Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/17/23: Biden Plans Trip To Israel, IDF Strikes Hezbollah, US Citizens Stranded, Israel Ambassador Denies Crisis, BP Focus Group On Biden's Age, Hannity Jim Jordan, Israel Beefs With Celebrities, Zelensky Visit, Krystal Ambushed On NewsNation

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Biden's upcoming trip to Israel, IDF strikes Hezbollah as Iran tensions heat up, US citizens stranded in Gaza, Israeli Ambassador denies humanitarian crisis in Gaza, BP focus group on Biden's age, Hannity caught pressing GOP to support speaker Jim Jordan, producer Mac shoved by secret service at Palestine protest, Israeli government officials beef with celebrities online, Israel rejects Zelensky visit, and Krystal gets ambushed on NewsNation.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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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. DNA test proves he is not the father, now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John, who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's You're Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes that my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us.

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So we'll talk about that as well as the continued risks of the spreading into a wider war. One of the things he is likely to be discussing is trying to open some sort of humanitarian corridor. There have been a lot of negotiations about that already. So we'll get into all of that. We also have some additional results for you from that exclusive focus group that we conducted along with JL partners down in Georgia, in and around Atlanta. That's where the residents came from. Democratic based voters talking about how they feel about President Biden and his age, their concerns, and whether they would be open to other candidates. So we'll talk about that. We also have big domestic news. As I mentioned, speaker vote happening today. Jim Jordan seems to have swayed some, but maybe not enough. So we'll see how that goes and talk about what it means. We

also have some additional examples of censorship happening here, some wild back and forth between Gigi Hadid and the state of Israel that we want to bring you. We also have a little bit of hypocrisy we want to expose with regard to how people feel about Ukraine and Russia versus Israel and Gaza. And I had a little bit of an adventure last night over on News Nation. Sagar actually hasn't seen this clip yet, so we're going to talk a little bit about this. This is why I don't do cable news anymore. Bottom line. That's why I told you privately. Why are you wasting your time with this? We'll find out. We'll find out why you don't waste your time with this. Thanks to everybody for supporting us on The Focus Group.

We'll have more to say on that, but let's actually get to the news here. Late last night, Secretary Blinken, after a marathon, nearly eight-hour meeting privately with Prime Minister Netanyahu, made a major announcement. President Biden on Wednesday will be arriving in Israel. Here's what he had to say. On Wednesday, President Biden was at Israel. He's coming here at a critical moment for Israel, for the region, and for the world. And he's coming here to do the following. First, the President will reaffirm the United States' solidarity with Israel and our ironclad commitment to its security. President Biden will again make clear,

as he's done unequivocally since Hamas's slaughter of more than 1,400 people, including at least 30 Americans, that Israel has the right and indeed the duty to defend its people from Hamas and other terrorists and to prevent future attacks. President will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people as we continue to work with Congress to meet those needs. Second, President Biden will underscore our crystal-clear message to any actor, state or non-state, trying to take advantage of this crisis to attack Israel.

Don't. To that end, he's deployed two aircraft carrier groups and other military assets to the region. Third, the President will continue to coordinate closely with our Israeli partners to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas, including men, women, small children, Holocaust survivors, and American citizens, as an indispensable humanitarian effort. Fourth, President Biden will receive a comprehensive brief on Israel's war aims and strategy. Fifth, the President will hear from Israel how it will conduct its operations in a way

that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas. To that end, today, and at our request, the United States and Israel have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza and them alone, including the possibility of creating areas to help keep civilians out of harm's way. Obviously, that's a major piece of news there. President Biden arriving. Now, we don't yet know what the circumstances of the arrival are for.

Is it a show of solidarity as the Israelis wanted him to make, or is it to solve a diplomatic knot? Also breaking last night, Israel will be the first place that he does visit, but on the same trip, we'll be traveling to Amman in Jordan, where he will meet with the Palestinian Authority, the Egyptians, and the King of Jordan. So, Crystal, what that does show us is that this is a major diplomatic visit. In tradition, the U.S. president, when he does visit Israel, is supposed to visit Egypt.

Kind of interesting that he is going over to Jordan, where he will, of course, still be meeting with President Sisi. But it comes at a time of absolutely massive questions about U.S. involvement and some terrifying stuff that began happening last night. Let's put this up there on the screen. The IDF announced publicly that it was currently striking, quote, Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon, their words, in terms of what they're saying. The reason why that that is so significant is it was the first time that they have publicly come out and said that they're making strikes not only in Lebanon, but targeting and naming Hezbollah. By doing that, we know that this is entering the dangerous territory of a possible proxy war between Iran and Israel. And not even proxy, it could escalate much further, which would, of course, draw the United States in. It also, these airstrikes came just hours after a very ominous statement

by the Iranian foreign minister. Let's go ahead and play some of this. I'm going to read a translation of what he said, which has everybody so worried. He says, quote, uh, put there will be potential preemptive action by Iran and its allies in the coming hours in the region to counter Israel's attacks. Here is exactly what he says. Resistance leaders will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action it wants in Gaza and then leave Gaza and go to other resistance spheres. He also invokes Israel's use of white phosphorus in Gaza and says that there will make a case to the Iranian public for preemptive military action. Direct quote, today, if we do not defend Gaza, tomorrow we will have to face these bombs in children's hospitals in our own city. This is a very blunt

warning of war, according to the official translation. And the final quote was, quote, time for political solutions is running out. "'The possibility of expanding war "'is approaching inevitability.'" He also directly calls out the United States and says that they have asked for restraint and that they have been replied that they do not seek to expand the war,

but that restraint is not one-sided. And specifically on Hezbollah, you cannot tell Hezbollah to restrain and then tell Netanyahu to do whatever crime that he wants. So he specifically is calling out both Israel and the United States, threatening to use Hezbollah and open a two-front war. Again, the reason why it's significant is the reason we have these two carrier strike groups in the Eastern Mediterranean is an attempt to try and deter Iranian action. Hezbollah is several multitudes more deadly to Israelis and to the IDF.

It presents an actually significant military challenge. And, Crystal, it is the most likely avenue that the United States gets involved in this war. That is the lens of which I am viewing the Biden visit. I think that is 100% correct. The primary reason likely for his visit is to try to show solidarity with Israelis, really is to try to deter Hezbollah from getting fully involved in this conflict, which looks more likely every day. I mean, that's the reason for the carrier strike group. That's the reason for, as we're about to talk about,

the call-up to be ready to go of some several thousand Marines to the region. That is the reason why I believe he is visiting to try to keep this from escalating into a broader war. Will it work or not is a bigger question. And, you know, what we've seen from the Biden administration is typical Israel. We stand with you no matter what. You have our support 100 percent. You know, they're trying to rush aid through the obviously Tony Blinken being there and his words of I'm here as a Jew and I completely

support you all. All of that is, you know, the primary actions that they're taking and basically giving Israel carte blanche to do what they want to do in Gaza. But you are starting to see some concern about how this is all going to unfold. Concern similar to what I raised yesterday about, OK, you take out Hamas. What then? Who is going to govern? You heard Biden saying in that 60 Minutes interview that reoccupation of Gaza would be a, quote, big mistake. You also see Tony Blinken and others, at least privately, concerned that after the horror that the world saw of the, you know, Hamas terrorist attack and the incredible sympathy for the state of Israel, that that could fade very quickly, seeing these, you know, horrific pictures of Palestinians and children being killed in Gaza,

that sympathies could shift very, very quickly. So that's why when Tony Blinken is announcing this visit, you know, he leads with, we want to make it clear Israel's right to defend herself, et cetera, et cetera. But then also on the list is, hey, we want to see about opening up this humanitarian corridor. We want to see about trying to minimize civilian casualties. Now, they have been very clear they're not willing to condition aid on any of this. So in a lot of ways, it's just empty talk that has amounted thus far to absolutely nothing in terms of humanitarian conditions. But I do think part of why there has been this big delay in the ground invasion is exactly for this concern about trying to avoid a direct hot war with Iran, or at least with Hezbollah. I really believe this is a Gordian knot, which is unsolvable. The Israelis have a way

of doing war, and they're not going to change it. The US political system is absolutely not going to condition aid or any of that. It basically doesn't allow any option but the one that you presently see for every U.S. lawmaker, which is basically the Overton window is support Israel, rhetorically call for a two-state solution, all the way up to bomb Iran. There's nothing on the table which would constrain the number of options. And within that framework that we have right now, there's just simply no way. I've been saying this from the beginning, that Hezbollah is going to sit by and just stand

while a full-blown war and actual shooting, you know, urban conflict evolves right in Gaza. Not going to happen. Already, one journalist who I deeply trust, let's put this up there on the screen, Shashank Joshi, he's the defense editor at The Economist. He has had the best reporting that I've seen on Ukraine. He has some of the best sources in British intelligence

and elsewhere. He says, quote, Iran has been pushing Hezbollah to join the war, according to at least one informed account that I have heard. And I mean, I take that with very seriously because there has been two different ways that we could view it. Hezbollah itself could view its role as having to insert itself, or Iran also could be the one trying to constrain it. To have the primary backer of the group allegedly, or in this case reportedly, wanting them to join the conflict, that's a whole other level of insertion. You have the leader of Hezbollah, they put out a statement yesterday that the time is nearing about some major attack. The Iranian foreign minister's language was very ominous, saying preemptive strike may need to occur. And then

when we couple that crystal with the airstrike itself, airstrikes by the Israelis did not happen as a result of a rocket attack. It was directly after this Iranian foreign minister, meaning that it was at least, quote, preemptive in the view of the Israelis trying to take out infrastructure. Now, you don't preemptively bomb something unless you think it's about to be used against you. So maybe the Israelis themselves have intelligence. All of this on the backdrop is America and its carrier strike groups, as I mentioned. We can put this up there on the screen. Increasing reporting also here in Washington, the U.S. and Israel are focusing on Hezbollah's next move after the Hamas attack. Quote, American officials said they believe the

deployment of aircraft carrier strike groups has at least for now deterred Hezbollah from opening a new front in the war. Now, maybe you should be comforted by that if you're Israeli. If you're America, what you should read there is that our firepower is the only thing standing in the way of a two front war and a possible global conflagration. And also, it's not even doing a particularly good job of it because we still could be in it right now. How can you not read that as the US military is effectively trying to backstop this and that we are almost 100% going to get involved. And the best way to always look at it is do we have troops there or not? And already, just last night, let's put this up there on the screen, we have 2,000 U.S. Marines

and sailors that will, quote, join a growing number of U.S. warships and will converge on Israel as the U.S. seeks to send a message, quote, of deterrence to Iran and prevent the war in Gaza. Once you actually see a U.S. Marine Rapid Response Force, which is what they are designed for, and they are designed to fight and to kill, then we know exactly what the trend is for policymaking options. Already, Crystal, I've seen some reports inside the Pentagon. They are drawing up plans for what a war of defense of Israel would look like, of what a US military invasion would look like, what a US military incursion against Lebanon, and then, of course, broader war plans with Iran have been sitting around inside the Pentagon for

a long time. This is what the drums of war sound like right now, when you can see all of this. Not to mention, I mean, on the one hand, okay, Biden is going to try to deter Iran. But if you have the American president there standing next to Netanyahu, who has, by the way, completely lost the trust of his own people, but effectively backstopping him and his extraordinarily extreme government as they are already committing what the UN and others are describing as war crimes, including this medieval siege, including the absolute bombing civilian infrastructure, including the forced relocation of a million people, evacuation of a million people from northern Gaza. You have the American president standing there,

standing next to Netanyahu while all of this is happening. So as much as they may say, oh, we want the humanitarian corridor, we want to allow aid through, we're going to talk to Israel about all of this, the bottom line is they're never going to condition aid. They're not going to use any of the carrots and the sticks that they have at their disposal to try to make sure that the Palestinian people are protected and the rules of international engagement and war are followed. So that specter in and of itself is rather extraordinary in what I would say is a very bad way. The other thing I would say about this New York Times report, which is all based on what Intel ghouls are saying, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know why we have any confidence in them when apparently they didn't see any of this coming to start with. That's number one. So I wouldn't really put a lot of faith in their

analysis of the situation at this point. And the other thing is they have this quote here that says, listen, this is from a former senior Pentagon official and CIA officer. He says, if Hamas looks like it will be destroyed, Hezbollah will have incredible pressure to get directly involved and open a northern front. The more civilians killed, the more outrage will come from people in the region. This will put more pressure on Hezbollah to join the fight or lose credibility. So if you have the American president, we've already had American Secretary of State there. If you have the American president there as well, if you have carrier strike groups in the region while this thing is escalating, you tell me what that's going to look like for us and for our involvement.

Exactly right. And this actually fits with some broader reporting outside and inside Israel, actually, about the United States and what some of those discussions look like behind the scenes. Let's put this up there, please, on the screen. This is a report actually from the Times of Israel themselves, clearly coming from Israeli sources. They say that the Biden administration has privately been pressing Israel to flush out what is its strategy for the days after it completes its stated goal of eradicating Hamas in the ongoing Gaza war. A U.S. and Israeli official have told the Times of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his inner circle have indicated Israel has not yet come up with such a strategy and instead are more focused on the immediate goal of removing Hamas from power in Gaza. The U.S. official cautions against this approach, saying,

devoid of a strategy for who will control the Strip if and when Hamas is removed, IDF is more likely to get bogged down in Gaza indefinitely, despite Israel insisting it does not want to reoccupy the enclave. An Israeli official tells the Times of Israel that the National Unity Chair, Benny Gantz, and fellow faction member, Gadi Eisenkot, demanded the creation of a Gaza exit strategy upon their entry into the government,

and they have tasked the committee with drawing one up. Oh, good. A committee is on it. We need to spend a lot of time on this. I have a question. When you... Okay, so it's not on it. We need to spend a lot of time on this. I have a question. When you, okay, so it's not like Iraq. We decided to invade Iraq somewhere around 2002. We invaded about a year later, 2003. I'm not going to forgive them for coming up, not coming up with an exit strategy because they definitely should have, but it's not like it was one that you always needed under the shelf. If you are Israel and you've been dealing with the terrorist government of Hamas for the last, what, 17 years, how do you not have a war plan that goes into this

exact scenario? Was this totally unforeseeable, a major terrorist attack on your soil? If so, then you're an idiot. And if not, well, I don't even know what to say about the IDF and its supposed, I mean, I can't tell you how their reputation, the entire Israeli security state on this, and look, we'll withhold because they still haven't engaged in major conflict. That said, they had one of the most professional reputations in the world. Everybody knew this. It was like, wow, these are, you know, these people don't screw around. Like they are very good at what they do and they don't have a strategy for Gaza? I mean, what? You just envision this situation to just sit there for all time? Everybody knew it was untenable. And even they

probably knew it was untenable. They just wanted to keep it going for as long as humanly possible. The fact that they don't have a strategy speaks to the exact problems of what the US had post 9-11, which is something you and I have been focusing on here a long time. Look, AQI, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, we killed that leader in 2006, Zarqawi. Did it end ISIS for all time? No, made it worse, right? So what's the point of that? You can decapitate leadership, great. You got to make sure that more rats don't come up from the belly of the ship. You got to make sure not only, I'm not even talking about the meme of like root causes. At a baseline level, you have to ensure that you do not need to fully military occupy this region without leading to the exact same outcome. Currently, I don't see

a scenario that they have laid out even to American war planners privately or publicly for what that is. It just seems like they want to do what America did after 9-11, which was feel good about themselves and go in. But after the Battle of Tora Bora, bin Laden escapes, America is rootless. We don't know what to do. They could even succeed technically in their mission of going in and killing Hamas. But they have said not only that they want to kill Hamas leadership and militants, which I think is totally legitimate, justified, and they should do, but how do you make sure that it doesn't happen again? And that's where the political solution comes into play. That's also where major diplomatic efforts have to be made here. So look, we are in a better

situation right now that clearly the Biden administration, the international community, and others have made it clear just going in right now is going to get into a wider conflict. But I personally fear that the Biden people are not going to press enough that there's too much either domestic political pressure on Netanyahu to go in and to do something about this that we don't think about the next day. And that is how you get into Iraq 2.0. We already saw this story in the 21st century. People are not learning from these mistakes. Think about the freaking mission accomplished banner. Yes, exactly.

The easiest part from our perspective was going into Iraq and blowing a bunch of shit up and declaring mission accomplished. That's the easy part. Then what comes next? The fact that they are admitting that they have no idea is stunning to me. I just look at this and I'm like, Jesus Christ, the world learned nothing from 9-11, learned nothing from the disastrous nature of our response,

which made us all less safe and not to mention, slaughtered so many Iraqi civilians, cost us so many lives in terms of our soldiers, our men and women, our treasure, sent that whole region into chaos, increased the amount of terrorism. And so when you have this, and the other context here, Sagar, that I think is really important to keep in mind is Netanyahu can read a poll. He was already under massive fire domestically before this incredible, horrific failure of his own government, which is not me. That's not my opinion. That's like 96% of Israelis who feel that way. So he feels very weak in terms of his political position. This is a man who has always been willing to do whatever it takes in order to hold on to or obtain power. And so if the reaction within the Israeli public is just we're out for blood, which I think that is the overwhelming reaction with the Israeli public. That's what he's going to deliver because he feels that's what he has to do to keep his grip on power.

So it should be terrifying to everyone that they have no plan for the day after. And, you know, thinking longer down the road, and this is a point that I have made previously, but think of the children who are growing up now with this experience. Do you think that they're going to be de-radicalized by what is going on now with this collective punishment that's being inflicted on all of Gaza? Do you think that's more likely to lead to peace? Or do you think it's more likely to go in the other direction, just as our actions in Iraq and in the Middle East helped to form and provide fuel to ISIS? Do you think it's more likely to go in the other direction of creating additional terror, additional

radicalization among this population? Yeah. And actually, we have a lot of lessons about what ended up working. And they're very uncomfortable lessons. You know what ended up working in Syria to eradicate ISIS? Well, it took lots of checks from us. It also took Assad winning the war. That's really difficult to say for a man who's probably responsible for at a minimum of what, 300,000 people dead? Well, it's kind of a Saddam Hussein lesson. Yeah, he wasn't a good guy. He massacred a lot of his own people. It turned out we were better off with him than we were without him. The same thing in Iraq today, in the government where it is, which is already a complete mess.

Well, same thing. It took us writing massive checks, lots of weapons, to go in and blow the hell out of the city of Mosul and to then prop up a government which still did some very uncomfortable and difficult things that we don't necessarily want to acknowledge

to make sure that ISIS didn't come to power. Same with Egypt. When we think about what's going on over there, I'm not saying I support it necessarily. I'm just like stability comes at a huge cost. It can also lead to big bubbling problems as we all found out in 2011. So this is a complicated thing, but it does then represent that a political solution to all of this is absolutely necessary. And also from a military level, the failure of our invasion of Iraq was to completely misunderstand Iraqi society, the debathification policy, the way that we tried to cobble together a fake coalition. Our window dressing, both in Iraq and really with the Karzai government in Afghanistan as well, actually made problems bubble up later on in the surface and ensured that we ended up staying in those countries even longer than we absolutely should have.

So lots of lessons for the Israelis. And if you go to Israel, they love to talk a big game. They're like, oh, you guys don't know what you're doing. You guys failed this, you failed that. And I look at this and I'm like, well, what happened to these big talk guys? It's like, where's the- Where's the brilliant strategic planning? You guys always claim you're geniuses about balancing these powers and playing Iran against each other and Saudi. And they really believed that they had cracked the code in terms of all that. I think that's taken some of that off.

Also, a very astute observer, Olivier Knox, he's a foreign correspondent here in Washington. Let's put this up there on the screen. I've always trusted what he has to say. He's a great reporter. And he points out astutely, the language of caution creeps into Biden's messages to Israel. And he points specifically from original October 7th, quote, Israel has a duty, pure unadulterated evil, to aircraft carrier. And then in recent days, all of a sudden, it's a big mistake to occupy Gaza, even if Hamas is a necessary requirement. Yes, we still need a peace process. Meeting with the PA

President Mahmoud Abbas whenever he's in Amman, showing that after the bellicose rhetoric of the first couple of days, which is understandable, you know, the world has nothing but sympathy for what happened to Israel, or at least any sane person, for a terrorist attack. Then though, immediately understanding the stakes of the conflict, the geopolitical ramification. And that is where the Biden administration is right now. And unfortunately for them, I have zero trust for President Biden and for his foreign policy team, after especially what happened in Ukraine. Their bumbling ass policy, oh, we'll give you this.

No, no, we're not going to give you this. Oh, we want regime change in Russia. No, we don't want regime change in Russia. This is the same JV squad that's running Israel-Palestine. If you thought Russia-Ukraine was complicated, Israel-Palestine 10 times worse. And emotionally fraught. Yeah, and more likely for us to get into a hot war

because at least the other side doesn't have nuclear weapons this time. Yeah, that is very true. There was a quote also on this, like, oh, they're sounding notes of caution idea. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had some commentary on lessons from 9-11. He said, one of the things we learned is you have to really think through next steps. You have to be very thoughtful about that because they will have long-term implications. Don't operate on reflex activity.

Think through what you're going to do, what implications it's going to have for the country, for the region, and beyond. But it really does remind me of the empty talk from the administration about, you know, when they would go and say, like, oh, Ukraine, Zelensky, don't use our weapons on Russian territory. Please don't do that.

We don't want you to do that. But it was completely empty and hollow because it wasn't conditioned. It's not like they were threatening their future aid going forward or actually applying any sort of pressure to affect the outcome that they theoretically wanted. And so I see this in the same light. It's just empty words. Israel is going to do whatever Israel wants to do. And Netanyahu, you know, who's in a fight for his life and is really society that, you know, feels the way we did after 9-11.ahu, you know, who's in a fight for his life and Israeli society that, you know, feels the way we did after 9-11. And, you know, many people there just want to see

retaliation. They want to see Hamas punished. They really don't care that much about the toll that it's taking on the civilian population. And they're really not thinking too much about down the road. They're dealing in the here and now. And listen, Israeli society is not a monolith, just as we weren't either. But, you know, the empty words from our administration ultimately mean absolutely nothing if you're not willing to back them up with the force of some sort of carrot or stick to encourage them and force them to comply.

So, you know, I wouldn't read too much into this little bit of a shift in tone of like, oh, humanitarian corridor would be good. It's Ukraine all over again. It's like, no, no, no, no. We want regime change. No, we don't want regime change.

Well, you said you want regime change. Right. So you already went with the Maximus one. And then all your policy goes to that level. But then every once in a while, you throw lip service on background to The Washington Post about, actually, the Ukrainians are a little bit out of control. It doesn't. It's all fake.

That's exactly right. This is a good transition because one of the areas where the U.S. has been kind of talking a big game and failing to actually deliver is on trying to establish any sort of humanitarian corridor along the Gaza border into Egypt in particular. And also remember, we've got American hostages that are held by Hamas right now. Tony Blinken acknowledged that. That might be the first time that we've actually had official acknowledgement that there are American citizens being held as hostages by Hamas right now. We also have hundreds of American citizens

who are in Gaza. Now, the American citizens who are in Israel, the Biden administration has been working aggressively to charter flights to get them out if they want to leave. Not so much success or interest in terms of getting the hundreds of Americans who are in Gaza right now out of there. Let me give you a few updates from on the ground, because this issue of the hostages that Hamas has taken, which is, you know, brutal and horrific what they are doing here. This is going to continue to be a huge issue for the American public and also very much for the Israeli public. We had the first hostage video released from Hamas. Let's take a look at that. So you can see here, this is actually a French-Israeli woman. They're showing her here, you know, receiving treatment from whatever horrific

injuries she suffered. You can see her. They also in the video, which, you know, obviously this is all like compelled speech. So keep that in mind as I'm reading the words. But she says here, I'm a prisoner in Gaza. They treated me and performed a surgery on me that took three hours and everything is fine. I only ask that you return me home as soon as possible. Return me to my family. Please get us out of here as soon as possible. She is 21 years old. Her family reportedly obviously very relieved to see that she is at least alive, but in grave danger and in grave peril. And, Sagar, there are hundreds, we now know, at least 200 hostages being held, innocent civilians who are being held by Hamas in Gaza and who are very much at risk at this point.

Some of the most vehement protests within Israel at Netanyahu's government and their handling of this crisis have been from people who have family members who are being held right now or close loved ones who are being held right now as hostages. So this continues to be a horrific and emotional issue bubbling here under the surface, especially as Israel, you know, bombs the hell out of Gaza. These hostages are also at risk. Of course, the blame lies primarily with Hamas for taking them in the first place. Let's go ahead and put the latest death toll that we have up on the screen here, both in terms of Israelis and in terms of Palestinians. In Israel, we have 1,400 confirmed

killed, 3,400 injured. As of yesterday in Gaza, we had 2,778 killed, more than 1,000 of those, by the way, children, which makes sense because the population of Gaza is so young, and close to 10,000 injured. This is what is confirmed. This also, as we mentioned yesterday, the main hospital, which is in Gaza City, which is in the evacuation zone, already struggling, already overwhelmed with trying to deal with patients. Only the most critical patients are being treated at the hospital already. They are saying there is no way we can evacuate. It is just a complete impossibility. So incredibly dire situation there. At the same time, speaking about American words versus action, we've had this whole game

of telephone basically about whether or not there's going to be some sort of opening at the Gaza border with Egypt. American officials indicating, yeah, we're working on it. It's going to happen. Back and forth between Egypt and Israel. Egypt saying that Israel would not commit to not bombing. Aid convoys coming in at that border, and that's why they've held back. We have New York Times actually spoke to an American family that hearing that there might be a possibility that they could exit through Egypt has showed up at the border along with scores and scores of other people. Let's take a listen to what that mother had to say about her experience. So you can see these are

images of the Rafah crossing point that is, you know, from Gaza into Egypt. As it says here, up to 600 Americans are in Gaza. And you can see this one family, a young mother and her young children. She's saying, I'm an American citizen. My husband is American citizen. We were both born there. I'm a mother to three children who also have American passports and were born there. You can see the children there. They've never visited Gaza in their lives. And if you can imagine the first time they visit, this war happens. The people who are still alive, those who haven't been bombed or lost their houses, they have to hold on and keep going with less food, water, and fuel. And you can see the situation is

very, very dangerous. You see little kids with giant suitcases waiting at this border crossing. And you have another Jordanian citizen here hoping her children will be able to cross into Egypt, asking what have these children done? Why can't they go safely to their country? Why are they still in Jordan? Why are they still in Gaza? Jordan is responsible for them. We are facing the possibility of death every second. Our situation is awful. So this is the experience of people who have been waiting at this border. There were conflicting messages about whether or not it would be open. And now it seems very much less likely because, let's go ahead and show this. Israeli warplanes have just bombed again. This Gaza-Rafah crossing that leads, as I said, into Egypt, Israel attacked that crossing again

yesterday. And the roads have been completely blown up. The idea of being able to pass any sort of humanitarian aid trucks into this area, you know, virtual impossibility because of the damage to the roadways here. And, you know, at this point, they've struck this crossing multiple times. So very difficult to say. One of the goals of Biden and Blinken in the region is to try to come up with some solution for civilians and at least to try to get some American citizens out of there if nothing else and it seems like a virtual impossibility at this point. Yeah it really does. If we can throw the next one up there on the screen. I mean they say the U.S. seeks Gaza aid and safe zones as Israeli invasion looms

and the thing is is that where is the deconfliction? Where is the diplomacy? Israel is like well we're bombing it because Hamas is using it or there's a tunnel network underneath and I mean maybe that's true I don't know about bringing Hamas weapons and all that. And even if it is true, it's like, well, why don't we negotiate an actual time period where these people can get across? It also demonstrates once again, the intransigence of all of the parties that are involved here. And frankly, the outright disrespect to the United States. I just want to say again, we have given Egypt $80 billion. Their regime does not survive without America. And we come to them, we're like, hey, can we get our citizens out of there? They're like, nah, you're not getting them out of there. Not unless

you do a quid pro quo with Israel. And then our freaking Secretary of State is in Israel for eight hours and he can't properly negotiate a border? What are we doing here? We have, you know, I was just telling you while that clip was playing, I was like, you know, I heard a lot from all these people about, oh, American citizens left behind in Afghanistan and all this other stuff. Where are you now? You know, these people are our citizens. It's like, are they to have some protection from their government? And the safe zone has failed already in South Gaza, not only in terms of the water infrastructure allegedly being turned on or any of that stuff, not even in terms of the airstrike, but most importantly, just from a pure national

perspective, I consider myself a nationalist. Our citizens are not being afforded safe passage by both parties who we have both paid billions of dollars and our secretary of state is in the region. That's a failure already. And he was made to look like a fool. Yeah. After Blinken met with Egypt's president, Sisi, he said it will be open. He said, Rafa, will be open. That's why so many people showed up at this border and are clamoring to try to get out. And he's made a fool of now in this situation. And obviously, you know, in my view, American lives are not any more precious than the lives of the Palestinians who are suffering here. But in terms of, you know, this idea, oh, there's a different note being sounded and the U.S. is putting pressure and Biden's going to go and try to work out this Gordian knot, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, how is this working

out? Even on the most minimal of asks of, hey, we kind of like our own citizens to be able to cross here. He's made a complete fool of. Yeah. I'm not saying they're no more. Nobody is more precious. OK, I know. But I'd say the government has a responsibility first and foremost to its own citizens. And so where is that? We got our people out of Israel. We are flying people out of aircraft carriers. I mean, I just can't believe that it has come to this and that we, again, are being made fools of in this diplomatic situation. I mean, Henry Kissinger should be rolling, or he's not actually in his grave, but should be rolling around. If he was in his grave, he would be rolling around. Yeah, I guess he would be rolling around. Watching this, you know, from his ability

at that time during the Yom Kippur War, and again, you can have a lot of criticisms, but he was an exceptional diplomat at that time in terms of keeping actual negotiating power with both of the parties, bringing the end to the conflict, and making sure that it didn't escalate to a full-blown nuclear war, which was absolutely on the table. The current diplomacy from the White House is so disjointed and foolish that it is making the prospect of broader war more likely. Even more so, Crystal, something we talked about is they said they were going to do a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza, not for American citizens, out of Gaza. In general, yeah. Let's put this on the screen just to show you. Now that's over. Blinken now, quote, publicly opposes mass relocating Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. He says,

I have heard directly from the PA authority president Abbas and from virtually every other leader I've talked to in the region. The idea is a non-starter. Well, this is a very emotional issue for Palestinians. I get that. It's being seen as, you know, a second Nakba, basically, of, you know, okay, now we're being forced out of our homes. Again, this little strip of territory that we've been allowed to hold. So I think that was what was expressed. I understand that. This is a very emotional option that you've put on the table.

I understand that from their point of view. And that is why we have to give an assurance to the most powerful nation on Earth that that is not going to happen. We have negotiated it from that point of view. We want you, listen, we want people to live. We want children to live. We want to make sure that this doesn't escalate into some full-blown disaster. We've had enough war already this year. We don't need another Bakhmut times 15, you know, in terms of what we're going to see. So, and this is where, you know, we got to say this about the Palestinians too. It's like, listen, I get it. You should be skeptical, but don't choose death for no reason. I mean,

there's just no reason to be, to voluntarily be like, I refuse to leave out of some sort of pride in your, their leaders, you know, Hamas and President Abbas. They're basically saying this is a total non-starter. Like we have to at least come to some situation where people can agree that a military operation needs to take place in Gaza and Hamas, needs to pay, and that some sort of mass civilian death does not need to occur. The Arab states are complete hypocrites. Just today, this morning, I woke up. King Abdullah says we will not take one Palestinian out of Gaza. And, you know, I mean, from their perspective, I get it. They're, you know what, 70-something percent of their population is Palestinian. I've been to Jordan. It barely feels like Jordan according to the actual

Jordanians. They're like, our country's been totally changed. We've all suffered. But the Egyptians, I mean, the Sinai Peninsula is massive. We've had UN presence there for a long time. There's even American service members in the region. We can make something happen if we want to. To walk this all back, the Arab states themselves have not offered to do anything really except calling for a ceasefire. Like on a humanitarian level, once again, I think, and this is the most frustrating part, the Palestinians are pawns. And that's just that that's the most frustrating and difficult part. I mean, people shouldn't be forced out of their homes and the indiscriminate nature. I mean, you have, you know, evacuation orders for over a million people,

many of whom can't go, have nowhere to go. You know, Gaza, it's this very small territory that's been said many times. And also only certain parts of it are developed. So the parts that are developed are incredibly densely packed. And the rest of it is just basically like open farm or agricultural

land with no sort of infrastructure, no sort of facilities. So, you know, that in a sense makes the populated or places you can go in Gaza even less. And, you know, Israel has made life in Gaza so miserable already that people feel like they have very little to lose. And I think that's part of the, you know, part of the mental calculation that's going on here, not to mention the like generational nightmare of the original Nakba and being terrified that that's exactly what they're facing once again, when you already have thousands of not only apartment buildings, but single family homes that have been blown up in this, in this, in this operation. So there was one other piece with regard to Egypt.

Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. I mean, again, it's just sort of like meaningless words. Egyptian presidency, LCC and Biden agreed the current situation in Gaza is extremely dangerous, needs to be de-escalated, no shit. To avoid widening the crisis in the region, they agreed priorities should be given to protection of civilians

and the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Well, Israel just blew up the Rafah crossing. So how's that going to work? Well, they bombed. They didn't blow up the whole thing. Not a defense. They bombed nearby, which is part of the issue. Yeah. So no progress here, basically, in terms of any sort of humanitarian solution, protection of civilians, end of the siege, any of that, no real progress. And again, this is before the ground invasion even begins, if there is to be a ground invasion, which I guess at this point is a bit of an open question given the delay on that. We don't know. Yeah, there's some indication. I don't see any scenario where Israeli troops do not at least enter for some period of time, especially after all the talk that's happened.

Also, given the attack, I just don't think they could restrict themselves solely to ground or to air operations. Yeah. Doesn't seem politically tenable. Yeah. Look, I don't know. At the same time, there was a really interesting exchange we wanted to highlight and analyze for you all over on Sky News where an Israeli ambassador got into quite a hot clash over the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Let's take a listen to how that unfolded. What's the view on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza this morning? There is no humanitarian crisis because... There isn't? There is no. Israel is in charge of the safety of the Israelis. Hamas is in charge of the safety of the Israelis.

Hamas is in charge of the safety of the Palestinians. We've been showing pictures this morning that would illustrate that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Can I ask you something? Yeah. Are you a mother? Yes. What would you think if your children would have been executed in front of your eyes?

Would you expect your government to think about those Nazis committing those crimes and to say, wait a second, first of all we need to protect the enemy and then to protect my children. Your children come as priority to your Prime Minister. Do you know that? We have been showing images this morning that illustrate that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. So blame Hamas and ask Hamas why they started those atrocities. So you acknowledge that there is a humanitarian crisis? I'm saying there is no. Israel is working.

So what do you think is happening? What is happening? There is a war in Gaza, a war that Hamas started by committing a horrible massacre on innocent Israelis. The world has seen it. What about the collashoal damage of the innocent civilians? Just I want to say and give a little bit of a context. Those people created crimes that are worse than ISIS. When the Americans started this fight of ISIS together with the coalition forces, over 100,000 civilians got caught in a crossfire. Israel is trying to prevent that.

Israel is better than any other army in the world. We are alerting, we are giving them the opportunity to have a shelter, we are doing things that no other Western army did in the past. There is no humanitarian crisis. This in, you know, in Gaza, where there is like literally no water left. The hospital workers are being forced to drink IV bags

because of the limited water supplies. They really do themselves no favor in these interviews. Yeah. Denying reality that's unfolding in front of all of our eyes. The thing is that she actually let slip, too. I'm not going to say it's a defensible position, but from their perspective, I get it. They're like, listen, we're targeting Hamas.

Hamas is the one who's responsible for Gaza. They're the ones who should be administering this. They're like, listen, we're targeting Hamas. Hamas is the one who's responsible for Gaza. They're the ones who are, you know, should be administering this. They're the ones who are holding civilians and telling them not to leave their houses. They're the governing authority. We're striking them. We're doing, quote unquote, our best. I'm not defending them, but, you know, that's actually, that's really the only quasi-defensible and like honest position from them is they're like, yes, we are bombing Hamas as a response to this terrorist attack. It's their fault that they attacked us. We're trying our best, you know, within whatever to try to make sure that we protect some sort of civilian life. We don't intentionally target them. However, collateral damage does happen in war. I just gave you an honest answer, but if it's like,

I don't understand why they can't even say that. They're like, no, it's not happening at all. Well, because they certainly can't say that with a straight face given the fact that they shut off water food fuel electricity to the entire enclave that's true so when you do that like it's no longer we can no longer get into these little like oh well that's human shields and we're doing our best and we warn them in advance it's like even though a bunch of that is just pr and bullshit and they've dropped more bombs on gaza than we drop in afghan all of that, there you might be able to have a little exchange and have something to work with. But it's clear there's collective punishment here. I mean, literal, like it's undeniable. So she's left with the only thing she can say is just to

pretend like it's not happening. No, there's no humanitarian crisis. And if there was, it's all Hamas's fault. Well, listen, Hamas bears a lot of the blame. Do not. No one is denying that. But her logic is effectively the same as those Harvard students who were saying Israel is 100 percent to blame for the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, where you're denying any sort of agency to the murderous terrorists who actually like paraglided into a music festival and massacred people. In that same respect, she's trying to deny any agency of her own government and the approach that they've taken, including this complete siege situation, including the indiscriminate

bombing, including the forced evacuation over a million people. You have no agency in that. That's not your responsibility whatsoever. And if that's the case, then that just means that they have intellectually embraced this idea of complete carte blanche. And anything we do is justified because ultimately it's all the fault of Hamas. That is not, I mean, that is not, they like to talk about the difference between the civilized world and these barbarous acts and barbarians, et cetera. I mean, that is not the act of a civilized nation

to completely absolve themselves of any responsibility for the civilians who are there on the ground and many of whom are children. I think that they should be honest and that they would actually be better off about it. I just saw a report there for how the country, how they're feeling. They say that this view in the whole, the foundation of the state of Israel is never again. The brutal killings all harken back to the War of Independence in 1948. This is a complete existential threat. We fight whenever it's an existential threat the way that the Western allied powers fought in World War II against Nazism and against the Japanese empire, which is we do whatever it takes in order

to win. Just say it then. Because the problem, and this is we do whatever it takes in order to win. Just say it then, you know, because the problem, and this is always a thing with Israel, is they're always trying to flirt between, you know, like complying with international law, for example, like nuclear weapons. Everybody knows these people have a nuclear weapon. They don't acknowledge it

because then they'd have to declare it to the nuclear NPT, the IAEA, and all the other things that every other declared nuclear power wants to do. And yet, it's one of those unspoken truths. If they truly believe that that's how they want to operate, then that's what they should do. The problem is that they are not alone. They have this giant thing that is backing them, effectively guaranteeing their security, the United States. And that would put us in a very awkward position if that's what happened. And so it just seems untenable where everything is fake in terms of words.

We all know what the truth is. And even the people who defend Israel, like the people who are Israel defenders, they would all say what I just said. And I find, by the way, I think what I said is a defensible position from their point of view. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think it is defensible. You're like, we're fighting for our lives. We're doing our best. But it is what it is. That's war. Deal with it. Unfortunately, the position of their government is not to acknowledge that reality, which leads to like a two-speak double face in interviews and situations like that, where everyone is talking

past each other and they're not just fully being honest about what's happening on the ground. Yeah, I think that is right. And then, you know, obviously, as we said before, the fact that there seems to be no plan for what comes after, I think really underscores the nature of this is just, you know, the definition of reactionary responding to the domestic reaction, Netanyahu desperately trying to cling to his job. I mean, this was what immediately when we saw the Hamas attacks, we knew Netanyahu is going to have to just like come in in the most brutal possible way. And that's the way he reads the situation as well. So in some ways, a little bit of a hard turn, but it actually connects because Biden, as he's headed to the Middle East, headed to Israel, you know, his age and how he'll be able to comport himself with a level of vigor and vitality,

certainly very relevant to the whole conversation. And we're really lucky to have new results from our focus group that was down in Georgia with a bunch of Democratic base voters. And so I'm going to show you what they had to say about his age and how they feel about him. But before that, I just wanted to say a little bit of a thank you to people who have already signed up as premium subscribers. And we're doing a discount as a thank you right now on the annual membership. You get 10% off of yearly memberships right now. Zagor, do they have to do anything special? They just go to breakingpoints.com? No, breakingpoints.com. The reason why is obviously we want to do more of

these. We're upping the production value. This time around, we had to send an audio guide to make sure that they weren't passing around mics. So obviously, it's very expensive in order to fund these. And I know one of the ones that you guys want also is we've had Republicans. Now we've had Democrats. Now let's do some independents. So we're in the phase where we're doing that right now. I think that would be really appealing for our show specifically and a lot of our audience to hear what independent voters have to say. So if you can help us out to fund more of these types of projects, we've got that discount going on right now.

I know so many of you, it means a lot in order to see your money employed, people sending, like, for example, our producer to the protest, to things like this, where we have to send everybody down to Atlanta, pay for the group, you know, people also compensate for their time, all of that. So thank you again. And with that, let's take a listen. Joe Biden. When I think of Joe Biden, I mean, he's experienced.

Is he the best candidate to represent the Democratic Party? That's kind of questionable for me still. Competent, not outstanding, sufficiently capable, and knowledgeable about how the political system works. For the Democrats, he's a safe pick, and I like that he's always willing to take the best opinion in the room, even if it's not his own. I think he's a fair president.

I think he's loyal, and I think he's a fair president. I think he's loyal. And I think he's caring and compassionate. Not a knee-jerk politician and no ego. He is a huge step up from what we have. Some of you aren't super enthusiastic. Is that fair to say? I agree with all of those. I think he's safe, but I don't think he's outstanding. I agree with all of those. I think he's safe, but I don't think he's outstanding.

I agree with whoever said safe. I mean, he's the face, in a sense, of Democratic Party, right? So, thank God he's not the only Democratic representative. You know, so we have our congressmen and our senators and everything else, so... I want to know why. Why thank God? Why is that? Why are you pleased he's not the only one? Oh, I mean... What worries you? What worries me about him? I think it's statements that he made years ago.

What kind of thing? You're going to make me say it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that he said some things in regards to just African Americans in the U.S. at that time. So it always made me question him as a person, in a sense. Even though I think he's a wonderful human being and he's done great stuff, I think he needs to step aside because his age does concern him. Yeah, his age concerns me too. And I hate to say that, but it does.

I think sometimes when you're getting a little older it's time to step aside and let somebody younger come in and maybe he's a little softer because I think as you get older you get a little softer. He's frail. Yeah, and not taking him seriously because of that, too.

No, he's not doing this by himself. You know, he got a whole lot of people helping him. So I think long as he got good backup, he gonna be a great president. Is Joe Biden too old to run again? Or is Joe Biden the right age? It doesn't matter. It's fine for him to run again. I don't think age should be, you know, like, the determining factor for him to run or not to run.

I would prefer that he not run again, not because I think he's incompetent, but when you get to be 80, you don't know what's going to happen with your health. You know, you could have a stroke. Something else like that could happen. My concern is primarily physical health and less mental health and competence. I don't think it really matters. As long as he wants to run, he's going to be the favorite for president. He's too old. He should go sit down somewhere.

Go on, tell us more. I think at this point, you're kind of out of touch. You know, people getting my age, we're thinking about, you know, sitting down, playing with our grandkids, things like that. And it's like, there's some things that need to happen that you don't have the ability to do. Let some of these young, bright stars that we see day after day in Congress do what they do. And while I'm thinking about it, there should be term limits immediately for everybody so

that we don't have people sitting in Congress for 40 years grabbing a paycheck on a gravy chart. He can run again, but why? people sitting in Congress for 40 years grabbing a paycheck on a gravy tray. He can run again, but why? When you get to a certain age, you're getting dementia, you can get Alzheimer's, just things that's out there can affect you making your decisions. And do you really want somebody in office where sometimes they don't believe that they have those problems. And you might not even see that they have those problems until they have what, a debate and he can't catch his words or he can't remember. I just feel like they look at that as a sign of weakness. Maybe it's time for him to step down. It doesn't matter to me right now, right now, because I put, you know, he doesn't have limited mental capabilities.

He has not shown that yet. That would be absolutely horrible if he was in office and did. But right now, it doesn't bother me. So come the next election, he'll be 82. If he completes his second term, he'll be 86 in his last year. How do we react to that? Well, I know some very competent 88-year-olds. My mother's 94 and she's sharp as a tack.

You just never know. I think nobody knows his health and his desire to work four more years than Joe Biden does. And I think if he didn't think he had the ability to do it for four more years, he wouldn't run. And so I feel like him wanting to run is a sign that he's healthy enough to run. Should someone challenge Biden for the nomination?

To make it fair, yes. To make it fair? Yes. Okay. I wish that Biden would just anoint a successor. That doesn't have to be a challenge. I think that's a bad signal of weakness for the Democratic Party, and it could cause a divide. I think an advantage you have when you are the returning candidate is you don't have to have a primary where the six or ten candidates

all tear each other down and then have to pretend that they wanted each other. I think it would be an invitation for the Republican Party to pounce and try to divide us more. And that's despite you saying Biden needed to go and have a lie down. Well, yeah, he does. He's too old.

But I don't want anybody to challenge him because of that reason. So he's the president, so he's going to be the president until he can't be the president anymore. And that's at the end of his second term. So that infighting point is more important to you than the... Yeah, it's more important.

If he ran again, I would vote for him because I don't know anybody else that I would think can challenge him and would win. I'm scared about dividing the Democratic Party as well. It'd be nice to have another option, but... It ain't Trump. I like where he's at. I like where we're at.

I mean, there's a lot to gamble on. Man. Very interesting. Very interesting. So a lot of concern about age a lot of like i mean this is what we see in polls all the time right he's safe he's not outstanding he seems nice i'm not sure he's kind of competent you know it's this very sort of like warm affection towards him as a human being i think you get in this group a lot of worries about whether he's going

to be able to, you know, really finish out the term, his health, his age. He doesn't seem like he's super outstanding. Republicans could seize on this as a sign of weakness. But then when the question is, OK, so you want somebody to challenge him? They're like, you can't divide the party. You've got to beat Trump. And so ultimately, it's like Trump hangs over this whole conversation and really shapes the views. And they continue to have, you know, the view and the belief, which is what a lot of the media promoted, especially in 2020, that like you can't have dissent. Everybody's got to be united. This is the guy. You got to stick by the guy, no matter what, because, you know, Trump is at the door and we cannot possibly allow any sort of,

you know, open process because that could that could allow Trump to get his foot in the door. Of course, you know what goes on? Here's the fact that Democrats are a major risk of losing the presidency with Joe Biden because he's viewed so poorly among the American public. It struck me a couple of things. Their level of trust in politicians is fascinating to me. That one guy, I'm affectionately going to call him Ryan Reynolds because he looks like he was like, well, I think that nobody knows him better than him. And if he didn't think he was up to it, then he wouldn't run. And I was like, wow, I can't really imagine trusting any politician, you know, that much. That said, it does reflect a lot of institutionalism, trust in their ability to govern.

You also heard over and over again, the competence. And I think it does accurately reflect the polling. They all think he's too old or they're like, yeah, or they're uncomfortable with it. When it comes down to it, they're going to vote for him. So Biden, in many respects, is making the correct calculus. And also, the real failure too is, I didn't like that one word the woman said, anoint a successor. Yeah. We don't live in a monarchy. That's a personal quibble. But that's, I mean, that's what has been sold to the Democratic base from, you know, MSNBC and CNN and a lot of, like, liberal-leaning mainstream outlets is, like, we can't afford to have democracy.

Stakes are too high. Sorry. You can't have a choice. You got to fall in line behind whoever we tell you. And so it doesn't surprise me that those words are used of like, he needs to just anoint a successor. I think a lot of them, that would be their ideal scenario because you had, you know, you had the one gentleman who said, it's time to step aside. Another one who said, he's too old. He should go and sit down somewhere. But then when asked about like, OK, do you want to see a challenger? It's like, no, we can't have that.

So I think for a lot of them, their ideal scenario would be that he decides to step aside and then, you know, puts forward who he thinks would be the right candidate in the one lady's words, annoyance's successor. But I think that would be the ideal scenario for a number of them because they are so concerned about Trump getting back into the White House that they're basically willing to curtail this messy democratic process because they believe that will help ensure that a Democrat can hold on to the White House. Now, I think that that is ah historical. I don't think that that's accurate. I think Biden does himself no favors by not engaging in the rough and tumble of a primary in a debate. I think that would help sharpen his skills. I think that would potentially, you know, prove to the American people that this is someone they want to see as a leader or it won't. And we'll end up with, you know, another option that people view as superior and more up to the task. We've seen plenty of 2016 was a very rough and tumble primary on the Republican side with Trump.

Guess what? He ended up winning. The Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama primary was very rough and tumble. It didn't lead to Barack Obama losing. It actually made him a better candidate and made it so the Democrats were much more likely to succeed in the fall. So I think that's ahistorical, but I understand why they believe that's the case and feel like it's too risky to allow any of this messy Democratic choice into the equation. I have some numbers for the group. Let's put this up on the screen. I know there's a lot going on right now, but the latest ABC News survey, here's what we have, President Biden, issue by issue. 26% approval on immigration, minus 44 net approval rating. 29% approval on inflation, minus 40.

32% approval on guns, minus 33. 33% approval on crime, minus 31. 33% approval on Iran, minus 29. 36% approval on economy, minus 25. 39% approval on climate change, minus 18. 39% approval on abortion, minus 19. 41% approval on Ukraine, minus 15. And 41% approval on abortion, minus 19. 41% approval on Ukraine, minus 15. And 41% approval on Israel, Hamas.

So underwater, basically, on every single issue. Literally on every single issue. In case they didn't poll something, maybe. I don't know what exactly to be positive on, but for everyone that they asked about, he's at a minus. You know, historically, it's something Cenk has

been talking about in terms of his quixotic run. He's like, look, nobody has ever won with these types of numbers. He is full-blown Jimmy Carter level now in the 30s on the economy when you're running for reelection. Good luck to you, sir. Good luck. But the best thing he's got going for him is Donald J. Trump. That's the one thing that he has going for him. And, you know, it could work out. Like, I'm not going to put off the table, but I would not go so far as to say, like, you know, he's a dead man. Why? There's no way he could win reelection, et cetera, et cetera. You have a huge advantage if you're an incumbent president.

He's going up against an opponent who is also historically unpopular and underwater on many, many issues and facing criminal charges and all of those sorts of things. So that's really what he's betting on, is that the American people are more disgusted with Donald Trump than they are with him. So yeah, I mean, that's why it's 50-50 chance. Still believe it. Let's move on to the speakership. Also reflects a lot of domestic consternation here in Washington. Extraordinary day. There will be a vote for the speaker later today on Tuesday. Counterpoints will be able to break down all the actual results of that. The drama is very high here in Washington. Let's put this up there on the screen. Recall Jim Jordan, the current speaker

designate in terms of the Republican coalition, who is still yet to get all of the house of representatives to vote for him is currently has the quote majority of the votes in the conference, but that doesn't mean anything. He needs to lock down all but five votes in the Republican conference opposition though, to Jim Jordan stood in the thirties 40s, as of yesterday, until extraordinary things began to happen. Members like Mike Rogers and others who had put out, Ann Wagner in particular, one representative, who put out a letter saying, hell no, literally hell no,

I will never vote for Jim Jordan, came out and were like, all right, fine, I'll vote for Jim Jordan. And then it's like, okay, well, why did you say hell no in the first place, lady? Nobody asked you to do that. What's really come through is they're sick of it. They feel like they've gone ground down at this point. Steve

Scalise had to withdraw. The McCarthy drama, they can't do anything. They basically just feel like rhetorically, as long as Jordan gives them something that they can hang their hat on, they can vote for him. One area of concern for us here on this show is about an alleged secret deal that's been made. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from Julie Grace Buffby, an old friend of mine. She says that GOP lawmakers

say that Jordan gave assurances on Israel-Ukraine aid specifically that he would allow the tying of the two together. He was asked about this with Morning Crystal. He made a comment where he didn't outright deny it. He just said, quote, let's see, he just said, we need to take care of Israel. That's basically what it boils down to. What exactly that means, nobody has any idea. The point is, is that a lot of deals are being made behind the scenes. Nothing is in writing. Four people are claiming he made the deal. His spokespeople are denying it. They say, no, we just talked about the prospect of getting Israel aid through.

But none of this does mean that he actually still has the votes. As of right now, when we are filming this segment, he has 10 votes against him. And he's got to win back five. So it's possible. He certainly could do it. And he's got about six, seven hours from when we're speaking right now in order to do it. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if this Israel-Ukraine aid thing

is solid. I feel like he may have told people what they wanted to hear, but without like fully saying or committed, committing to it, how seriously do they take that? I think you're right, Sagar, that many people are just finding, trying to find a way to get to yes. The other thing is like for the Matt Gaetz of the world, if this deal is real and there really is some commitment to put Israel and Ukraine aid together on the floor, like what was this all about, Matt Gaetz? What are you actually getting out of this situation? But in terms of who this is per Annie Greer at CNN, right now we've got five firm no's. Don Bacon, Mike Lawler, Mike Kelly, Carlos Menez, Mario Diaz-Balart. Leaning no, we've got an additional four.

And then we've got four more who are undecided or not saying. So, you know, based on that, he does not have the votes to get there on the first round. What happens after that? What kind of deals are cut? Do people stay with him? Does another candidate emerge? Who knows? I mean, on a meta level, like I sort of feel like Jim Jordan makes perfect sense for this Republican caucus at this time. I agree. Because he has never passed any legislation since he's been there. And this is a caucus that, you know, not particularly interested in governing. I was going to say, who cares? That's not what they want to do.

He's got the right vibes. This like, you know, pugilistic has tied himself very closely to Trump and gone along, you know, Trump's greatest defender with regard to stop the steal and with regard to January 6th. So he was all in on that. And that is certainly the character overwhelmingly of the Republican caucus at this point. He is a veteran of the, you know, using shutdowns as blackmail and hostage taking to extract various ideological ends from the United States government. So and I also would say, you know, there's another piece of this I've been trying to articulate, like he also is a perfect embodiment of the distance between the original 2016 Trump promise of like, I'm going to govern differently. And there are these populist elements that I'm genuinely going to embody in office and what it is now collapsed to, which is mostly just like the, you know, I'm an asshole vibes. And Jim Jordan, this is a guy who takes lots of money from like the big Republican,

you know, donor networks, the Koch network, et cetera. He talks a big talk on big tech, but he's one of their biggest defenders when it comes to avoiding any sort of antitrust scrutiny, et cetera. So for all those reasons, I sort of feel like he's the perfect guy to represent the Republican caucus at this point. Jim Jordan is basically a libertarian. That's the best way to understand it. He has his roots, and we want to talk about this. Yeah, let's put this on the screen just for people who want to know about what to actually know about Jim Jordan in case you don't know who he is. I mean, he's been a fixture of Washington since he came here, especially heightened during the Tea Party wave. He was one of the original people who would vote against Boehner. He was a thorn in the side of Paul Ryan, frequently wanted to shut down the

government. He also, though, the really way he became a star was not on fiscal issues, Crystal, but it's through his investigation. So like Benghazi committee, frequently appearing on Fox, always wanting to investigate Hillary. He was one of the main people behind a lot of Hillary investigations. He was one of the main defenders of Trump on Russiagate. Since then, he's become one of the main investigators on the Hunter Biden committee.

So he is the perfect person because for me, and I mean, people can go roll the tape. The day McCarthy left, I was like, I think Jim Jordan. I think he's a dark horse. And the reason why is, you know, he's got the credibility with the Freedom Caucus base. They also have been ground down all of their opponents in the quote unquote moderates because they're sick of it. They just want to get to work. The Freedom Caucus is happy to hold out as long as they want to go. Definitionally a bunch of switches who don't stand up for anything. They don't believe in anything. So for Jim Jordanim jordan yeah i mean i think he's the perfect candidate really for this caucus also

he's got the backing of trump so he's got a person with the base on his side he's got the full-scale trump endorsement now at this point although do remember that they initially voted for steve scalise which was still pretty embarrassing for trump even if he does end up getting there it's like it's pretty it's pretty bad that the majority of the caucus was not willing to follow your rules. But the Trump endorsement, I can't hurt at this point. Also, what I have heard, Crystal, is that there is now going to mount a campaign

against people who do stand up against him, one of the few holdouts, in terms of primary money calls are being made. They're like, we need to wrap this up. And if you stand up and you vote against jim somebody like if you you know mount some uh if you mount some nancy mace type thing against him you're gonna pay a price and the reason why i think that's significant is because jordan has the affection of the base in a way that mccarthy never had they always had like a very

middling view of him and same with scalise to be honest. Like he has been a fixture of these people's televisions for over a decade. You can't underestimate how powerful that is. He has understood from the beginning the power of theater. He's very good at it. You know, the like theatrical partisan posturing, favorite of Fox News as evidenced by, this is actually really something.

So one of the people who apparently has been trying to whip votes in his direction is Sean Hannity. Put this up on the screen. Apparently emails went out to some holdouts, at least one from a producer at The Hannity Show. Let me read you this whole thing in full. Hello, Stephanie from The Hannity Show with Fox News. Sources tell Hannity that Representative Redacted is not supporting Jim Jordan for Speaker. Can you please let me know if this is accurate? And if true, Hannity would like to know why during a war breaking out between Israel and Hamas with the war in Ukraine with the wide open borders with a budget that's unfinished, why would this representative be against Jim Jordan for speaker? Please let us know when Representative Axe plans on opening the people's house so work can be done.

Lastly, are there any conditions Representative Axe will choose to work with Democrats on the process of electing a new speaker? The deadline for comment is 11 a.m. Eastern tomorrow. Thank you. So pressure being applied directly from Sean Hannity and his producer over at the Fox News Network. And, you know, I mean, they have some sway to Fox News is not what they used to be. But a lot of these, you know, low level members of Congress, whatever, like they're desperate to get their cable news hits. It's important for them, for their clout, for their fundraising, et cetera. And so when you have one of the highest rated primetime hosts coming for you and applying all kinds of pressure, demanding answers on why you're not supporting Jim Jordan

for speaker, that's really something. Yep. You're exactly right. It is absolutely shocking really to see that, but still telling, I think, in terms of how the base is. Now, in terms of expectations, let's be clear. I don't know if he's going to win. I have absolutely zero idea whether he'll be able to get the votes because the margin is so, so thin. You only need five people to hold out. Democrats certainly aren't going to save Jim Jordan. They can't stand him. So where things are, I don't know. It could go to multiple ballots like they did with Speaker McCarthy. This will be the 17th speaker vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is pretty crazy. It hasn't happened in more than a century here in Washington. So stay tuned. Counterpoints

will have a full coverage on what the hell actually happens. And by the way, I'm actually filling in for Ryan tomorrow. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Okay. Me and Emily, we'll break it all down for you. There you go. We'll be following it very closely. All right. So we wanted to keep our eye on some of the state and big tech efforts to censor dissident views on Israel and Palestine. And it was an important report about what Meta slash Facebook slash Instagram slash WhatsApp is doing in this regard. Put this up on the screen. This from the New York Times. They say social media users accuse Facebook and Instagram of suppressing pro-Palestinian posts. Thousands of Palestinian supporters say their posts have been suppressed or removed from Facebook and Instagram, even if the messages don't break the platform's rules. Meta, they are claiming, oh, that this was all

because of some accidental bug in the company's system. In particular, messages of support for Palestinian civilians who have been displaced, injured, or killed by Israeli airstrikes, those were being hidden from the platforms, according to users. Some people have reported Facebook suppressed accounts that called for peaceful protests in cities around the U.S., including planned sit-ins in the San Francisco Bay Area over the weekend. And the New York Times confirmed that one hashtag, Zionistagram, which was attached to posts critical of Instagram suppression of pro-Palestinian content, appeared to be temporarily quashed over the weekend. So when you search for that hashtag,

according to the Times, no results were returned whatsoever. Users were so frustrated by this that they took to like replying in the comment section of like Beyonce posts about this going back and forth because their posts that they were trying to put on the platform were getting quashed and pulled down and suppressed, et cetera. So you couple this with the report we brought you yesterday about the fact that Meta, who's worked with the Israeli government in the past, took down a Palestinian news network off of their platforms entirely. And I think it is not hard to believe that there has been significant suppression of any sort of

pro-Palestinian posts on the platform. And that's why it's so important. First of all, I mean, in some ways, I wish we would nuke all politics on Instagram just because it's so annoying. So do I. But I don't believe in that, so we're going to have to allow it. Even the brother-in-laws get comments on some of these things. And if we're going to have that, then you can't be putting your finger on the scale in terms of sharing content. And the real issue I had with this was it wasn't people being pro-Hamas. It's just people who are pro-Palestinian statehood.

And so that is where- Calling for peaceful protests. You cannot conflate the two. And also, we live in the United States of America. People are allowed to say whatever they want, or at least they should be. And so with this, with the suppression, especially behind the scenes, it highlights the most pernicious form of censorship, which is the shadow banning, the suppression, the things where you have to rely on reports which are obvious but which cannot be proven.

And look, we all know what's going on behind the scenes. You and I see it every day here on YouTube in terms of what we have to operate with. We've designed our business in such a way. But for ordinary citizens, they have no idea and they just think like, oh, I guess that one didn't resonate or something like that until a critical mass of them come together and they're like, no, actually, something actually super weird is going on here.

Yeah. But, you know, then you feel like a crazy person because you'll never be able to prove it. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, just to make the broader meta point, like zooming out from how you feel about this issue, which is a very emotional issue. Number one, free speech only matters when it is tense and when it is controversial. So that's number one.

Number two, this is the reason why wherever you are in the political spectrum, why you should care about these issues. I mean, you should care about the principle regardless, but, you know, anytime you are challenging a predominant view held by very powerful people. You are likely to have big tech companies. And also we covered overt state censorship, like completely banning protests in France and in Germany, which is absolutely insane. But you are, you know, very likely to see that. And if we don't take a stand against it, even when it's on an issue that you disagree with, if it ends up just being partisan and we're only picking and choosing which censorship we care about, we are never going

to make any progress on this issue. So that's one piece. We also wanted to bring you, this was kind of extraordinary. So there were hundreds of American Jews who protested in front of the White House yesterday in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza, and 50 of them were arrested. Actually, they were blocking some areas, is what the police were saying. We sent our own producer, Mac, down to this protest. He was able to get some footage. He also ended up being, I don't know, shoved by the police, kind of got- Shoved by proxy. Yes. Treated badly by the police kind of got shoved by proxy Yeah, it is badly by the police service specifically. Yes, indeed

But let's take a look at he was able to interview one of the participants about why he's there Let's take a look at that. He goes all this wrong And I'm a member of if not now and so what motivated you guys to come out here today to do this protest He was myself personally what motivated me was a real feeling of urgency that given what's happening in the Middle East, that there's a real need to prevent mass killing in Gaza and a real desire to see safety for Jews in Palestinians, the return of hostages being held by Hamas.

That's the most important thing for me. So what do you think that Israel's response after the Hamas attack should be in the best world? You know, I'm not here to speak on policy, but what I can say is that from a personal point of view, as someone who has friends and family living in Israel, I deeply want a future of Jewish safety. And I believe that demands peace and security with Palestinians, not for their bloodshed and wanton violence. Is there any other last message you'd like to give to President Biden? That the urgency of this moment is immense. That the stakes of this moment, as I am sure he well

knows, are enormous. And that as Jews and as Americans, for our safety, we want a new ceasefire implemented right now and that he ensures the safe return of Israeli hostages. So you can see the message that they're trying to bring there in front of the White House, fairly significant show of support here in D.C. Mack was also able to get some footage of the protesters, and he also was recording like a champ as he gets shoved by this cop out of the way. We have that on video. Let's take a look at this.

Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now!

Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! C Spire now! C Spire now! C Spire now! C Spire now! C Spire now! That's what you call a true pro.

Yeah. You got somebody shoved into you aggressively for literally no reason. I mean, you don't make a sound, you don't protest, you pick up the camera, and you keep recording. So props to him. Absolutely. Really, that takes a lot of composure for anyone who's ever been in a situation like that. Absolutely. It's pretty terrifying.

That's incredibly intense and stressful. And you can just see it's very fraught. I mean, I think that's what really comes out here. And, you know, as I said, there were about 50 protesters who were arrested. As part of that action yesterday, we brought you some of the protests that have been mounted around the world in Europe, here in the U.S., and also, of course, across the Middle East, which I think is also a really significant part of this. I mean, for that protest, and look, once again, like, let's be clear. I'm not saying it reflects majority public opinion. It doesn't even necessarily reflect Jewish opinion. But the

only point is to show you not everything is monolith. There are different voices out there. And there were a lot of people out there last night, yesterday, and a lot of them were Jewish. And I think that was one of the main reasons why it was genuinely significant. That area that they were blocking is the staff and press entrance for people who work in the White House. And so, you know, it definitely was, it was heard, I think, by the people there. And that's at least something, and it's different than a lot of what people are going to tell you about how people feel, which is why we wanted to cover it. Yeah, and Mac is all good. He's fine, by the way.

The first thing, we didn't care about the footage. I was like, dude, are you okay? Tell me what's going on. Are you all right? In terms of that, once again, absolute professional. Thank you guys for helping us pay him, by the way. Yes, indeed. All right, we also wanted to to bring you this is really wild.

The official Israel government account pushing back on Gigi Hadid for sharing a very mild post, by the way, that was somewhat critical of the Israeli government. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is pretty wild. So what she posted is there is nothing Jewish about the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians. Condemning the Israeli government is not anti-Semitic and supporting Palestinians is not supporting Hamas. So the state of Israel official Instagram account replies, Hi Gigi, this next story is for you. Have you been sleeping the past week? Are you just fine turning a blind eye to Jewish babies being butchered in their homes?

Your silence has been very clear about where you stand. We see you. If you don't condemn this, and it's a horrific picture of, you know, a blood splattered floor in a child's bedroom, this, your words mean nothing. And by the way, she did very clearly condemn the Hamas attacks and, you know, was outraged by it. But it is wild to see the government of Israel coming at Gigi Hadid or any random celebrity. I don't care what Gigi Hadid said. All right. And it doesn't matter. Why are we clapping back as a government account on Instagram? This is insanity. It's like,

why we're posting stories now? Like, what is this makeup tutorial drama? I mean, like literally, like this is how children act online. I'll tell you why, because they don't want anyone with prominence to, you know, paint a different picture than what they want painted. And, you know, it really is emotional blackmail. I mean, one atrocity does not justify another. And that's the bottom line here. So she could condemn Hamas all day long. But if she says anything about, hey, Palestinian civilians, then suddenly, oh, you're a terrorist sympathizer and you don't care about the dead Jewish babies. Yeah, and also- It's emotional blackmail.

It appears to be now a policy by the Israeli government. One, by the way, I would certainly advise against, where they are sending government ministers to call out celebrities for their silence. Let's take a listen. And all these women organizations that are staying silent right now. By the way, I've never saw so many feminists being silent at the same time. The only time they're so silent

is when a Jewish woman or Israeli woman is being raped or murdered. But I guess anti-Semitism is much more hard than feminism at this time. But those celebrities, like I saw Oprah Winfrey for for for matters that saint jennifer aniston all these all these celebrities that stay silent and always talk about women's rights where are you when women's rights are being brutally brutally brutally

attacked in a democracy this is not just a fight for israel this is fight for the rest of the jewish nation around let me ask you a question may Jewish nation around the world. Let me ask you a question, May. This is a fight for democracy around the world. May, let me ask you a question. This is a fight for the free world. Let me ask you a question. So that is May Golan. She is the Minister for the Advancement of the Status of Women in Israel. Okay, commender, I guess, for her job. But here's the thing. At least, I guess, in the Gigi case, she said something and they're criticizing it.

This one is, you have not posted anything. Right. Why is a foreign government demanding Oprah speak out? And Jennifer. And Jennifer Anderson. Also, considering Oprah's response to Maui, you don't want Oprah to be on your side. Let me just say that. Yeah. Jennifer gives a shit. Like they have a list of who hasn't said the things they want them to say. It's insane. Michael Tracy, I have to quote him. He said,

Israeli government minister bitterly attacks feminist organizations and celebrities like Oprah and Jennifer Aniston for their silence on Hamas. If only these random American celebrities supported Israeli military operations more vociferously, the problem would be solved. I was also wondering on Jennifer Aniston. I'm like, is she Jewish?

But I mean, from based on what I can tell, yeah, it doesn't look like she is. I have no idea what all of this is. Just was noted that she hadn't said whatever they wanted her to say. Maybe this is part of it. Apparently, this is what you love through Google. I was like, Jennifer Aniston, Jewish?

Apparently she liked an Instagram post by Jamie Foxx that some people called anti-Semitic from a while ago where he posted a message about Jesus being killed, hashtag fake friends, hashtag fake love. I have no idea what that is, but that appears to me the extent to which Jennifer Aniston, throwing a like on this freaking thing. I personally would like for American celebrities

to stay silent on far more issues. I mean, we had both Justin Bieber and Jamie Lee Curtis sharing things that they thought were Israel and were really Palestine. And I mean, just making an absolute mess of this. Amy Schumer is a whole other story with all of this. So I don't know why we need to look to these people for moral leadership and guidance on any issue.

And Gigi Hadid, she's Palestinian, right? Okay, she can speak. Is it Gal Gadot, I think? Yeah. Wonder Woman? Same thing, she's Israeli. Fine, whatever. Now I think Natalie Portman too, I think she's Israeli, fine.

You know, these people, they're literally citizens of the country, say whatever you want. I totally understand that. But yeah, Oprah, we need Oprah to weigh in here. We need Jennifer Aniston to weigh in here. It's like, what are we doing? And it just makes him look ridiculous, to be honest.

And also just in terms of the arrogance, which is always driven me nuts about this. It's like, you do not tell us what to say. We will say whatever we want in this country, at least for now. It's like, where do you have the gall to be going on television, also on British television, and then demanding that Americans...

Why don't you ask Piers Morgan or somebody? Who's a good British celebrity? Like Tom Huddleston or whatever? Yeah, have him speak out, okay? Like, at least... Hugh Grant. Hugh Grant. I do love Hugh Grant. And Colin Firth. My heart belongs to Colin. He's a great guy. But anyway, yeah, just completely ridiculous

and just, you know, show further the insanity of where we are. I feel like we're right back to canceling Russian tennis players for playing in Wimbledon. Oh, there's been some of that, too, of like canceling Palestinian poets or whatever, different events around the world. It's just outright xenophobic. And we said the same thing when this was happening with Russia. And by the way, it continues to happen with Russia. I think the tennis players are now allowed to play again but they don't have their flags next to them i mean it's just like it's just nonsense virtue signaling that doesn't solve any problems i told you yesterday about the russian uzbek restaurant which literally took the

name russian out of it it's russian cuisine it's not about russia it's about the actual food it's like what's the whole point of going there also uzbek food no offense doesn't sound as enticing russian uzbek now i'm. Separate the people from their governments, please. I mean, no one should have more interest in that than Americans who have had their government do all kinds of things in our name that we haven't necessarily. Actually, that's a great point. How many times have you been abroad and some arrogant, annoying European makes a comment about the Iraq war and you're like, Hey dude, I didn't support the Iraq war. It's like, what, you want to talk about French or Portuguese slave trade? No, because we're not all reflections of what our governments do. All right, let's move on to Ukraine. Lots

going on. We brought you the news previously that President Zelensky wanted to visit Israel in a quote, show of support. Some might interpret it that way. Others might interpret it as a way to keep his name in the headlines and to make sure that the world doesn't forget about him. Well, it turns out in Israel, they read it the latter way. Let's put this up there on the screen. Israel has turned down Zelensky's request to make a, quote, solidarity visit. It's just not the right time right now. Ukraine's leader was interested in joining

Anthony Blinken on his Israel visit last week. I, once again, the arrogance to think that Ukraine, a nation which has no industry of its own at this point, which has no money of its own, no weapons, no ammunition, should accompany the United States Secretary of State to Israel to try and broker peace. That is outrageous. What do you have to say about what's going on in Israel? What are your relations or whatever, whatever it comes to the Egyptians or the Jordan or any of this? This is not a role for a nation who is allegedly in the fight of its life for an existential threat. Why don't you bother yourself with that? But the reason why he's bothering himself or even trying to insert himself in all of this

is specifically because he understands that Israel has directly now drawn international attention, but most importantly, Western attention from what is going on inside of Ukraine. And I've actually been thinking a lot about this, and I don't want this to sound too nasty, but a lot of liberals over the last two years have been trying to make the case that the fight for Ukraine is about democracy. The fight for Ukraine is bigger than us. It's like the most important thing going on in the world. And look how quickly, Crystal, they have completely switched over to becoming Israel-Palestine experts. How quickly their attention has turned. And here's the truth

that I think people in Ukraine should understand. They never really cared about you. It was all part of a bizarre psychodrama that they were happening in their own heads, play-acting war online by putting a Ukraine flag in their bio, and taking a revenge on Vladimir Putin for Russiagate. And the moment that their attention goes away, it's fickle. People have found out many times how fickle the interests of upper-middle-class liberals are. And I think it's actually unfortunate. Those of us, people like me, who opposed Ukraine aid from the beginning, at least I was honest about what I thought about the conflict. We were honest about the stakes. We were honest that we could feel bad for you, but we should prioritize our own interests. We at least did not deceive you that you were the most important

things. And, you know, it's probably a very hard to digest for people inside Kiev because they have been, you know, or Kiev, I apologize, for people, they've been led to believe that Americans and many, you know, the government and all those truly, you know, thought this was the most important thing when the truth was is it was just, you know, the current thing of the time. I think that's probably very painful, but let's be honest here about what's going on. I mean, I have a much more charitable take in terms of the people themselves and their care and concern for Ukrainians. Because to me, it's much more about the groups that the media and the government choose to provide humanity to, choose to center in their suffering. You know, unfortunately, there is a lot of suffering going on around the world. We always talked about this with regard to the war in Yemen.

Yes. That suffering, which was the worst humanitarian crisis on the entire planet, you didn't see people with Yemen flags, not because they hate Yemen or don't care. It wasn't put on the news. Yeah, they just don't know anything about it. You didn't see those people. They were invisibilized, intentionally so, because it was inconvenient for us with regard to our relationship with our big ally, Saudi Arabia.

And so the Ukrainians were given, you know, allowed to have their suffering centered and their humanity featured. And, you know, Americans felt an outpouring of, you know, desire to help them. And that was that was genuine. And you see the same thing with Israel, where, you know, the Israelis who suffered truly this horrific atrocity, which has shaken their, you know, sense of safety and stability and their view of the world and, you know, the conflict in their own region has shaken to the core and this horrific loss of human life. And that humanity is featured and centered and people care greatly about it,

really genuinely care deeply about it. But the lives of the Palestinians over many years have been really invisibilized. Now we're seeing a few images coming out as you see this siege taking place, the siege taking place, the indiscriminate bombing. You have a little bit of reporting on that, but it pales in comparison to the way that the suffering of the Israelis is treated and has been completely invisible over many years as they've been, you know, dealing with violence, violence from Jewish settlers, you know, the occupation of their land the illegal settlements the blockade that has turned gaza into you know just a truly you know miserable place where 50 percent of people are unemployed and most overwhelmingly live on poverty and rely on international aid and all of that so you know it's this is actually a point i have to say vivek has been making about which tragedies the media

convinces us to care about. The perfect example is Afghanistan. Yes. At times we're told we care about the women and girls and you and Biden's withdrawing and we're so worried about their future. And then once we're gone, it's just over. And as the American government has denied, you know, Afghanistan, this isn't the whole of the problem, but denied them some of their own money to help deal with a horrific, you know, collapsing economy, et cetera. Well, now we don't care about that suffering anymore. It's invisible. So these things are a real choice in terms of the coverage and whose humanity is featured and who is allowed to receive sympathy of the American people. But that's why I'm not as charitable, Crystal, because I saw it with Afghanistan and

we saw it with Ukraine. And this is the other thing. What's more cruel, to convince somebody that you truly support them and then immediately just turn your back on them and just pretend that all the last things that you never said, or to look them straight in the face, even when it's uncomfortable, and be like, listen, I'm sorry. We live in the real world. I mean, there's a great line from Moneyball, would you rather have a bullet to the chest or five to the chest or sorry, bullet to the head or five to the chest and bleed out. And that to me is just a really gross and sick way of like heroizing them and thinking them that you're going to be there them forever when a that's not politically tenable and not realistic, but B you're just going to switch immediately. All of Washington is completely

looked away. I mean, Russia could, I don't even know what they could do right now in Ukraine. And let's be honest, Congress and all these other people with Ukraine flags and lapel pins and all this stuff, they're not going to do anything because they're focused on Israel. I just think that that's more disgusting. Like you said about women and girls. Yes. Look, it's abhorrent what the Taliban does to women and girls in Afghanistan. My position from the day one is that's Afghanistan's problem. As much as it makes me sad, was never going to BS the Afghan women or the Afghan NGOs or any of that

that we're willing to send American troops to fight and die in order to secure their place in school. Sorry, it's not worth it. Well, but here's the other thing, is like we made things so much worse for the women and girls over our like Middle Eastern adventures and attempts at completely failed hubristic attempts at democracy building. So there also needs to be a lot of humility about what we're actually able to accomplish and what works and what is a complete dramatic failure.

There's also been just, you know, incredible in your face hypocrisy with regard to how Russian war crimes are viewed versus how Israeli war crimes are viewed. These are so blatant that even Jake Tapper over at CNN took note and was pressing National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on. But take a listen to how Tony Blinken was talking about Russia when they were messing with the energy, messing with the electricity. Take a listen. Heat, water, electricity, for children, for the elderly, for the sick. These are President Putin's new targets. He's hitting them hard.

This brutalization of Ukraine's people is barbaric. I haven't really heard that when it comes to Israel turning off the electricity and weaponizing it and collective punishment, et cetera. He wasn't the only one. Put this up on the screen. This is from Ursula von der Leyen, who's the head of the EU. She says, Russia's attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes, cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity, and heating. With winter coming, these are acts of pure terror, and we have to call it as such. Again, suddenly, when it's Israel and it's America's ally, we don't hear quite the same language with this regard. Yeah, and that's why it just annoyed me the entire time. Autocracy, democracy, you know, this and high ideals. America is a nation like any others.

We should look out for our interests. Sometimes that requires dealing with horrible people. Well, sometimes better off than the alternative. See my past comments about Saddam Hussein or other stable regimes. You can either choose to operate that way, or you can operate purely from a realm of international humanitarian rights, international human rights, and the laws of war, and all this other. Personally, I just think that's stupid. I don't think that that's realistic. It's too idealistic. It's not possible. And so we should just forget,

you know, trying to operate this way. And instead, though, we try to have it both ways, where we're best friends with Saudi Arabia. And, you know, we'll sit by and we'll co-sign some of what's going on here, but then use it as a rhetorical weapon against people who are our alleged enemies. And then, by the way, you way, you think they don't know this in Moscow? I used to talk, Crystal, with some people who would have bilateral meetings with the North Koreans. And they'd be like, hey, just give up the nukes. It's all good. And they would just look at us and be like, that's what you told Gaddafi.

Why should we believe you? Can you blame them? How can you blame them? Or, for example, sometimes I knew a guy once who would sit across from very, very high-level Chinese diplomats, and every time he would try and bring up Taiwan or the rules-based order or any of that, they would smirk at him. And they would just say, how did that work out for Iraq? The same thing happened. There was a bilateral meeting with President Bush, I believe, and Putin in Moscow, or it was somewhere in the world. And Bush was bringing up, you know, democracies, like you should have more democracy in your country.

And Putin laughed at him. He said, we don't want the type of democracy that you have given as a gift to Iraq. It's like we can have it two ways. We can have it one way or we can have it the other way. But otherwise, we just look like complete and total hypocrites. Total hypocrites. Which is why it bothers me so much that we continue to use this when it's convenient and then we forget it it the other way. But otherwise, we just look like complete and total hypocrites. Total hypocrites. Which is why it bothers me so much that we continue to use this when it's convenient

and then we forget it whenever it's not. And it's so hypocritical when we try. You've got this whole genre of very highly paid and famous journalists in D.C. who do the whole international rules-based order dance when it suits them on Ukraine. And now suddenly, they don't have much to say about the international rules-based order dance when it suits them on Ukraine. And now suddenly they don't have much to say about the international rules-based order when it comes to Israel and what they're doing

in Gaza right now. So yeah, like either actually be consistent and actually hold even your friends and your allies to a certain standard, actually believe in the international rules-based order, actually uphold it yourself in your own actions abroad, which we have really never done, or be honest about your interests, what you're doing, why you're doing it, but spare me this BS about you care so much about the Afghan women and girls, you care that Ukraine is a fight for democracy and the civilized world, et cetera, et cetera. That's not why you're doing what you're doing. So cut the bullshit. Probably a good segue to a bizarre experience.

Some other bullshit. All right. Tell us about it. Let me give you a little bit of a setup. Sagar hasn't watched this yet. So we're going to get his reaction live. I'm going to watch it live. So someone I've known for a long time works over at News Nation, asked me to come on Leland

Vittert's show. And I just know him as like he was like one of the reasonable people at Fox who basically got fired for not being willing to go along with Trump. I don't know if he got fired, but he left. Whatever. He's out because my impression is because of us. I was like, all right, that could be fine. It's close to, you know, it's not inconvenient. The time works. Let's do it.

So I get that the topics are very straightforward. It's like Biden's age and Jim Jordan as potential speaker. OK, easy political topics. No big it's like biden's age and jim jordan as potential speaker okay easy political topics no big deal let's let's go for it so i get to the studio and i see on the sheet that the guest before me is john bolton oh god i'm like all right yeah that's awkward that we're gonna go from john bolton doing whatever john bolton is doing to me on like jim jordan and these like know, surface level political topics. But then they did like a bait and switch and come into the segment rather than talking about is rather than talking about Jim Jordan and Biden's age or whatever, going into Iranian policy in the Middle East, which,

to be honest with you, after I heard the setup and how just like bloodthirsty it was and how much John Bolton was pushing directly for war with Iran, I was actually kind of relieved because I wanted the chance to push back on that. Right. So, anyway, I don't think it went the way that they expected. It didn't go the way I expected, but here's what happened. The trip to Israel is a massive risk given that our, you know, huge ally

that he has said unequivocally that he stands behind and has a right to defend themselves and they're trying to rush aid to, et cetera, et cetera, is in the midst of committing what the U.N. describes as war crimes, including a medieval siege. I think that the war that you and Ambassador Bolton seem very anxious to get us into in Iran would be obviously a political catastrophe for the president. I don't hear anybody interested in a war. John Bolton seems very interested in war with Iran and not to mention has always been interested in war with Iran, leading us directly into World War III. So I don't know about his policy on Iran, but I see the view of the Middle East very different from where I sit.

Okay. So what do you make of what Jake Sullivan, the president's advisor, said, what is it now, 18 days ago or so, about how they viewed the Middle East. Take a listen. The war in Yemen is in its 19-month truce. For now, the Iranian attacks against U.S. forces have stopped. Our presence in Iraq is stable. I emphasize for now because all of that can change. And the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades. Well, I'll tell you what mistake he made,

which is also the same mistake that Biden made, which is also the same mistake that Trump made, was to try to pretend like the Palestinian quote-unquote issue didn't exist, that you didn't have millions of people in Gaza seething under a multi-year blockade, that you didn't have illegal settlements and occupation in the West Bank, that you did not have to deal with these millions of people who are under an illegal apartheid system. And so you had the Trump administration that moved forward with the Abraham Accords, again, ignoring that situation. You had the Biden administration moving ahead with attempted normalization of Saudi and Israeli relations, all pretending that this problem with the Palestinians did not exist. I think the fact

that the world forgot that this was unfolding is a key part of the problem here. My question would be whose fault is that problem though? Because you seem to want to blame it on Israel and you want to seem to take away Israel's right to self-defense. No, I don't. I don't want to take away their right to self-defense. What I do want to take away is their right to have an apartheid state. Which they don't. Which they don't. Come on, Crystal. You know, Leland, right now, right now. Hold on. Let me just say. Let me just say. Go ahead. Let me just say. Uh-huh. What Hamas did, terrorists, massacres, horrendous. Huge of you to be able to point out. Innocent civilians should not be targeted, whether they are innocent Israeli civilians or innocent Palestinian civilians, which you seem to have no issue with.

No, I have a huge issue with it. The fact of the matter is I've lived there for four years. I've reported on it. I realize there's an enormous difference in moral clarity between Hamas that targets civilians, which you agree they do, and the Israelis that go out of their way not to target civilians. There is an enormous difference between the two. How much of a comfort is it to the parents of the 1,000 plus children in Gaza right now who are dead that Israel theoretically maybe has less barbaric tactics. So let me just... They've already killed more in Gaza than in the horrific Hamas attacks.

So whose responsibility does not... One atrocity does not justify another atrocity. Whose responsibility is the fact that those civilians are still there? Is it the responsibility of the Israelis? Or is it the responsibility of Hamas that's setting up checkpoints to keep civilians as human shields? Or is it the responsibility of the Egyptians that won't let them through Rafah? Or is it the responsibility of the rest of the Arab world that will not take a single Palestinian refugee to allow them to escape a murderous regime in Hamas?

There is plenty of blame to go around. IN THE PAST. HE SAID HE WAS NOT ABLE TO CONTINUE TO TALK ABOUT THE REGIME IN HAMAS. THERE IS PLENTY OF BLAME TO GO AROUND. WHAT I WILL TELL YOU THOUGH, ARE YOU AWARE THAT NETANYAHU AS A POLICY TO TRY TO SHORT CIRCUIT ANY EFFORTS AT PEACE IN THE

ESTABLISHMENT OF A PALESTINIAN STATE INTENTIONALLY PROPPED UP HAMAS BECAUSE HE SAW THEM AS A USEFUL FOIL. THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS. THESE ARE HIS WORDS. THAT IS WHY THE ISRAELI PEOPLE These are his words. That is why the Israeli people overwhelmingly want him to be out of the job. Because of that failure, because of the intelligence failure, because of the military failure. And now we're going to stand by and say it's fine for them to drop white phosphorus on civilians. Which they haven't dropped anyway.

Yes, they have, according to Human Rights Watch. So there you go. Your thoughts. That's why we don't do cable news. That's tough to watch, Crystal, to be honest. That's everything that we stand against in terms of... I mean, that's why. You got a bullshit time limit, right? About five minutes. You got fake commercial.

We've got, like, totally loaded questions. The guy doesn't even listen. You know, everybody's trying to make their point across. It's just like... And also, yeah, the ambush thing, to be honest, really pissed me off. I would be furious about that. That has never happened, you know everybody's trying to make their point across it's just like and also yeah the ambush thing to be honest really pissed me off i would be furious about that that has never happened you know anytime usually as you know we were talking about this before sometimes they'll be like hey you know news happened can you talk about this you know they at least give you a five minute heads yeah like okay sure you know like one time i was on the way to fox and rbg died i'm like holy

shit you know i gotta think about what i'm going to say, all of this. You can go pull the tape because they're on fire. There's millions of people watching. You're like, this is crazy. I don't know what I'm going to say about this. But, you know, at least then you have a little bit of time.

But they had the segment planned to toss to the Jake Sullivan thing. Yeah. Also, yeah, wondering why that one took so long. He did this whole buildup to the first question about like, Biden's liketer and he's appeasing iran and blah blah blah this whole like intro and he's like it's biden shifting course i'm

like shifting course on what what are we even talking about right now and so anyway like i said i was actually glad that the topic was shifted because i was sitting there listening to what he was saying and what bolton was saying and And just like in my mind, like this is so detached from reality and it's so bloodthirsty. I mean, Bolton was really like pushing, you won't be surprised, was really pushing like, it's all Iran's fault and we can't appease Iran and we need to go after Iran. I'm just thinking like, this is insane that you would be cheering for that at this point. So I was just really glad to have the chance to, you know, say my piece on all of these issues. But you know, what I take away from it is

when you're in that cable news format where the, you're used to having an echo chamber, you're used to just having people who share exactly the same view of you. You're used to not having to say anything more than like just the most surface level slogans. I mean, he's a shot. You're used to not having to say anything more than just the most surface level slogans. I mean, we spend a lot of time. Yes, hours. It makes me realize, like it really made me appreciate our show because we spend so much time digging into the details and really trying to think about it and trying to be nuanced and think of different perspectives and all that's going on and what does it mean from geopolitics, et cetera. And so it makes it so that in a situation

like that, you're just way more equipped to handle whatever's coming at you because you're not just dealing in the world of like slogans and talking points. It would just, I mean, I have always just found situations like that just so overwhelmingly frustrating because it's, again, just wants to come back to it. It's like, okay, dude, it's like, you want to do this? Fine. You know, we can, but like, why are you setting us up this way? I say this too. Look, Leland is a nice guy. I hung out with him once in the past. He's always been nothing but nice.

But I don't think that that is a professional way to conduct yourself, ambushing someone. I'm not going to say that anything he said was out of line or any of that. I'm more, you know what I really wish is, why didn't they have time? Time to actually talk. Five minutes.

Yeah, exactly. The whole thing was five minutes. It really gets to. Settle Middle Eastern peace and Iran and whatever in five minutes. I also love he's like, oh, now you're moving on.

I'm like, dude, we've only got five minutes. You get to speak for two and a half of those people. He's like, oh, now we're talking about Israeli politics? It's like,

well, that seems relevant. What the Israelis think about this whole situation seems kind of important. Anyway, Barry, I don't think I'll be invited. So I solved a problem, which is I will no longer have. Anyway, Barry, I don't think I'll be invited. So I solved a problem, which is I will no longer have to turn them down

because I don't think I will be invited back. So there you go. This is why I say no to 99% of these people. They want to rig the ground and then they want to limit the time and then they want to try and ambush you about something that you might have said. What am I doing here?

Whatever, exactly. It's like, why waste your time? Anyway, there's a lot of different reasons. So whatever. We wish him the best. News Nation does do good work on UFOs. Let's give them that. Yeah, they're just chasing comics.

You know what they're doing. So let's give them at least that, and we'll all just go our separate ways. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Counterpoints will be on tomorrow. Crystal, you're filling in for Ryan. Yep.

So you guys will be breaking down the speakership. I believe, actually, when you go on the air, President Biden will actually be in Israel. So you're going to have a lot in order to cover tomorrow. Make sure you guys tune in. Thanks to everybody who has been taking advantage of our Focus Group special. We will see you guys later. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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