Hillary, you know, John Kerry.

We had the president and vice president on the show. They're... These are not party hacks anymore. Fascinating. And so they're... David Hogg's behind him. So I saw Charlotte Clymer endorsed as a Democratic operative saying, like, I wasn't... She said I wasn't going to endorse, but seeing the DSCC get in is infuriating.

And so I'm endorsing Graham Platner. We can read Graham Platner's response. It's almost a gift to him in some ways. He says Chuck Schumer should be focused on fighting, it's the same element. Chuck Schumer should be focused on fighting Donald Trump and protecting health care for millions of Americans not meddling in a main primary. D.C.'s choice has lost to Susan Collins five times in a row. We can't afford a sixth.

So I actually think that there's some real advantage to Platner here because he now solidifies his brand as independent of the Democratic Party establishment. Like, they are literally running somebody against him to try to stop him. In a country and particularly in a state where fealty towards the party establishment is seen as a demerit, that actually would be a benefit. I think Mamdani is actually boosted in the public perception by the fact that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer won't endorse him because it makes him look more independent. Like this guy's this guy's serious here. So if he can beat Janet Mills, then I think he actually comes into the prime, comes into the general against Collins much stronger among independents and Republicans than if he had just kind of coasted to the primary victory for people that haven't seen him speak. Here's a little clip.

We can roll the next side. This is Plattner. Can you please share your feelings on ice? So right now, armed, masked, secret police are going around the country kidnapping American citizens. Kidnapping people that are here legally,

abusing people because of the color of their skin. It's disgusting. One of the reasons I want to go to the south, is that when we have power again, I want to haul all of these people and the ones that made them do it in front of a Senate subcommittee, make them take the mass shot, home to the American people, how they can justify their illegal and unconstitutional behavior. There's Mr. Plattner. Now, okay, we have enough time so we can have the debate.

I'm not saying what he said there was bad. However, Mr. Plattener, I've had beef with Mr. Plattener since he's. he posted a certain viral video where he had a constituent, because I know he listened to this show, by the way, so this is some free advice for you. No, we don't have it right now. Crystal and I have argued about it in the past. He was asked specifically about illegals taking health care benefits. By like an anti-immigrant person at a town hall. Sure. We can call it anti-immigrant for your purposes. Not a friend of his, right? Yes, yeah, by somebody who was again. Okay. And his response was, and this was celebrated by the left. And they was, they clipped it. They clipped it. They

Clipped it and they posted. His response was, we can't blame her because she's getting bad information. Now, there is a concept amongst Republicans, something known as the Hicklib, which is somebody who is in a rural Republican area, but is a shit lib through and through. I personally would argue that, yes, his affectation and all of that is great. But is it not the most elite lib-coded response in the world to say that your belief is because of a lack of information and a lack of education. To me, that is one of the most condescending things that you could ever say about somebody is that because they are basically an uneducated shit, basically a Fox Newswatcher or whatever, that that is where the belief, that the mindset is one where you can only hold that

belief if you are uneducated. That is the definition. of a Hicklib and elite liberal response. And no wonder it went viral. Unbunds a bunch of New York City liberals and a bunch of other people who were living in Brooklyn and were like, yeah, he's schooling these hicks who were out there in the middle of Maine.

So I'm curious for your response. I'm curious for your response. So don't tell me how crystal responded because I don't want to be. Don't tell me yet. Tell me afterwards. I agree with you. I would not have said it

and I definitely would not have clipped it as representative of the way that I want to talk to independence of Republicans, because it is a matter of fact that something like 8 million-ish people, you know, came across the border in a historic fashion under the Biden administration. Like that happened. Yeah. She's not wrong about it. Yeah, it's literally a fact. So to tell her that she's wrong about that. Now, well, she was talking about health care, healthcare specifically dollars. Right. Now, I will tell you what chrisal said and i don't even necessarily well i do disagree with it but what she said just to be entirely fair was that you hold that position because you're being sold a different

story and that the response is not to pit people against each other it's to create a universal system so that people are not feeling as if they're now my response was we have to live in a world of finite resources and we can't live in one where a bunch of people who are not even high school educated from guatemala get to come here and get free health care i think that's fucking nuts personally But my point is that that platinum response seems literally cooked in a lab to appeal to a bunch of liberals' idea of what a Hicklib is supposed to look like in Brooklyn or elsewhere. He was like, yeah, he's schooling these uneducated. I don't know. It's incredibly condescending to me personally that somebody could only hold that belief because they're uneducated.

It's frankly preposterous. And so, I don't know. That's my one thing of a holdup. It all just seems too good to be true. The affectation, the lobster, fisherman. I looked a little bit into his background. Like you said, he served in Blackwater. That's like, hmm, that's a little weird.

But I know it was, you know. Lived here in D.C., went to G.W. The same school was me. So it's like, okay, well, you know, maybe we're not so far apart there, Mr. Graham, in terms of living in the big city before we went back to fish, lobster. It's like, maybe that's where the ideology comes from.

That's my personal suspicion. Anytime I see something like this, the last person who reminded me of this was John Federman. And so I would remind you all, how did that work out? As I've said before, I knew him when he was a bartender to tune in back 20 years ago. Throwback. And so I think he's always been, I don't think he had to evolve to this, like, new position. He does suffer from the comparison with Federman because Federman betrayed the left so, you know, fundamentally.

Not just the left, the Democratic Party. Like his, Federman's approval rating with Democrats is wildly underwater. like Kirsten Cinema levels are worse. Yes. And Platner just keeps saying, like, all I can do is prove to you that I'm not John Fetterman. And he will say, he will tell you directly. And he says it a lot.

I'm not better than one. I don't. But I'm just saying that is the only person in modern memory who I can think of, who had the same affectation and the same, oh, he's, where's his little hoodie, he wears his hoodie, he's one of us only to come in and, I mean, who knows what happened to it. but with the injury, but eventually just becoming a pro-Israel and basically a Republican. Federman was a rich guy who went to Harvard.

Yes. And then became mayor of a small town with his money or whatever and had to put a lot of this on. Well, I'm glad we can admit all of us now, even though he always said that. Also, by the way, huge weed head, just saying. Whereas Platner, you know, genuinely middle class actually served in. I'm not denigrating the man personally. He served the country or any of that. I'm saying that the ideology, which leads one to say, that a person who has a different belief than you can only be because of lack of education is quite literally the mindset that lost Democrats the election.

And is the ideology of the people who make $150,000 a year and think that because they went to state school that they're better than everybody else. That's all I'm saying. It's elitist and in the Marxist world they call it like false consciousness. Oh, interesting. that you're accusing someone of they have the wrong consciousness that they ought to have because they're just diluted for different reasons, propagandized, et cetera. Of course, there is a lot of propaganda around immigration. So I can understand an attempt to try to thread the needle on that.

What I would have done on that particular one is what I've said before, is that hospitals are required to serve everybody. If people come in uninsured, we all pay. It's just better to, it's actually better to insure people. But the Democratic bill does not allow people who are illegally to be covered. Frankly, it should, for the reasons I just said, and we want to save our rural hospitals or you want them to go under. That aside, there's an interesting contrast going on about who populist Democrats are

going to be between Platner and Dan Osborne. And Dan Osborne is not Democrat, actual independent. But he takes a harder line on immigration. Well, he's in a deep right state, right? He's an R plus 50 state or something. I don't know the actual number. I'd have to go back and check, but I don't know how much. So he's like, look, I want a secure border.

Right. And he's willing to just, and he basically just pushes that issue aside. He's like, yeah, I want a secure border. And then he will say he does not support, like, masked thugs going around scooping people up. I mean, Clatner's on better ground. If I'm being honest, like, here's the truth. Kamala won the state 52-45 to Trump. Trump lost it by seven points.

Like, that's a lot. Okay, so you're already living in a state where Susan Collins is much more of an outlier. And so, yeah, I mean, it does kind of make sense to basically be a lib who's got, you know, the working class application. Who can culturally connect. I mean, it doesn't, that doesn't seem disconnected at all. Like, it seems to me like any Democrats are probably going to win the state in this environment. I just personally found that clip as if it was some great new invention by the left. I'm like, you know, to be honest, again, I think that is quite literally the epitome.

of the problem with elite liberalism is you can only hold a different belief because you're uneducated. Reminded me a little bit of when McCain said about Obama, no ma'am, he's not an Arab. Oh, I do remember that. He's a good man.

Yes. And people at the time all applauded it. Right. But at the same time, we're like, are you saying that an Arab can't be a good man? Yeah, good point. I remember that. I remember that well, actually.

Lots of Arabs are good men. He got a lot of praise. She's like, no, man. He's a good man. He's not Arab. He's a good man. You're like, wait, what? That's kind of a weird quote.

Yeah. What did you mean by that? Maybe we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't know. We did because the bar was so low. The bar was low. That's true. I mean, I guess he did prove it out because his life's mission was to bomb as many as he personally.

That's true. Whatever. All right. Last thing, you've got a big update for us on Pakistan. I'm just going to sit back and let you roll. In the new podcast, Hell in heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one will end up dead, the other tried for murder.

Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Ann Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill

but little by little their dream starts to crumble and our couple retreat from reality they lose it, they actually lose it they sort of like nuts until one night everything spins out of control

listen to hell in heaven on the IHeart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people

and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all see.

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. a hundred and one year old woman fall in love again. And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke. And he got down and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother

tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to heavyweight on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we have a genuinely extraordinary story developing out of Pakistan. It really almost defies belief to walk you guys through this role.

F2 here. Incredible amounts of violence. unfolded outside of Lahore this week. This is, these are policemen chasing down a pro-Palestine protester trying to shoot him in the back. Other, there's much worse video that has emerged online, though very, very little has been reported about this anywhere, whether it's Pakistan media, which is entirely locked down or around the world. We are hearing that the death count could well be over 1,000 people and just try to sit with the extent of the massacre

that we're talking about here. Before we get into the details, the context here is that this happened, this started right around the exact same time that Pakistan's prime minister, Shabashir, was in Egypt with the rest of the Arab and Muslim countries celebrating the ceasefire deal. And these things are not disconnect.

at all. Shabashirif is in power because they flagrantly stole the election back in February of 2024 and have Imran Khan in prison. The United States has been dangling the threat of supporting the release of Imran Khan to basically corner Pakistan's militaries. Pakistan's military is currently in control. They operate through Shabashirif. But they operate at the at the blessing and the courtesy of the United States, which at any moment could basically signal you have to let Imran Khan out. And so Pakistan's military basically is doing anything the United States wants as a result. So let's roll just to understand what's happening in Egypt while this extraordinary violence is unfolding in Pakistan. Let's roll F6. Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan, and also I have

to say my favorite field marshal from Pakistan, who's not here, but the prime minister, is here and you're going to give his regards. Where are you? Thank you very much. Do you want to say what you said to me the other day? Would you like to say what you said the other day? I think it was so nice. Pakistan had nominated President Donald Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

for his outstanding extraordinary contributions. to first stop war between India and Pakistan and then achieve ceasefire along with this very wonderful team. And today again, I would like to nominate this great president for Nobel Peace Prize because I genuinely feel

that he is the most genuine and most wonderful candidate for Peace Prize because he has brought not only peace in South Asia, saved millions of people, their lives. So Shabashirif is kind of infamous in Pakistan for those obsequious and kind of embarrassing speeches that he gives to. people like Trump or Gulf leaders or basically anybody that Pakistan needs money from or needs political cover from. But so the party in question here is known in Pakistan. That was the victim of this massacre, known as the TLP. So TLP are basically a product of the Pakistan military over the year. So when you have a military dictatorship, in order to kind of stay in power over the

decades, they create all of these different political factions that have some tiny bit of independence but are effectively run either by the ISI or the Pakistan military or both. And TLP is, these are hardcore far-right religious fundamentalists that could be deployed for different strategic or tactical reasons by the Pakistan military. And so to say that there are not a lot of good guys in this story. would be an understatement. Like, usually when the TLP is out there protesting, it's to try to, like, you know, get somebody executed

for having an affair or having a nose ring or something. Like, not the kind of people that make sympathetic figures and, you know, to Western liberals like myself, for instance. Yet, so the TLP was deployed here to protest against the Gaza War. And to protest a little bit about Pakistan getting a little closer to Israel and hinting at some type of normalization here. It's Sad Risvi, who's the head of the TLP, announced this protests during his Friday prayers. Well, then you might be thinking, wait a minute. TLP, which is a creation of the Pakistan military, is going to be protesting against Pakistan? Like,

what on earth is going on here? And this is where it gets so diabolical. And, What I'm going to share is basically our analysis, but it's highly informed by people with serious knowledge about what's going on here. So why on earth would the military encourage protests against itself? Well, one is obvious on the geopolitical stage. It would be a way to tell the U.S., like, don't push us too hard when it comes to like normalization with Israel because, look, we've got problems back at home. Oh, okay.

That's only one little part of it, though. I think what's really going on goes back to this November 26th, 2024 protest in support of Imran Khan. You had thousands of people come out into the streets. We covered it here saying, you know, free Imran Khan. The security forces massacred, huge numbers of people. And we published here, like exclusive video and other documents that we had got that showed the extent of a massacre, and also that it was planned and organized ahead of time by the security services, that this was not a something that got out of hand. They deliberately instigated this. And the violent

crackdown basically wiped out public protest on behalf of Imran Khan. And so I think the, so the military saw, we know the fact, they saw this as a success. So what they did is they're playing that card again, but this time with the TLP, to get to get them under control. So what they're signaling here is that if we do move forward, as we move forward with better relations with Israel under pressure from the U.S., there will be no protesting against this. And so it was Monday morning, and you can roll, I think it's, you're going to just roll this as I'm talking here, some of the footage that did emerge out of Pakistan. So the march was supposed to go, initially to Lahore. With negotiations, they were able to persuade the marchers to move instead

to Maritki, which is a town kind of north of, north of Lahore, where there's less base of support for the TLP. And you then have this outbreak of shooting and shelling. One person said they saw more than 600 bodies on the ground, like absolute carnage. Sad Risvi sent a negotiating team before this broke out to try to settle this. That negotiating team was arrested. He organized another negotiating team, sent them in. It happened anyway. Right up until the violence started, he was pleading for this not to go down.

We understand that the decision had already been made that they were going to carry out of this, this violent crackdown to send this to send this signal that there will be no pushback against this. The fact that, so we did find some coverage. of it in Pakistan media, which is aligned with the military. So, like, controlled by the military. And that really tells you a lot, because it's like, okay, if they are allowed to report on this, and this is where we saw the interview with somebody saying that's more than they saw 600 bodies, like, why is the Pakistan military allowing that to be aired? Because it's a signal. In other words, what good is a spectacular display of violence against protesters if you don't tell the country about it. So they're very carefully balancing the amount of information that gets out about this

massacre so that everyone in Pakistan knows that it happened so that they understand you will not protest for Palestine. But not so much gets out that there's international pressure on them, that there's international condemnation of it. And that's a very tight rope to walk. It seems to have worked. So far, they're walking it. This was Monday. Today's Wednesday. So, but it's still going on. So after this, after the massacre in the streets, you started having house rates of all these TLP people, which again, like, it's interesting because a lot of Pakistanis don't like TLP. They're like, these guys are thugs and goons. And like, they're, they're mobs that go around like stoning people like so we don't want to be sympathy for them as one

person I talked who said this is the first time they protest something good and also the first time they get massacred first or did something good um and so that's so that's where we are now very like and they are walking the rope like there is right now this is basically the only coverage we'll have a story a drop site about this um this is basically the only coverage that you're seeing around the world of this massacre that could be like more than a thousand people getting killed that is a ton of people. It's usually a huge story. Like report the reports about bodies just getting thrown into trucks and douse of chemicals. Like it's it's horrifying and it's and it's deeply horrifying to think that something like this can happen and nobody even knows

about it. Actually while you're talking Ryan there's some I'll get your live reaction. Pakistani Air Force carried out a wave of airstrikes against Taliban-affiliated sites and military bases in Kabul and throughout other provinces. Yeah, so this comes, so what's up with that? So very recent. I thought they supported the Taliban. They funded them. Yeah, when they were fighting.

I can't keep up. They funded, they backed the Taliban when the Taliban were fighting the U.S. Right, of course. While we gave Pakistan money to do that, makes a lot of sense. Right, because then we would, like, it was their argument for why we needed to fund them. Yeah. Because look at these terrorists out there. Don't you want us to fight them?

And then they're funding the terrorists. Yes. It's just these conspiracies in games like all the way down. It's crazy. But yeah, so a couple weeks ago or less, there was border clashes where the Taliban killed something like more than 50 Pakistani soldiers. Like, wow. Serious conflict.

Because Pakistan has been saber rattling at the Taliban and suggesting that they are going to do regime change in Kabul. And throw the Taliban. And it's like, wait, hold on, you're going to do what? How are you going to do that? So, yes. So this is in line. His favorite field marshal, by the way. That's his name's Asa Mnir.

That's who Trump is referring to there. And he's the guy that actually runs the country. This is his strategy. So he's been using, you know, extreme amounts of violence against, you know, to crack down on the PTI. Yeah. Iran Khan folks, now the TLP folks, and then now here. And he's really feeling it for two reasons. One is that he now has the unquestioned, not unquestioned, but he has full-throat of support of the Trump administration. So this fear that Imran Khan was going to get released and he'd be in trouble is subsiding.

And they feel very good about how the India-Pakistan war went for them, that they stood up to India and got through it and had support from the U.S. as in it. India is to, like, everybody who follows Indian politics says, like, India's going to hit Pakistan again very soon. Well, they're still very angry. That's why they don't accept the U.S. narrative of the peace deal. They're like, there is no peace. Right. There's just a pause. We're hitting them again. Right. So Asim Anir might be proud of the way he's navigated this so far. But to have a two-front war, Afghanistan and India, While also cracking down on your fundamentalist right and your populist a faction of Imran Khan supporters, if you're India, you're like... Now is the time.

Yeah. Hit them. This guy's... Hit them hard. Yeah. So, I don't think we've seen the last of this situation, that's for sure. Well, thank you for the update, Ryan, as always. Our resident Pakistan correspondent.

You know, I thought I knew a lot about Pakistan until I met this guy. Yes, it's the best part. Okay, now we're going to throw to a pre-recorded segment that Ryan did about the free press's supposed debunking of the Gaza famine narrative. Ryan and the dropside team did some excellent journalism and reached out to many of the families involved. Lo and behold, all of them were decimated by famine. They got actual interviews on the record. So let's go ahead and throw to that. And then we will also see you all later.

In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young. young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead, the other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times.

John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble And our couple retreat from reality They lose it, they actually lose it They sort of went nuts Until one night, everything spins out of control Listen to hell in heaven on the Iheart radio app

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. a story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve,

this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the bone. Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke.

And he got down and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eyes. not always hide behind a microphone? Listen to heavyweight on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We have a new story over at DropSight News, written with my colleague, Maha Hussein,

that looks into the infamous reporting that the free press did into what they said were a dozen cases of Palestinians, who they claimed had been unfairly elevated as examples of famine in Gaza. The article was titled, They Became Symbols for Gaza's Starvation, but all 12 suffer from other health problems. Now, we discovered something very strained when we first started looking into this, and we don't have to dwell on this.

They don't look into 12 cases. They don't. Like, unless they did and just didn't publish it, And we asked them for comment. We have not gotten comment on this bizarre discrepancy. It doesn't fundamentally undermine their reporting by itself. But, you know, they said they were going to look into 12 cases plus the famous New York Times once. That's 13.

They only name nine. There's another one that's alluded to so you could generously give them 10. So when we started looking closer at their reporting, we're like, wait a minute, this is deeply flimsy. However, according to Olivia Rangel, This was, you know, truly outstanding reporting. So let's roll a little bit of her from a clip that came along with their post. So you've probably seen these photos of skeletal kids in Gaza on front pages all over social media, even in a UNICEF ad. They've become the symbols of famine.

But we decided to look into these photos and the stories behind them. And what we found is that in case after case, these kids were sick, but not just with malnutrition. In every instance, they were suffering with other conditions or illnesses like cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, and even traumatic head injuries. Now, all of this is important because obviously this is not just important in its own right, and their original piece was perhaps, to me, one of the most infuriating I've ever seen because of how shoddy it was. It's one thing to look into, do any investigation you want, but you should also do the investigation. What we found here is that the free press did not, as far as we can tell, attempt to contact any of the families or the people involved in story, which is journalism one-on-one is if you're going to write about somebody's health conditions, you would presumably speak to them or their doctors or somebody who has familiarity. Which a lot of the- Google Translate.

Well, I was going to say, a lot of the journalists on the ground who had used the images already, they were on the ground talking to the families. If I'm remembering correctly, for example, the New York Times. Times pictures were taken by a photojournalist, and I think there was a journalist on the ground. Right. And they had been in conversation with the families about the conditions. Yeah, and so the fundamental point that the Free Press says that it's making with this investigation is that these children were held up, mostly children, they're two adults, held up as examples of the victims of the famine. But in fact, they had preexisting conditions, and they exposed the fact that they have these pre-existing conditions. So what we did, which weren't disclosed by the Washington Post,

for example, and like the Washington Post put up a note eventually. And I actually think... Times added something... And the point that you and I talked about at the time, it's actually perfectly acceptable to disclose those pre-existing problems. And they should do that. And the reporting that you all have added and contributed to the conversation is that actually it's often people with pre-existing conditions who are the first to succumb when there are shortages of food. Exactly. Full context is good. But the idea that these children's pre-existing conditions were the thing that was driving their health complications, which is what the free press pushes. That turns out not to be the case once you talk to their families. So we asked Maha to interview as many of these family members as she could. In the middle of her reporting, she was forcibly displaced from Gaza City. And she had interviewed and done reporting on three of the cases. And I said that, you don't stop like and it's it's like reporting from a tent without electricity with like intermittent access to internet uh and no home base to write it's extraordinarily difficult and

the and the cases that she uh looked into i think told um you know enough of the story that we can that we can understand what's going on here um so we can start with muhammad uh zachariah iub al mutuak who actually is the now 22 month old whose picture adorned the New York Times story that then created this controversy of FP and others said, this child has other health complications. So you should not have used them as an example of the worsening famine conditions in Gaza. So we talked to family and got from them before and after photos. So the photo you're looking at here is Muhammad 12 days before the March 2nd siege is announced in Gaza. So on March 2nd, Israel closed all the crossings. No food, no medicine,

know, nothing allowed in. And that went deep into May. And that's what drove the acute crisis. So you can see his picture before this happened, and then you can see after. And what the FP would have you believe is that it was his preexisting health condition. And we have a VO here that we can play too of him getting a haircut in a tent before the crossings were closed. And you can tell he's got some pre you just you can just tell you don't even to be a doctor you can tell he's got some pre-existing health conditions but it was the lack of access to food that drove his condition now mohammed obviously is going to suffer things worse than other children but it's it's just very clear now at the same time it's also worth fuller context if we want it so he was born in december

2023, during one of the nights of the fiercest bombing that they saw in the area where he was born in Gaza City, the last two months of her pregnancy, they were displaced and moving constantly. Right after October 7th. Yeah, so this is right. And some of the most widespread indiscriminate violence was right after October 7th. So he's born into that. And you can imagine that there could be some slight muscle weakness, which is what he had when he was born.

And you can imagine some neurological conditions as well. Totally. You know, the health of the mother during the pregnancy matters for children. And so rather than kind of lessening the responsibility of the siege and the assault on his condition, the further reporting actually strengthened it. And so to give even more context, which I think is important, this is what his mother says. I suffered from malnutrition around two months after I gave birth to him, and he stopped breastfeeding. At that time, his father was still with us and could acquire milk.

So despite the harsh conditions, Muhammad began growing as a healthy child. At one point, he was even chubby, and we've seen the photos to prove that that's the case. On October 28, 2024, his father, Zachariah, was killed in an Israeli strike in Darabala. And so now his mother is caring for these two children under these much more difficult conditions. She writes, I couldn't consistently get milk or diapers, but people continued to support me, bringing milk from time to time. I was still able to provide food for him until the occupation sealed the borders and enforced starvation in March. Doing this reporting, in some ways I felt guilty even like asking these families to justify their situation. But at the same time, it's important to do so because, you know, the free press has now been bought by Paramount.

Barry Weiss has been elevated to editor-in-chief of CBS News. And what she considers to be proper journalistic tradecraft is now going to have the backing of, you know, hundreds of budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That's what drove me crazy about the story originally and continuously the story now that you all are following up. on it. It reminds me of your report on the Douglas Murray, David from speech contributions to the Israeli ambassador as well, which is there's a constant drumbeat of lecturing from many of these same people about journalistic ethics. And that is exactly what happened. And it came with this story. They kept talking about how proud they were of this reporting that they did. They're editorial board. They're editorial. They wrote a free press editorial, just slamming. You,

Dogger and Crystal, I somehow escaped. How did you get? I don't know, I don't know. But all that is to say, that was a lecture about journalistic ethics from people who were engaged in clearly lapsed journalistic ethics in the same story with the same breath that other people were being criticized over. And it's not a matter of like your ideological standpoint on this. Like if we set that aside, that is not the full and complete.

picture. The full and complete picture was not told in this counter story. And so, yeah, I think it's important that the Washington Post now includes the disclosure. I think that's good. But getting that isn't a concession. Your story was a sort of beacon, a paragon of journalistic success. And we can quickly go through two others. So another one is six-year-old Najua Hussein Hajjad. First of all, the free press claim that these were all viral images. Even that is extremely dubious assertion. Najua's photo was included in a CNN slideshow. How you define viral, I don't know, but it appears more like they just went cherry picking

any image that was associated with any story about starvation and then Googled until they could find somebody who also had a health condition. I looked it up, by the way, there are more cases of child disability in Gaza before October 7th than average around the world. I think UNICEF has it at like 12% average as 9% or 10%. So 20% to 30% higher in Gaza. And you can imagine, well, why would there be more childhood disability? Like in Gaza, in a place that has been under siege for many decades.

So using the fact that somebody has a disability against them in this case is further undermined by the fact that the fact that they have the disability might be related. to the siege that their families have been living under for generations. But so what they found with Hajad is they found that she had an esophage condition. And the free press suggested that this esophagal stenosis rather than the imposed starvation was responsible for her condition. So Mahat talked to her mother and she says, quote, and before the war started, we had taken her to the hospital and she was diagnosed with esophagal stenosis. Her condition had not yet worsened. And a surgery was scheduled for December 4th, 2023.

Quote, but of course, with hospitals being bombed, others overwhelmed with victims, any lack of equipment her surgery was canceled. This is when our own war with her condition began, unquote. Which, again, stands to reason, if you imagine in your own life, if you and your family and your entire community are overnight shut off from access to medical care,

emergency departments are open if you get if you're a victim of the bombing or or you're shot and you know that then they can treat you but anything scheduled like like they're working on your esophical condition like that's canceled right that's it's just it's just not happening and so she started started vomiting was unable to unable to keep things down in the past her mother has said the supplements and medical fluids had kept her in a stable condition despite this situation. But without those supplements and medical fluids, then she began to succumb to the ravages of malnutrition. And she was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. Quote, we tried to secure her proper food for a condition like curate vegetables, yogurt juice, or soft cheese. But

none of these were available during the starvation campaign. We couldn't secure anything but lentils. So she was then successfully evacuated and since then has gone, undergone, you know, three surgeries for this condition. But this is what all experts will tell you, that when famine hits, it is not the healthiest people who suffer the most first is the people who are most susceptible to that. And just think about it in your own life. If that happened, if all of a sudden you were cut off from food and medical aid, who would go down first? And then imagine somebody came to you and said, well, your grandmother had this condition. So why are you blaming us? Like, you're the one that cut off food and medicine.

That's why I'm blaming you. It's not my grandmother was doing okay, even though she had her condition. And finally, one more, one of the adults is Hamza Ismail Mishmish, his 25-year-old who had a lifelong pre-existing condition, which I think was obvious in the photos of him. And so his brother told DropSite, quote, Hamza was born with cerebral palsy and congenital anomalies and had lived with this condition for years. We used to follow up with doctors and he survived all these years on nutritional supplements and vitamins. During the war, we faced difficulties securing the nutritional supplements and it was impossible to compensate with fresh food, with the borders closed. And even when international aid was allowed in, all we could find was canned food. But in the recent months of starvation, his condition rapidly deteriorated.

And Shadi added that although his body did appear thin before the war, quote, one can clearly see the difference between how he looked then and how he looks now. The recent starvation made us completely helpless toward his condition. Food supplements were completely unavailable. And then the part that's even more brutal to kind of think about living with these conditions because this is difficult enough under the most comfortable conditions living in a nice house with all the access that you can have to food and medicine, anybody who lives with this condition or knows somebody who does, it's very difficult. But Mish Mish's family added to drop site that his health has been further worsened by the family's

conditions in displacement, forcing him to live in a makeshift tent after their home was bombed. quote, this tent cannot protect him from the scorching heat in summer or the freezing cold in winter. In cold weather, we cannot keep him warm so his body develops infections, his feet swell, and his entire body weakens. We would need at least three weeks to help him recover from these symptoms. All these circumstances combined are why his body has never been the same since the war. So imagine this is your family member. And Barry Weiss and Olivia Ryan Gold come up to you and say, it's because of his cerebral palsy that he's in this condition. Like he's 25 years old. We've known him his whole life. The condition is

because of the siege and the war. And to like to even make you like point that out to them is a form of crazy making. And again for what it actually makes the story fuller more interesting to know that it's the case. And so. Yeah, one of the ones they cited was a 14-year-old who had a piece of his skull removed because he was hit by an Israeli shell. Oh, my gosh. Oh, he had a pre-existing condition from getting shelled by Israel. Right. It's like, this is not serious.

What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. You were. No, no, no. I think it's all like even more, it's, it enriches the story to know the background. And it makes it clear at just like the level of the downstream effects, you know,

we talk a lot about, obviously, like, famine deaths because those are, you know, the people have actually died. But also just like the downstream consequences of lack of medical treatments and food and how that affects, you know, the most vulnerable among us and has over the last couple of years. It's just a tragedy. And it's definitely not an own or a slam dunk against the outlets that use these images. Yeah. And we can look at. I look forward to a lot more of this, I guess, now, from 60 minutes. We'll see. We'll see.

All right. Great story, Ryan. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer. That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app,

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