Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/24/23: US Attacked In Syria, Top Generals Aiding Gaza Invasion, Hostage Family Demands Ceasefire, Tucker Says WW3 Imminent, Trump Says Only Jesus Can Win Speaker Vote, CIA Behind Nordstream, Off Duty Pilot Attempts To Crash Plane, And MORE!

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Saagar and Ryan discuss the US increasing military presence as attacks ramp up in the Middle East, US generals helping with the impending Gaza invasion, Israeli hostage families demanding a ceasefire, Tucker Carlson slams escalation to WW3, Trump says only Jesus can win GOP speaker vote, report confirms CIA behind Nordstream and Moscow assassinations, off duty pilot attempts to crash passenger plane, and Saagar reviews Killers Of The Flower Moon and the Taylor Swift Eras Tour.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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. chain risks, we can help you overcome the challenges. It's what we've been doing since 1944. Because the world needs more Canada. Together, let's give it to them. Visit edc.ca slash export for more. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free

on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's your Not the Father Week

on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son even though it was promised to us he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son but i have dna proof that could get the money back hold up they could lose their family and millions of dollars yep find out how it ends by listening to the okay story time podcast on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show.

Good morning, everybody. It is Tuesday. We have a great show for everyone today. Ryan's stepping in for crystals. Good to see you, my friend. Nice to see you, too. Absolutely. We've got a little counterpoints, crossover, bro show, whatever you guys want to call it. Many people are saying for the BP extended universe. But we do have quite a bit to get into today. We're going to start with the U.S. military warning about multiple possible attacks on the United States, in addition to already realized attacks in the air. We also

have a hostage situation which is developing, in which two have been released from Hamas so far. These are actual Israeli citizens, possible future ones that will happen as well. Fears, though, also of what the ground invasion will look like. Warnings even coming from Tucker Carlson, which is kind of interesting. The speaker fight, Ryan, you're going to use your extensive congressional knowledge in order to update us on what the hell is going on. Tell you who the next nine guys who won't be speaker are going to be. The next nine guys who will not be speaker, well said. Trump also making a hilarious comment on the situation. We've got some confirmation about Nord Stream Pipeline

and a so-called unnamed group called the CIA and its involvement there in the bombing, as well as a little bit of an update on what's going on in that war. We can't take our eye off that. Also, a story I've been totally obsessed with is that there was an attempted hijacking here in the United States by an off-duty pilot. I mean, I don't even know if hijacking is the right word,

but he's an off-duty pilot. He was, I don't even know if hijacking is the right word, but he's an off-duty pilot. He was inside of the cockpit. He tried to shut the engines down and bring the plane down, Ryan. It's an absolutely insane story. I'm shocked that it's not getting enough media attention. Most saga story ever. We're going to have some audio from the cockpit. We will have audio from the cockpit of which we'll be able to play. And then finally, we will be doing a discussion. We have to bring some fun back to the show. Killers of the Flower Moon. Is it good?

Is it not good? As well as some news updates. Talk about 19th century genocide rather than 21st century. Oh, okay, starting off hot. All right, let's start in terms of the US military as we gave you guys an update. So what is happening?

There was an attack on American forces by drones across the Middle East yesterday. Let's put this up there on the screen. This comes after a spate of further attacks. This one was inside of Syria at the Al-Tanf base, where U.S. military has had, well, it's an unknown number of forces now for quite some time. It also happens after the drone attack on the Al-Assad airbase by this great map that our team has put together. And it includes, of course, that incident with the USS Kearney off of the coast of Yemen, in which they shot down multiple Iranian drones and missiles

that they say were headed towards Israel. So this is just the latest attack on American forces. Luckily, so far, Ryan, we don't know that anybody was killed in the incident. Recall that one American contractor actually died of a heart attack in the last attack actually on the base inside of Iraq. And it just highlights how vulnerable American forces are. It also comes at a time with some very bellicose and troubling rhetoric from the Pentagon where they say we expect significant escalation against U.S. troops. Let's take a listen. What we're seeing is the prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region. And because of that, we're going to do what's necessary

to make sure that our troops are in a good position. We saw the USS Kearney take down those three Houthi missiles. Houthis, again, that's an Iranian-backed group in Yemen and also several drones. Was that takedown defending our ships in the region or was it defending Israel? Jonathan, when you have cruise missiles heading towards one of our DDGs, one of our destroyers, that vessel is going to do what it needs to do to protect itself. So he says that missile will do what it protect itself. Ryan, last thing I'll say before I get

your reaction is just late last night, senior US defense official telling reporters here in Washington, they are preparing quote for a much more significant escalation against US forces and personnel in the Middle East. Quote, let's be clear about it. The road leads back to Iran. So we brought everybody the news yesterday about missile defenses. We've now had multiple, I believe four separate instances of attacks on American service members in the region. These are just warning shots. If they wanted to kill them, unfortunately, they wouldn't certainly have that capability. And then the most significant is the USS Kearney's involvement so far.

What do you think? Israeli analyst yesterday broke some news related to what you're talking about, delaying the ground invasions to prepare for this escalation. His gloss on it was he was saying that a U.S. official confirms to me key reason for the IDF ground invasion delay is a U.S. request to complete preparations for a broader conflict, which is similar to the way that you're hearing it framed in the United States, but not quite. Yes. And I think his read is a little bit more accurate. So the U.S. expects that the Israeli ground invasion into Gaza is then going to launch a broader regional war. The U.S. has been saying, we'd like you to delay this ground invasion so that we can get humanitarian relief

into Gaza. And hostages out. And the hostages out. This suggests that no, that's not what's going on, that they fear that this ground invasion is going to cause this bigger regional war. And so they want to get their assets in place. But what getting assets in place does, what does it do? It triples, quadruples, quintuples the number of targets that Iranian-backed militias and elements and fighters around the region have to target. That great map that we had earlier, that's the consequence of our last 20, 30 years of policy in the Middle East. We have troops in northern Iraq. We have troops in western Iraq. We have troops in Syria. We've got assets now around Yemen and around the Mediterranean, each one of those becomes then a leverage point for Iran and its allies. They don't need to conquer us. What they need to do

is cause us damage, which then causes us to respond. That's a very good way of putting it. And unfortunately, that map didn't even have all the assets that we should play. Actually, I think we put one up yesterday that showed everybody just the sheer number of thousands of American service members, and not to even mention all the citizens who live in the region, which are all soft targets. At the same time, the United States is now sending even more active duty U.S. troops in addition to the 2,000 Marines, in addition to the two carrier strike groups. Here is the presidential aide, John Kirby, giving an update. Let's take a listen. We have said from the very beginning, we don't want to see any actor try to take advantage of the situation to widen or deepen

the conflict. And that certainly includes Hezbollah. And that's why the president has added additional military forces to the region. And more forces will be coming in days and weeks ahead to try to deter any actor from widening or deepening this conflict. So more troops, more forces, and even more on top of that. I mean, what is the number? They're not even telling us, Ryan. We've got thousands in Iraq and Syria, as far as we know. The official number is classified. Also, they get around it because, as we found out when that contractor died,

half these guys, maybe even more, are contractors. So it means you don't have to disclose it. Are they there for the military, though? Yeah. So to me, might as well they can. So what does that mean? So we've got thousands of guys in Iraq and Syria. We've got thousands of guys in Bahrain.

We've got thousands of guys in naval assets now, carrier strike group. Everybody's sitting off the coast. None of this even factors in the base that we have in Doha, in Qatar. 10,000 people there. Who knows how many people there are? I mean, yeah, it was thousands whenever I lived there. I think it's probably doubled ever since then. So you put all these together, and I'm looking at target, target, target, target, where you don't need a medium range ballistic missile to kill these people. All you need is a slightly more sophisticated rocket and launch it from any Iraqi or Shia militia that Iran has now been controlling for 20 years. I mean,

this is a total nightmare. If you don't believe us, just ask the 500 or so American soldiers who were killed by Iranian-backed technology when we were in Iraq. The Iranian government didn't have to do anything. All they had to do was give like a particularly sophisticated IED to their proxies, and hundreds of our servicemen were killed, who untold thousands were wounded, and then untold tens of thousands suffering PTSD as a result of that. And there's a fundamental irrationality behind what Kirby is saying there, and just a lack of thought or belief that the United States has any agency in this situation. It's such a strange thing to watch unfold. Because here he is saying, listen, if you're out there, we want you to know. If you're an actor, you better not take advantage

of this situation. Just kind of hoping that Iran and its allies in the region, you know, don't undermine what the United States and Israel want to do in Gaza and in the Middle East without thing. Well, what could the United States do? To stave off what they say they don't want to happen because I think we should take the u.s At its word in the sense that there actually is no broader interest that the US has in having a regional war in the Middle East right now. Like you can say, okay, there are elements of Northern Virginia that will benefit because they'll be able to sell more weapons. Fine. But the U.S. geopolitical interest is not currently served when they have problems in Taiwan.

They still have a war that they're supporting in Ukraine against Russia. And so opening up a front there is not in their interest. So therefore, what are they, why are they allowing it to happen? And this idea that they're gonna deter Iran by sending more targets is absurd because they don't, they're not recognizing that these are targets.

They're seeing them as assets that are going to intimidate Iran rather than, oh, one more way, one more thing, one little tiny torpedo now or a drone that we can hit this battleship with. Yeah, and as we all saw, I mean, the IDF, you know, it's probably one of the most advanced militaries in the world. They accidentally just shot at the Egyptians. Accidentally. Yeah, what a mess. Right? And this is just, this is not to say, like, that this is not even to blame them. It's just more to say it happens in war. I mean, terrible things. Things go off, as we all saw with the hospital. It can take hours in order to figure out what the hell is true and what the hell is not true. And in the interim, you've got protests that go all over the world. And you've got, at that point, now you're responding to a

real world event, which was a reaction possibly to a fake event. You're never going to know. And as the more troops that we have in the region, the more targets that we have. I tweeted this yesterday, Ron, I'm curious for what you think. I just said, the entire US political system seems resigned to a broader war in the Middle East. With the implicit assumption, it is somehow worth it. It's actually not worth it at all. The reason that they are quiet is because when it does happen, they will pretend that there was nothing that we could do to avoid it.

And I really believe that now watching all of these forces being sent, watching the secret reports about, no, we don't really care. It's not about the hostages. We just need the time to prepare for the forthcoming attacks. I'm like, well, hold on a second. Maybe we just stop the forthcoming attack. We try and at least come to some sort of solution. Talk with the Israelis, talk with Hamas, and just be like, look, what can we actually do here in order to make this happen? A serious effort would be to make sure that the forthcoming backlash does not occur. How do you

do that? I'm not going to say that it's the easiest thing in the world. You have to minimize civilian casualties as much as humanly possible. Right now, the IDF is using an air campaign, which as we played you the audio from Jocko Willink, a man who is by no means a liberal and who has extensive experience. He was like, I don't think that these airstrikes are accomplishing the military objective that you really want. And we're going to talk soon about what this invasion is gearing up to look like. This is an urban nightmare. So I'm not even talking about the humanitarian. I'm talking about the fight itself. We've got 50 to 60,000 dug in fighters. That is almost what, five times the number of ISIS fighters that they had in Mosul. I just looked up the civilian casualties yesterday. The official number in Mosul was one

to one, one civilian for every ISIS fighter. Okay, well, let's play that out in Gaza, where it's probably going to be higher. It's even more densely populated. Two to one, what? That's 100,000 people. Now, even if you think that is justified, do you think that the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Turks, the, you know, all the entire Arab world is going to sit back and take that, not to mention the Iranians? It's just simply impossible to imagine, Ryan, a world where that happens. I think it's useful to go back to the metaphor that Israel has used for its Gaza operations in the past. They say they're, they call it mowing the lawn, which is kind of a cynical and chilling term. But every couple of years, there'd be a couple of weeks

of airstrikes. And they would say that they're talking about just shrinking Hamas's capacity just a little bit. Underneath that cynical and chilling metaphor is the reality that there is a grassroots there that is just going to continue to grow. So let's say you even do kill 100,000 civilians. You kill 50,000 Hamas fighters. You somehow clear out this, what, 500 kilometers of tunnels that they have underneath Gaza, whatever the number. Yeah, it's approximately. Just the biggest tunnel network in world history. Let's say you actually managed to clear that out. You're still left with hundreds of thousands of 14 and 15 year olds.

Iran can't resupply people over the next couple of years. And now you have them remembering one of the most gruesome massacres of Palestinians in maybe the last hundred years. Let's hold this because it gets to something else that we want to talk about, which is that the U.S. military is now actively helping the Israelis plan for this campaign. John Kirby discussing some of that yesterday. Let's take a listen. I can tell you, as Secretary Austin made clear yesterday, we have been in active discussion with Israeli officials

since the beginning of this conflict to make sure we had a good understanding of their intentions, their plans, where they were trying to take things, to see if we could better understand how they've answered the very tough questions that any military needs to ask themselves before they commit to a large scale operation of any kind. We want to make sure we have an understanding of how they are coming to those to those solutions

and those answers. And of course, we've made it clear that we'll be willing to help in any way that we can. But it is important to remember that the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, they make their own decisions. They they decide what they're going to do and when they're going to do it. And again, all we're trying to do is make sure that they know we're here as a resource, certainly for information and context. We've had a lot of experience in this kind of thing, but also from a security assistance perspective. So there he is. He confirms U.S. military is actively involved. And just to underscore that, let's put this on the screen. This was just a report yesterday. The Marine Corps three-star general is now advising the Israeli military on the Gaza ground operation. So this is Lieutenant

General James Glynn, according to senior Israeli officials. He has been on the ground now in Tel Aviv for some time, and he is now helping the operational plan for the IDF for how it is going to conduct itself in Gaza. And Lieutenant General Glynn is probably one of the people to know. Let's go and put this up there on the screen in terms of his past experience. But just to also underscore what this fight is going to look like, he was the deputy commander of some of the special operations joint task force in Iraq in 2017 and 18. That was in the aftermath of the Battle of Mosul. More relevant to Gaza, he was the battalion commander of the 2-4 Marines during the 2006-2007

Battle of Ramadi, which at the time was compared to a miniature Stalingrad. So I don't think I need to tell everybody about how Stalingrad went and the untold millions that were killed or wounded in that conflict, But it underscores two things. First, his direct operational experience in the Ramadi campaign. But really, and probably most relevant, is the Mosul campaign. Because if that's what they're looking for, in Ramadi and in Mosul, it was the similar political objective, elimination of the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, or in that case, ISIS, which it eventually morphed into. In both cases, it required thousands of casualties,

even with air superiority, superior weapons, superior training, and that did not even have the civilian support that Hamas has inside of Gaza. That's actually what I think is the real X factor in all of this. People in Mosul hated ISIS. Yeah, they were not there for that. They wanted to kill. In many cases, they did kill them if they had the chance. Even al-Qaeda in Iraq and in Ramadi.

Yeah, they had some Sunni support and all that, but it was not even close. Hamas, and let's all be real about this, is what some people need to also admit. They have a ton of support. I'm not going to say they have 100 support, but it wouldn't shock me if it was majority. And it doesn't mean that particular people support everything that they do, but it's like what a lot of Palestinians in Gaza want is a militant organization that is going to fight Israel. Right. And I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm saying, well, this is the basic reality. And whenever you have 50, maybe 60% of the population, which is supporting you, especially when you've got an invading force now coming against you,

what do you do? You give those people food, you give them water, you let them hide out in your house. I mean, that's a whole other scenario. When the Iraqi security forces were retaking Mosul, the civilians in most cases were like, they're over there. Go get them. You know, go please be my guest. They're in my house. You can take whatever you want. They were supporting the people that were reclaiming the territory. It's going to be a complete opposite, much more akin to the U.S. experience in Iraq, especially in the most like hardcore elements where the vast majority of the population actually was supporting those groups. And we found out, you know, in 2006 and in 2007, that just simply going in and killing those people, you know, sending Navy SEALs in at night

and killing the leaders of the terrorist group, it didn't work. It turned out what we had to do was pursue a massive counterinsurgency campaign to basically occupy the neighborhoods, try to bring democracy and police forcing and all that. And we took so many American casualties in that. And it didn't even work in the long run because we had to pull out because it cost too much and the political support wasn't there. So that's the nightmare scenario of what you're facing. And the other two distinctions there are time and the tunnels. So with Ramadi, we invaded in 2003. This battle's going on in Haditha as well, where Glenn was. We're talking 2007, 2008. So they had just a couple of years to prepare. Gaza has this, as we talked about earlier, this tunnel network that makes

clearing an area door to door so much more difficult. Because if you can move underground, and you can move underground, underground, and to understand the sophistication of this tunnel network, it appears that some Hamas fighters emerged in Israel on October 7th after going underneath an underground wall that Israel built so deep that they believed that Hamas would no longer be able to tunnel out, because that's what Hamas was doing. They were tunneling underneath the fence, underneath the wall, and then coming in and launching raids, they went even further than Israel understood that they were capable of doing. There are tunnels that go into Egypt, tunnels that go all over the place. And so if you clear an area and people have left by tunnel,

and now you move out and you're trying to control other areas, people can tunnel right back in and come behind you. And so there was a briefing this weekend that the Pentagon gave to the House Armed Services Committee and Ken Klippenstein and I have been reporting on this. New York Times seems to have some kind of related reporting recently that the Pentagon is extremely pessimistic about Israel's capacity to have any type of success in this ground invasion beyond just leveling buildings. Yes. Like that that they can accomplish. But beyond that can they hold those but can they even hold piles of rubble is an open question. This is an excellent, I mean, let's think about when's the last time the United States military

had to face an extensive tunnel network in urban combat or even just in combat situation. Jungle combat. It was Vietnam. And, you know, some of the most horrific stories of American service members in Vietnam are the tunnels. Or, you know, we often overlook the Pacific campaign, but think about the battles on Okinawa and Iwo Jima. If you've ever seen Letter to Iwo Jima, it's a great film. I highly recommend it. You know, what did they rely on?

Their extensive dug-in fortifications, which if you're willing to fight to the last man, well, you know, the last time I checked, that's a pretty core tenant of Islamic extremist ideology. You can inflict a ton of damage. Yes, you will lose in the long run. But the U.S. at that time had total political commitment to the complete elimination of Japanese forces. I mean, we lost like 25,000 guys in some of these battles. And that was not in a densely packed urban combat situation. It's like overlaying the worst experiences of the Americans in jungle warfare in Vietnam and against the Japanese in the island chains on top of some of the worst American experiences in Iraq. And, you know, we really have never seen anything even like this. And that's why they're correct

to be pessimistic. And this, I think the reason I'm trying to talk this way is you can support this action. You can be one of those people who's like, no, we got to do it. I just want you to know what you're signing up for. I want you to understand like what that is going to look like for years and years, the political support that that is going to require from the Israeli population and from the American population, not to mention the political backlash from the Arab world. Like you, this is the most predictable scenario on earth. Now, um, are you going to choose it? And if you are, you should know exactly what you are buying whenever you do that. One more point that might seem trivial at this point, but if you, if you, I'm sure, you know, a lot of people who were first responders, journalists, Wall Street people types who were at ground zero on 9-11.

Yes, I've heard the stories, but yeah. So many of them did not live 10 years later because of the cancers that they got from all of the buildings that collapsed, put out so much poison in the air that it has caused, you know, Jon Stewart's lobbying campaign to take care of those first responders Every single person in Gaza is facing that right now and every Israeli troop who goes in there and spends a week Huffing in that air is looking at you know You know potentially fatal health implications. Yeah, I had not thought about that, but you're totally right. But just the amount of particulates that are gonna be up in the air.

We got all this fire going on and all this other horrible stuff. I mean, war is hell. They say it for a reason. And at that time, we need to be very aware of what we're doing. And it's clear that the US now is deeply militarily involved

in planning with the IDF here. The IDF has got to have its eyes completely wide open. And it's not just them, all of you. If you're supporting this action, like, you also need to understand, you know, what exactly is going to happen and what this is going to look like. Let's move to the hostages because this has been a key part of this entire story. Two Israeli hostages, two elderly women, were actually released by Hamas just yesterday. But before we get to that, President Biden was actually asked about even more hostages being released. It seems to be his single political objective, at least publicly,

that he's been talking about. Let's take a listen. Is the U.S. supporting the hostages for a ceasefire deal? Why did you? I'm asking you guys to help us to have a ceasefire. If not a ceasefire, we should have a hostage release. Any questions on the new hostages that were just released? If you had any difficulty hearing that, the direct question was, is the U.S. supporting a hostages for ceasefire deal? He says, not a ceasefire. We should have a hostages release, and then we can talk. So as I mentioned, two Israeli hostages were released by Hamas. Let's go ahead and put this up there and play this on the screen. These poor elderly women who were released there by Hamas militants,

by all accounts, they're at least recovering. Right now, they're in this terrible stage position. This was video directly released by Hamas, Hamas saying that they were released due to their age. But what it does just highlight is that with the release of these two hostages, there are still dozens more hostages, both with dual citizenship and with just pure Israeli citizenship that remain inside. Let's put this up there, please. On the screen, CBS News has this report. In terms of who these hostages were, they were actually abducted from their homes in a kibbutz, the smaller area near the Gaza community that came under attack on October 7th. So aged 79 and aged 85, two of these women. But it does just highlight, Ryan,

just the sheer number of people that still remain in captivity. We don't know what that exact number is. 20 of the hostages taken to Gaza, according to the IDF, were under the age of 18. And between 10 to 20 were actually over the age of 80. So these are just two of those elderly hostages. There are still dozens left. Yeah, and a couple interesting points about these particular ladies. They were peace activists, anti-occupation folks who would often go into Gaza and help transport people from Gaza to hospitals in Israel because getting out of Gaza to an Israeli hospital requires a pass. Well, obviously right now that's not happening, but in normal times, abnormal times, you need to get basically a travel pass from Israel, and those are life or death passes. If you have a complication that can be treated in a hospital,

and you can't get that pass, you die. If you get the pass, you can live. And there were Israelis who, on humanitarian grounds, would kind of volunteer their time to help shepherd people through. And they were among these, a lot of these kibbutzes down in southern Israel populated by left-leaning Israelis, which is a kind of a cruel irony. Not that anybody does, any civilian deserves to be hurt. But these people in particular, I'm glad that you're saying that. I didn't even know that. Heroic. Why don't you explain to people what a kibbutz is? Most people probably don't know. Is it a commune? Like, you know, the early Zionism was, you know, entangled with socialism in a romantic way. And the way that expressed itself was through these kibbutzes, which are, you know, similar to communes, which

everybody would chip in. Everybody, you know, there's a lot of eating together, working together, celebrating together, a real, you know, family, social atmosphere. And a ton of the people in the South are kind of descendants of that tradition. And in fact, they are massive critics of this right-wing Israeli government. And when the Israeli government moved military resources out of the south to the West Bank to support these kind of rampaging pogroms that the settlers were carrying out in the West Bank, because they were creating so much chaos, they needed extra resources. It was understood in Israel that one reason they pulled those resources out of the south was as an FU to their political enemies down in the south. And it's also why in Israel you see a lot of right-wing elements attacking the families of hostages.

Like here in the United States, excuse me, they're doing what? Right now, while their kin are being held by Hamas, you're attacking them? It's because these families are calling for a ceasefire. And the Israeli right is calling them traitors. The Israeli right lost their mind on these two women because one of them, it's not in that video, but you can find it, says shalom to the hostage taker on the way out and reaches back and shakes his hand. Wow. Israeli right is livid at her for doing that. Wow. I don't think we should be policing the behavior of any old ladies, especially those who were taken hostage. Let her do what she wants. That's just my, you know, my very controversial take, I guess. To what you said, we have some video from some

of the family of hostages that were released, the American citizens. Here's what they had to say. They are physically well. We were very happy to learn that. Mentally, how are they doing? You know, it's going to be a long, a long road for them and for the rest of the family to heal from this. Would you prefer that Israel delays its ground invasion until every avenue has been attempted to bring the hostages back. We demand it. We... They need to do everything to get the hostages back, to get our family back, and 200 more families, loved ones back, before anything is even on the table.

The hostages, they are civilians. This is the basic contract between the country and us. The civilians come first. The reason I'm glad that we highlighted that is this is something I've been trying to emphasize here, Ryan. Hostages in Israel have a very different political connotation and salience than they probably do in the United States. And the reason why is everybody's already been forced to serve in the IDF. People feel the security situation extremely acutely. Hostage families have extraordinary amounts of sympathy. People know that it's absolutely not, especially these two old ladies, you know, people like that,

or these Americans. And the reason, as you said, why the right in some cases is even attacking some of these families is because they have very, very different political objectives. And we know that they have a tremendous amount of salience, these hostage families. These are politically almost untouchable inside of Israel. It also comes at a time when diplomacy could be working here. I wouldn't say could. We do not know 100% for sure because these two ladies were released. But there's also talk of a deal right now, Ryan, hasn't materialized yet. The Red Cross is in talks to receive some 50 hostages with dual citizenship. That was actually a news report out of Israel. Again, it's just a report. It has not yet actually occurred, but 50 hostages would be pretty significant if that were to happen.

And let me read you a line from the Times of Israel that underscores everything that you just said. The line goes, the army is concerned that further hostage releases by Hamas could lead the political leadership to delay a ground incursion. Interesting. Or even halt it midway. So the IDF, the army, is concerned that Hamas might release hostages. People need to sit with that to understand the politics that are going on here. How could you possibly be concerned that Hamas might release hostages? Because the only possible way is that your agenda is not the recovery of those hostages. It's the execution of this ground invasion for whatever you think the end goal of that is, which isn't even entirely clear.

Yeah, and you're right. It's something we talked about previously. Yesterday, we brought everybody a report. It might have even been these two women. We tried to confirm it, but we weren't 100% able to, about Israel actually rejecting two hostages that were being offered to them. It might have actually been these women just because it fits the characteristic of they didn't want to care for them. The reason they really released them is because they're old

and they don't want to be responsible for them dying in their care. And I bet a lot of people in Gaza knew them. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, good point. Oh, these ladies? These are the ladies who tried to help us out. They took me to get my kidney?

I hadn't thought about that. That's a great point. Yeah, exactly. Why would you even want to? But listen, all of these people are innocent. There's no reason to take any of them hostage. All of them need to be released. No questions, no ifs, ands, or buts.

The question, though, is about the politics of it and the release. And this is honestly a diabolical strategy by Hamas. We all really thought so from the beginning. It's like, yeah, if you abduct little kids, most people, including their families, will do anything just to make sure that they don't get killed. And, yeah, if there is a full-blown ground invasion, then you're effectively sentencing a lot of those kids to death. I mean, if Hamas does either carry that out or maybe, you know, they're holding them in an area next to their closest commanders specifically to invite it. And then we're left just debating who's responsible for their death rather than helping them to live.

Yeah, and listen, we hope that that can happen. As we said, there is some reporting right now around what exactly a hostage deal would look like with those dual citizens. But don't forget, that's just the dual citizens. We're not talking about Israeli citizens. And it's just because somebody happens to have a French passport or an American passport in addition to their Israeli one doesn't mean that they're better than the other person. We've got to try and get all of these people out of there.

And at the same time, there is a growing discussion here in the United States about this invasion and what it's going to look like. We gave you a preview a little bit of this in our commentary in the US military block. But the point here is just to highlight the domestic political conversation around all of us. I found it especially interesting, actually, to see Tucker Carlson plant his flag against some of the conventional wisdom on the right, and really in the establishment right now, basically, which is let Israel do whatever it wants. He's asking the critical question, what about us? What is going to happen to us if we allow all of this to happen? Let's take a listen. What is the objective of the IDF and of Blinken, of the United States and Israel in this short term? Destroy Hamas, but what does that mean? Well, to destroy Hamas in the minds,

I think, of policymakers in Washington, as well in Israel is to systematically root them out and kill them in Gaza. Now, let's be frank. When you go into an urban environment, you can't pick or choose your targets very easily. First of all, no matter how well trained you are, you're moving into an area that is rubbled. There are ruins. It's very difficult to negotiate in that. when I say negotiate, I mean negotiate the terrain through the rubble. You don't know where the enemy's going to pop up.

Once you destroy all these buildings, he can be anywhere. So you're going to take losses going in. But more important, once you start going in there, you're going to end up killing whatever you find because the soldier, the Israeli soldier, the American soldier, very much the same. They want to live. They want to survive. When in doubt, pull the trigger. They're not going to stop and say, now, wait a minute, before I shoot, I really need to

think about this because that may be a civilian or there may be a family there. That's not going to happen. You can't expect that. So the notion that this is a kind of warfare that is so precise that it can avoid so-called collateral damage is just nonsense. We can't expect miracles that we will assist and support the Israelis in freeing those hostages. Again, the problem is how do you get the hostages out when you're fighting in this extraordinarily dirty and complex environment? What's to prevent the hostages from simply being executed as soon as you move in force

into Gaza? I think the Israelis know that. I think our leadership in Washington knows it. They may have even decided that if that happens, that's tragic. But the ultimate goal of destroying Hamas demands this. Pretty interesting, I think, to come from Tucker Carlson on his show. It's part of a longer clip. I encourage everybody to go watch it. It's like 30 minutes, where him and Douglas MacGregor just go back and forth, like, okay, it looks like we're going to war with Iran.

What does that mean? Is it worth it? What about the actual military objective here? Again, just emphasize something that you mentioned previously. Let's put this up there on the screen from the Times of Israel itself. It says, IDF believes it is ready for the ground invasion and that it should start soon. The army wants to carry out an incursion even at the cost of heavy losses, fears that the political echelon may never give the order despite a high level of readiness. Israel is saying its war against Hamas is destroying the Iranian- ground defensive in Gaza and believes that it can achieve the goals set out for it, even at the risk of heavy casualties to the soldiers and amid ongoing attacks by Hezbollah in the north. But the military is fearing the government may not give it. As you mentioned, Ryan, the hostage situation is just such a political football inside of Israel.

But if I had to guess, and really what I think that this does show you is this is the most, what, right-wing government in the history of Israel. But if I had to guess, and really what I think that this does show you is, this is the most, what, right-wing government in the history of Israel. If even they have paused about going in before giving the green light of going into Gaza, it, I think, just tells you what the stakes are to any political decision maker. These people are not stupid. They know exactly what is going to happen. They're, in some cases, doing their best. In some cases, they're trying to have a middle road. America knows what's going to happen. Pretty much everybody does. It's just in a wait and see period. And it's coming down to the question of like, are you really going to push the

button? Like, are you going to say, green light, go in? What does that look like? What does the next day look like? What does the next year look like? What does the next decade look like after you make that incredibly consequential decision? So I find it very interesting that even Netanyahu and his government, you know, one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel, even they are taking a tremendous amount of pause right now. Sure, they're doing the airstrikes, but that's just simply not the same thing as going in and suffering heavy casualties. And I think the more people, and when it comes from the United States military, it's that much more powerful to Israel, who are asking the question, why? What is your objective and what's your plan here?

The harder it gets for them to carry out this military incursion. If you think back to the way that the US kind of war-gamed out the Ukrainian counter-offensives, they have a very sophisticated war-game effort where they sit around it and they say, all right, you're playing Hamas, you're playing Islamic Jihad, you're playing Iran, you're playing the Syrian proxies, you're the Iraqi proxies, and they game it out. And every counteroffensive that they kind of gamed out was a failure. And then they ran it anyway. The counteroffensive that was a success, they had gamed that one out and they had figured

out, you know, through that sophisticated strategizing, you know, how they were going to punch through. So they're doing that now, as we talked about in that previous block, the top Marine general who, you know, who has the most experience in this type of combat is with them. That means his entire staff, all his analysts are gaming this out. And we don't have all the access to all the information that they do, but we can see the same thing. That every different move that you make has eight different counters. And then at the end of it, even if you counter all those, you ask, well, then what? Okay, you have eliminated Hamas, the organization, its leaders, Qatar has even turned over the people that are in Doha to the Israelis.

They're all locked up or dead. An organization similar to Hamas is going to be produced by a population that wants to resist Israel. So then what? And so you have some in Israel who are saying, well, this is the kind of third expulsion that we're going to do of Palestinians. Like we're going to solve this. Like the most right-wing faction. Right, the most right-wing faction. Like we're going to solve this once and for all. And if there's a broader regional war, that gives us a chaotic cover. So after we level northern Gaza, we're pushing down into southern Gaza, we're leveling that, and Egypt can figure it out. Or whatever. Like, it's not a completely thought-out strategy, but it's being articulated by people there who are like, there is no solution here.

The solution here, the solution here is to just clear out Gaza. And so, other than that, nobody's actually putting forward an end game that results in anything that resembles what people talk about with a two-state solution and two nations living next to each other. This is why we have to then think about what the cost of this is gonna be.

So let's put this up there on the screen. This is the number of casualties that have been reported. Again, let's take the extreme caveat of these are the numbers according to the quote-unquote officials inside both of these places and the United Nations. 1,400 in Israel, 5,087 in Gaza. That's according to Hamas. So look, who knows how much of it is true? I have no clue. Cannot verify that number. Yet, though, it is probably directionally true. It's definitely in the thousands, right? So how high? Obviously, we're also in the fog of war. And what does that look like? And I think what's definitely also true is the scenes inside of Gaza that are getting passed around, again, the entire Arab world. These

people are looking at this stuff on WhatsApp every day. If you think America has a Twitter problem, you've never been to Qatar or Saudi Arabia. All these people are on Twitter. I think I remember seeing at one point, it was like 70-something percent of the population in Saudi Arabia gets their news on Twitter. This is a Twitter-obsessed culture. And their Twitter does not have community notes, just so everybody knows. And a side note on that, when all of these journalists were fleeing Twitter for threads, it just reminded me how little they care about the rest of the world and foreign policy. I couldn't do my job in reporting on Pakistan or the Middle East or Ukraine or anywhere else without Twitter.

Haiti, Bolivia, whatever. Everybody's on there. And then they have WhatsApp, the channels that they're pushing all of these videos to. WhatsApp, Telegram, and Twitter are like the lifeblood for information sources. It has nothing to do with official news or any of that. Most of these countries are far ahead of us in terms of their relations. Right. They don't care what the New York Times says about. Independent media.

Exactly. And these are the scenes that they're seeing. Let's put these up there. These are the ones that we've been able to gather that just show you what some of the rubble looks like in terms of the footage that has been coming out that's at least been verified by some of the journalists that are there on the ground. So you can see here like what exactly it is. I mean, we've got a decent percentage of the housing stock in Gaza that has now been destroyed. It does look and is reminiscent very much of Aleppo or some of the other scenes that used to come out of Syria. Some of these, in the cases, like you were talking about, the particulates.

But I just think people need to understand the entire Arab world are watching videos like this. And we're watching these videos, Ryan, before we have actually seen combat. Now, let's take, I mean, look, I'm one of those guys where I'm not proud of it, but I was on LiveLeak from a very early age. RIP to LiveLeak. You can watch, probably still around, a lot of the combat footage that came out of the war in ISIS. It was right there. If you wanted to go look for it, I'm talking about guys with GoPros to their chest who were getting shot, killed, blown up right there, and it was all being live streamed for the entire world to see. It will be like that times who knows how much. Not just confined to live leak dudes.

Exactly, not just confined to live leak and guys who want to look like, you know, what it looks like when people fire. I forget what those anti-tank missiles. No, it was something else. Anyway, these videos were everywhere at the time. But it was just for, like, you know, weirdos like me who were covering the conflict and others who were obsessed with watching what's happening on the ground. This is the entire world basically getting exposed to that. I mean, that scene that we just showed you, now imagine that an Israeli platoon is trying to assault it, and there's IEDs everywhere,

and people are getting blown up, and there are fighters there in the background, and there's RPGs raining down, and then a jet comes through and tries to take out a position. This is a single tactical thing that I'm just describing, and then multiply it by 100 or 200 or whatever that happens, and it happens day after day after day. It's like having that situation is just so foreign, I think, to anything we've experienced in the modern media environment. And it's just something that we really can't look away from. It's impossible because the rest of the world is going to be paying so much attention. And it just highlights, if that is this case, there is just no scenario where a broader war cannot be avoided. It's impossible if that is going to occur.

So it's a catch-22 for the Israelis, but really it's a big catch-22 for us and the American political system. And speaking of the U.S. political system, the speaker fight, Trump, the current leader of the Republican Party, at least until we technically do have a speaker, has weighed in on the fight. Here's who he thinks could get elected. Only one person that can do it all the way. You know who that is? Jesus Christ.

Jesus came down and said, I want to be speaker. He would do it. Other than that, I haven't that, I haven't seen anybody that can guarantee it. But at some point, I think we're going to have somebody pretty soon. So only Jesus could do it, but at some point, we'll have somebody pretty soon. Okay. All right. The man has weighed in. My personal favorite addendum to this is something our producer pointed out. Put this up there on the screen, truthing out this photo of himself next to a fictionalized Jesus. Republic of Nazareth.

On court. The issue, Ryan, as you both pointed out, I'm no biblical scholar myself, but I don't believe the trial worked out so well for Jesus. We can have the biblical people weigh in. Maybe there's an Old and the New Testament thing. No, actually no, right? Because Jesus is not in the Old Testament. See, that's how much I know about all of this. My point though is to actually just rely on you because you cover so much of Congress. Tell us a little bit about these gentlemen who's running. We've got nine speakers. Also, we have a vote today. Just lay it out for everybody. Right. So last night, nine dudes presented their case for why they should be speaker privately to the House Republican Conference. One of them dropped out after the end of his speech. Dan, what's his name? You were-

Got it. He was a problem solvers guy. That's the Republicans and Josh Godheimer who get together and pretend that they're going to solve problems. So they're down to eight. The only one you really need to know about at this point is probably Tom Emmer. He's currently the whip. And so he's the last man standing of the kind of Republican leadership, unless you count McHenry, but of McCarthy, Scalise, and Emmer. And to Emily Jashinsky's credit, she has been pointing to Emmer as a kind of a dark horse candidate from the very beginning because he has really good relationships kind of with a

lot of Freedom Caucus members, Republican Study Group, which is the kind of right wing but less right wing than the Freedom Caucus group. However, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, that whole world, Matt Gaetz, they've been on a, Matt Gaetz has been organizing through Steve Bannon and Trump. They've been on a campaign against Tom Emmer. They're calling Emmer a never Trump candidate. They're saying that if you have McConnell in the Senate and Emmer in the House, what even is the point of Trump winning the presidency? So they're meeting at 9 a.m. this morning. They're going to have then kind of a secret vote. And if one of them gets more than a majority, they become the speaker-designate. Okay. Emmer is going to likely get a majority. Then the question is, does he go to the floor?

And if he goes to the floor, does he get the 217 he needs? He's the whip, so he should know the vote count. People like Gates are implacably kind of opposed to Emmer. So the thinking among the kind of Bannon world that has organized this putsch believes that they have at least five, maybe 10 to 15 hard no's against Emmer, who they're really trying hard to frame as never Trump. Emmer himself is trying to do everything he can to say that, no, no, no, no. I love Trump. The main knock against him is that he voted to certify the election. So we have some of the votes on that, actually. The main knock against him is that he voted to certify the election.

So we have some of the votes on that, actually. The vote record of some of these gentlemen. Yeah, we can see here for the main ones. Tom Emmer, certifying the election, yes. Same-sex marriage, yes. Ukraine aid, yes. Fiscal responsibility, yes. 47-day funding bill, yes. That's about as establishment as I guess it gets for the Republican Party. Some of the other candidates there, you have multiple no's and other things across the board. But one thing that I'm seeing floated right now, Ryan, is the idea that Democrats would not attend. They would basically sit out the vote to give Emmer a majority. Could you just explain how that would work procedurally? What does that mean? What they call it on Capitol Hill is taking a walk. Okay. What do I need to do to get you to take a walk? And so when you take a walk, you literally take a walk. Like you walk out of the

chamber, you go in on the steps, you enjoy the sun. Yeah. And they'll say, the clerk will read out, Mr. Gottheimer. And you're just not there. Mr. Gottheimer. Right, Mr. Gottheimer. And you're just not there. Mr. Gottheimer. Right. Mr. Gottheimer. And then so then there's no vote recorded for Mr. Gottheimer. That lowers the threshold. If six Democrats take a walk, the threshold comes down by three. So then instead of 217, you need 214. If 10 take a walk, it comes down by five. Now, just now, Dean Phillips, he's the dude who is Minnesota Congress and Democrat who keeps pretending like he's going to run. Maybe he is running for president against Biden. So it's kind of a wild card. He's willing

to do whatever. He's also one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel in the Democratic caucus. So he writes on Twitter, this is just now, the dysfunction in the House is a national and global security issue. I would sit out the speaker vote if Tom Emmer, so now he's gonna start negotiating, if Tom Emmer will fund our government at negotiated levels, bring Ukraine and Israel aid bills to the floor, and commit to rules changes to make Congress work for the people. So people like Gottheimer, Enrique R., Phillips, there are enough people that could, with Jeffrey's permission or not, could say, look, here are the things, if you commit to these things, then we'll take a walk and you then only need 210. So Gates and his eight, or the crazy eight,

says, as McCarthy calls them, can vote no. And you still have a majority with 210. Yeah. That fits with some reporting now here in Washington. They say, some House Democrats tell us they find Emmer the least objectionable GOP candidate. They would be open to helping him by sitting the vote out. If they get private assurances, he will fund the government at levels negotiated in the debt limit deal and put Ukraine plus Israel aid bill on the floor. Interesting. How private are those assurances? That's all they want, right?

How private assurance – how private are those assurances? I think, because in terms of Tom Emmer, it's like, can you even govern effectively your caucus if you get elevated based upon Democratic votes? I mean, already, just a perusal of the timeline here, it seems as if Tom Emmer is absolutely not getting the support that he needs. For example, Trump has actually, quote, retrieved two attacks on Tom Emmer, calling him the uniparty pick for Speaker of the House. He previously served as a national popular vote initiative funded by George Soros, all this other stuff. Previously, though, Trump had been neutral after he said he had a good phone call, I believe, with Trump. But the certifying election thing is just going to be the death knell for him, I think, at least for a lot of Magdalene. For a lot of them.

I'm not saying that doesn't mean he could win. He very much easily could win. It's not like the majority of Republicans even support that. But you've got a pretty powerful faction here. And more importantly, if you do get elevated and you don't change the rules on motion to vacate, what's the point? They're just going to keep taking you out. And what Democrats could do if they really did want to strike a deal, Jeffries could have the entire caucus walk.

Ah, okay. And so that means— He just needs, what, a slight, two-thirds. Just a majority. Yeah, majority, wow. So basically if he wins in the closed room today, that means he has a majority Republican support. Is there a majority of the Republican conference that's willing to go to the House floor and vote against Trump and say, I know Tom Emmer. He's not a never-Trumper.

He's not an anti-insurrectionist. Whatever argument they want to make. And I think that there is. But then it's so embarrassing for them to have to do that. Yes. The spectacle of them working with Democrats. So the other possibility that people are kicking around is that they do this for McCarthy, which a lot of people would like, a lot of Republicans would like to do because it would be seen then as a humiliation for Gates. And so they can personally get back at Gates. I had not thought about that, but I don't even know if he's running. I mean, he hasn't. Well, he's not. He's not. But if it looked like he could come in at the last

minute, they'd be like, all right, I'm back. How much longer do you anticipate this going? This funding runs out November 17th. Okay. So they have to figure something out. Yeah. Right. At some point. All right. Or they just keep saying, you know what? Okay. Okay. So they have to figure something out. Yeah. At some point. All right. Or they just keep saying, you know what, okay, McHenry continues to just, everybody, nobody seems to think, like the idea of McHenry being speaker for the rest of the year. Including him. Including him. Okay. All right. Well, that's a good run. So what time is the vote today? It starts at 9 a.m., but you've got, everybody's going to give speeches. So it'll be a while. We should know by 9.30, 10 o'clock.., but you've got, everybody's going to give speeches, so. So it'll be a while.

We should know by 9, 9.30, 10 o'clock, we should. Well, you guys can update everybody on counterpoints tomorrow and give everyone the skinny. Emily will have the inside dope, no doubt. Yeah, okay, good. I want to hear it. I'll be waiting and I'll be anticipating that eagerly. Let's move on to Ukraine. Obviously can't take our eye off the ball of what's going on, but

it's just amazing to me that these confirmations and these stories, things that everybody knows is probably true, but not officially true, comes in just years later and you get some of the most shocking news. And shocking in that it's not surprising, but if you had known this at the time, you would have just been absolutely stunned. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from The Washington Post. A new deep dive into the CIA and its backing of Ukrainian intelligence services. It says, quote, the missions that have evolved elite teams of Ukrainian operatives drawn from directorates were formed, trained, and equipped in close partnership with the CIA, according to current and former Ukrainian and U.S. officials. Since 2015, CIA has spent tens

of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine's Soviet-formed services into potent allies against Moscow. The agency has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine as well as in the United States, built them a new headquarters for departments in Ukraine's military intelligence agency, shared intelligence on a scale that would have been unimaginable before Russia illegally annexed Crimea and then fomented a separatist war in eastern Ukraine. The CIA maintains a significant presence in Kyiv, officials said. This is an official confirmation, basically, Ryan, that the Ukrainian kill squads behind the assassinations in Moscow, including of Dugina, the daughter of a political, how do you even describe him? Like a supporter, I guess, Russian political supporter of the war in Ukraine,

as well as the team. Intellectual architect, you want to go with that? I don't know. Let's go with that. All right. And then also the team that was very likely behind the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline were formed, trained, and equipped by the CIA. Now, on the one hand, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. As we all remember the New York Times famous story, they're like, Ukrainian group behind this Nord Stream pipeline bombing. And you're like, oh, really? You're like this group that just so happened to get like special training and patriots. And oh, where did their money come from? Amazing, right?

It's only a couple of intelligence services in the whole world are capable of this. And one of them certainly ain't Ukraine. So I wonder where they got that from. They were like, we believe that outside groups helped advise them. And everyone, the literal meme on the internet at the time was outside group equals CIA. Now it's just out there. It's just a direct confirmation. And I think what's shocking to me is not just the direct

operational involvement, bringing these people over, training them. It's that it just shows me once again, people do not comprehend the Ukrainian war is a US war. We are paying all their bills. We are giving them all of their weapons. They're doing the fighting. We are doing the planning, the know, maybe they're the ones who are technically pressing the button to kill some of these dissidents and all that. But every single one of their bills, all of their training, all of their software, all of their equipment, it's all coming from us. It's like the extent to which America is directly backstopping this entire thing is shocking still to me, and I know it to be true. The average person on the street, even people who are like, I support Ukraine, they have no clue. You know, one of the things that came out to me in those documents, the leaked Pentagon documents that we got from the Discord leak, we never published them just for operational, because we didn't want to be accused of like helping the enemy or whatever. But one of the things that was crazy to me, it's not all the stuff that we just reported.

It was all these official battle damage assessments. I still have them here in the files, which show you the U.S. using satellites and all this stuff. We are running all the most basic levels of operations at a military tactical level for the entire Ukrainian military. I didn't sign up. Nobody signed up for that. We don't even know that it is happening. This is just another example of it. It reminds me of a quote from a senior Israeli defense official recently who was pressed on, you know, why haven't you launched this ground invasion yet?

And you might have seen this quote too, where he said, look, the United States asked us not to. Right. And he said, they are funding and equipping the entire thing. What do you want me to do? Say no. At least he was me to do? Say no. At least he was honest about that. Yeah, it's like, yes. And it's the same situation in Ukraine. We're funding and equipping and guiding and directing the entire thing. It is Ukrainian lives that are being put on the line.

And so that puts them in a place of, what do you want me to do? Say no. Right. Like, these are our choices. And choices are in quotes. Well, unfortunately, we actually give them choices. We don't tell them what to do. In my opinion, we should tell them what to do. And one of the most important things that is really coming through is the assessment now of the 100 something billion dollars that we've given these people. How is it going? How is your counteroffensive going? I came across this chart, which I am still shocked by. I knew that their counteroffensive was not going well.

I knew it was bad. But I did not realize that when you compare it to similar combined arms offensives from the last 100 years, it is historically awful. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from CSIS. And by the way, this is one of the most establishment-friendly think tanks in the whole world. And they put together this graphic. This graphic is the rates of advance for selected combined arms offensives with no air power. Let me underscore that, with no air power, which is why you have to go back over 100 years to World War I. Even in World War I, the rates of advance for troops in that war were better than the Ukrainians. The current advance

per day, meters per day, for the Ukrainians in this counteroffensive is 90 meters. The last time so little progress was made by an attacking army in an offensive with no air power was 1914, 1916 in the Battle of the Somme, where they advanced a similar amount of meters per day. So let that sink in, that previous offensive by Austria-Hungary, or sorry, by Russia against Austro-Hungarian troops, we're getting 1,500 meters per day. Previous offensives by the Italians against Austro-Hungary, we're getting 500. Belleau Wood, which is, you know, I believe that's where the term devil dog came from for the U.S. Marine Corps, it's remembered as a nightmare. They were advancing 400 meters.

Even Leningrad, which we remember in history is like this horrific, stalled operation. They were going 1,000. Today, where we are right now, just look at that graphic. 90 meters. The Battle of the Somme. I'll tell you, I've been to the Battle of the Somme. I have seen the amount of graveyards there, 15-year-olds, you know, graveyard. I'm telling you, it's one of the saddest things.

You just drive it in some of the most picturesque places you've ever been on earth. And then right on the side of the road is a graveyard erected by the widows of whatever shire or something, where they're like, oh, all of our men from our English village were all killed in this one spot. And here's all their gravestones, erected in 1923 or whatever, something like that. And it's heartbreaking. It's just like every mile that you go, oh, a thousand Canadians or whatever, here's their graves, bunch of Australians, here's their graves, and it's like that everywhere you go. And I'm not even talking about the Germans who were killed, two million or whatever that were killed. It's when you comprehend like what that type of

attritional warfare looks like, it is nightmarish. And there's a reason that those people after that war happened were so anxious to never get into a war again and why it was such a massive blow to the psyche and what the fallout was. If you could play a role as America could

in making sure that doesn't happen, why would you not want to do that? And I think that's where we're at right now. Yeah, those offensives that you put up on there produced, each of them, generations of PTSD for the people lucky enough to survive them, which was not a big amount. And you're right, it reshaped kind of entire cultural attitudes towards war, towards life itself. Right. And to have encouraged, armed, equipped, trained, and directed this

with all of the forecasts that this is precisely what would happen. And if you look at Kharkiv on that graphic, that was one where they caught the Russians off guard made huge advances They knew that the Russians would be fortified for this next one Yes, and the fortifications with the drones and the trenches and the mortar, you know, like are clearly impenetrable at this point and That was when the US was shipping all of its weapons right there. Now we're shipping half of them somewhere else. Well, that's a very good point because even when they were asked about it, the White House is

now admitting we are low on the weapons we need, if we ever need, to defend the U.S. And now they're still proposing. How are we going to invade Mexico? Oh, well, I don't even think we would make it past Juarez currently with the rate of the amount of weapons that we even have in stockpiles. Consider this, when you've got John Kirby asked directly in an interview, admitting outright, we're running very low and they still want $70 billion to send to Israel and to Ukraine. Let's take a listen. My question is the state of those stockpiles right now, the state of where U.S. weapons stockpiles stand, with two wars sending now two different types of shipments on a regular basis towards two U.S. allies. How big is the concern that the U.S. is dangerously low on what it should have for its own defense right now? Well, of course it's a concern. That's why we asked for that extra supplemental funding from Congress.

Without getting into classified information, I can assure you and the American people that the United States military can continue to defend our national security interests all around the world. So we need a supplemental to revamp all of the stockpiles. By that, he admits, we don't have very much in our stockpile. And then he's like, but we're good, don't worry. Israel is a perfect example. We had a massive ammo dump in Israel waiting just in case we ever went to war or if they needed it. And then a couple of months ago, we're like, you know what? Ukraine needs it more. And so we should – if you're pro-Israel, you should be furious at that. They are. Yeah, they should be because – and the Israelis themselves, the amount that they were lectured by the international community and Zelensky.

Hey, you got to sell us these weapons. You don't need them as much as we do, all of us. And they were like, listen, we're a country which is perpetual at war. We have no idea when we might need it. They were right. They were 100% right. They're totally vindicated. Well, now what if that happens to us? This is the problem. And it has been from the very beginning on this conflict with this sheer amount of weaponry that we've been sending to Ukraine. And now that we're sending to Israel. Interestingly, actually, there was a quote,unquote Twitter space yesterday. I never know how much any of this stuff moves the needle, but when you have a man as famous as Elon Musk who's speaking in terms like this, I think we should all just take notice. Here's what he had to say yesterday. So it's obviously absurd to have

the smaller army charge the larger army when the larger army has massive defenses and will inflict casualties at a rate that is probably three to one or maybe worse. It's a hopeless situation. You might as well put your hand in a meat grinder. And every week that passes, there are more Ukraine boys that die, more Russian. And I think we should have some, some sympathy too for the Russian boys that are dying in

those trenches as well. Do they want to be there? Of course not. Uh, so, uh, so from, from, from a humanitarian standpoint, we should find, I think, some, we should push for a ceasefire and push for peace in that region. And I think then from a civilizational risk standpoint, we should restore normal relations with Russia. You know, this seems like a logical path. It was interesting to me that that was also

conducted in the case of an Israel-Hamas discussion with Vivek Ramaswamy, who also has been very sounding a note of caution, I think, on Israel-Hamas and what it would lead to for the US. So I will just say this. As much as the hysteria and all the nightmarish rhetoric and all that reminds me of post-9-11 and all of that, we at least have the benefit of having too many people who all of us know who were affected by the madness of those wars and have recent enough history where we can literally watch it on YouTube if we want to go back to say, if we could do it all over again, we definitely wouldn't do this. So the rhetoric, as bad as it is, Ryan, it's still better than it was

in 2001. And because people like you and I remember that the strategic victor out of 9-11 was Osama bin Laden. That's correct. He could not, and the Iranians, neither of them could have asked for a better outcome from the United States to go into, currently, who runs Afghanistan? Taliban. Who runs Iraq? Basically, Iran. Iran, yeah. And that's at the cost of trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. And it took Al-Qaeda, which was kind of a little fringe group, to a place of ISIS running an entire caliphate for a little while. All because of choices that we made in response to the attack on us. We have agency in how we decide to respond to these attacks. And our response can either bring about more pain and bloodshed to us or less. And it seems like we are just hell-bent on producing

another hell on earth. Well, I think that is very well said. And it is just another reminder about why discussions and shows like this are important at this time. Let's move on to the two stories, one which is very important, one which is not important. The first one, though, is one that I just personally, people know I have a lot of interest in air travel. And so when I saw the details of this and I realized that it wasn't getting nearly the amount of attention it deserved, I was like, we have to cover this on the show just to make people aware and to keep an eye on this to see if there was anything deeper than what appears right now on the surface. Let's put this up there on the screen just for the details themselves. An off-duty Alaskan Airlines pilot tried to shut off the engines on an Everett flight, according to the airline, while he was taking a ride on Sunday and in the jump seat inside of the

cockpit. So let that sink in. This off-duty pilot was riding as kind of a shotgun, right? And he was like, hey, can I hitch a ride? And the team was like, absolutely, sure. The guy already works for the airline. Because he's a pilot, they seat him inside of the cockpit, which means he was screened. That means he's gone through security testing. I mean, theoretically, I'm assuming this man has actually flown real passengers. Well, according to the authorities, while they were mid-air, this pilot, Joseph Emerson, tried to shut off the engines in flight, had to be subdued by the crew, and in one case, even tried to deploy the fire suppression to stop the engines from reigniting. And we don't know the exact details. Passengers who were on the plane, by the way, they say they had no idea any of this is happening, which I'm not sure that I

actually am comforted by any of that. But here is the actual audio from air traffic control where they describe this incident as they're requesting landing for an emergency in Portland. Let's take a listen. Okay, I'll just give you a heads up. We've got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit, and he doesn't sound like he's causing any issue in the back right now. I think he's the dude. Other than that, yeah, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and park. Very calm. Other than that, it's 62 degrees in Portland.

It's raining, expected this afternoon. Passengers were like, we had no clue. Had no idea that it was going on. They just came on. They're like, hey, we got a land in Portland. They're like, okay, whatever. I mean, you're not happy about it, but you had no idea that somebody tried to crash the plane while we were there. Since then, this man, Joseph Emerson, has been charged now, let's put this up there on the screen, with 83 counts of attempted murder for allegedly trying to shut off the engines

on this flight. And again, we don't know very much about Joseph Emerson, except that he was charged now with 83 counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment, misdemeanor, and one felony count of endangering an aircraft. I mean this was – you know what's really I think crazy to me, Ryan, is one of the reasons that he was en route from Everett to San Francisco is he was scheduled to actually be on the flight crew of the 737. So that's the big question. I mean, was this a moment of crisis? Is this a mental health event that happened, that manifested? I mean, I hate to even speculate. Is this like a terrorist attack? Like what is happening here? Why did he try to do it while he was off duty and not whenever he was the actual pilot? I mean, what is the backstory to all of this? I will say one quote that they have is, quote, he was heard in the moments prior saying something similar to, quote, I'm not right.

That's a federal official telling ABC News. Again, he was sitting in the flight deck on the jump seat and he unsuccessfully tried to disrupt it. Presumably, there's a recorder inside of there, so we should be able to get the audio of everything that was happening. Yeah, I mean, it just seems like a really crazy situation. We're extremely lucky that he tried to do it as a co-pilot and that the pilot somehow managed to fend him off. And the announcement to the passengers is just absolute classic American pilot. Right. Just a heads up that the man who was trying to kill us all is no longer in the cockpit, and the pilot who wants to keep the engines on remains in the pilot.

Local time is 2.37, and we're going to have a little turbulence at 30,000 feet for the next 30 minutes, so we're going to leave the seatbelt signs on. So just absolutely incredible to hear that. Because I'm sure half the passengers weren't actually listening. Oh, definitely. And then you halfway hear, like, wait, hold on. Did he just say the guy that tried to turn the engines off is in the back of the plane? I'm not sure that was to the passengers, though. I think that was on air traffic control.

Although, again, I'm not 100% sure because they also said that they did come over on the passenger audio and just be like, hey, we're making a landing. We're going to be fine. We're going to get you off the plane. Everything's good. Some people were – I think people were just confused. They thought it was a serious medical emergency. Anyway, look, I mean, he got 83 soles. I think there was even a lap infant, you know, on the plane. What's scary thing is this man has been flying for quite a long time. He's a 44-year-old man. They have photos of him posted in a flight crew uniform going back to 2016. I mean, I've flown on an Alaskan Airlines flight

from San Francisco. So it's, you know, it's one of the most common routes, direct flights from Washington to Portland to San Francisco to, I think, to Los Angeles as well. So I mean, people I know take that plane probably every day. So this is one of those that definitely just hits for all of us. And it's a terrifying situation. The big question just remains, what was the motive here? And we can't forget, there was that terrible, I think it was a German Airlines flight, a Lufthansa affiliate in which the pilot committed suicide or the co-pilot committed suicide while the pilot was in the bathroom. And then obviously there's still a gajillion questions around the Malaysian flight that disappeared and the flight simulator and the pilot themselves. Still remains a mystery, pilot suicide being most likely explanation. So look,

I guess the only consolation that we have here is that he tried it whenever he was off duty and in the jump suit, jump seat, was not while he was in the actual pilot seat, which he was literally on route to do so. He's been arrested. Presumably he will be put on trial and we'll get to the bottom of this. I certainly hope that we do so, but did want to give everybody an update on that situation. Last thing, this is at least the little bit amount of fun I think that we're allowed to have after more than two weeks now of reporting on this horrific tragedy.

The release of Killers of the Flower Moon. And actually, the inspiration for this, Ryan, is that it is one of the biggest search terms amongst our audience. Oh, really? Yeah, that's what I was shocked by as to the level of interest. Yeah, not even just about that. It was like Killers of the Flower Moon breaking points review or something like that. You're like, all right, give the people what they want.

I said, okay, all right, we will give the people what they want. So I had the privilege of being able to see the movie on Thursday, the day before. You can expense that now. It is, yeah, I guess I can. It is very long. It's long. So before I get to the actual review, let's give some of the details. That was a still from there. This movie is getting a significant amount of demand. We could put this up there on the screen. It's earned $44 million at the global box office over the weekend, actually topping the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, which I also did see. I can give you a separate review of that one. Impressively, if they say 46% of the opening night audience for Flower Moon was under the age of 35.

One of the reasons I think that's really interesting is, and I do see this actually, a willingness for people who are younger, people like myself, to actually try and fulfill the legacy of what Scorsese wants, you know, to get back to the pictures, to indulge in the art, to really understand the message that he was going for. This movie is three hours and 30- minutes long. And I will say it's long. It's a long movie. Uh, and it's not in a bad way. It's just, it's a very long one. Our producer, Griffin, he's a big film guy. He was like, man, they really need to bring back intermissions. I could not agree more. Uh, Bollywood movies, if you ever have to watch them, uh, have intermissions

and they're great. You know, you get to go to the bathroom. If something's gonna be four hours long, you don't want to be sitting in the chair with With previews, it was about a four-hour experience, and I went at 7 p.m., so you can do the math. Stayed up well past my bedtime for that one. In terms of the movie itself, the way I've been describing it to everybody, I think the movie is a masterpiece. I think it's absolutely worth seeing. It is multiple movies and stories within one, and I think that's one of the genius of Scorsese. It is both this horrific tragedy of these Osage Indians, the way that they were treated there at the time. They're some of the richest people in the world, and yet they have very little agency over their lives. They're

being attacked. They're being murdered in this case for their money. They're viewed as completely as second-class citizens. But it's also a true crime story within that, the story of the solving of the spate of murders and who was behind it. And then it's a human story. It's a romantic story in some cases where you have this dichotomy of this man who appears to love his wife, but at the same time is embroiled in this plot. By the way, spoiler alert, embroiled in this plot in order to murder her and all of her relatives. It's excruciating, honestly. And I mean that in the best of terms for a movie where you just feel so physically uncomfortable. When people have been asking me about what it's like,

I've been saying it's like watching Schindler's List, where the first time you watch it, you know that you are watching a masterpiece. You are very upset. How many times are you really gonna watch it in your life? Probably not many, maybe three, maybe four, right? Every time you guys need a reminder of just how horrible the Holocaust was,

or you know, it's very rare that the stars align, that you wanna sit and you wanna watch that movie and go through it again. That's a lot what it was like for me. It was just so brutal and difficult to sit there. And the thing is about the runtime of the movie is he's got enough time where you're in it. You're feeling like the imagery of the Osage people and how they're just being brutalized by the people around them and

their senses of grief. You're in it. The lead actress, Lily Gladstone, she's incredible. I mean, we're watching this woman agonize and get on the verge of death as she both is in love with her husband, but then doesn't understand that she's being slowly murdered by him. And then the sheer evil of all the people around who are taking advantage of the situation. So just sitting and dwelling in that,

man, it is really uncomfortable. And look, that's the mark of a great filmmaker, but that's my overall take. I think it's a great movie. I encourage everybody to go see it. And I really encourage people to read the book. It was one of the most popular books in the United States in the last decade. Everybody I know has read it, from people who usually only read fiction to people like me who read tons of books a year.

And it's a great story. The author, David Grant, is one of my favorites. He wrote Lost City of Z, one of my favorite books. Incredible. He's a New Yorker staff writer. Man, that man knows storytelling more than anyone else I know. So anyway, that's my take for the YouTube search algorithm. You now have my review.

I want to hear the—and let's give them a little history, too. No, you do it. This is—and I haven't seen the movie yet. I can't wait to see it. I've been eagerly anticipating the moment where I'll have four hours. And I don't know when that's going to be, but I hope it's before it leaves the theater. But basically you had, so the situation you had is that the Osage wind up on this massive reservation in Oklahoma. And then after that, so late 1890s is when oil is discovered there.

And the oil economy really starts blowing up in the late 19th century, early 20th century. And like the tech economy, it converts anybody who's in the right place at the right time into contemporary billionaires, the equivalent of billionaires. And everywhere that you had oil discovered, particularly around Native American reservations, you'd see massive violence to try to displace them from their rights over that oil. Or if it were, let's say, poor white settlers, in some ways, it's almost easier because at least the kind of Osage had legal kind of tribal You know contractual

Claims that courts and Congress were willing to uphold So that's why so much violence was needed because you couldn't kind of go through the courts and or buy them out or trick them So that in so it wasn't just the Osage so many other places, they, they just were then killed just to move them out of the way. Uh, and so, uh, it's kind of represented, it's, it's an amazing story in immense lengths to, he even puts himself in the movie, it's just a plot twist, near the end in order to just try. I think the key thing, based upon everything that I've read, is in the beginning, the script was a lot like the book. The book is the story of the solving of these murders. But the more that they went through it, they realized in this small scene between the husband and the wife was they were like, no, that's the core of the story.

It's a love story. And through that love story in this screwed up way where this man loves his wife but he's also exploiting his wife and he's trying to steal her money. He's trying to murder her. He's complicit in the murders of her entire family is the humanity and the inhumanity of that is the story itself. And then you build the crime on top of it. And what he tried to do is he tried to show the humanity of the Osage Indians and at every turn, the way that they were discriminated against and even in their riches that they were humiliated, they were treated as second class by the government, by the law

authorities, by all the men around them who were managing their money on their behalf and basically just blood-sucking leeches that viewed them as an avenue to get rich as not as fellow human beings. And I think he dwells and he spends a lot of time in that for good reason because by doing that, the true crime part of it, it's great. It's a fun detective story. I think Jesse Plemons does a great job doing in that role. But I didn't even see him until two hours in. You know, and I spent two hours, I spent a whole movie just sitting there being like, oh, my God, like, this is horrible. And just watching this over and over again. And Leo, you know, Leo does his best when he's, like, likable, playing dumb, but also a real companion to evil.

De Niro is like absolutely top tier. He's like 10 out of 10 in his performance. I can't think of a single bad performance. There's a lot of interesting cameos. Jason Isbell is in there, like the country singer. Makes a role. He does a pretty good job, actually. I enjoyed his performance.

Over and over again, it just highlights this consistent theme of the Osage getting taken advantage of. And I think he did a good job of memorializing the story and just highlighting the immense injustice done to them as a people, not just, you know, the story of this family is the story of the people. And that's a great part of the book, too. And it actually ends kind of, it ends highlighting their plight, what happened to them, but then their resilience through the last hundred years as well, holding on to their identity. You buried the lead here. What about the heiress tour? Oh, the heiress tour. How was that?

The heiress tour, it's honestly, the heiress tour is too long. I saw that my bunch of neighborhood folks brought a bunch of kids to it. Oh, I was going to say, I enjoyed it for that reason, for people like your daughters, is that it was just really fun to watch these eight-year-old girls just lose their mind. I was like, you know what? This is adorable. These kids are having so much fun. I went because my fiancé is a massive Taylor Swift fan. And so I was like, okay, we'll go and we'll check it out.

We didn't go to the concert. And so I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. I will say I thought it was too long. It's too long. And it's funny because it's an hour shorter than Killers of the Flower Moon. But the thing is is that if you're not one of those little girls who's getting up and who's dancing the entire time, you're just sitting watching a concert for two hours and 45 minutes. And you're not sitting watching a concert for two hours and 45 minutes and you're not

participating in the concert. And, uh, you know, I think if you were there, some of the parts of the show, which dragged would have been fine. Right. I'm not a big, uh, evermore guy or what's the other one? Folklore. Is that the album? Okay. There you go. See my music listening basically stopped like 2016. So for me, it was fun. You know, you get to sing, you belong with me and all the other ones that are like key parts of your child, Fueling 22, all these other songs from your young adulthood. But after a while, when you get to the songs that you don't necessarily know as well, you're not even participating in the crowd. You're just sitting in a movie theater.

So for me, that's where it really dragged. I never felt like Killers dragged at all, but I felt like a good portion of the Taylor show dragged for me. What did you think? I'm thinking like 30, 45 minutes. I got up and danced because otherwise

I wouldn't have made it. Good. Yeah. That's the way to get through there. And that made it like a deeply enjoyable experience. You're right.

It's infectious to see the kids just having so much fun. Even just sitting there watching these kids have fun, I had a good time. I mean, these kids are like running back and forth. They're screaming, waving around their

little tongues. They're waving their thing, you know, these, it was amazing to watch. And I think it did make me wish that I had gone to the concert because again, you know, I'm like a casual fan when you put me up against some of these like Swifty girls, but that doesn't mean though that just being in that environment isn't deeply infectious. So if you have kids, specifically little girls, and they like to have Swift, definitely go do it. It's totally worth your time. My son, like, 20 minutes in, he's like, get me out of here, man. Really? I was like, you've got to dance.

And he danced, and he got into it. Okay, all right. I think I saw two boys dancing. So, yeah, there's something for everybody there if you want. All right, that was a good way to end the show. It was actually fun to talk about something lighthearted. For once, you guys are going to have counterpoints tomorrow. Oh, I have another plug. Oh, go ahead.

November 27th, Crystal and I will be at Politics and Prose in DC for my book, The Squad, which is coming out around that time. So Crystal's going to do the Q&A thing that you do at the book talk. Wow, Politics and Prose. Ryan's truly made it. If you don't know, in Washington, that is the mark of a true member of the establishment. We will do a far more official announcement and promotion, my friend, so don't worry. But people will put that on their calendars. It was always great to co-host a show with you, Ryan, and we will see you all later. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right.

It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. You're not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back.

Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover,

the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.