Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/18/23: EVERYTHING WE KNOW: Gaza Hospital Bombing

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Krystal and Emily discuss everything we know so far about the tragic Gaza hospital bombing, Biden shunned as Middle East summit collapses, Israel and Hamas battle over hostage negotiations, Jim Jordan faceplants on first house speaker vote, Democrats in civil war as Rashida Tlaib attacks Biden's Israel policy, and US influence implodes as Putin and Xi hold important meeting.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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Ryan's in New York for meetings with his Intercept team. Crystal Ball, thank you so much for joining CounterPoints. I'm really looking forward to having conversations with you on some of these incredibly difficult topics that continue to dominate the news cycle. It is not an understatement to say this is perhaps one of the most consequential moments in recent memory,

both in terms of American politics and global politics, really on the edge of a very precarious, dangerous, and horrible situation, honestly. So I'm not even gonna to preview the whole show like I normally do. I'm just going to jump in because we have President Biden on the ground in Israel this morning, arriving just after a horrific, Palestinians would say, attack from Israel. Israel would say it's the Palestinians' fault on a hospital. I'm going to get into all of this that has left a mass of human carnage and devastation in Gaza. I'm going to take you through what both sides are saying, what I think about it.

We'll go through all of the details. But first, I wanted to start with what President Biden is saying on the ground, expressing belief in Israel's side of affairs for what happened with this hospital. Let's take a listen. I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there's a lot of people out there who are not sure. So we've got to overcome a lot of things. This explosion has already upended

President Biden's trip, leading to canceled meetings. I'll get to that in a moment. But first, the specifics of what happened at that hospital as best we can know. And let me just say at the forefront here that the Israeli government has a track record of lying. Certainly, Hamas and Islamic Jihad also have a track record of lying. Journalists Hamas and Islamic Jihad also have a track record of lying. Journalists are not able to get into Gaza to independently verify what's going on on the ground. So take all of that into account as you're analyzing what happened here. So first of all, what we do know, a massive blast rocked a hospital, actually a Christian hospital in Gaza City. It was packed with wounded, those who have been wounded in Gaza City. It was packed with wounded,

those who have been wounded in this war. It was also packed with people who have been displaced who were seeking shelter there. And we are seeing images of a massive civilian toll. The Gaza Health Ministry says hundreds of individuals, you know, the exact death toll has also not been independently verified. Let's take a look at video that has been verified by news agencies of what this blast looked like at the hospital. Take a look. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. It's Fendizi. It's Fendizi. So the images there, quite stunning. And the videos that have come out afterwards, including a press conference that was given at the hospital by some of the doctors and staff there, amid the wounded and the dead are just beyond words in terms of the horror here. So the reports from the Palestinian side, you know, obviously Gaza has been under severe attack from Israeli bombs. They, of course, are indicating this was an Israeli bomb, that this hospital had been told to evacuate among other hospitals as well, and that they had been directly targeted by an Israeli attack. On Israel's side, they're saying, no, no, this was a failed rocket launch attempted to be launched by Islamic Jihad that broke into pieces, fell on this hospital. And it is actually the Palestinians and Islamic Jihad's fault that this occurred.

Let me show you a few things here. So first of all, the initial IDF response, which is part of what called into question their side of the story, the Israeli Defense Forces, they initially posted what they claimed was a video. Put this up on the screen that on the one side, you see this video that they posted. They said from the analysis of the operational systems of the IDF, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed through the vicinity of the hospital when it was hit. According to intelligence information from several sources, we have the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital. Well, they got called out for sharing a video that had timestamps that did not correspond

to when this explosion occurred. So they had to repost this tweet minus the video, which of course, you know, fueled a lot of skepticism of their account. Also the fact that they've been caught lying about some of these things in the past. MSNBC reporting on all of this and trying to parse through what is very difficult to figure out, fog of war type of situation. I thought they did a good job of expressing why they would have skepticism of the Israeli account. Let's take a listen to that. Well, this is an absolutely classic fog of war situation, and we should be really clear. NBC News is not able to get into Gaza right now.

The Israeli border is sealed. The Egyptian border is sealed. Our teams are not able to get there and to verify this directly. We should also say that the Israeli military at this point is not providing any evidence to back up its claims that this was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. They are citing intelligence that they have not yet made public. We should also say that this kind of death toll is not what you normally associate with Palestinian rockets.

These rockets are dangerous. They are deadly. They do not tend to kill hundreds of people in a single strike. So he's referring there to the fact that the rockets, both from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are mostly scrapped together, actually from remnants of Israeli rockets, missiles. They do damage.

They kill, but they don't typically have carnage in the hundreds of people. So that's kind of the Palestinian side. They say, of course it was Israel. We've been under bombardment. They've warned hospitals to evacuate. This amount of carnage is inconsistent with anything that Hamas or Islamic Jihad could do. Okay, that's the Palestinian side. On the Israeli side, that MSNBC reporter at the time, he says Israel hasn't offered any evidence to support their story that it was an Islamic Jihad rocket, failed rocket attempt, piece of which broke off and hit this hospital. Since then, they have provided what they claim to be evidence, both visual drone footage that they say shows an impact that is inconsistent with what

their JDAM missiles would create, the level of crater that those missiles would create. That's one piece. The other thing that they have shared is what they claim is a conversation between Hamas militants that are assigning blame to Islamic jihad. So Emily, one thing that we know is really clear is the response throughout the region has been one of absolute fury, chaos, anger. We can put this up on the screen. This is some images yesterday from Ramallah, where you have clashes between Palestinians and between police there. There have been protests throughout the region, large-scale protests throughout the region. You have had protests in front of both Israeli and American embassies in parts of the region.

And you already have, as I mentioned, Biden's trip really, you know, sort of sent into chaos here as a result of what occurred at this hospital. He had originally planned to meet with a variety of leaders, Arab leaders in Jordan, in Amman, Jordan, as part of this trip. That trip has been canceled, that meeting, that summit between him and those four Arab leaders, including Egypt, Palestinian Authority, and Jordan, that has been canceled out of anger at this explosion. So let me go ahead, based on all of that, Emily, and get you in here for your initial reaction.

Yeah, I mean, no matter what, it looks like the death toll is in the hundreds. The Gaza health ministry is saying that more than 500 people were killed. Yeah, I mean, no matter what, it looks like the death toll is in the hundreds. The Gaza health ministry is saying that more than 500 people were killed. American media is saying likely hundreds were killed. It's impossible to have a clear number right now. But the bottom line is you can see in footage from the hospital the carnage. You can see the children.

You can see the children. You can see the suffering. And this is happening as humanitarian groups, as the United States and Israel are encouraging people to leave Gaza. And when people are congregating at a hospital thinking that it's one of the safer places they could be because, you know, it's a hospital less likely to be hit, even Israel. And there's conflicting information on this. It's another kind of interesting point here. Israel maintains that Hamas stores munitions under hospitals, that Hamas stores munitions in areas that are residential, in areas that are really blending the civilian population with the military population. Israel also said yesterday, though, we don't bomb hospitals. We haven't bombed hospitals. And so people then reasonably were congregating at the hospital. So conflicting information even in that argument or even within that point. But people thought that, you know, in the absence of a clear passing through Rafah, for example, they could,

you know, maybe the safest place they would be is at a hospital. A hospital was bombed. And now they're still trying, the United States and Israel are still encouraging people to leave Gaza. And so just imagine you're one of those people right now with children and you're thinking, what do I do? Hamas is telling you to stay. Hamas is telling you to stay in your home. They're saying things like we have a couple of options. You can fight or you can die in your home as a martyr. So this is the information you're getting from Hamas. You just want your family to be safe. You just want your children to be safe. People who were gathering at a hospital were then caught up in this horrific

carnage of the strike. And nobody has any idea. Nobody has any clear information as to what happened. So my big takeaway right now, Crystal, is basically that I'm thinking of the evacuation efforts, the humanitarian efforts. That's really scary because nobody has any incentive, clear incentive, when they don't know if they're going to be hit in safer areas. They don't know, you know, what could come next, even at a hospital. Well, the problem is there are no safe areas. You know, even after Israel told more than a million people to evacuate northern Gaza and Gaza City, which is a virtual impossibility. I mean, many people don't have cars. They have nowhere to go. It's not like southern Gaza has been safe. It has also been

bombed. People have also been dying there. They just hit Rafah Crossing once again. So if you are a Palestinian in Gaza right now, Israel has, we know, has hit mosques, schools, marketplaces, leveled apartment buildings, leveled private homes in just this bombing campaign. And they may say, oh, we don't target hospitals. But putting this hospital aside, we know in the past they have. And so to claim that they don't ever hit medical facilities, and even in this engage, they've also hit medical facilities, is ahistorical. I mean, again, there are no journalists on the ground to independently

verify what happened. So keep that in mind. Keep in mind that Hamas lies and Israel lies. And I'll give you an example, you know, for those who aren't aware of a recent case in which the Israeli government and the IDF in particular were caught completely fabricating a story, something we covered here on Breaking Points in the shooting death of Shireen Abu-Akhle, who was actually an American citizen and a journalist who was covering what was happening in parts of Palestine. And the IDF originally said, oh, she was caught in the cross Palestine. And they originally, the IDF originally said, oh, she was caught in the crossfire. It was actually Palestinian militants who killed her.

And they even shared a video that they purported to argue proved their case. And it was only months later that they were forced after a lot of journalistic investigation to admit that it was actually IDF bullets that killed Shireen. So that's why just for me, you know, personally based on their track record, there is basically no evidence that they could offer that I would be convinced by. I also am not going to be convinced by anything that Hamas or Islamic Jihad is saying on the

ground either. The reason I think it is more likely that it was likely an Israeli strike is, you know, I'm fairly persuaded by the fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets, there is no track record of them inflicting this level of damage anywhere, not in Gaza, not, you know, when they're targeting Israelis on the Israeli side of the border. So when you add that to the fact that you initially have the idea of putting out a tweet that they had to retract and take back because the evidence was, you know, was not accurate. And you just look at the fact that, you know, Gaza is obviously being bombed daily by many Israeli bombs. That seems to me the most likely case. But in some ways, Emily, we were talking a little bit about this. Like, I don't want to say it doesn't matter, but you have two sides that are not going to be convinced of whatever evidence is offered by the

other. The Arab world has already erupted. Biden's, you know, travel to the region already completely upended. You're going to have Israelis thinking one thing, you're going to have Palestinians thinking another thing, you're going to have Americans thinking different things. So that's where things stand. I think the one thing that we can say is there is an awful, horrific, unimaginable amount of carnage and chaos that is resulting from this war, which is, you know, just, there are no words to describe how awful it is what is happening on the ground there. It's such an enormous amount of suffering in such a small amount of time. And I think that's probably the bleakest part, Crystal, is that there's no end in sight. And the final point I want to make before we move on is just about Twitter punditry or Twitter analysis.

Because there are some people, I mean, you wouldn't even know if they're doing punditry or analysis. And it does remind me of the horrific I-24 report that turned out to be imprecise last week. Breaking points covered it. Counterpoints covered it about the alleged 40 beheaded babies. And then Twitter devolves into the spiral of trying to figure out how many babies, whether there were any babies. And it becomes, in and of itself, the sort of rhetorical proxy war over, you know, media coverage. And once again, we had that happening, had that happening yesterday. And it is, I mean, first of all, for Israel to be involved in that, I thought was just to be putting out videos that

you then have to retract. They had a spokesman saying things that were, you know, completely contrary to where they ended up going down. Again, the MSNBC clip was right. Fog of war, understandable. All of that is understandable. But for the government actually to be involved in that, I thought was really unfortunate and should be a lesson because this is such a powder keg. When you have everyone analyzing back and forth on Twitter, you don't know if they're professional analysts, even though they are professional analysts. I saw some people who definitely are experts in this question of rockets and this question of what that might look like, even geolocators. They're still doing it from thousands of miles away and trying to piece

together this puzzle without, Crystal, again, as you mentioned, any journalists on the ground with any independent media footage or independent media footage that people feel comfortable with, that we can compare independent media footage to other independent media footage or reports, all of that stuff. There's nobody on the ground. And so you have people thousands of miles away spouting off on Twitter, sometimes helpfully, but you really have no idea what their credentials and expertise are. And all of this is a global powder keg. Even the sort of social media conversation led people to swamping embassies. And so social media can push people, could push certain things over the edge. And we saw a little bit of that with the Nord Stream pipeline too. These are really scary

times. And I think we've been lucky so far that we haven't seen sort of a false or confusing social media narrative spill over into serious violence. I think that's a really important point. I will say Elon's stewardship of Twitter has not helped because you have all these accounts now with check marks that you have no idea if this is a credible source. If it's not a credible source, people are giving themselves names like, you know, definitive Israeli news outlet. And it's just some random person who's, you know, definitive Israeli news outlet. And it's just some random person who's, you know, propagandist who's saying whatever they want. So it is very, very, very difficult to sift through and understand what is happening when, especially in Gaza, when you do not have independent journalists who are able to get in and verify anything that is going on there.

And I think that's a perfect segue into the president's visit there. He's already given a press conference, joint press conference with Netanyahu. Obviously, you know, the specter of an American president in Israel right after this horrific hospital bombing at a time also when even, you know, if you accept the Israeli side of what happened there, you have, you know, all of Gaza under complete siege.

You have a complete humanitarian crisis. The whole area is running out of water. There are reports of hospital workers having to drink IV fluids out of bags. There are reports of people there who are having to drink seawater, which obviously is going to make you very sick. You cannot do that. The other hospitals in the area, the main hospital is running out of electricity. You know, the whole, all of Gaza has been,

has had their electricity shut down. They have one power plant. It long ago ran out of fuel. These hospitals are operating on generators. Those are running out of fuel now as well. So the situation is as dire from a humanitarian perspective as it could possibly be as Biden is there standing next to Netanyahu.

And to give you a sense of why I say this moment is so fraught and so dangerous and so consequential, listen to how Prime Minister Netanyahu is talking about these events and how he sees them as a sort of existential, civilizational battle. Take a listen. Hamas are the new Nazis. Hamas is ISIS, in some instances worse than ISIS. And just as the world united to defeat the Nazis, just as the world united to defeat ISIS, the world has to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas. This is part of an axis of evil of Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas. Their goal, open goal, is to eradicate the State of Israel.

The open goal of Hamas is to kill as many Jews as they could, and the only difference is they would have killed every last one of us, murdered every last one of us, if they could. They just don't have the capacity. but they murdered an extraordinary 1,300 civilians, which in American terms is like many, many, many 9-11s. So obviously we must take action to defeat Hamas and to ensure that this doesn't happen again. But this is not only our battle, it is our common battle, the battle of civilization against barbarism. And if it's not stopped here, this savagery will reach you very soon and reach the entire world.

I find those words chilling because he's mixing together World War II analogies, 9-11, war on terror analogies, Iraq war, I mean, axis of evil, saying this is our common fight, this is existential, it's a civilizational struggle. Those are words that could help to fuel a broader conflagration. And obviously, the region right now, an absolute powder keg, Emily. I think it's really important we talk about our own government's plans as it pertains to Hezbollah, because Netanyahu mentioned Hezbollah. Let's put this next element up on the screen. This is from Axios. This is a story that says, the White House has been discussing the possibility of using military force if Hezbollah joins the war in Gaza and attacks Israel with its huge arsenal of rockets. Three U.S. officials and one Israeli official with knowledge of the situation

tell Axios. There's a lot in this story. They have been, so just like take that, think about that for just a second, that this is, to Crystal's point, fraught. It's a powder keg. And the White House is now discussing potential military involvement in this conflict. We pay about a fifth of Israel's military budget every year, but direct American military involvement. Joe Biden is with Netanyahu right now on the plane. John Kirby, obviously obviously his spokesman said that Biden was there to also quote, ask some tough questions, I believe is how John Kirby put it. And this is also something that Crystal, you're going to talk about later in the show is the kind of divide the line, the fine line that Biden himself has to walk on some of these questions. And maybe that's what he's trying to

do with that. But obviously the timing with the hospital airstrike, I mean, here's more from this Axios story. They say one of the legal justifications for the U.S. using force in case of a Hezbollah attack would be to protect tens of thousands of American citizens who live in Israel. They're quoting Jonathan Lord of the Center for New American Security. He says under commonly held understandings of Article II of the Constitution, the president can enter U.S. forces into hostilities to protect Americans abroad. Now, more from the Axios report. First of all, I just want to say, the fact that we've been talking like that, again, to borrow your word, Crystal, is chilling.

Two U.S. officials, according to Axios, said Secretary of State Blinken told Arab leaders in the region with whom he'd met in recent days, the U.S. is, quote, not fooling around by sending so many military assets to the region in support of Israel. Okay, Crystal, a lot going on there. But obviously, the potential for Hezbollah's involvement, we've seen flare-ups so far. And that's part of, again, this conversation about how fragile this environment is right now and how quickly something can explode into a, the reason I continue to think about World War I is because you have an assassination, right? You have like, there's a situation and maybe people didn't see it that way at the time, but you have a domino

effect essentially. And you never really know when the domino effect has happened until afterwards, and you can look back and see all the other dominoes had fallen. But the Hezbollah involvement, which would certainly coalesce these different coalitions in even clearer terms, when you have the United States talking like this, you have Israel talking like that, you have Putin and Xi talking the way that they're talking, Hamas talking the way that they're talking, things are really, really in a bad situation right now. I mean, it's really frightening. It genuinely is. And I thought Dr. Parsi, a few days ago, laid out exactly the nightmare scenario of even if,

and this is a big if, by the way, even if the US, Israel, Iran, Hezbollah don't really want a broader war, you could still end up in a broader war. And we are already moving along that chain of escalation where with this hospital airstrike and the images of the women and babies that were killed there, the human carnage,

you already have this massive swell of just sheer anger and outrage across the region. And that's what undercut and forced the cancellation of Biden's summit with four different Arab leaders that was supposed to happen in Jordan, including Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. So those attempts at diplomacy, whatever, you know, however half-baked or unlikely to succeed they were, those are dead. You have Hezbollah worried about, you know, their credibility, and they see this also as an existential fight. So far, it seems like they've calculated that they can do just enough to show their solidarity with the Palestinians without igniting this broader conflict. They're going to

be under a lot of pressure to do a lot more, and they're going to be motivated to do a lot more. How does Israel respond to that? Now we have these reports that the White House has been actively discussing the possibility of using military force if Hezbollah does get involved and open up the second front in the war. And I want everybody to understand what you were saying there, Emily. It's important to underscore this. They're not going to go to the American people and ask us if we want to get involved in a broader war. They're already laying out their legal justification for how they could put us in this war without ever taking it to the United States Congress, let alone the American people.

It's in the Axios report. That's exactly right. That's how much of an edge we are on right now. Yeah, they say, this is from the expert Axios is quoting, if Biden were to make that decision, he'd need to notify Congress within 48 hours under the War Power Resolutions Act of 1973. That would give Biden 60 days to act before Congress's approval to use military force would be required. And that's if they go that route. We've seen them not go that route before and essentially never authorized these types of conflicts. But again, you, under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, he can get involved in

a con, in a, in a conflict that would have years-long implications, ramifications. And the fact that this isn't outrageous in the Axios report, that it isn't something that is treated like it's outrageous in the Axios report, tells you exactly where we are as a country, that it's just sort of casual that he can take this to Congress within 60 days of getting involved in the conflict. And then it'll all be fine. It'll be constitutional because to your point, Crystal, he could get us involved in this. And in fact, the signs are, let's put the next element up on the screen. And no breaking points covered this yesterday. The Pentagon has ordered 2000 more US troops to be ready to deploy to the Middle East.

If deployed, they would likely not serve in combat roles, but would provide advice and medical support to Israeli forces, officials said. And this news got overshadowed yesterday in the wake of the hospital strike. We can put this up. This is the next element B4. This is a press release from CENTCOM. CENTCOM commander arrives in Israel. General Michael Eric Carrillo, commander, U.S. Central Command, has arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel

to conduct high-level meetings with Israel's military leadership, including their chief of defense, to gain a clear understanding of Israel's defense requirements. Now, again, this is worth remembering. The access story did point this out too. There are thousands of American citizens

that live in Israel. We do have strategic interests in Israel. All of that is true. There are American lives to protect. There are humanitarian reasons to care about what's happening both in Israel in the wake of Hamas' brutal attack and in Gaza as people try to evacuate or try to decipher what they should do based on what Hamas is telling them to do. Absolutely. Thousands of American lives on the line. You want to deter people from taking action. So that's where you have Blinken's

kind of laughable quote where he said the U.S. is not fooling around by putting troops and warships and stuff in the region or resources in the region. So the tough talk has a strategic purpose, of course, but there's obviously also the risk that the tough talk amplifies tensions artificially in order to sound tough. And then you have to put your money where your mouth is in a way that ultimately is not a strategic benefit or something that's constitutional or something that the country wants at all. And polling crystal shows most Americans have no interest in a military conflict over Palestine at this moment. There is so much to say here. I mean, the original intent, I believe, of Biden's trip to the region, which occurred before the, you know, course of this hospital airstrike, was to try to act as a deterrent, try to talk to the parties involved, try to dissuade. I mean, this is what behind the scenes the White House is telling reporters at all kinds of news outlets that they're trying to dissuade any of the other actors in the region, be it Hezbollah, be it Iran, not to up the tensions.

So the idea by sending these two carrier strike groups and by Biden, Blinken being in the region, Biden traveling to the region, was to try to have a deterrent effect on these other actors. Now, with the context of this hospital bombing, Biden's trip actively exacerbates and in a way, pours fuel on the fire of the rage that we already see overflowing in this region. And that's why it's so consequential that this meeting that he had planned in Jordan was canceled after the other leaders, we can't be part of this now. There's no way we can talk to you about any potential

diplomacy now. The other thing that I really think it's important for people to bear in mind here in terms of interpreting Netanyahu's action in the context in which he's making speeches, saying axis of evil, the godforsaken term, you know, comparing to Nazis, comparing to ISIS, comparing to 9-11, saying this is a civilizational struggle, is he is fighting for his political life. The majority of Israelis want him gone. They say after the war is over, we want you out. He was already an extraordinary, controversial, divisive figure

amongst the Israeli public before the dramatic intelligence and military failures that, you know, contributed to the massive, horrific death toll of Israeli civilians in this Hamas attack. You have some 90 plus percent who blame him in part for those failures. So he is very committed to holding on to power in whatever way he possibly can. So this sort of extremely bellicose rhetoric, I believe he's hoping will trigger this sort of rally around the flag effect so that he can hold on to power. So it adds a level of additional danger to the situation that you have a politician here desperate to hold on to power who is making these decisions

and upping the ante with both his rhetoric and with his actions. And another thing I don't want to lose sight of here, and then we can move on to what I think we always have to keep at the forefront, which is that the human beings, the innocent human beings who are caught up in the horror of this conflict.

But the other thing to keep in mind here is that Netanyahu and the Israeli government have admitted they have no plan for the day after. Like going in and bombing the hell out of Gaza is easy for the Israeli military. It's no problem. They can do that all day after. Like going in and bombing the hell out of Gaza is easy for the Israeli military. It's no problem. They can do that all day long, you know, with our support and our weaponry and all that they've invested and all the reservists that they've called up. That is no problem. Once you've taken out Hamas, which is both, you know, military and political leadership, what then? Who runs Gaza?

Are you going to reoccupy? Who's going to fill that vacuum? And they have acknowledged, Emily, that they have no plan for that. I mean, it is very reminiscent of Iraq and how we went in with guns blazing and mission accomplished. Hey, that was the easy part.

What comes next? And of course, I mean, we never should have been there in the first place. That goes without saying. But that's one of the things that the Biden administration has been questioning. You know, you mentioned that Biden was saying we're going to ask some tough questions as a friend, but they're also unwilling to use any points of real like leverage to try to, you know, get at some sort of a plan for what this is going to look like and what comes next. And that just adds to the overall chaos, volatility, and danger of the situation.

And the sad thing is that they're not wrong, that there are these coalescing forces of, let's say, extremism in the region that do believe, in some cases, in terrorism as sort of a righteous way to clap back at Western imperialism, Western colonialism, which has been very real in their region for a long time. And so it's not that it's entirely untrue that there are these coalescing forces that wish America, that wish the West harm. But when you talk like that and have absolutely no plan for what steps into the power vacuum, I mean, just now we're talking about a hospital strike that potentially was committed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad as one of the potential actors implicated in the strike.

Hamas is not the only group. And that's why Israel obviously in some cases was funneling resources to Hamas over the years because they thought it was a better alternative if we empower Hamas kind of covertly. We've seen the West make that mistake time and time again, not just Israel. But if we empower this one group, it'll help stabilize things, et cetera, et cetera. And you end up just creating a Frankenstein monster. And so when you have no plan as to what happens when, there's a story on Al Jazeera's homepage this morning asking if Gaza is Israel's Stalingrad. But it's, you know, you can look at Aleppo, you can look at Fallujah. What happens in those power vacuums when people are engaged in urban warfare in basically blast zones that have just been taken off the face of the earth, but people are hiding in different places.

These are recipes for even more extremism to fester. And so I would be very curious to hear what the plan is. But obviously we know that there really isn't one at the moment. Let's move on, Crystal, to, as you said, the hostage situation, the human cost of this conflict that should always be kept at the forefront of this. The hostages are also sadly very much a political question because they're at the center of the conflict over, you know, when humanitarian aid is going to be applied. They're at the center of the conversation between the U.S. and Israel about whether Israel should, you know, lift some parts of the blockade, should allow Gazans,

Palestinians to have certain things, water, all of that. It is just another horrific part of this that, again, feels like it gets worse by the hour, by the day. Yeah, that's exactly right. And as you said, Emily, you know, these are innocent human beings who are now being used as pawns. Hamas intentionally took them to use them as human sacrificial bargaining chips. It's horrific. They should be released immediately. Richard Engel over at MSNBC spoke with someone from Hamas, and they indicated that they will only release these hostages if Israel stops the bombing. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. So I spoke to a short while ago, a senior Hamas official inside Gaza, and I asked for clarification.

I said, are you still willing to release foreign hostages? And what do you mean that you would do it if the field conditions are right? And he said that not only are they willing to release all foreign hostages, meaning even Israelis who have second passports, but also all Israeli civilians if the bombings stop. That's what they mean. If the bombings stop, he said that all of the civilian hostages, Israeli and foreigner, could be released, he said, in one hour, that it would be easy. I pressed him out and I said, well, why don't you just release them now? If you want to release these hostages, just take them to the border of Gaza and let them go. Take them to a safe place, put them in a car and let them go. He said it was impossible.

He said it was impossible because Israel is bombing everywhere, that there is no safe place. So there you go. So that's the Hamas line. Keep in mind, this was before the hospital bombing. So, you know, who knows how that has impacted their comments or what they would say at this point. On the Israeli side, we can put this up on the screen. They're saying they will only, they're also using these hostages in a sense. They said they will only allow humanitarian aid in to benefit, you know, innocent civilians in Gaza if the hostages are released. So they're holding humanitarian aid hostage until these hostages are released. So, you know, these are innocent people who were taken by Hamas, who are now being used as these political pawns. It's an incredibly, obviously horrific, emotional, fraught issue, not only for the families of the hostages, some of whom are American, by the way, but also for Israeli society overall. It has emerged as a real dividing line in terms of Israelis and the approach that they're seeking.

I'll also say, Emily, there was a comment from perhaps the most extreme member of Netanyahu's cabinet, which is the most extreme government in Israeli history. The National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gavir, wrote on social media after the hospital bombing that hundreds of tons of explosives should enter the region instead of aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, as long as there are no Israeli captives left in the hands of Palestinian groups. So that's where we are. Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that because I was going to mention that too. And I think that's probably something that Joe Biden, part of the reason that the United States, let's put the political reasons aside, part of the reason the United States wanted a presence there. And I continue to think it's kind of a strange decision for him to actually take the trip. But I still think part of those

conversations is about the Ben-Gavir position, because the United States knows it is not a tenable position for the U.S. Again, we mentioned this earlier in the show. They give about 20 percent, 20 percent of the aid from Americans, military aid from Americans, ends up, that's about 20 percent of the Israeli military budget every single year. So they know it's not a tenable position for them to support Israel while humanitarian aid is being basically left out. I mean, this is another entirely horrific scene unfolding in Egypt at the Rafah crossing where you have humanitarian aid that is actually piling up on the other side of the crossing,

Gazans that need the humanitarian aid, and just there has not been a solution to finding a way to get A to B, whether Gazans come across into Egypt, whether the humanitarian aid is brought into Egypt. You have the Ben-Gavir people who say the only thing that should be coming through is military resources, no humanitarian aid until the hostages are released. That is, in some ways, the saddest part is that for so many people, the help is right there. But we have not worked out a diplomatic solution for the help to get to them. And so I think, yeah, part of the reason Biden is in the area right now and that Blinken, who was made to wait like eight hours by MBS for a meeting the other day,

Biden's meeting with Jordan, as we mentioned, was canceled. Not going well. This diplomacy is not going well for the United States. The sort of in-person push for diplomacy not going well. But part of the reason that they're doing it is certainly because that question of humanitarian aid and hostage timing is absolutely crucial to getting support for Israel, for the United States on the world stage, continuing to convince people that that's sort of the righteous cause as the weeks go on. You had unity in the wake of Hamas's barbaric, horrific attack. Maintaining international unity in the weeks after when you're actually engaged in a war is more difficult. And I think the hostages are, the negotiations over the hostages have become one of the most important, sadly, pawns in their negotiating right now.

Yeah, and it's humiliating for the U.S. too. I mean, we've had Jake Sullivan and Biden talking about, oh, we want to get this aid in and we're working on a solution. They even told American citizens that they would be able to have safe crossing into Egypt. They showed up at this border. The border is still closed. In fact, the border is still being bombed by Israel as of, I believe, yesterday or two days ago. So, you know, for the Biden administration, the United States government, supposedly this powerful actor to put out these promises of like, oh yeah, we're going to work this out and it's already been worked down. You can show up at the

border and then have absolutely nothing happen. It just shows our sort of complete impotence in the situation, which I don't think is, you know, if we were willing to actually use the incredible leverage we have in the situation, we wouldn't be so impotent, but we're not willing to. And Sagar and I talked about how it's very reminiscent of how in Ukraine, we also have adopted this incredibly impotent posture where it's like, well, we don't really want Zelensky using weapons in Russia, but we're not really going to do anything about it either. What are you going to do? It's a very similar dynamic here. If they actually wanted to get humanitarian aid in, believe me, they have a lot of leverage in the situation and they could make it happen, but it has clearly not been the top priority. And just to remind people, Palestinians are not

all Hamas. Almost a majority of people in Gaza, Palestinians in Gaza, are children. You have hundreds of American citizens who are trapped in Gaza right now, you know, which obviously should be a priority for an American president. So they are running out, in addition to the, you know, incredible bombing campaign and the horrors of that. Very limited food, water, no electricity. It is a true humanitarian catastrophe that we are witnessing right now with seemingly no end in sight. Emily, I think that's maybe a good segue into,

because there's not just international news here. We also have like signs of complete failure and chaos here at home as the House continues to go without any sort of speaker and no real end in sight for that situation either. Yeah, and you're going to want to stick around for this full block because Crystal, towards the end of it, has added some comic relief that I think is desperately needed right now as House Republicans and their conference are flailing to replace Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted about two weeks ago now. Yesterday, we can put the first element up on the screen here. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, failed to be elected speaker on the

first ballot. Now, this was among sort of Jordan allies and my own sources expected. They did not expect him to succeed on the first ballot. Now, this is C-SPAN reminding you, if you can't see it, if you're listening, that you need 217 votes to win the gavel. So there's been conversations about Republicans striking a deal with Hakeem Jeffries and sort of centrist Democrats to get a centrist Republican speaker. All of that has always been sort of pie in the sky, but that's because you can get 217 theoretically with some math that either includes keeping Republicans fully together and only losing four votes. Jim Jordan can only afford to lose four votes. He lost 20 yesterday. He said, his team said, his spokesman yesterday said,

you know, basically the House needs a speaker right now and was pushing for there to be more votes yesterday. So it was possible yesterday that we would have seen a marathon voting session like we saw in January when Kevin McCarthy went through 15 ballots in a very short period of time. That did not happen. Instead, they could vote on Jordan again around 11 a.m. today. We can put the next element up on the screen. So as Crystal pointed out, any other week, this would be what we call the A block in the business. This would be the headline that the House continues to not have a speaker. The top candidate is, you can see there, he's still falling short of the amount of votes that he needs, despite having now a whole weekend of campaign. Now look at on the screen, there are Republicans still voting for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of

the House. He got six votes yesterday. He didn't ask for them. Steve Scalise got seven votes. He also wasn't asking for them. Tom Emmer, he's taken himself out of the running. He got a vote. Lee Zeldin, who is kind of a new name here, got three votes. But look at that. I mean, you still have six people voting for McCarthy and seven people for Scalise, so prior candidates. And now it gets even more interesting because Newt Gingrich and John Boehner have both suggested that the speaker pro tem, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, be made temporary speaker. And it kind of seems, Crystal, like that's exactly where this is headed, that you agree to disagree and have the disagreeable

candidate. And if that is the case, by the way, I don't think most Americans care that much, whether or not the Speaker of the House is temporary or if he's permanent. It makes Republicans look ridiculous. I think most people are on the same page about that, but we already all know the House of Representatives is utterly broken. So I'm not sure that this is weighing heavily on the American consciousness, as embarrassing and silly as it is. They weren't doing much anyway, to be clear. But all that is to say, Matt Gaetz ousted Kevin McCarthy. And if he, first of all, he supported Scalise as a replacement, but if he ends up with McHenry as a replacement, you have both of those options, Scalise and McHenry. But especially McHenry are, from the perspective of an anti-establishment House Freedom Caucus guy like Gaetz, much worse than McCarthy.

McCarthy had spent years working with the Freedom Caucus to tell them, I'm listening to you. I'm going to give you as much as I can possibly give you if you continue to support me. He was sympathetic to them. He was radicalized in some ways. He even kind of told me this by the first impeachment. That was a really big deal for some establishment Republicans like Kevin McCarthy, who started to say, maybe I should empower Jim Jordan, maybe I should make him, maybe I should start an impeachment inquiry. You would never have gotten that out of Patrick McHenry. You probably wouldn't have gotten that out of Steve Scalise either.

So Crystal, incredibly embarrassing for the Republicans. They might vote, they might just throw their hands up in the air at this point and say, let's agree to disagree and let Patrick McHenry continue to do his thing in his bow tie? See, I always thought that that was a real possibility, just because I know that the status quo in D.C., like if they can avoid doing something and making a decision, that's normally what happens. So I always thought that that was a real possibility that they could immediately the moment that this, you know, Israel-Gaza war began, and there was this new push, almost over, you know, almost everybody in the house wants to

rush more aid to Israel. There's a few dissenters. We're going to talk about that in just a minute. But I thought, okay, immediately there were all these articles that came out that were like, well, I know we said the temporary speaker can't really do anything, but maybe we're going to change our mind on that. Maybe we can figure out a way that the temporary speaker can get Israel their aid and get Ukraine their aid. And when I saw those machinations happening, I was like, oh, this is probably where they're going to end up. They're just going to decide we're not going to come to an agreement. No one can get the requisite number of votes. Actually, Kevin McCarthy had more votes when he was, you know, in this last go around than Jim Jordan does now. So maybe they're just going to fall back on the

status quo and default to McHenry and, you know, make that work for them. Another piece that I wonder what you think is going to happen in the vote today. Like, do you think there's any chance that Jim Jordan can actually get across the finish line? I don't have a good feel for what the demands or concerns about Jordan are, which predominantly come from sort of the more, quote unquote, moderate parts of the Republican caucus. Is there something that he could promise them that would bring them on board? Or do they just feel like, you know, you're too partisan, you're too combative, you're too closely associated with

Trump and all those like election lies nonsense. What is the real, what is the rub here with regard to Jim Jordan? Yeah, I think actually the fact that we don't know what any of those negotiating chips are publicly, I think it's because they're not there. And I think that's why there are, you know, we've talked about, you know, how many people are never Scalise, but how many people are never Jordan? How many centrists are never Jordan? I think that number is pretty high. And essentially, I think there's some resignation on both sides, understanding that there's basically nothing you can do. And that's why Jim Jordan over the weekend, according to some sort of centrist Republicans,

they say he really pissed them off by turning to this new tactic, which was a pressure campaign. Or as the New York Times put it, unleashing the rage of the party's base voters, which is in the House of Representatives, a really ridiculous and stupid thing to say, because they're supposed to represent the party's base voters. So for the New York Times to be like, oh, that's kind of icky, I thought was sort of telling. But all that is to say, there's really nothing from my perspective. And that's why Jim Jordan, I've said this a couple of times over the past couple of weeks, and Crystal, you remember how huge, how towering a figure Jim Jordan has been in the kind of conservative movement, even from like, so the

outside, you can see like Jim Jordan is really like an icon to the grassroots of the conservative movement. It's a kind of a fantasy draft pick, really. Like this is like, if you could pick number one in the draft, and as a speaker of the House, people would pick Jim Jordan. And the conservative movement is not at all used to, and I know this sounds ridiculous to people on the left, is not at all used to seeing that in the House of Representatives. It's John Boehner. It's Paul Ryan. It's Kevin McCarthy. You kind of try to work with people, but it's never someone who they feel like is really their own.

It's like dyed in the wool. I don't know. Paul Ryan, I know people feel different about him now, but during the Tea Party era, he was like conservative pinup poster boy dude. He was, but he was, although people in the conservative movement didn't feel like he was a fellow traveler, even though he kind of was a familiar figure. He wasn't, like, the guy who was giving those, like, fire-up speeches at CPAC, like Jim Jordan. He always sort of seemed like he was the sort of, like, nerdy, cold guy who would, you know, give you budget figures, but he wasn't there, like, in the trenches talking to activists. So all that is to say, Jordan is that.

He is absolutely the model version of that. And so that's why there are never Jordan-centrist Republicans. They don't want to vote for Jim Jordan knowing that he might be just throwing, well, I shouldn't say might, will be throwing bombs every single day. Constantly getting media attention for impeachment stuff, for border stuff, and putting them in uncomfortable situations. From their perspective, that's not a tenable situation in their districts to have on their record that they voted for that. So I don't think there's a path for Jordan, frankly. I kind of wish there was a path for Jordan, but I just don't think there is. Yeah, I think Jordan in some ways is the perfect emblem of like

where the Republican base is right now, because he's closely associated with these like, you know, bombastic cable news theatrics and getting and really leading the charge on like, you know, the Benghazi hearings and the weaponization of government and these like, you know, inquiries, partisan inquiries into the other side. But also at the same time, during his entire time in Congress, like 16 years, he's never actually passed any legislation. But it's to me, again, this is perfect. He's like, he's got the vibes. He's backed up Trump whenever Trump needed backup.

He's in there. He's mixing it up. He's like, got the right affect that the base is looking for. And he also was a real pioneer in terms of using, you know, like I think didn't was a Boehner that called him like a legislative terrorist or governmental terrorist or something like that because he's so closely associated with all of these like debt ceiling type hostage taking situations, which at times have been very effective in terms of if you, you know, are a conservative and you really care about like the budget deficit and you want to cut social spending or whatever. His, you know, I think all of this sucks, but his tactics have been effective at times. And that has

really radicalized in a sense, the way that the House Republican caucus in particular operates. So he's been at the forefront of all of that. So in a certain way, he is the perfect emblem of that caucus. But, you know, it appears like there are just enough people that are like, I don't want to be the party that is, you know, the party of Trump and the party of Jim Jordan and his antics and his, you know, extremism on issues from the budget to also abortion and social issues as well. They're worried about their seats in Congress. And so that may be enough to derail him. But listen, this thing is a long way from over. I don't think anyone really knows how it is going to end. As I said, I've always thought there was a real chance they just sort of like give up and end up with McHenry just hanging out there in the slot. And it does also make it appear like Matt Gaetz's beef was mostly personal with McCarthy,

because if that's what ends up happening, then he actually lost a lot in this exchange because they had much more sway and had this original deal that he made with McCarthy that he got a good bit out of that he'll no longer have those sort of chips he can play going forward. Well, and this is an argument actually that Jordan has again sort of pioneered, kind of embraced and led is the idea that the House of Representatives is broken. So hell yeah, we're going to do an impeachment inquiry because Democrats broke it. And I think Matt Gaetz's best argument in his favor is that that's all he did. But I think the real, he used that as a pretense, right, to say, we're draining the swamp.

The swamp is going to consume everything anyway, so let's just throw everything into disarray and chaos. It's better than when the House is working smoothly. I think it was likely a pretense for, you know, a personal grievance. We should mention there's a bill being introduced today that would, as Axios puts it, temporarily empower McHenry to oversee the passage of legislation. So it's possible that they could resign themselves to this limbo today. That could just become very clear by the end of the day. We don't yet know.

But it's certainly one thing we want to mention here. Let's roll the tape of one Democrat floating just a delicious suggestion for House Republicans. I could see President George W. Bush serving as Speaker of the House. He could come back and, you know, and obviously I'm not a real fan of how the Iraq war went, but I would think that any reasonable Republican would be somebody that Democrats could work with if it was part of a system where you didn't have five of the most extreme Republicans blocking important legislation. You just said a name that I didn't even know was in the speaker realm,

and that was former President George W. Bush. A, is that someone you would support? And B, where are we in this fight? Are we close to a resolution? George W. Bush, I pick him as a traditional Republican who isn't doing anything right now. Mitt Romney also comes to mind, but he's got a Senate seat to fill for a while. Crystal, can I say this is exactly what fuels Matt Gaetz. This pisses people off so much because the Never Jordan votes are the people that would be like, oh, hey, George W. Bush. Oh, OK. Yeah. Like, I hear you. That's Brad Sherman, Democrat Brad Sherman, who suggested that. But good comic relief to your point, Crystal. Thank God George W. Bush is not going to be speaker of the House. It's not a serious proposal, but it is very revealing the way he can just be, the Iraq war wasn't my cup of tea, but that's all water under the bridge.

All the like torture and war crimes and Gitmo and the Iraqi civilians who were killed and our own men and women and the treasure and the chaos of the Middle East and helping to spark ISIS. You know, boys will be boys, I guess. It's all good. He's a reasonable Republican. It's like, nothing has made me more insane in the Trump era than the rehabilitation of George W. Bush specifically, but all of the neocon, I mean, Nicole Wallace over on MSNBC and all these like resistance heroes who all they have to do is be like, I don't like Trump. And we're like, okay, we forgive you for the war crimes. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Let's all link arms. You're reasonable. That is the thing that I hate the most about Donald Trump in our politics, because the divide becomes about nothing other

than him. No policy, like the history is wiped clean. All of our memories are erased. No like forward-looking policy. I mean, that's the other thing. That's another reason why I think Jim Jordan is so perfect is because like he has never passed any legislation. And in the Trump era, that is like exactly emblematic of where we all are, that it doesn't have to do with policy

and delivering for the American people. It's just like, what do you think about the person of Donald Trump specifically? And so since George W. Bush is, you know, seen as being on the other side, on the correct side of the Trump divide, then all of the horrors of his presidency are immediately forgiven because he has the right answer on the one question that apparently matters in American politics. Which is, yeah, this question of like civility and decency. Decorum. Right, exactly. So war crimes out the window.

But if he's civil and decent and is friends with Michelle Obama, he is one of the good ones. Meanwhile, again, like, whatever you think of Matt Gaetz, he is as anti-war as a Republican possibly could get. Although I don't know where he stands on just bombing the shit out of Mexico. That's a different question. Yeah, I was going to say, I wouldn't take the, I would not label him anti-war, but anyway. But as a Republican? He did make some good noises about stock trading ban. I'll give him credit on that one. I'm not willing to call him anti-war. And to get like, as a Republican can get, that's probably as anti-war as you'll ever find a Republican. So it's more of a standard of Republican anti-war candidates. But

to the point, that is what really fuels people like Matt Gaetz is when you have that, like, the warmongers being the ones that are depicted by both the left and the centrist right as the decent and civil ones. And that's why they come in and say, all right, well, I'm blowing Congress up because you people suck. And they have a point. Speaking though, Crystal, of just throwing Congress into chaos and disarray, everything isn't quite neat and unified on the Democratic side either at the moment. What's happening on the left, on the left side of the chamber? Yeah, so you've had some, and this is unusual in American history. You have had some voices of dissent from the idea that we will back Israel no matter what. Now, in my opinion, no country should be given a no matter what blank check. But in particular, Israel, given their record, I mean, even just looking at how they're prosecuting this current war and,

you know, committing what the UN is describing as violations of international law or war crimes, specifically with the complete siege. And so even before this latest hospital airstrike, which is obviously up the emotional level just an infinite amount, You had a little bit of dissenting voices and you had a huge crackdown from the White House describing just calls for like a ceasefire as repugnant. But now with the civilians killed at this hospital, the emotions are so much higher. And so the tenor of the discussion

between this handful of more left members of Congress, the tenor of the discussion between this handful of more left members of Congress, the tenor of the discussion between them and Joe Biden has significantly changed. Let's go ahead and put Rashida Tlaib's comments here up on the screen. Rashida Tlaib, Palestinian-American, who's been one of the, I think, leading voices in terms of a different approach on Israel. She says, Israel just bombed the Baptist hospital, killing 500 Palestinians, doctors, children, patients, just like that. POTUS, this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire and help de-escalate. Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes. And many Palestinian Americans and Muslim Americans like me, we will

remember where you stood. You had Ilhan Omar also tweeting, let's put this up on the screen, bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes. The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific. POTUS needs to push for an immediate ceasefire to end this slaughter. This comes on the heel of us. Put this up on the screen from Ryan's outlet from The Intercept. On Monday, before the hospital bombing, you had 13 Democrats in the House, led by Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, Andre Carson, Summer Lee, and Delia Ramirez, introduce a resolution urging the Biden administration to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and

occupied Palestine and to send humanitarian aid to Gaza. And you also did have Bernie Sanders seeming yesterday to call for a ceasefire, saying these unspeakable crimes must stop now. The bombs and missiles from both sides must end. Massive humanitarian aid must be rushed to Gaza and the hostages must be returned to their families so you know I think this marks a dramatic shift even though this is just a few voices in the democratic caucus in where the democratic party has usually been, I mean, support like undie, unequivocal, unconditional support for Israel has long been a bedrock of bipartisan policy between Republicans and

Democrats. You've had huge money efforts that Ryan has covered very closely to try to make sure and force discipline on that question of we will always stand with Israel, no matter what they do, no matter what comes with huge amounts of American dollars in aid. There have been big money efforts to make sure that any candidates who might deviate from that narrative, including Summer Lee, by the way, who's on this resolution, that they get crushed in primaries, that they're defeated at the ballot box. And still, because you have a much different view of this conflict between Israel and Palestine, among young Democrats in particular, a majority of whom sympathize in general outside of this current conflict with Palestinians, you have some of that starting to creep in.

And I mean, Emily, I'll tell you from my personal perspective, I will never forget the fact that just calls for a ceasefire from the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre called those calls repugnant and shameful. And now we see, you know, whoever side of the story you believe

with regard to the hospital, now we see just the horrors of continuing this bombing campaign with no end in sight. The human toll here. And you called a ceasefire, calls for a ceasefire and diplomacy, you call them repugnant. You banned State Department officials, according to a memo that Huffington Post reported on, from talking about a ceasefire, for calling to an end to bloodshed, calling to restore calm. Our diplomats were banned from even using those words. That is something that I will never forget and clearly has been seared into the consciousness of a few of these dissident members

of Congress. You know, this is a really interesting block to do after our last conversation in the previous block about how Republicans are are being blamed for the chaos, when in reality, I think a lot of that blame goes to the establishment, which is utterly unmoving in some cases and unwilling to work with people, although that wasn't true of Kevin McCarthy. And Crystal, I've had this conversation with Ryan a few times. I'm curious what you think, too, about the squad sort of taking a page out of the Freedom Caucus book and really starting to push the party's leadership and the House side a lot harder. Is this something you think that could, especially because it's unfolding in the context of the speakership battle with their Republican colleagues, is this something you think could trigger maybe a

more permanent or a more serious, now that Nancy Pelosi is out, this is one of the big dividing lines post-Pelosi with Hakeem Jeffries, a more serious divorce between leadership and squad members? I doubt it, if I'm being real. Just because, I mean, Hakeem Jeffries' point is an interesting one because Nancy Pelosi is very effective at enforcing loyalty and massive fundraiser, you know, able to deliver dollars to struggling campaigns, clearly was very effective at getting the AOCs of the world in line with her agenda. And buying into, you know what, you'll get more with, what are they

saying, more with honey than vinegar. Yeah, exactly. She clearly got them to buy into that. And so any, you know, from AOC originally protesting outside of her office to then admitting that she had changed her governing philosophy and she was working more the inside game, that was very effective. Will Hake jeffries be as effective in enforcing that kind of like loyalty and discipline hard to say but i really think the big enforcer of loyalty and discipline is donald trump you know because when it comes down to it um and i listen i also don't want trump reelected. So I'm actually sympathetic to this view of like, well, if you are, you know, if you dissent, if you're criticizing Joe Biden from the left, if you're, you know, making a big fuss about whatever, you're just providing sucker to the Republicans.

You're helping to reelect Donald Trump and he's a million times worse than Joe Biden. So that's why I'm skeptical that as long as Donald Trump is hanging out there over everyone's heads, that the fundamental dynamics of the political situation in the Democratic Party are going to change. And we saw this. I don't know if you got a chance to watch the results of the focus group that we did with Democratic-based voters down around Atlanta. And when they were talking about Joe Biden, you know, they're like, oh, we like him. They have affection for him.

They're concerned about his age. They don't see him as super competent. Somebody used the term like frail. He seems soft. You know, he's not, if you're watching the videos of him in Israel, it was not an impressive sight in terms of his verbal articulation or forcefulness.

But ultimately, they're like, yeah, of course we're going to vote for him. And we don't even really want him to be challenged in the primary because, yeah, we might like other options. What we really want is him to step aside because we're worried that a messy democratic process may help enable Donald Trump back into the White House. Now, I think, I understand why they believe that. I think that that is bullshit that, you know, the media has persuaded them of because we've seen very, you know, very vitriolic primaries on the Republican side in 2016, on the Democratic side between Hillary and Obama.

And those candidates came out better and ended up winning the White House. So I don't think that that is accurate. But that's the, Donald Trump is shaping the views of Democratic based voters and is very much shaping the views of Democrats in Congress as well. So while you see in this particular moment, and especially with Ilhan and with Rashida Tlaib, who still has family in, that she's not allowed to visit, by the way, in the occupied territories.

It's very visceral. It's very emotional. They're sort of breaking that layer of decorum that is typically on under their like laying over their even like veiled criticisms of the administration. But I don't think that that will last. I don't think it will lead to a real shift towards sort of Freedom Caucus tactics because the fundamental dynamics remain the same, that

Donald Trump is the biggest threat. And ultimately, they'll do what they need to do to be loyal Democratic soldiers to try to make sure that he doesn't ascend to the White House again. That's actually so interesting because my understanding has always been that Nancy Pelosi was the wrangler and was just very, very good at persuading people like AOC to the point that you mentioned. And I actually wonder how much Nancy Pelosi is still helping Hakeem Jeffries sort of make that argument and make that pitch in the lower chamber because that's a, I mean, that's sort of been baked into their identity now, thanks to Pelosi. Like they look at what the Republicans are doing and even people in the squad who, by the way, I mean, that's sort of been baked into their identity now, thanks to Pelosi. Like they look at what the Republicans are doing and even people in the squad who, by the way, I mean, the disagreement between Rashida Tlaib and the Josh Gottheimer types of people when they're like that. Richie Torres like that. They can have disagreements over Medicare for all, et cetera, et cetera. This disagreement over calls for a ceasefire and

over questions as it pertains to Israel and Palestine has already gotten really ugly and for understandable reasons and will, I mean, it's so deep and personal that, you know, for them to maintain unity in the face of that deep personal disagreement is, I mean, that's a feat for Democratic leadership. That's, you know, in some ways a testament to how well they've sold the squad, this argument that if you sort of stay coalesced and in line, you will get more wins down the road. I think that's a reasonable argument, although I don't think it is the most reasonable argument. I don't think it's the winning argument. I actually think the Freedom Caucus has proved that.

Congress isn't really doing anything anyway. I mean, they've punted almost all of their duties to the executive branch and, you know, actually representing the voters who sent you to Congress. Whether you're in the Bronx or you're in, you know, rural Tennessee is what you're there to do. And, you know, if anything, the Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi's are standing in the way of that in the interest of serving San Francisco and, you know, other places. So it's it is kind of fascinating. Those dynamics are. But we'll have to see how it how it turns out this time. I think you're right. I would put my money where you're putting your money.

Well, I mean, think this last comment on this. Think of even just this issue. So even if you are very sympathetic, not to Hamas, but to Palestinians and their righteous fight for self-determination, and that's where your predominant sympathies lie. Well, if your choices between Trump and Biden, you know, even on this issue, even as abhorrent as I found, you know, the idea of a ceasefire being shot down as repugnant, even as abhorrent as I find that, there's no doubt that

you'd rather have Biden on this issue if you are in favor of Palestinian statehood and Palestinian human rights. I mean, Trump gave Netanyahu everything he wanted. Now it's fair to say also, Biden didn't really roll any of that back, but he hasn't actively gone and exacerbated the situation, just like greenlit settlements. There is at least some talk of like caring

about the human beings in Palestine, even if it is, you know, even if it is much less further, much further down the priority list than backing up Israel. So even on this one issue, you know, if you put it to Rashida Saleem and Ilhan Omar, okay, well, here are your two choices. Here would you put, like, there's no doubt who they'd be on the side of. So that's why I think that it doesn't fundamentally shift the dynamics, even as emotions are understandably incredibly, incredibly high and raw and fraught right at the moment. So as all of this news is unfolding here in Washington, D.C. and over in the Middle East, in Beijing, there is the third annual Belt and Road Summit taking place. This is

on the 10th anniversary to celebrate, commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, which I think has been argued, persuasively so, that it is sort of neo-colonialist exercise. But we can get into that maybe, Crystal. The point is, we can put the first element up on the screen that Putin and Xi Jinping are meeting today. They met briefly yesterday. We're going to put some video of that up on the screen. You'll see it rolling as we're talking here. So they did a handshake, public handshake for the cameras yesterday. You can see this rolling on the screen. They are then going to have a meeting today. Xi Jinping is delivering the keynote address today. He met with Viktor Orban yesterday, some other world leaders. This is actually Putin's second visit outside of Russia since he was indicted by the International Criminal Court in March.

So his travel is actually limited right now because of the war in Ukraine and Russian alleged Russian war crimes. He is being treated by Kremlin news sources right now as like the guest of honor at Xi Jinping's summit. They're showing it as the Washington Post described kind of his clout on full display in the summit that he is being treated as one of the great world leaders by Xi Jinping and being honored by Xi Jinping. They, of course, had what they established, what they call the no limits friendship. I think it was last year that they formally, they kind of formalized that question of a no limits friendship. They've been referring to each other as old friends over the course of this summit.

And Crystal, we talked earlier in the show about, you know, what I, it keeps coming to my mind as just the phrase like 1913, 1913 vibes. There's a lot of people talking about 1930 vibes. Both of them have really criticized Israel in addition to their ally, Iran. So you have Putin, you have Xi Jinping meeting as Joe Biden is in Israel. I mean, that split screen in and of itself is just absolutely remarkable. You have Biden meeting in Tel Aviv with Netanyahu. You have in Beijing, Putin and Xi Jinping meeting with some other world leaders. And both of those sides are becoming more and more stark. That question of who is with sort of Iran and Hezbollah as this could potentially turn quickly into a military conflict based on the US saying they would seriously,

likely consider boots on the ground military involvement. They say not combat, but military involvement if Hezbollah were to launch a strike. And all of this, I mean, talk about fraught. You used that word earlier in the show, Crystal. I think it's absolutely perfect. It is such a fragile geopolitical ecosystem right now. So the split screen of them talking and projecting, Xi Jinping and Putin both projecting this idea, of of a new generation of world leadership. America's time is at an end, is the line, and it is time for these new countries. And China really sees their form of authoritarian mercantile. I mean, it's just such a strange blend of different governing philosophies,

but they see it as socialism with Chinese characteristics, and they think it should kind of lead the world going forward. Now, all of their talks of peace and unity and a bright global future ring hollow, given their own personal records of human rights abuses, that isn't to say anybody else is perfect. It is to say that them having this conversation when Vladimir Putin is implicated, and Xi Jinping, by the way, is implicated in all kinds of just grave human rights abuses and war crimes. I don't think they're really projecting the global leadership. They think they are, Crystal, but it is terrifying. The split screen is actually really terrifying because it shows how quickly everything can spill over into a literal world war. And that's not, I actually

don't think that's hyperbolic right now when you have the involvement of Iran and Hezbollah on the line with allies that are meeting to project their intertwinement and their allyship right now? American influence in the world is in tatters. And I really think it does begin with the Iraq war and the war on terror and what we did in response to 9-11, which makes this moment even more horrific that it seems like none of those lessons from 9-11, which, you know, makes this moment even more horrific that it seems like none of those lessons from 9-11 and our response seem to have been learned. Which was the goal of Al-Qaeda.

It was to undercut American leadership on the global stage. Works like a charm. Works like a friggin' charm. And, you know, and that's all our own idiot murderous leaders. But between the Ukraine war and now the Hamas attacks and Israel's assault on Gaza, you have an acceleration of the realization of a multipolar world. I mean, that's what's really come into focus. And it's really important to keep in mind, obviously we're Americans and we're consuming American media and getting fed like a very Western view

of both the Ukraine war and of what's happening in Israel right now. And the American people overwhelmingly on the side of Israel. In fact, the American people overwhelmingly on the side of Israel. In fact, the American people seem to be more on the side of Netanyahu than the Israeli people even are at this point. So we have this particular perspective

and it can be easy to feel like that must be shared widely in the world. But it's actually not. The bulk of the world sees both of these conflicts very differently, very differently. And so that creates a very clear set of dividing lines that, yes, is, you know, China and Russia foment this partnership. countries like India trying to figure out where they want to fit in this and Africa and South America. I mean, there's just a very different view of the world that is held by the populations in these places, let alone overwhelmingly in the Middle East. So that's where we are right now. And in some ways, as I said, both with the Ukraine war and now what's happening in Israel, I think America has adopted a posture of learned impotence, of unwillingness to use the, you know, incredible leverage of American dollars that we could use in the situation if we actually wanted to,

if we actually cared about affecting a particular outcome. We could use that leverage, but there seems to be this posture of learned impotence on both sides. And the one thing I will say on the other side of this is China's got a lot of problems right now with their own economic situation. Very hard to know exactly what the numbers are, what it looks like. And there have been many dire warnings about what's going to happen in China with their economic situation before that have never come to pass. But you have a huge real estate bubble. You've got demographic issues that you've got, you know, an economic downturn. Even the thought was after COVID and after zero COVID lockdown there that they'd have this explosion of growth. It's been quite the opposite.

So they do have their own issues as well. I don't want to pretend like they're this like, you know, unstoppable giant that's continuing to move forward, et cetera. But I do think you see very clearly a different world and different power dynamics coming into play right now. Yeah, that's a really important point, especially because as Chinese exports to the United States are declining, and the Washington Post points this out too, they're finding an export market in Russia. And so that sort of economic partnership and that trade relationship is becoming really important. Also, Putin has looked to China, Iran, and North Korea for, as the Post puts it, drones, artillery shells, rockets, and other weapons in his ongoing war against Ukraine. So their partnership, they found sort of different

benefits in it so far. That is to say, though, they still have serious, serious problems of their own at home. Putin most recently is, again, the Post points this out, failed to broker a peace in that horrific situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan. So it's not, you know, it's certainly not all rosy for them either, not that it really ever would be, but that side by side is genuinely, you used this word earlier, let's bring it full circle, chilling as we see things unfolding in the Middle East. And I do think it's important to recognize that groups like Hezbollah and Hamas have this sort of philosophy of global terror.

Their idea is not just about the Middle East. Obviously, they do have near-term priorities in places like Palestine, for example. But we've seen that global reach enacted more than a dozen times in the last 20 years. So it's a frightening reality when you combine that with nuclear powers like Russia and China, to be sure. I mean, Hamas has always focused on national self-determination. So it's different from like ISIS or Al-Qaeda in terms of their aims and their end goals. But, you know, when you go back and you listen to what we played earlier, of Netanyahu talking up a civilizational conflict between what he describes as barbarians

and the civilized world, when you see some of the language that's coming out of Iran, when you see some of the language coming from Hezbollah, when you see, you know, these meetings, high-level meetings between Russia and China, you know, and you've got an American president in Israel as they are, you know, inflicting horror on Gaza civilians, Palestinian

civilians, you know, the world is genuinely at a precipice and, you know, may come through it without a broader conflict, but that is far from certain. As we sit and as we watch this right now, and the fact that that meeting in Jordan where there was supposed to be some diplomacy between the US acting as best we can as some neutral arbiter, even though we were far from anything approaching that with Arab leaders,

that that was canceled and you now have very hot and angry protests throughout the region. These are really troubling signs for what the future may hold. So, you know, we're continuing to try to understand it as best we can and parse through the varying reports, very difficult landscape, fog of war, and all of that. And, you know, Emily, I'm grateful to be able to be with you today. And to all of you guys out there, thank you for trusting us to try to sort through very challenging and complex situations as they're unfolding.

Huge shout out to producers Mac and Griffin for all of their work on that too. They've been sifting through so much footage trying to verify those things because we take seriously the responsibility of bringing you guys the best and the most accurate information that we possibly can. On that note, if you haven't subscribed, please do. You can watch the full show of CounterPoints early and you get it without any commercial interruptions. The full video, if you're not a podcast listener, you get all of it if you're a subscriber. So make sure to do

that. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hit the notification button on YouTube. Crystal, you guys have just been doing incredible work throughout this whole conflict. Your coverage has just been excellent and you're so busy. So thank you so much for taking the time to join the show today. It was an honor to get to do it today, especially on such a consequential news day. And Zagra and I will be back in studio tomorrow with full coverage for you. And also we'll be watching what happens today if there's any breaking news that we need to do a quick video on. So I will see you guys tomorrow. And oh, actually, Emily, we're going to have you in studio with us tomorrow, I believe, too. So we're going to have the whole gang together for you guys. All right. We'll see you then.

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