Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/2/24: Iran Strikes Heart Of Israel, Dock Workers Launch Massive Strike

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Iran launching strikes in Israel, dock worker strike boss threatens to cripple economy.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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not entirely unexpected, but still obviously dramatic and deeply disturbing. You had a barrage of missiles fired at Israel, appears to be at military sites within Israel across the entire country. We'll just keep this footage rolling. Some of those missiles, which were reportedly ballistic and hypersonic, some of them were, of course, shot down by the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system. Some of them, though, were not. You can see some of those. You can see some of those impacting the ground.

That may be the ones in Tel Aviv. I'm not sure. I know there were some in Tel Aviv some of those impacting the ground. That may be the ones in Tel Aviv. I'm not sure. I know there were some in Tel Aviv, but really throughout the country. Still very much early hours in terms of assessing what the damage is. As far as we know, there was only one casualty. It was actually a Palestinian, the West Bank. And I believe the reporting I saw on all of these things continue to be kind of murky, was that he was actually struck by the fallout from one of those interceptor, Iron Dome interceptor missiles. So obviously, we've been tracking very closely this continued escalation and the continued provocations from Israel that led to this point, and also the continued abdication of duty from the

Biden administration, which is incredibly consequential here. You have this in response to a number of actions, including the targeted assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran's capital city of Tehran. We've been kind of waiting for some sort of response there from Iran. They've been, I have to say, very, you know, sort of cautious and measured and seem very much not to want to get pulled into a further escalation. And then, of course, you had the massive attacks on Hezbollah, both with the Pager and walkie-talkie attacks, and then with the assassination of Nasrallah, along with the decimation using over 80 2,000

pound bombs of somewhere around 1,000 Lebanese people as well, quite a number of women and children among them. You now have the early phases of a ground invasion into Lebanon. So Iran saying that these strikes are in retaliation for those actions. The latest we know is that it appears the US, of course, standing strong with Israel. They have a right to defend themselves, all the things you would expect them to say. Kamala Harris came out and gave a big speech saying everything you would expect her to say, nothing off script there. And Israel threatening an aggressive response in

reaction to this. And so, Ryan, I think this is, we were joking, it's like gallus humor. This is like the least surprising October surprise of all time, because we have watched the way that Bibi has continued to want to escalate and expand this war. And that's no surprise. That's in his political interest. It's in his long-term ideological interest. And Joe Biden has said from the beginning that avoiding what you're seeing on your screen right now, that this was his primary goal with respect to Israel and Palestine. And yet through his refusal to ever say no at any juncture and do anything other than, leak to the, oh my gosh, I'm so angry, I'm so upset, et cetera, et cetera. This is the incredibly predictable,

almost certain result of that inaction from the Biden administration. Yeah. And we have a, so the IRGC put out a statement, which I think is really interesting if you parse it, where they say this was done, quote, in response to the assassination of martyr Haniyeh, Syed Hassan Nasrallah, and Sardar Nifa Rashaan, we targeted important targets. So because the IRGC waited to respond at the behest of the United States, Israel kind of got a twofer here because they're responding at once to the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran and then also to the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran and then also to the assassination of their top officials in Beirut plus of Nasrallah. But then they say, and this is the key detail, they say, if the Zionist regime responds to our attack,

our next attacks will be more devastating. And they note in their statement that they targeted three military bases, Nevatim, which houses F-35 aircraft, Netserim, which houses F-15 jets used in the assassination of Nasrallah, and Tel Naf base near Tel Aviv. So they were very clear, we're not going after civilian targets, we're going after military targets, and they explain why they went after the military targets. And then they say, basically, if you don't strike back, this is over. Like, we had to save face.

You did all of these things to us. Now we've done these things to you. We're even. The U.S. has responded by calling it a brazen attack and saying that Iran must be punished. Iran, you know, the U.S. could come out and say, all right, you know what? You actually did blow up a guy in Tehran, and you actually did blow up their generals in Beirut. And they responded. Last time, reportedly, Biden urged Bibi to say, listen, you shot down their missiles.

Let's call it even. Right. And stop there. No, obviously it didn't stop there. But it did because that was April. For a time. For a time. Right.

Yes. Well, let's be clear, though. In terms of the White House statement, you know, so far and everything I watch, I spent the entire day for, you know, RIP myself watching every like government press conference, State Department, Pentagon and all of this. Were you there? I got dissed. No question. Oh, interesting. Well, there you go. I'm sure you knew. There were some other good questions. The important, most important one to me was actually Jake Sullivan's statement, where in Jake Sullivan's statement he said he saw it as an escalatory, a quote, significant escalation, and that we will work with Israel in their response, tacitly, basically greenlighting this. We should not forget what happened last time. shouldn't do anything. But a lot of people forget that the Israelis, remember, struck that air defense system that's right outside an Iranian nuclear site, which was actually very militarily

significant. Because if I pair it with some of the statements that are coming out of the Israeli highest echelons, we are seeing open calls for a couple of things. One, to wipe out Iranian oil refineries. Two, is to wipe out Iranian nuclear facilities, which specifically that previous strike was like a warning. It's like, hey, we took out the air defense. We can come back here if we want to. Yeah. Just to show you.

Three is actually just straight up regime change. And I have been deeply concerned here because some senior, the most senior elements of the Israeli regime, all from people inside and outside the government. I was watching MSNBC actually to see if Ayoud Omar, who has criticized Bibi at points, to see what he would say. He was advocating for regime change in Iran. We have Naftali Bennett, the previous prime minister here, theoretically, who was in opposition. He has a long statement out.

He says, Israel has now the greatest opportunity in 50 years to change the face of the Middle East. The leadership, Bibi, blah, blah, blah, made a terrible mistake. He says, we must now remove this terrible threat to our children's future, which can grant the Iranian people an opportunity to rise up and shake off the regime that tyrannizes its women and its daughters. So clearly now, regime change is like the uniparty decision here that has been arrived at at the elites with Tel Aviv and at the top of the

Israeli government. So when we combine that with what we previously saw from them, I don't think it is out of the question to say that we could see a full-on IDF bombing of major targets all across Iran on top of a possible assassination of the Ayatollah Khomeini. So previously, I was watching some senior military officials, former IDF and others, who were on Fox News. And almost immediately after the strike, like minutes afterwards, they were saying, oh, well, the Ayatollah is now somebody that we could see here. So it is very, very possible that in the next week or so, we see an actual campaign of regime change that is potentially foisted on Iran by Israel. But there's no question that any of us should have

that this will not involve the United States. We would give them the weapons to do so. Two dozen interceptors were actually fired by US Navy assets. I did the back of the napkin. Plus some in the Iraq space. We are at 100 million for today, just today, in terms of how much it costs to shoot down that. The Iranians, remember, have some of the largest ballistic missile, I believe one of the largest stocks in the entire world, are quite cheap and they've been preparing for this for quite a long time. Another big tell is that if you guys have seen, the Israelis keep saying this was a very successful operation. It's not a success if some of the missiles get in. It's a failure. If a missile strikes your military assets,

that is a huge failure. Also, what would the number be if America didn't fire some 24 of those 180 out of the sky? I think we actually know what the answer is. And so when you start to put all of these together, we actually saw part of the Israeli response is they're like, we need to have deterrence restored. That's a tell because they keep saying it was an ineffective attack. No, it's not an ineffective attack. It struck military targets inside of Israel. It didn't kill anyone, probably more by design on the Iranian side. Well, I was going to say, I mean, this was intended to overwhelm the Iron Dome. That's the saturation ballistic missiles. When you do that, you're specifically trying to overwhelm the Iron Dome. Yes. So that's obviously what happened.

So that, yeah, and that's another thing. There's Iron Dome, there's Arrow 3, and there's David Sling. So Iron Dome typically used for rockets. I believe the Ballistical Missile Defense, Arrow 3, David Sling also was engaged. But anyways, I mean, and also who wants to know who sells each of the parts of all three of those? Go look at the stock market. Yeah, you're right. Where do you think all those come from?

Every single one is from the United States. So we are fully going to be involved. And if you think that there's going to be an Israeli attempt to overthrow, how many people live in Iran? Tens of millions. A country of 10 million can try and have regime change in a country of tens of millions of people, massive, a traditional power center in the Middle East. Right. Okay. But that's not actually, wouldn't wipe out this quote unquote, the regime. If they want a fullomeini, yeah. Right, okay, but that's not actually, wouldn't wipe out this quote unquote the regime. If they want a full on type of regime change, there's no question about who's actually going to be the person footing that bill. So we're in a very precarious moment.

America is basically tacitly green lighting and it's really bombing of Iran. Something Obama worked tirelessly in an office to try to prevent. I mean, this is really shocking. I don't even think you can say tacitly when, you know, tacitly backing it. Based on the public comments and also based on the report that we got that Brett McGurk and others in the White House were privately encouraging the invasion and the attacks in Lebanon. Over the objections of the Department of Defense and the State Department. So they, you know, have bought into the philosophy of Netanyahu and how much Biden's involved in that or not at this point, who the hell knows. That's what's terrifying.

But they've, they have bought into the philosophy, the, you know, first the escalate to de-escalate, how's that working out for you? But now I think that at least the key officials like Brett McGurk, who seemed to be running the show, they have bought into this idea of this is our moment to remake the Middle East. This is our moment. To strike the nuclear. To strike, to diminish the influence of Iran in the region. And so I don't think it's tacit. I think it's an explicit support for continued spiraling escalation and Israeli overwhelming response here. To Sager's point about what we were hearing immediately from some ex-military guys, people who are sort of in those orbits on Fox News and other channels. That was absolutely, this is the time. If ever there is a time to strike the Iranian missiles,

strike the Iranian missiles and nuclear program, it is now. There will not be a better opportunity. This is a time for regime change. It's a time for dramatic attacks on the nuclear program. This is it. You have to seize it. And what I find to be completely terrifying

is the disagreement that we've seen in the administration when you have the Pentagon saying, and then you have the Biden administration. We still don't know to what extent the president of the United States, who was so incapacitated that his own party didn't think that he could run on the ticket after millions of people had voted for him

and he had been nominated. He's that incapacitated. And right now we're engaged in a war where there are multiple nuclear powers. We're funding a proxy war with an ally. That's a nuclear power in Ukraine right now. It's incredibly fragile. And Joe Biden is we don't we don't even understand what he thinks about any of this.

I feel like I'm going nuts. Like we have a hundred billion dollars of the weapons flowing into Ukraine. Our factories can barely keep up there. We've got, you know, by the way, I heard a very telling comment from the Pentagon today at the press briefing, if you listen closely, where they basically quasi confirmed that they had, quote, doubled the number of assets in the region for Israel. Well, we know the back of the napkin math was 40,000. So are we at 80,000 people who are now in the Middle East?

80,000 people? We have two aircraft carriers. We have multiple US Navy destroyers. The USS Cole is one of those that fired today. China's eager about that. Well, and so there's a lot like I just like if the geopolitical situation, we have never been more overstretched or less prepared actually for two massive wars, you know, even to just be funding. It'd actually be physically impossible for us to even fund both Israel and Ukraine at the same time, let alone actually have to engage our own people. Another point where I feel extremely blackpilled is just on the uniformity of the American political system. I mean, if you read,

I have the Kamala statement in front of me. Iran is a destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East. Today's attack on Israel only further demonstrates that. As I have said, I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist militias. My commitment to the security of Israel is unwavering. Let us be clear, Iran is not only a threat to Israel, Iran is a threat to American personnel in the region. Why are they there?

Anyone want to say that? American interests and innocent civilians across the region who suffer at the hands of Iran-based and Iran-backed terrorist proxy. That is the, oh, and then continuing. We will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend US forces and interests and interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. That's a Trump statement. That's a Biden statement. If you read that statement, I would have no idea. It could be almost literally any policy. Outside of, you know, we could name the few.

You know, it's not Rashida Tlaib. Thomas Massey. It's not Rashida Tlaib's statement. It's not Thomas Massey's. It's not AOC. You've got a few. But outside of that, it could literally be any of them. It's replacement law.

And in the real world, the statement only makes sense if you reverse the countries Iran and Israel. Like, who's the destabilizing influence in the real world the statement only makes sense if you reverse the countries Iran and Israel like who's who's the destabilizing influence in? in the region here This week Jared Kushner Basically that did you see this he basically said now he said what yeah We're saying is people are saying after the strike, but before the strike he was saying now is the moment It's a once in a generation opportunity There's no chance that they missed that in Iran like as they're sitting sitting around, like wondering like when and whether they're going to respond.

And then Netanyahu does his English language video to the Iranian people, which is like, do you think we're all stupid? Why don't we play that? We have V4. Ready, everybody? Let's go ahead, Eric, if you can, and we'll let us all take a listen. I speak a lot about the leaders of Iran. Yet at this pivotal moment, I want speak a lot about the leaders of Iran. Yet at this pivotal moment,

I want to address you, the people of Iran. I want to do so directly, without filters, without middlemen. Every day, you see a regime that subjugates you, make fiery speeches about defending Lebanon, defending Gaza. Yet every day, that regime plunges our region deeper into darkness and deeper into war. Every day, their puppets are eliminated. Ask Mohamed Def. Ask Nasrallah.

There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach. There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country. With every passing moment, the regime is bringing you, the noble Persian people, closer to the abyss. The vast majority of Iranians know their regime doesn't care a whit about them. I was just saying, incredible to hear him in one breath say Iran's dragging the region into war and then in the next breath brag about all of the various bombs that they're dropping. But yeah, no, I mean, this is laying the predicate for regime change. This was before the Iran strike. This was before the Iran strike.

Just to be clear. That's exactly right. And it's very similar language to what we heard before Gaza. Our war is not with the people of Gaza, even as they're saying that we're going to treat them like animals, we're going to cut off the food, the water, et cetera, et cetera. Very similar language before they went into Lebanon. And now we see this language as they, you know, as they begin this escalation with Iran. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

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She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming,

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And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment that was, you know, dying.

This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you follow Yunus Tarawi or others who are reporting on Gaza, the slaughter there is just ramping up now. Now that people are wondering,

okay, what's the Israeli response going to be and watching the Iranian attack? And they're just unleashing all bloody hell. What's left of Gaza? Wasn't Gaza hit by some of the missiles today? I thought that was... No, it was West Bank. I know West Bank was.

So, I mean, if we just zoom out, right now, Israel is bombing Gaza. They've invaded the West Bank. They're bombing Yemen. They're bom West Bank. They're bombing Yemen. They're bombed Syria. They're bombing Lebanon. And they're about to bomb Iran. And it's also really important in all of this not to lose sight of what this all comes back to.

I mean, the Israeli officials said it quite plainly to NBC News. The reason they assassinated Nasrallah, the reason they decided to assassinate him now, is because he would not decouple a deal with Israel from a ceasefire in Gaza. The missiles start from Hezbollah after October 7th in what they see as defense of Gaza. And they have been consistent the whole time. Listen, come to a ceasefire. This all ends. We know that that was true because when there was a ceasefire for a very short period of time, the, not only from Hezbollah, but from the other Iranian backed militias in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere, they stopped firing missiles. The Houthis stopped doing what they were doing during that period of ceasefire.

So all of this could have been avoided, could have been avoided. And could be tomorrow. And could be tomorrow, if only. Tonight. Obviously, Bibi's not going to, if only Joe Biden would say, I'm not shipping you arms. Like, I'm done. I am not sending you the weapons to continue this. And they are wholly dependent on our weapons shipments. Wholly dependent. It could be over tomorrow. And then we'd have an interesting election on it. Go ahead. Yeah. Bibi, take it to the American people. And that's the

other thing is, you know, I think we all know Bebe would prefer to have Trump in the White House. I'm beginning to wonder if Joe Biden would prefer to have Trump in the White House because it sure as hell seems like he's laying out the red carpet for him to come in. I mean, you know, not to turn it right to the horse race, but it will be interesting to hear what these two candidates have to say tonight. I imagine they'll be competing over who can be more hawkish. Yes, but- Who can be more aggressive. Right. J.D. and Trump have the easier job of, it never would have happened if we were in office. And that's, you know, I actually, I saw an interesting, I think he's an Atlantic writer,

Tyler Harper, very big pro of Kamala. Yeah, he's good. And he put out an interesting, just like an observation. He was like, look, for all of us out there, he's like, I think you significantly underestimate this normie, like anti-war sentiment that a lot of people have with Trump. They don't follow the ins and outs and know that Trump bombed or killed Soleimani or any of that. To them, they're like, well, there wasn't this going on when Trump was president. And now there's a lot of this stuff going on. Biden is president.

Kamala, it sounds like she wants to continue the Biden policy. I don't like that. And then Biden or Trump and J.D. can very easily, which the exact statement, the immediate statement from Trump that I saw that came out from the campaign. I don't even think it focused on, oh, Iran made a big mistake. It was like Iran didn't do this while I was in office. Ukraine would never have happened. Iran never would have happened. It's chaos is bad for the incumbent. Right. But there's like a, there's like a,

there is an instinct of the sheer like simplicity of that observation that I actually do think could be potentially powerful. That is also the danger that we've talked about probably ad nauseum now at this point on the show is like the Kamala just clinging to the Biden policy is both crazy politically. And I mean, also, you know, just strategically as well. Wants to escalate the war in Ukraine, wants to escalate the war with Gaza, wants to basically back an Israeli invasion of Iran. I mean, can we all just sit and appreciate that? Like, we are basically co-signing a potential regime change operation in Iran. How did it go last time?

Which Netanyahu has wanted for decades? He has wanted this for decades. He said it on a hot mic. He said it on an open mic. He said it before Congress. This has been his ideological project. Also, we were just talking about how Gaza is getting hit. You know, another thing we're not even talking about, the hostages. Who? The only sympathetic thing that potentially could have constrained his power? That's long gone. He stopped even pretending to care about the hostages. They don't care about them anymore. They either kill them or they let them die.

They don't care. They don't care. And they never have. We've always known that they never cared. Because from day one, there was a deal on the table, all for all. You release all our hostages, we release all your hostages. There was also a deal on the table that they've talked about since then. They talked about this with Jeremy in some of his interviews.

Within days, they said, look, this was a much bigger operation than we expected it was going to be. We will give you all the civilians if you pledge not to just send ground troops into Gaza. All of them right now. And then from there, you bomb us all you want and we'll work out a deal for the military captives that we have for hostages that you have. We'll trade them back and forth. Yeah. Like that was – they put that deal on the table. No.

Well, it's also worth – I mean just thinking about when you have Israelis today hiding in bomb shelters and actual like craters in Israeli territory what that is going to do I mean just psychologically to the politics in Israel what that's going to Netanyahu responds to that obviously his political future is important because his actual like freedom as a human being It's not a very like it was either the Israel Twitter account or the IDF Twitter account And you know they often will do these weird cringes off. What is this? So the what is this tweet of theirs today, they wrote in all caps, this is not normal. Yeah.

And there's so many layers to that. What do you mean it's not normal? Do you guys not watch your own broadcast? Do you not read your own news? What has your military been doing for 11 straight months if this isn't normal? What they're saying is not normal is that they're shooting back at them.

And what they're- And hitting it, and actually hitting. And what they're also saying is that this is not normal for white people. Like there's something, it's a message that's being sent to like the US and Europe like we are your bastion of civilization We should not have to live through this these brown people. They're used to this this violent environment. That's normal for them for us It's not normal times of Israel has an interesting line. They say

The exact locations of such impacts and damage are barred from publication by the IDF sensor And you should know clearly a lot of those videos that were initially put out were taken down. The most important videos that are coming out are those that were filmed in the West Bank or in Gaza. That's the only reason that we know for sure and from live TV cameras rolling here in the United States that there were significant hits.

So do not believe the Israelis whenever they say, oh, it was a 100, but whatever bullshit number they put out like they did last time. There were serious, there was damage that was happened tonight. And it happened to military assets 100%. There was damage in April as well. Yes, that's right. Since leaked out. But there was complicity that everyone agreed to say, you know what? Let's not admit how much damage there was because that reduces public pressure. Right. So, okay, you know what? Yeah, I almost could get behind that. Yeah, there was no damage.

But on this side, if you want to say that. Yeah, you were fine. But the thing is that. We're a news organization, so we're going to have to say that. It also doesn't appear like, sorry, it also doesn't appear like they are planning on de-escalating or using this as an excuse to save face and avoid a retaliatory response whatsoever. So it's just incredibly dark. And basically, you know, this is the latest provocations that we described that the target assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the attacks on Hezbollah,

assassination of Nasrallah. There was also a top IRGC commander who was killed in those strikes as well. Those are just the most recent provocations. But Bibi has been spoiling for this fight the whole time. And the previous strikes in April from Iran, those were closely basically coordinated with the U.S. There was a heads up given through, you know, through these back channels, the types of, they used, you know, older missiles and drones that could be more easily detected. It was of a different scale. It was intentionally designed, it appears, to save some face, but not really do a lot of significant damage. This is Iran finally somewhat

giving Bibi what he wants because they were faced with the prospect of, okay, so it looks like it doesn't matter whether we attack Israel or not. They're going to attack us. So we can either just sit back and take that, or we can go out and try to do something and try to save some face in advance after these, you know, extraordinary provocations. And so after all of this time, you know, this is Iran basically giving Bibi what he wants that will give him the chips to work with to, you know, get his bigger war and get the U.S. on board and all of this. I was thinking on the way over here, it sort of reminds me of the like rope-a-dope strategy

that Kamala deployed so effectively against Donald Trump in the last debate. It's also predictable. It's almost theater. How many times have we been warning that this is where things, like, you know, we're smart people, but we're not geniuses. And we don't have access to Israeli communications. Internal communications and intelligence and whatever. And it's like, don't you see what he wants?

Don't you see where this is heading? And I don't know what the answer is. Like, the answer is either they're the dumbest people on earth or they're just incredibly evil. And I'm really not sure. I mean, this is a project. This is what they want. This is what Bibi wants. He knows that if he, if they strike Iranian nuclear facility or if they kill the Ayatollah, there is a 100% chance of full-blown US involvement in the war. It's impossible. It's quite little. So all you have to do is get things to that level. And

now you're not fine. And then by the way, those bombs, where do you think they're all coming from? Now when we're in it together and then the American people do everything. Look, the other thing I've really come to realize is not only are people not following this, but the level of propaganda is wild. So, like, I watch all three networks immediately on Fox. The very first thing you hear is, like, we need regime change. This is all Biden's fault. We need regime change. This is all Biden's fault. This, we need regime change. This is all Biden's fault.

We need to have a full blown war. They didn't have a single guest on that didn't say that. I saw, I don't have CNN through the plan or whatever. I was watching CNN. Okay. So I'll, I'll rely on you too. On MSNBC, it was the same. It's like even Aoud Olmer, the liberal former Israeli PM, regime change.

We need regime change in Iran. I'm watching this being like, look, the boomers who control all of our lives, they believe this shit. They will back a war with Iran. It will be like Iraq. Again, we will need three years of the disaster. The boomers will buy hook, line, and sinker until tens of thousands of Americans and others are either wounded or killed. And then eventually people will be like, well, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. This is potentially so much worse than Iraq. Just today, Jake Sullivan, just today, Jake Sullivan posted a victory lap about the Biden administration's foreign policy. It was sort of just like how last year Jake Sullivan was talking

about how the Middle East has never been this peaceful a week before October 7th. Today, he publishes this long essay in Foreign Affairs about how successful. I'm sorry, this is Blinken, not Jake Sullivan. Yeah, Blinken publishes this long essay in Foreign Affairs about how successful the Biden administration foreign policy has been. One of his points was literally that the relationship between the BRICS countries is superficial. It's not as rooted as a lot of people say it is. And the Biden administration is handling all of this. That is quite a bet to take in a situation like this, where you're absolutely right. We are pulled into it no matter what.

And we are currently, there's a kinetic war between our ally that we are funding and Russia. I mean, this is like insane levels of geopolitical fragility. And A, we don't know where the commander-in-chief is. And B, that should terrify everyone because in recent days, the U.S. has not had a heads up about Nastrala, the strike. They were not told in advance about the pagers. Whatever you think about that, the point is we are funding this war that has all of these different implications geopolitically. We are supporting this war, backing it on the international stage, and it's basically out of Biden's control. Not that it's not his fault for how it's escalated, but does anyone have confidence that he's being listened to? The irony, too, I keep thinking about is everyone always said, well well, we got to fund Ukraine so that China doesn't invade Taiwan.

We got to fund Israel so that China doesn't invade Taiwan. If America gets itself involved in two ground wars and is bogged down in selling weapons, what do you think the best possible timing to invade Taiwan is? If you actually care. Yeah. When the US Navy is shooting down, spending $100 million in one day, a billion dollars in a single day, last time around, using all of our production facilities. And the only actual country that matters to the United States will actually get taken out. This is the illogic of all of their arguments of like, there's whole, what is it, de-escalate through escalation. What a nonsense thing. It's going really well. That

plan's going really well. Especially with Biden. I mean, we have to linger. He's cooked. His brain is gone. Whatever is left there is just like, he's just like, I'm a scientist. That's all we get from it. And we get slept walk. Not even know if it's slept walk, like I said. I think it was an evil, these Brett McGurk and other officials behind the scenes very clearly just hijacked the White House and the administration, possibly with his assent or not. Regardless, it's his responsibility. He's the president, and this is where we're here.

And imagine this, if Biden loses Kamala the election because of an Iran war, how could they politically ever justify it? When they get the explanation afterwards, they wouldn't mention it once. Like, oh, it wasn't because of Iran. It was something else. That's why she lost. You were talking about the news coverage. And yeah, I was watching CNN.

Reminded me why I don't watch CNN. Dose of Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer. You know, it's just, I know I'm Pollyannish, I guess, about this, but I think human lives matter. I think human lives, whether they're Israeli or Lebanese or Palestinian, like I think they should all matter and we should care about them as equally as we can. And a thousand Lebanese people were slaughtered last week and they didn't care at all. Not at all. I tweeted this and it's true. I literally saw more care and concern for inanimate objects in Tel Aviv today than I saw for a single slaughtered Lebanese person, let alone the God only knows how

many Palestinians have been killed at this point. And, you know, I know people feel like this is all very far away right now, but I said this to you, Emily, when we were co-hosting on Monday, like, we're at a tipping point in terms of the international order. The era of the U.S. sole superpower and the post-World War II, it's gone. It's gone. What's happening right now is authoring the rules of the road going forward. And right now, those rules of the road look like if you have the bombs, you can blow up schools, UNAID agencies, embassies. You know, you can drop 85 bombs on residential buildings to get one dude. You know, compare that to what we did with Bin Laden.

Not to say we're perfect. Yeah. But compare that to what we did with Bin Laden. We're authoring a— Today we would just bomb that entire town. Yeah. Yeah. We're authoring a new order where, hey, if you can infiltrate a civilian supply chain and booby trap walkie-talkies or cell phones or laptop computers and harm your

adversary, hey, go do it. If you want to invade your next door neighbor and create a quote-unquote buffer zone, hey, go ahead. You got the arms. You got the weapons. Go ahead. It's your right. That's the world that we are authoring right now because who, which of our, like, what credibility would we have to complain about it going forward? When we're not just tacitly agreeing to it, we're encouraging it. We're shipping the bombs. We're providing the cover. Our politicians are going out and saying this is right and good and it was a measure of justice. Like, that's the world we're all going to have to live in that is being authored right now in this moment. And doing it under the pretense of the rules-based international order, right? Like, that's what's so wild about the way that the U.S. has approached this conflict, actually for years, not just since October 7th, wielding the so-called rules-based international order as a cudgel against other countries.

Well, then also sort of turning a blind eye to it. And it's that inconsistency that if you care, let's just say you're an America first realist like let's say you're team MAGA not exactly team MAGA America first America first realist but this is actually I'm not gonna speak for you but this is actually kind of your perspective that like you completely destroy the credibility of your credibility was destroyed the day that we invaded Iraq. But OK, let's let's let's move past that. But that's the thing. Yes. What drives me crazy is when I'm like when I have to hear about who Russia struck a single Ukrainian apartment building. And then at the same time,

I watch, you know, the Nasrallah apartment building get blown apart with. And I'm like, why should I care exactly like we're OK with it here and we're not here. And so one is noble. The other is fine. Which is it? Which one is it? And it's like that's the maddening part of it. You're also very correct. I really want to echo what you said. You know, you think America doesn't have the possibility, the capability to infiltrate a supply chain and blow people up?

Yeah, we do. Do you think that we don't have the capability to level like Bin Laden? We could have destroyed. We could have wiped Abbottabad off the map, the entire city of however many people. Army Academy. We don't do it and didn't do it for a reason, which is we're like, well, if you do this, we're opening up a whole can of worms and all that. And if you are, what did Russia want to do in Ukraine? They wanted to denazify. I mean, look at the language from Naftali Bennett and others about the Iranians. I believe Bibi called them Nazis. And it's like, okay,

well, we're normalizing the rhetoric here. And then we're saying that the rhetoric over here is so horrible. Well, which one is it? And people in India, they see the difference. People in Brazil, they see the difference. The rising global powers see it completely differently than the way that deep than the way that we do and Rogue nations all over the world can look at Israel like Russia looking at Israel Wow They will laugh in our face Whenever they say that they want to keep 20% of Ukraine and we say that that's somehow some threat to democracy Look at the Armenia Azerbaijan situation a lot of people have moved past that.

That was not only used with Israeli weapons, but the pretext of a lot of it was, well, now is the right time to resolve all of these questions. So we have created this deeply unstable international system of which we no longer have the crutch of even the rhetoric of the rules-based international order. And it does, and this is the other key, it makes America not only less safe because we're tied to this, but the global system is designed for the American way of life. Like, look at these bombings in Yemen, you know, this, with the Houthis and all those strikes, as we're about to talk about with the ports. These people have tremendous, you know, impact over all of our lives. The so-called rules

based international order was just a pretext for the American empire to make stuff cheap. I actually kind of support that. But my point, as long as we're all being honest about what it is, but that's going to go away. And now we're all going to see what the reality of taking that away and enabling these types of things are. And that actually terrifies me more than anything because America is already broke where things are right now. Imagine 25, 35, 40, 50, 60% inflation. We're living in another world. I mean, literally in another world. And our entire economic system is built on cheap capital and cheap goods and debt. And so when you then turn around, increased military GDP, and we might have to have a draft, like, who, God knows what. And this is not far-fetched if we get into a war with Iran. Iraq broke us.

Yeah, I also just want to mention, I can't imagine being in the shoes of someone who's in, like, you know, near Asheville, North Carolina, and has just had their entire, like, life destroyed and flooded and still no cell and no food and whatever, and is like, oh, and here we go with another fucking war. Like, you know, or anyone, anywhere in the country it's like, oh, and here we go with another fucking war. Like, you know, or anyone anywhere in the country was like, you know, struggling and like the priorities to be because we did not vote for this. We voted for the opposite of this many times. Right. You look at the polling on conditioning aid to Israel and continuing to ship weapons to

Israel. It's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. But because the lockstep consensus out of Washington leaves none of us with any doubt, no matter what happens in this election, where this is all headed. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country

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Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. actually starts. But you've got 45,000 port workers now on strike, you know, stretching from Maine all the way to Texas. And the president of that union being quite fiery in his rhetoric about what this means. Obviously, you know, if the longshoremen are not working, goods are not moving in those ports. Now, what the economists and what the politicians are saying is, OK, well, for a few days, businesses were kind of prepared for this and they rerouted goods to the West Coast, et cetera, et cetera. If it drags on, though, there will be significant impact. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what the president of the International Longshoremen's Union had to say. These people today don't know what a strike is.

Right. When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port, a lockdown. You know what's going to happen? I'll tell you. First week, be all over the news every night, boom, boom. Second week, guys who sell cars can't sell cars because the cars ain't coming in off the ships. They get laid off.

Third week, malls start closing down. They can't get the goods from China. They can't sell clothes. They can't do this. Everything in the United States comes on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren't coming in. The steel is not coming in.

The lumber is not coming in. They lose their job. Everybody's hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are. Now I have the president screaming at me, I'm putting a Taft-Hartley on you. Go ahead. Taft-Hartley means I have to go back to work for 90 days. That's a cooling off period. Do you think when I go back for 90 days, those men are going to go to work on that pier?

It's going to cost the money, the company's money to pay their salaries. Well, they went from 30 moves an hour, maybe to eight. They're going to be like this. Who's going to win here in the long run? You're better off sitting down and let's get a contract and let's move on with this world. And today's world, I'll cripple you. I will cripple you. And you have no idea what that means.

Nobody does. So clearly Ryan understands the power that they've got. It would have been better if it was a TikTok and he was in a passenger seat talking into it. Oh yeah, that would be the vibe. You really flagged this and have been on top of this more than maybe anyone. So give us a sense of the history here, what they're asking for, et cetera. I mean, they know that they have the choke points of the economy. And the choke points of this election coming up too. And with the election coming up, yes. But at the same time, they know there's going to be, like he said, he's going to have the president yelling at him. He's going to have Mayor Pete, no doubt, yelling at him. Mayor Pete's in the middle of this trying to get it to a deal.

They're asking for $5 an hour extra a year, every year, for their six-year contract. And they're fighting against automation. Those are the two big things. Yeah. The automation piece seems to be a really significant part of it as well, which is something we've tracked with other strikes, in particular some of the Hollywood strikes previously where the writers were really concerned and the actors were very concerned about the use of their likenesses.

Let's put the next one up on the screen, please. Can we put, is it C2? Because that actually has a map. This is kind of useful. So what you see are all of the ports there along the East Coast that are currently shut down. The Port of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore are so significant in terms of the amount of trade. This also comes before retail is about to have its biggest quarter, Q4, always the biggest one for retail, December, Thanksgiving, all of those sales. So, I mean, it's very smartly timed on their part. It would, I mean, in terms of the specifics of the contract,

like Ryan was saying, they're asking for that raise that would happen. What was it? The ILA wants the base hourly rate for it to change to $69 from a $39 for an hour, a 77% pay increase that would phase in over six years as a condition to sit down to talks with maritime employers. The kind of issue right now is that they rejected the previous one, the ILA, but it wasn't just over wage issues. It was specifically also about automation. Their response to everyone who was like, oh, that's ridiculous. Well, first of all, it's over six years. But their real beef with them is about the amount of profit that ocean carriers had during COVID. So everyone will remember all of that.

Oh, they have been rigging it. They cleaned up. And they raised prices. Some of the worst abusers in terms of corporate inflation. They're worse than the trains. Remember we covered the railway strikes? These people are filthy rich. So that's really where the actual sticking point is. I think the real question actually about media coverage, because kind of like last time,

the railway workers weren't able to get their message across really at all. Biden crushed them effectively and forced through that deal. So this time, kind of like he's saying, he's like, well, the media is going to blame us. But if you actually explain the situation, look, without taking a side or whatever, if you explain the situation, it's reasonable in terms of the way the contract works and all of that. Politically, I have seen criticism of them of like, hey, you guys are screwing over Biden and the Democrats when they need you once. But if the contract comes up over every six years, what are you supposed to do? Just wait another, like, oh, we went 12 years without a pay increase. I've seen that a lot. That's total nonsense. Like, yeah, their

contract was up. It's not like they timed it to coincide with the election. Now it happens to give them some little additional leverage. But put C3 up on the screen. This will be interesting to see if there's a question tonight at the debate to J.D. Vance and Tim Walz about this strike. So Biden so far has been pretty much on the side of the workers. He said, he was asked, Mr. President, will you intervene in the dock worker strike if they go on strike on Tuesday? He said no. And they said, why not? Because there's collective bargaining. And I don't believe in Taft-Hartley. So without getting too much into the minutiae here and here, you have Bernie Sanders saying President Biden is right. And Biden put out another statement that echoed and elaborated on this basic instinct. The railway workers operate under a different set of specific laws that are specific to their industry,

whereas the dock workers are just broadly under Taft-Hardley. So you have Republicans, a lot of Republicans now who are like, use Taft-Hardley to stop this strike that's going to be devastating the economy, etc., etc. And you've had Biden so far on the other side of that saying, no, there's a collective bargaining, you know, collective bargaining is occurring. The companies need to do right by the workers, etc., etc. So given J.D. Vance's positioning in particular is trying to be more pro-labor, trying to signal, you know, more friendliness towards unions, I'm curious how he would handle a question on this issue because most Republicans have been on the side of just like crush the workers and get them back to work. And, you know, you have Trump out there. I don't think it's high.

Unlike, well, you never know. I mean, it's a significant economic issue right now. It is, but did they catch on that it's happening? Yeah. I don't know. Do they watch counterpoints? It'd be interesting to see. They shouldn't. It's happening now. And a week from now, if it's still happening, it's all that anybody's going to be talking about. Right. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And it would be, I'm curious, too, what Trump would say about it because he. Well, this guy is friends with Trump, apparently.

There's photos of the two of them. At least surprising news. Yeah, but more in terms of the East Coast. I think the union did endorse Kamala, though. Yes. So, you know, that's not unusual or uncommon in the labor world, but the union is officially behind Kamala Harris. But, you know, Trump, he'll do these sort of like virtue signals towards labor. But then when it comes to shove, he's there bragging with Elon about how cool it was that Elon was firing striking workers and complaining about how he never liked to pay overtime and would do whatever he could to get out of it. So, you know,

when it comes down to the specifics, it's not always there. Well, and let's put this next element up on the screen because Ryan, I want to see if you agree with your former colleague, Sam Stein, who says this latest Biden statement on the potential strike leans heavily in favor of the longshoreman demands. So Biden says collective bargaining is the best way for workers to get the pay and benefits they deserve. I have urged USMX, which represents a group of foreign owned carriers, to come to the table and present a fair offer to the workers of the International Longshoremen's Association that ensures they're paid appropriately in line with their invaluable contributions. So we were just

talking, Ryan, about the sort of unknown, the known unknown of Biden in foreign policy right now. Like we know that he's the president. We don't know what that means at any given moment. How could that translate to potential negotiations here? What are the tea leaves that you read from that? Well, when he was, did you see the clip where he was getting off Air Force One or getting out of the motorcade and somebody said, what do you think of the port strike? And they were talking about Israel striking the port in Yemen. Yeah, right. He said, I've been on the phone with them.

We're going to get a deal. And everybody lost their minds. They had no idea that there was a port strike coming. The only port strike they knew about was the one that Israel had launched on Hodeidah. So he has, you know, he has been involved in this and, you know, he's carrying, he's, you know, he's facilitating the launch of a regional war now in the Middle East. At the same time, no other president has crapped on Taft-Hartley like that before. No other president really put out a statement like that. That part was like, maybe we shouldn't have switched on Connelly.

I wish we had more time so we could actually get into Taft-Hartley. The politics aren't fascinating. There was a time in this country where every single person knew the name Taft-Hartley. It's probably been like- When half the country were in unions. 60, 70 years since something like that.

60% of the country was in a union. If people like it, LBJ literally ran on the whole Taft-Hartley thing back in 1948. But anyway, we don't have to keep. There was a time in this country when everybody knew the name. We don't have to keep that up. We can instead pivot down to the vice presidential debate, which of course is going to be starting here in about 36 minutes. Just so everybody understands, we will be streaming it.

We'll be, you'll see the sky shot of us like a tiny little box down there, and maybe we'll interject from time to time. So you can watch it with us. You can see our live reactions, which is also fun. And by the way, don't forget to take advantage of our election discount, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community.

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