Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/26/23: Maine Shooter On The Loose, Israeli Tanks Enter Gaza, 21 US Troops Injured, New Speaker's Wild Past, Jamaal Bowman Fire Alarm Charge, NYT Disputes Hospital Strike, Al Jazeera Family Killed, Hollywood Melts Down, Ford Folds To UAW

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss a mass shooter in Maine that's on the loose after leaving at least 16 dead, Israeli tanks enter Gaza as Netanyahu declares Holy war, 21 US troops reported injured in Iraq and Syria attacks, we look into the New House Speaker's wild past, Krystal and Saagar debate Jamaal Bowman as he's charged with a misdemeanor for pulling the fire alarm, NYT disputes Hospital strike intel from Israel, Al Jazeera Gaza Chief's family killed in Israel, Hollywood melts down with dueling Israel Palestine letters, and Ford folds to UAW demands in a historic contract.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the Good morning, everybody. It is Thursday. We have a big show for everybody today. What do we have today? Yeah, there is a lot to get into. We are going to update you on a horrific mass shooting out of Maine. We also have actually some good news. UAW striking a tentative deal with Ford. We're going to bring you that. We also, of course, have a lot that is happening in Israel and with Gaza. Biden downplaying civilian deaths. A ground invasion does appear imminent, but some real questions remain there. We also do have a House

speaker. Boy, has he said some things. We're going to get into who he is, what he might do, and what the landscape looks like there. We also have the New York Times going to war with the U.S. intel community over the reality of that hospital bombing. Very interesting. We'll bring you all of the details there and you can decide for yourself what's going on. Al Jazeera targeted both by Tony Blinken on a policy level and also directly by Israeli bombs. Horrific story. We'll bring you that one as well. And on a somewhat lighter note, Hollywood kind of melting down right now over exactly how to properly virtue signal with all of the atrocities being committed right now in Gaza and with Israeli civilians as well. Yeah, we're excited in particular to talk about that one. Before we actually get to that, though, there's a piece of major breaking news we just wanted to

update everybody on at the moment. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Several people have been murdered in Maine, Lewistown, Maine, after a man who is likely Robert Card, who's been named as a person of interest. Photos released of that man in a mass shooting incident at a bar in Lewistown, Maine, as I mentioned. Now, the details on this remain and still coming out. They show photos released by the sheriff's office of him holding some sort of rifle, rampaging through and murdering people. The death toll crystal is unknown right now at this time. Mr. Robert Carr of Bowdoin, Maine, is the person of interest, as I said, who was named by law enforcement. He is actually a firearms instructor and a former, or is a U.S. Army reservist as well. Some of the details also on the motivation, unfortunately, for Mr. Card. One document that's been circulated to law enforcement officials,

Crystal, said that Card has been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks in the summer of 2023, did not provide details about his treatment, but said Card had reported at that time hearing voices and threats to shoot up a military base. So, okay, that's what we know about him so far. Has not yet been apprehended by law enforcement, but it does look like it is a horrific situation. We're not telling anybody what the death toll is because we don't know. That's been cautioned yet from law enforcement, but it's not small, unfortunately. It's horrific. It looks like this occurred at multiple locations, both a bowling alley and a restaurant in this town of Lewiston, Maine. What the local paper is saying is that at least 16 people were killed and perhaps as many as 22,

dozens more injured in multiple shootings. As Saber said, he is still on the loose. So this continues to be an unfolding tragedy and breaking news story. People, residents in that area have been told to shelter in place. He is considered to be armed and dangerous. They said this morning that they did find the vehicle that they thought that he had used basically abandoned, but they still don't know where this dude is according to what we have, the information that we have at this time. So a horrific situation. If these numbers do end up being accurate, this will be likely the worst mass shooting in Maine history. Maine has not actually suffered with that many mass shootings as compared to the rest of the country. So our

hearts break for the community there, for the people who have lost loved ones in yet another horrific mass shooting tragedy. And, you know, a lot of questions here, of course, about the fact that he was known to have mental health issues. He was reportedly known to have said that he was hearing voices, that he wanted to shoot up a military base and somehow still this firearms instructor able to be free, have these kind of weapons and perpetrate this type of horrific mass tragedy. Yeah, that's going to be the big question about how the weapons were acquired in terms of, so Maine does not have a red flag law as I understand it. However, based on a lot of regulations, most state, local, and federal do require that if you do have a mental health event like that. Also questions around whether he would still retain access to firearms from his job, whether he was cleared, his Army Reserve status, and what the military knew about all of this. So we're not going to drop this one because in almost every single case known to federal authorities is almost like a meme at this point, but unfortunately does remain true. So

that's what we know about the situation so far. It's a terrible, terrible event. The people of Lewistown right now are sheltering in place. Nearby Bates College students' classes are canceled and they're anxiously awaiting, you know, probably a lot of terrified parents out there. The advisory from law enforcement is don't approach him. He is considered, as you said, armed and dangerous. That's basically what we've got so far, unfortunately. All right. We're going to move to Israel and Palestine. There's some major breaking news yesterday from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

announcing a date has been set for the invasion of Gaza and also coding it basically as a holy war. I don't think there's any other way to describe some of his rhetoric. Here's what he had to say. Our war against Hamas is a test for all of humanity. It is a struggle between the axis of evil of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and the axis of freedom and progress. We are the people of the light. They are the people of darkness, and light shall triumph over darkness. My role is to lead all Israelis, the state of Israel and the people of Israel, to an overpowering victory. It is now a time to come together for one purpose, to storm ahead to achieve victory. And joined with joint forces and a profound belief in our justness, a profound

belief in the eternity of the Jewish people, we shall realize the prophecy of Isaiah. There will no longer be stealing at your borders and your gates will be of glory. Together we will fight. Together we will win. That translation there from I-24 Israeli News coming from them, just to be clear about how exactly what it was meant to be messaged and how it's interpreted and then distributed to the Israeli public. At the same time, Crystal, there has been some news overnight that we were just discussing. Israeli troops and tanks actually launched an hours-long ground raid into northern Gaza. This is overnight on Thursday.

The military said striking several military targets in order to, quote, prepare the battlefield before the widely expected ground invasion after two weeks now of devastating airstrikes. So the pre-invasion setting of the ground, the use of the tanks going into northern Gaza, following the announcement of a date being set. It appears to be imminent, although we will talk in a little bit about how imminent it is, what exactly all of that looks like. But it does seem as if the next phase of this military campaign is going to begin at least sometime soon. And then the preview also a framing into the Israeli public as a holy war,

both in order to garner both domestic support, but I also think targeted at some audiences here in the United States, very clear in the rhetoric that he's trying to use. Yeah, including the new Speaker of the House, which we'll get into. Specifically with that reference to we will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. I'm not a big biblical scholar person, wasn't raised in any particular religion. So I reached out to some of my Jewish friends to say, when you hear this kind of language, what does it mean to you? And this is caught up in the whole like end times prophecy, but it also without coming out and directly saying it, is an indication of the entire land from the river to the sea, as they said, should be our land. That is the undertones of what we're talking about when he says the prophecy of Isaiah.

So that is obviously very scary. The framing of this is so, I mean, it's not just reminiscent of. This is literally the same language coined by David Frum and the neocons to talk about our own battle post 9-11 and the quote-unquote axis of evil. Netanyahu takes it one step further by reiterating, he said this before and they had to take down the tweet because there was such a backlash, but now he's doubling down on it. We are the people of the light and they are the people of darkness. Think of how disturbing that is. Think of what sort of atrocities are justified. If you truly believe you are on the side of God and they are on the side of evil. If you truly believe you are fighting a holy war against an evil people of darkness, you don't even have to guess what sort of atrocities that justifies because you can

see them unfolding before your eyes right now. And, you know, we're about to play some of Biden's comments. This is the administration and the government, the most extreme, the most right wing in history. Netanyahu is not even the most extreme of this coalition. These are the people that we are giving carte blanche to, that we are saying we want to send you more weapons, that we are saying you can do whatever you want with no holds barred. And actually, they just passed first order of business in the House. They just passed a resolution effectively backstopping, greenlighting whatever Israel wants to do in Gaza. And by the way, adding some belligerent rhetoric about Iran, too. So let's be clear about the type of language that is being used here and how

seriously to take that in terms of their intentions and where this could go. I also think it was not a mistake to put it in Hebrew in the speech, but then to delete the tweet that they put out in English, like the actual literal translation. Part of why we always tell you- The people of the light and people of darkness. We always tell you, you know, you got to pay attention very closely. What's being messaged to us and what is being messaged to them, what's happening in different languages. Hamas does it too. It's very important always to see that the information war is a huge, probably the biggest part of all of this. On top of that, as you said, President Biden addressed the conflict and made a

comment about civilian casualties, about support for Israel and more. Let's take a listen to what he said yesterday. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That's a guarantee. We also have to remember that Hamas does not represent, let me say it again, Hamas does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinian people on the Gaza Strip or anywhere else. Hamas is hiding behind Palestinian civilians and is despicable and, not surprisingly, cowardly as well.

This also puts an added burden on Israel while they go after Hamas. But that does not lessen the need to operate in the line with the laws of war. For Israeli, it has to do everything in its power. Israel has to do everything in its power. As difficult as it is to protect innocent civilians, it's difficult. I continue to be alarmed about extremist settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. That pouring gasoline on fire is what it's like. This was a deal. The deal was made and they're attacking Palestinians in places that they're

entitled to be. It has to stop. They have to be held accountable. It has to stop now. Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I'm sure innocents have been killed and it's the price of waging a war. I think we should be incredibly careful. I think not we. The Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they're focusing on going after the folks that are propagating this war against Israel. And it's against their interest when that doesn't happen. But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.

But aren't these hostages in jeopardy if there is a ground invasion? You want to make a speech? So the takeaway that we can get there from President Biden is clear. Number one, we support Israel. Number two, trying to at least rhetorically talk about civilian casualties and about the expanding situation in the West Bank. We're going to try and flat, we're going to talk about that in a little bit just to make sure that people understand it. One of the reasons why is Hezbollah is not the only two front war that could happen in this. The people in the West Bank, they are very supportive of Hamas. The last poll that came out of there showed the vast majority.

If the election were held today, there hasn't been an election since 2005, they would probably elect them. And so that means that anything that's going on in Gaza is not going to be contained to Gaza. We've talked about the prospect of a wider war in Lebanon with Egypt, with Jordan, or with any of the Arab countries. But even we have not flagged yet that it's very possible that a war inside the country itself, including the West Bank, the population there, and a lot of weapons that are coming to the area could also explode. That's part of the reason why probably President Biden made it a choice to deliberately flag this in the same speech. The first time I believe

that he has said anything to that effect. There's a lot to say about what President Biden just said there. I mean, first on this piece of, yeah, I'm sure some civilians have been killed, but that's the price of waging war. I want you to recall the correct and justified outrage when Israeli civilian deaths were dismissed in that same way. And now think about the most powerful man on the planet waving his hand. Well, that's just war. Okay. Now for all the people is, oh, well, it's different because Israel doesn't target civilians. First of all, I think that's bullshit. And I think we can see that by the indiscriminate bombing, the fact that 42% of Gaza has already been destroyed. Second of all, very hard to argue that when they're literally executing a complete siege

on the entire civilian population, which when you were with Ryan, I watched you guys show. I thought it was really great, very informative, insightful. He made a really, I think, key point, which is that in Obama's Obama being the quintessential lib right in his letter where he gently expresses some concerns about what's going on. The thing he honed in on is the siege, because it's indefensible, because there's no like, oh, you know, human shields. There's no like, oh, actually, we're really trying hard to avoid hurting the civilian population. No, you are intentionally harming and keeping essential food, water, medicine, et cetera, from the entire civilian population. So to look at that and hand wave away and say, oh, well, we hope Israel follows international law. Well, we already know that

they're not. But this has presented a real conundrum for liberals, Democrats like Joe Biden. Netanyahu is not going to give them the faith-saving cover that perhaps previous Israeli administrations might. And so they're trying to come up with this, what Adam Johnson calls like bomb nicer language. Bernie Sanders going on the floor last night talking about, oh, let's have a humanitarian pause. Oh, so you can have a couple hours break from having your family and your towns blown up. That's what the quote unquote anti-war senator is calling for at this point. There's all this hand-wringing, we hope they follow international law. Again, you know already that they're not.

So that's why all of this, you know, all of this virtue signaling language is completely without content or without import. You can see how much the Israelis care about it by the way that they are going forward and doing exactly what they want. And so what is more critical is that we have already said and we've already indicated and with what's going on in the House right now and the resolution that was just passed and the push to get more military weapons in their hands, that we'll back them really no matter what. That's the only message that they're really listening to at this point. And I just want to make one more, you know, just to give you the numbers on the civilian death piece so we understand what we're talking about here.

Yes, it's true the health ministry in Gaza is Hamas related. And so you can't take verbatim what they're saying. Although I will point out the US government as recently as just a couple months ago was saying that their numbers tend to be accurate and they tend to rely on them and find them to be relatively

reasonable, relatively reliable. But even if you discount that, you're talking about thousands of Palestinians killed. The majority of them have been women, children, and the elderly. Do you know how many Hamas fighters have been confirmed killed by their own reports? 13. not 13%, not 1,300, 13 out of the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed at this point. So when we're talking about civilian deaths, we're talking about what's going on in Gaza. If your goal is rooting out Hamas,

this indiscriminate bombing campaign that they've been engaged in has nothing, very little to do with actually achieving that goal. Yeah, it actually just, I think, comes back to the Jocko point. And we will, I think, spend a lot of time today talking about how exactly you could tactically even pull something like this off. Just to bring it back, we were teased about the West Bank. Let's put this up there on the screen. As you can all see here, weapons are now flooding into the West Bank, fueling fears of a new forefront with Israel.

Quote, Iran and its allies are operating a smuggling network that crosses hundreds of miles, at least four borders, as part of an effort to broaden Palestinian military capabilities beyond Hamas. What they are talking about here is about avenues into the West Bank where they were able to bring weapons in. And if a major war does break out inside of Gaza, where Hezbollah may not necessarily have to draw forces away, but the West Bank itself, don't forget also that there's significant tension inside the West Bank right now

between Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority's government, as well as its own population, which is probably far more militant than Mr. Abbas wants to admit. And that shows you why he's in great amount of difficulty and why he also canceled his meeting with President Biden. Let's go to the next one, please, here up on the screen. This shows you, this is past numbers. These are from the New York Times, which is sourcing it from the UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and also the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank. Again, to be clear, in the West Bank. So these are not Hamas-controlled like Gaza Health Ministry. What they are saying is that 2023 already was one of the deadliest years with several hundred

Palestinians in the West Bank who had been killed in clashes with the Jewish settlers, but actually a significant number have since been killed there after October 7th in a recent spate where obviously tensions are very, very high. And some of the Jewish settlers that they're talking about there have been taking advantage. One quote here is, quote, mass settlers shot and killed three Palestinians in the village of Kusra on October 11th, according to the Palestinian health officials at a funeral procession for the victims. the next day, settlers attacked again, killing two more Palestinians, a father and a son.

That is exactly what President Biden there was referencing. And I think it just comes back to the idea that this is widening and creating a lot more ethnic tension than is just confined to Israel and to Gaza. West Bank itself, we can't forget. I mean, there's a lot of Palestinian people who live there. And they're in a direct border with Israel. Not only that, there's a huge Palestinian diaspora all in Jordan. And they're going to be watching some of the same scenes. And are they going to be flooding into the West Bank now, you know, wanting to fight against Israel? It really does highlight like how precarious the situation is and how that's part of why the U.S. is doing its best to drag Israel away as far away from any invasion as possible, because everybody with clear eyes can see it. Now, unfortunately, it doesn't seem

like that's going to be possible. And so thus, we've just accepted like, oh, I guess we're all just going to be in a wider war. We'll save that for a little bit. But the scenes that are coming out of Gaza, as I said many times here now on the show, people are not watching breaking points in the Arab world to be like, oh, that's what's happening there. They are getting this stuff direct from the source, in many cases from their relatives and others, getting direct video being sent to them on WhatsApp or on Arabic Twitter or on Al Jazeera or the Telegram or many of the other places. I mean, the internet and mobile phone data has revolutionized the way that people in the developing world get news. In my opinion, they actually get news in a more timely manner than most people in the developing world get news. In my opinion, they actually get news in a more timely manner than most people in the United States.

They are much more online, per se, which means they are getting the completely unfiltered version of what is happening, and they happen to be related to them. So people really need to keep that in mind. Many have direct connections, so it's not abstract. It's incredibly visceral.

Just to go back to what you're saying about the West Bank, and what a powder keg that is. Recall that the reason, part of the reason at least, why there was such a dramatic failure in response initially to Hamas's massacre of Israeli citizens there outside of Gaza is because the IDF had been redirected to the West Bank to try to protect these Jewish settlers. There had been already a lot of IDF activity, but also Jewish settler attacks and reprisals from Palestinians. That's why those numbers of deaths in the West Bank this year were already some of the highest in recent memory before you get to this place. You're talking about Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Authority. He is incredibly weak and the

Palestinian Authority is incredibly weak. And you're right that they have very little support because they are effectively rightly seen as collaborators in enforcing this, you know, occupation and IDF and Israeli regime inside of the West Bank. So that's why he has very little credibility. And he also has very little credibility because, you know, they're just, in terms of like basic security services, very much unable to deliver. I mean, most of the residents of the West Bank are effectively on their own when it comes to trying to fend off attacks from Jewish settlers or certainly from the IDF, etc. One of the lines that they mentioned in that Wall Street Journal article about why so many weapons are

flowing into the West Bank, which, you know, as Americans who are very much committed to the Second Amendment and right to self-defense, etc., you may be able to relate to, an arms dealer in the West Bank said he sells hundreds of weapons every month, mostly to people who are organizing to defend their villages in the absence of coordinated Palestinian security. So you have, you know, a population that is increasingly armed, that have armed themselves to try to defend themselves in their own villages. You have this incredible, unchecked, unaccountable violence being perpetrated from Jewish settlers and also from the IDF. And you have the horrific atrocities that are being committed in Gaza that they are seeing every single day on their phones, on their TVs,

however they're getting their news. And yeah, you better believe this is an absolute powder keg. This is actually where Netanyahu and his government and his coalition partners, they were more worried about spikes of violence out of the West Bank than they were out of Gaza. Now, they ended up obviously being wrong, but that doesn't mean there was nothing to their concerns because there have been so many provocations and so much escalating violence there already this year. Yeah, that's right. And we have some of the footage out of Gaza. And just a warning for everybody, it's very, very graphic.

We can see here, this is actually one that was posted, which showed major airstrikes. This is obviously just a market area. I mean, much of this just is very reminiscent of exactly what it looked like during the Iraq war. This one is a supermarket where a bomb hit very close by and people began sprinting out with a security camera. This is one of the more difficult ones to watch just as a content warning. The person who's being pulled out here is actually a small child out of rubble and scenes like this are you know obviously repeating all across of Gaza. You have like a little boy there who is being helped here at least out of the rubble. So unfortunately this is just this is what the reality of the life

is like inside Gaza. You see a little child there again being carried. And I can just guarantee you that every single one of those is being shared, is being spread. It's on Facebook. It's on Twitter. And, you know, think about our own politics. You know, one video of George Floyd set the whole country on fire. This is like that times very much. And I just want to say again, this is before the entire invasion has begun. We had a little bit of a taste of it yesterday with tanks and all that rolling in there. Think about, it's like you have to reach back to almost a decade before of American combat forces to even preview what things are going to look like. It is literally going to be and appear in some cases like out of a

movie or a video game and not in a good way. So anyway, I think that's a good understanding here of the forthcoming invasion. A lot of the things that are at play. We're going to turn now, we're going to talk about the United States and its role and how it expects its military to be engaged. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal. And this is a little bit of a conundrum. It's a difficult headline to work through. But as we come through some of the reporting, I think it'll all begin to make sense.

They say that Israel agrees to delay Gaza invasion to allow U.S. to prepare defenses. So the subtext really of the article is that the United States, and we've brought you the discrete numbers, but we have sent now thousands of American troops and service members directly to the region. On top of that, we have surged two carrier strike groups, costing who knows, untold amounts of billions firepower to the region. On top of that, we sent one of our most sophisticated anti-missile defense systems to the region, the FAD missile battery. On top of that, we also sent extra Patriot batteries. You don't do any of this if you expect to fight Hezbollah. You especially don't do this if you expect to fight Hamas. You only do this if you expect to fight an advanced conventional military force where there is only one that would potentially be involved in this, and that's called Iran. They are almost certain at this point that something is going to pop off. Now, is it going to be with the actual sovereign nation of Iran, or is it going to be with Iranian proxies? On the proxy front, we are already in a military combat situation with them. We just don't even want

to admit it. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Pentagon has now admitted and held this information from us for days until it was leaked privately to journalists, 24 U.S. troops have now been injured in attacks since the Gaza war began. The Biden administration has, they say, withheld these details about these incidents for days, even though they acknowledge that service members are under a heightened risk. And Crystal, just overnight, another U.S. base in Syria was attacked. Of course, it bears the question of why do we have a thousand people in Syria? But my big one would be, if we're going to have a thousand people, can we make sure that these people are safe? I mean, they're under, at this point, bombardment

from drones, from rockets, and in some cases, from missiles from God knows where. Are we sure that we have the requisite capabilities and stuff to deter that? Because what we're really learning is how vulnerable our people are. And these are in Iraq and in Syria. I, again, have not even mentioned the thousands of troops in Bahrain, the people in Kuwait, the people in Doha. I mean, we have soldiers all over the place in the Middle East and bases, which two weeks ago they were hanging out and they had no clue that any of this was going to happen. And now they're on a footing where they could be attacked at any moment. So this is really scary stuff with the carrier group. And again, we've already had the USS Kearney, the guided missile destroyer, which had hours long engagement

shooting down freaking cruise missiles coming out of Yemen, allegedly being headed over to Israel. All signs, Crystal, point to U.S. military engagement right now in the Middle East. The only question is, is will it evolve into a full-blown war with Iran or not? And I honestly don't know. I genuinely think it's a coin toss at this point, considering what's going to happen. Yeah, especially just given the belligerence from the Netanyahu government, you know, his framing and belief that this is some sort of a holy war. You certainly have elements of that here within the U.S. political class as well. Lindsey Graham coming out and saying the same thing. You know, I do think the Biden administration realizes how catastrophic it would be to get into a direct war with Iran.

You know, we brought you the graphic from the, what's his name? He runs the barter with our guest today. Daryl Cooper. Daryl. I want to call him Brett. Daryl Cooper. About how, look, we're talking about like a draft. We're talking about massive regional. I mean, you are talking about World War III when you're talking about war with Iran and a long religious like holy war line. This is a catastrophe. So I do believe that the Biden administration knows this would not be a good thing. They're not that dumb. But that doesn't mean that we won't end up there. There's a reason why they've tried to downplay, and I actually sort of appreciate it, tried to downplay the attacks on our troops in the region. First of

all, it does raise the question among many Americans of like, wait, why are we there anyway? Like, did I agree? What are our troops doing in these areas at this point anyway? So there's that. But also because they are very worried about the way that public sentiment, by the way, that the war drums can start beating the interest that, by the way, defense contractors are admitting how excited they are about the possibility of a broader war. They're talking about this on earnings call, like, yay, we'll get to make more money. There are a lot of forces beyond just the president of the United States that could push us in this direction. There's a couple other things to say about this possible ground invasion.

You mentioned there were, you know, the tanks that went in and some kind of a raid overnight to like bulldoze paths and seemingly to ease the path of a ground invasion. You now have had multiple delays effectively at the request of the United States. First, it was let's work on negotiating on the hostages. Now it's, hey, give us some time to get defenses in the region in case this really pops off and we end up directly engaged. But there is also some indication here that Netanyahu himself is interested in delaying, dragging out, and potentially limiting the ambition and scope of this ultimate ground invasion. So number one, recall that Netanyahu, before all of this happened, was in serious political jeopardy, facing corruption charges. Israel was at war with itself in terms of these

judicial, quote unquote, reforms, trying to kneecap the independent judiciary, mass nationwide protests, etc. And now he's even under more fire because some 90% of the Israeli public blames him in part for what Hamas was able to perpetrate for the intelligence failures, for the military failures, etc. This is a man who billed himself as quote-unquote Mr. Security and said that his one and only goal was to keep the Israeli people safe. So you can see how people are feeling about him given the manifest failures of what he said his primary mission was as prime minister. So he has said that there needs to be an inquiry and questions need to be answered even with regard to himself. But he says after the war is over. So he has a political, major political motivation to drag his feet and drag things out as long as

possible. That's number one. Number two, there seem to be some indications that, you know, the American warnings about, hey, you all don't really know what you're getting into here. This is not going to be easy. This is going to be extraordinarily difficult. You have no plan for what comes after. I would argue they actually do have a plan, but you don't seem to know what's going to come next. Do you really know what you're getting yourself into? Combined with the fact that you had these intelligence and security failures on October 7th could be giving Netanyahu some pause about going all in with the full ground invasion.

Now, it's very hard to tell what is real, what is misinformation, what's a fate to try to get Hamas to let down their guard in Gaza. This is all just speculation. But it is worth noting at this point that this ground invasion has now been delayed and delayed again and could possibly be more limited than the initial full-scale all-in move that was being signaled early on. Yeah, this is something I really want to talk about with Daryl whenever we talk to him because he has said before that the IDF's military capability and track record in the more modern wars is not really the gold standard.

Yeah, they're good at dropping bombs. In terms of fighting urban combat, they have a pretty mixed record. So maybe they're realizing some of that. I really think the main thing that's holding any of this back at all is the prospect of a broader war, not only just pressure from the US, but pressure from inside the region. One way we can show people this is a recent interview with Queen Rania of Jordan. Queen Rania, you know, the wife of King Abdullah of Jordan. I mean, this is a figure who's definitely more described as like moderate inside of Jordanian society. And in this interview, she very clearly blames Israel. It also is because inside of Jordan, it's a powder keg. You have a massive Palestinian population. The monarchy itself could be put at risk.

But this, I believe, is an instance of the monarchy responding to public sentiment inside of Jordan, which is outraged about the situation in Gaza. Here is a preview of what it looks like in the region and what she said in this interview on CNN. Equally, I think the people all around the Middle East, including in Jordan, we are just shocked and disappointed by the world's reaction to this catastrophe that is unfolding. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen, you know, a glaring double standard in the world. When October 7th happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself and condemned the attack that happened. But what we're seeing the last couple of weeks, we're seeing silence in the world. You know, countries have stopped just expressing concern or acknowledging the casualties, but always with a preface of declaration of support for Israel. And, you know, are we being told that it is wrong to kill a family, an entire family at gunpoint,

but it's OK to shell them to death? I mean, there is a glaring double standard here, and it is just shocking to the Arab world. This is the first time in modern history that there is such human suffering and the world is not even calling for a ceasefire. So the silence is deafening. And to many in our region, it makes the Western world complicit, you know, through their support and through the cover that they give Israel, that it is just, it's right to defend itself. Many in the Arab world are looking at the Western world as not just tolerating this, but as aiding and abetting it. That is a very clear shot here in Washington. Let me tell you,

that lady probably spends more time in Washington than she does back at home, based upon everything I know. Also, though, they want to keep their crown. They know what's going on. That is, in my view, right now, it's funny. The Saudi government, for example, the Saudi government and the monarchy has put out an edict where they're like, hey, stop spreading some of these videos around about what's going on in Gaza. You know why? They don't want the population inflamed.

This is one of those situations where I really do not believe that people in the West are at least grappling with the level of bottom-up rage, which will eventually erupt into something. Who knows what it will look like. That interview is a good example of this lady, her entire government, their whole regime is backed up by the United States and has been for a long time. So when she's going out there talking about the West and blaming the West, like that is a clear message. Also, it was in English, again, for a reason. It is being very clearly targeted, agreed to, directly to guys like Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken, and President Biden, just to be like, hey, just so you know, even your so-called close allies, why do you think her husband

canceled the meeting with Biden during all of that? While these places may not be democracies, it does not mean that small d democratic feeling is not bubbling up to the government. The governments want to survive. That's the story, really, of every regime in the Middle East. And they know where the power is right now. And right now, if anything, they are a restraining force on their population. Yeah. There's a lot to say about that.

I mean, first of all, it is worth noting she is herself Palestinian and there are many Palestinian refugees in Jordan. And so, as you say, even in a place like Jordan or a place in Saudi Arabia, even in a monarchy, they are still concerned about their own population. She's also correct about the double standard here. She's also correct about how cowardly it is that there's not even an ability to sign on to a resolution for a ceasefire. And to me, the most important part of what she said is how she said multiple times that watching this in the view of the Arab world, the Western world is complicit, that we in the U.S., and as you said, this is aimed directly at the Biden

administration, no doubt about it, that we are complicit, that we are aiding and abetting what is happening there. And so as much as you'd like to keep your liberal, nice internationalism, humanitarian face in the world and all the beautiful things you said about democracy in Ukraine, et cetera, what is happening on the ground in Gaza will not be forgotten. And that there is no controlling the rage that it is sparking throughout the region and really actually uniting a lot of very unlikely countries throughout the region in, you know, in common cause against what is happening on the ground in Gaza. So it really should be seen as like a warning shot at the U.S. for what's unfolding here. And we're going to talk a little bit about Tony Blinken going to Qatar and trying to get them to rein in what Al Jazeera is doing. And clearly, the U.S. is aware of how damaging these images are and how volatile the situation is.

So look, this is a powder keg and it could create total chaos. We're already in a chaotic situation, let's be clear. But that chaos could easily spread and ignite way out of control. And even if the administration doesn't really want to find itself in a war with Iran, that doesn't mean that is any guarantee against it happening. No, it's very much on the table right now. So we finally have a speaker. As we all teased. It's happening. It only took, what, 20, no, 19 days where the United States didn't have a speaker. In my opinion, it didn't really change all that much, but it is what it is. Here is the moment that the vote happened and that Mike Johnson, representative from Louisiana, became the next Speaker of the House. Let's take a listen.

Well, Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana has received 220 votes. There it is. He got 220 votes. All the Republicans actually united behind him. Honestly, impressive feat after the multiple defeats and all those things that happened. But it bears the question, who is Mike Johnson? We're not the only ones asking that. People in Washington are like, who the hell is this guy? He's barely been in Congress that long. What's his track record? Johnson, based upon my research, is probably the most conservative speaker aligned with the base since Newt Gingrich. I don't think there's another way to describe it. But Hastert, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and who am I missing? Boehner. These are all multi-year creatures of the establishment, people who had ties to the party. Sure, they were swung by the

base. But this person is someone I would really describe as a winger, not only just in terms of MAGA sympathies, but deeply embedded in the capital C conservative movement for a winger, not only just in terms of like MAGA sympathies, but deeply embedded in the capital C conservative movement for a long time, going all the way back to some of the gay marriage fights, which we will get into. And just to give you an idea here, he's asked about his vote not to certify the 2020 election. Here's how he and his colleagues handled that question a couple of days ago. Let's take a listen. Mr. Johnson, you helped lead the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, please.

That was Virginia Foxx, the congresswoman there at the top saying, shut up. But it doesn't derace, I mean, it was a significant problem for Republicans in the 2022 midterms. Johnson, quote, recruited 125 Republicans to join him in signing the U.S. Supreme Court brief saying as much and on January 6, 2021, that voted against certifying the elections. That brief was the one filed by the state of Texas. So he not only was a person who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election, actually took a pretty active role in getting some of his co-workers to sign on to that. Do you want to comment on that before we move to entitlements and other things? Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about this. You used to talk about Josh Hawley and Highbrow, Stop the Steal. Yes, this is very much so. He's kind of like that. And it sort of

seems to typify his whole approach to politics. You know, people talk about the banality of evil. This is like the banality of extremism. He has this, and I think this is why he's able to win the quote unquote moderates. And he won unanimously. Okay. Every single, even the most embattled Biden district Republicans voted for this man who holds incredibly extreme positions, as we're about to get into. But moderates tend to not really focus that much on actual policy. And for them, it's all about just like the decorum and the vibes and the cordiality, etc. So it's no surprise to me that in the end, they were cowed by this message of just like,

this is embarrassing and it's messy. So we have to unite behind someone. And it doesn't really matter who that someone ultimately is. So, yeah, I think it I think the fact that he holds so many and is a true believer, hard right, you know, real right wing positions in the party as you move into an election season where Republicans paid dearly in the last midterms because of their extremism on Stop the Steal and abortion in particular. Yeah, I think this could be a real political problem for them. The question is just how much Johnson is a real major political figure. Now,

obviously somebody like Nancy Pelosi- Or how long he even lasts there. How long they last, whether honestly anyone cares. I mean, it used to be Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, they were titans, not because of the control necessarily of the House. They raised a ton of money. I'm talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Same with Nancy Pelosi. They did not live in Washington or even their district. These were like warriors who were always on the plane. This fundraiser, that fundraiser. Tuesday morning, I'm here in this city.

Tuesday night, I'm in this city. Wednesday morning, I'm in another city, and I have a reception at every single one. Every hour of their time is scheduled. It's around fundraising. Fundraising is the nexus of power because that's why people listen to them in the first place. Is he going to do that? I mean, honestly, his fundraising track record is like a million dollars. He's got a 300x his return.

I mean, do the big donors in New York and in California, like, do they even know who this guy is? Probably not. He's never been to any of those meetings. That is a titanic, like, personal life burden that he's now got to bear. On top of running the house, on top of of is this the real setter of policy? Ryan was a setter of policy, there's no question about it. He was a policy guy.

Kevin, he never cared about policy, he just decided to go with whatever. Gingrich, though, was a real policy person, and Boehner kind of was also in his own way. Who knows? This is the big question of like, is he gonna get dragged, because he just doesn't want, like, dragged to wherever the center of the party is and allow other people to negotiate?

Probably or likely, I think. But on his own positions, and this is where the big question is, is will he become a national figure, somebody the Democrats can run against? He certainly embodies, you know, much of the most unpopular parts of the Republican Party from the 2020 election, but also on entitlement programs. As I said, this is a very traditional conservative Republican. Here's what he had to say in the past. The safety net programs, but the reality is they're headed towards bankruptcy. In just a few number of years, Social Security goes belly up. So does Medicare, Medicaid, all of these big spending programs, because we're drowning in debt. And so we've got to think about long-term reforms to those programs.

Long-term reforms, all of that, I can guarantee you're going to see that in an ad somewhere. May not work, obviously, against him in Louisiana, but it might work in, I don't know, Michigan, someplace like that. On top of that, though, and this really, to me, is the death knell, probably his single most unpopular position. Let's put this up there on the screen. In the past, you know, he has put out, this is a tweet, for example, where he says, Breaking, late yesterday, the Louisiana Department of Health informed abortion facilities in our state. The right to life has now been restored. If you perform an abortion and get imprisoned in hard labor for one to 10 years and you were fined 10k to 100k on top of that signing on and directly endorsing a national abortion

ban. So that is probably the most salient one and probably the single most unpopular position that the man holds. I'm talking nationally, not necessarily in his district. Obviously, he got elected, has been reelected multiple times since 2017. But Johnson has been a conservative winger on cultural issues now for, honestly, decades. Based upon my research, as I said, he very much comes from the traditional, like, Bush wing of the party in terms of his heavy activism on evangelical issues from the beginning. And then since being elevated to Congress in 2017 has also adopted kind of a MAGA flair to him. So to be honest, I actually think he's a good choice to represent the Republican Party. Because I think to be like, really, he has his finger on the pulse of a lot of MAGA stuff from the 2020 election

on Ukraine as well. We can put this up there. For example, he has voted against every single Ukraine aid package since May of 2022. Is it just me or that picture looks like a totally different dude? That is an awful picture of him. I think he learned how to do his hair in the interim. But Mike Johnson has voted against Ukraine aid, you know, for debt reasons and says we need to care about our border. He didn't vote to certify the election, comes from the evangelical base of the party. He's like, as you said, he's somebody who holds like pretty traditional Republican positions, but also is traditional but unpopular for the general electorate, and also has a nice affect to him. He's got multiple kids. He seems like a nice guy. The

only thing going against him is he's 5'8", which I got some questions about. No offense to the short guys out there. As a 5'8 woman, I'm supportive of his height. Okay, let me give you a little bit more about this guy just so you get a full sense. He is a some may say true believer. Others might say religious fanatic in terms of his social conservative views, longtime veteran of the like, you know, LGBTQ war on opposing any sort of rights for gay people, even going so far as when he was the, uh, an attorney and spokesman for this religious right group called the Alliance Defense Fund, which apparently is known today as the Alliance Defending Freedom. He authored, uh, an amicus brief opposing Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence versus Texas, which overturned state laws that criminalized gay sex between consenting

adults. Okay. So if you ask the American public, overwhelmingly, they do not think that what you do in the bedroom should be the subject of state law. He was on the other side of that, writing in part, states have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviant sexual intercourse. He goes on to say by closing these bedroom doors, they have opened a Pandora's box. Okay. So those are some of the things that he was arguing, albeit in the early 2000s. He's still not just all in on like the anti-trans stuff that's very popular in Republican circles these days, but he's also opposed to gay marriage. Like I said, he is a true believer on that, on abortion, etc. And so, you know, do I think that Mike Johnson, Trump is going to be the center of attention for the

general election? There's no doubt about it. But part of why Democrats had more success than they expected in the midterms is because they were successfully able to paint like, hey, it's not just Trump. All of these people are wacko. All of these people are way out there with incredibly unpopular positions that are unpalatable to the overwhelming majority of Americans. Mike Johnson very much helps Democrats to be able to make that case. And, you know, Democrats are kind of bad at grabbing narratives and bad at like, you know, pushing their messaging, etc. But I would not doubt that they try to use him to try to paint this broader picture,

especially because, again, every single Republican voted for him. So even a guy like Mike Lawler, who's in this, you know, swing Biden district, whatever, like he is now tarred with this guy and all of his extreme positions. So as much as he may try to separate himself, I'm different than the Republicans, et cetera, et cetera. You voted for this guy who was against, who wanted to criminalize gay sex and is against gay marriage and wants a national abortion ban from the moment of conception and was all in on stop this deal, et cetera, et cetera. So good luck, guys. Well, the question, as I said, it remains, is like, will Johnson become a Nancy Pelosi type figure? The reason that Pelosi,

even when Obama was president, was like the bug, you know, it's like everyone was like, oh my goodness, Pelosi, she's like a demon. She was in every ad, every Republican ad. Yeah, actually, I'm sure you know. I know very well. Yeah, it was like she, it's like she was the president. Is he gonna become that? I don't think so. Democrats in particular and even moderates, like they hate Trump a lot more. The question is, is like what about in an after Trump world if that happens? Let's say Trump loses and this guy is still the speaker.

Now what? Or what if he's still the Republican leader? And then what tactics and all that is he going to use? Well, and what does it do for their ability to hold on to the House? Right. Which they have a very narrow margin. That's another great question. Is he going to raise money for people who are pro-gay marriage

or Nancy? So I forget what Nancy Mace actually believes on abortion. I honestly don't remember, but like, it's like, is she going to raise money for her to be run? I think she's pro-choice or like pro-choice ish or something, not in the mainstream of the Republican party. Let's at least say that. Well, is he going to raise money based upon his beliefs or like his standard? Like what litmus test is he going to impose? This is why, you know, being ideologically flexible is actually a benefit whenever you're the leader. If you think about people like McConnell, McConnell does not care about basically anything except power and also funding foreign wars in Ukraine and in Israel now. So he flexes his muscle very, very rarely whenever he actually wants something. That's it.

I mean, he's conservative, quote unquote, on economic issues for big business and all of that. But he does that so that he can raise money so that he can elect more Republicans. Chuck Schumer. Schumer does not believe anything. This is a guy who at one point wrote a book about why we need a border wall and is now like the biggest illegal immigrant lobbyist in Washington. So it's like, you know why?

Because he wants to get elected. In terms of Kyrsten Sinema and then, I don't know, Bernie Sanders, he looks at them as one and the same. He like just wants his caucus to run. He just wants power. Yeah. And actually, as I said, there's a lot of good reasons for that whenever you're in leadership because when you have a real agenda, it will obviously alienate other members in your party. How will Mike Johnson govern? We have no idea.

On Israel, though, we do know this. This is probably one of the most pro-Israel legislators to, or speakers, probably to ever occupy the chair. Here's what he had to say immediately upon taking the gavel. Let's take a listen. Extraordinary crisis right now. And the world needs us to be strong. They need us to remember our creed and our admonition. Turmoil and violence have rocked the Middle East and Eastern Europe. We all know it. Intentions continue to build in the Indo-Pacific. The country demands strong leadership of this body, and we must not waver.

Our nation's greatest ally in the Middle East is under attack. The first bill that I'm going to bring to this floor in just a little while will be in support of our dear friend Israel, and we're overdue in getting that done. Also, courtesy of Crystal, you actually found this one. This is from Haaretz, Israeli newspaper. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Newhouse speaker, Mike Johnson, an evangelical Christian, holds ties to Israel's far right. He described his 2020 visit to the Jerusalem Temple, quote, as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy.

And his election is one of the most significant victories to date for evangelicals in D.C. I genuinely do think that is true. Also, as I said, and we've tried to explain here in the past, evangelical Christians are more pro-Israel in many cases than some people who are American Jews. And it's because it all ties to what we began our show with, this whole prophecy of Isaiah and end times. For those who are Christians, I'm sorry. I didn't grow up Christian. You know, I don't know anything about the Bible or the prophecy of Isaiah or whatever. This is only based upon my understanding of like a biblical battle for the end times. It is why evangelical Christian groups often make pilgrimages to Israel because it's described as like the final battleground. Actually, when I was in Israel, I encountered a

lot of these people in Jerusalem, like from the church of Memphis, Tennessee or whatever. And they're like, here's where it's all going to happen. It's, you know, the soldiers of the East or whatever will come from there. I remember being like alongside and just being like, oh, wow, this is kind of crazy. Anyway, this is one of those people who is very much subscribes to those beliefs. And so their fervor for Israel is on another level in some cases than even people like Joe Lieberman or other American Jews who serve. We've been joking about this privately. To date, the only American congressman who has worn an IDF uniform to the U.S. Congress, Brian Mast, is an evangelical Christian. He is not even a Jew.

But that his is, yeah. I mean, look, if you ask me, wearing the uniform of any foreign military probably should be illegal for a congressman, but that's a whole other conversation. Yeah. I mean, yeah. The thing about basing your support for Israel on your religion is that's not negotiable. Yeah, exactly. That's a, you can't, you can't debate with this person. You can't argue with them. You can't show them what's happening in Gaza. You can't persuade them with facts because this is foundational to their belief system. So

yeah, they don't care. I mean, the stuff Netanyahu was saying that we played of like, you know, the people of light versus the people of darkness and, you know, framing it as a holy war. And we have to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah and we will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah and the axis of, like, he would be nodding along. Absolutely. And, you know, he already made good on his promise that his first act as speaker was to push through this resolution, unconditionally affirming support for Israel. And also, by the way, and Michael Tracy was tweeting out some of these specific provisions with some very bellicose language towards Iran, which I want to say was almost unanimously supported for 12 to 10. There were nine Democrats who voted no. Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Jamal Bowman, Andre Carson, Green of Texas, AOC,

Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Ramirez, Ilhan Omar. There was one Republican who voted no, Thomas Massey. Yes. Like a libertarian. He is libertarian. Well, he votes no on like everything. So it's not necessarily a reflection of his views. But I want to say like, you know, I would have actually felt differently about this resolution. That's just like affirming support for Israel and Israel has a right to defend herself, et cetera, et cetera. If it had come right at the time when they had just suffered these attacks, but now that we're into, you know, the siege of Gaza and the indiscriminate bomb, more than 7,000 targets, 42% of Gaza destroyed, the overwhelming toll on civilians, the thousands of children dead, the hospitals that are no longer functioning, all of these things. When you support a resolution such as this with no language about any of that, you are giving total green light and carte blanche to what the Israeli government is doing.

So coming in this context at this moment, I mean, I think it's disgraceful. And I want to applaud in particular, and we're about to talk about Jamal Doman and the fire alarm stuff, but I want to applaud him in particular, because for a lot of the Democrats who voted no on this resolution, their districts are such where they're unlikely to pay a political price. It's relatively safe, not that it's ever totally safe because you know that these democratic PACs that are extraordinarily pro-Israel, that are there to enforce unanimous, you know, unanimous backing of Israel no matter what, they're still going to come in after them, but they're a little bit safer. But Jamal Bowman is in a district where, you know, this could be a real issue for him. And he voted no. And I just want to say, I think that

that took, that took a lot of courage in order to be able to do that. Yeah. I mean, I just think politically, I don't think there's any real price to be paid for just like being generically pro Israel. They're look, they're not looking at it in the same way. They're like, yeah, we were supposed to pass it on day one, but we couldn't because nothing happened. So yeah, we're just going to pass it now. Um, I mean, it's also like, again, all the problems that we have, like all of the issues that we have here and inflation and the struggles and et cetera. And our priority is to once again, for the one millionth time, reaffirm that Israel can do whatever they want, whenever they want. Seems like a very skewed priority system to me as well. And in terms of the political piece,

it was interesting hearing Ryan talking to Emily yesterday about John Fetterman, who has become this like extreme Israel hawk in all of this. And his analysis was basically like Fetterman decided in his Senate primary that he would just do whatever the pro-Israel Democrats, the Democratic majority for Israel people, which is this big pack that, like I said, tries to enforce like unanimity of opinion on being pro-Israel no matter what, that he would just basically be like, whatever you all want me to say, I'll say. And so he's just like sticking to that. But there's lots of political incentive to, you know,

be to vote for this resolution, to say the right the right things to as the ADL dude said, get the story right on Israel. There's and it's very difficult to talk about this without playing into anti-Semitic tropes. But it's true. There's way more money in organization between being on that side of the issue. There are basically zero dollars to be gotten in terms of campaign contributions of speaking out for Palestinians or being, you know, on the side of Palestinian civilian life. There is no political benefit to be gained whatsoever. And so, yeah, that's why you get an incredibly lopsided result like this, because all of these people can see where the political power lies and where their personal political benefit is as well.

Let's move on to the next part that you teased, the story of the century, some are calling it. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Jamal Bowman has now officially been charged with one count of false fire alarm in violation of the D.C. criminal code. This is according to documents which have now been filed in the District of Columbia, the Attorney General for the District of Columbia has now summoned Jamal Bowman sometime actually around right now when we're filming the show to court in order to answer for his crimes to be arraigned. He's being charged with a misdemeanor count. They say you are hereby commanded to appear before the criminal division. All of this, again, is a violation of the D.C. code for falsely pulling a fire alarm. The Capitol Police say that their investigation has been done for a while.

Our agents gathered all the evidence, packaged it up, and sent the entire case with charges to prosecutors for their consideration. Obviously, the prosecutors have decided to go after him. We should put this up there on the screen as well. Let's just not forget all of this. His original explanation is that he pulled the fire alarm because it would help him open the door. Now, allegedly, according to some reports from the Capitol Police and their investigation on video, they don't actually show him trying to open the door. So obviously, I always thought he was completely full of it and he was lying. But the video evidence that we will likely hopefully hear at trial if he does contest it and stick to his original story will vindicate that he was not telling the truth.

It is still a very bizarre situation. I still don't know. Because the context for why he would have pulled the fire alarm was to delay a vote or was to stop a vote. I apologize about the speakership. Right. But he did end up voting in that. So, I mean, maybe like the jujitsu explanation in your mind is he pulled the fire alarm because he was late for the vote so that he could get to the vote. So he wasn't delaying it to stop the vote. He was delaying it so that he could get to the vote, although it didn't even work and he still didn't end up voting. So no explanation

does make a whole lot of sense. But just to be clear about this, the false pulling a fire alarm, the code says that you willfully had to pull the fire alarm. So they believe they have to prove and they believe that they have evidence beyond the shadow of a doubt, beyond reasonable doubt that he did intentionally pull said fire alarm, not did it in an accidental manner. That's it. That's as far as I understand it from the D.C. criminal code. This feels like it happened 85 years ago. Right. And how long ago was it?

I have to say I barely cared about it at the time and I 100 percent don't care about it anymore. And if Jamal Bowman keeps taking courageous votes like what he just did, as far as I'm concerned, he can pull the fire alarm every damn day for the rest of his life. I really don't care. Well, he's a guy who believes so much in the law. He's always talking about, oh, we got to abide by the law. We got to throw all these January 6th people, all the people in jail. Like, come on, you can't be pulling fire alarms in order to delay votes. You can say you appreciate the guy's vote, but you shouldn't be advocating for the guy to be pulling fire alarms. I don't care. That's my official position. There's like war and carnage going on and I cannot possibly care about this story less. And like I said, for me this week,

I am 100% team Jamal Bowman. I think he is one of the most courageous members in terms of this vote that he just took. He has a sizable Jewish population in his district. For him to vote no on this, he could actually face a political price. He is likely to face a primary contender that is backed by this Democratic majority for Israel group. So I'm pro-Jamal. I'll tell you what, if you care about Jamal, you should be telling him not to be lying and pulling fire alarms because I can guarantee you this became a meme. I still believe him. This became a meme national why. Well, I mean, look, let's see the evidence.

Let's see what he pleads at trial. I want to see. Are you going to plead not guilty and stick to your little accidental story? Or are you going to admit that you lied and you fell the fire alarm? Because it doesn't make any sense to pull a fire alarm in a different building to try to delay a vote that's happening in the, like, that doesn't make any sense. I agree it never made any sense. But I still think he did it. You know, he panicked.

It was in his mind. And then he lied about it. So, yeah. I mean, do we want people who are liars who are in Congress? I think he's a straight up liar. When it counted this week, he did the right thing. And so I give him way more credit for that than this fire alarm situation. I mean, I agree with you on a practical basis.

That is mostly how we should analyze lawmakers. This is why people are like, did you see that somebody you support voted for this thing? I'm like, yeah, I don't care because I care about even on this one, on Mike Johnson. You know why I don't care what he said about gay people 20 years ago? I don't want more aid to pass for Ukraine. This guy's voted against everything for Ukraine. So for me, I'm like, yeah, I don't care how Kevin McCarthy thought about gays in 1990. I care how he was going to bring a Ukraine vote to the floor. Yeah, but when you're House Speaker, like that has import and can impact the sort of legislation

that he brings. We'll care about that at the time. If he brings a national gay thing, you know, to the floor, which I don't think is going to happen, then sure, I'll just be like, hey, I don't do that. But on Ukraine, which is like a present and clear thing, I'm like, look, this is the greatest thing that could have happened, at least for our side, on this in a long time. So we'll see what he, I will agree with you. Well, we'll see what he does on that, too. I'm not at all convinced that he's going to hold the line on that. I'm not convinced either. But look, $6 billion is not $40 billion, which is not $100 billion. So it's one of those- Yeah, but look at how pro-Israel he is. They're just going to tie him together.

Well, it's not the same thing. Well, we don't know that. I mean, there's a- I think that's high likelihood. There's a bill right now in the Senate with multiple co-sponsors from Republicans to strip the aid apart. Mount Gate said yesterday that he would not, that there's not majority support for dual Israel-Ukraine aid. And like I said, even if they get $2 billion or $6 billion or even $10 billion versus $100 billion, I mean, that's a massive substantive difference than what would have likely happened.

So look, I guess I'm talking myself into your own direction, which is, I agree, none of these people are angels and all of that. I still think it's amusing. And Mr. Bowman, I have always believed was a liar and now it appears to be vindicated. Since you all undoubtedly recall, there was that horrific explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, which killed some huge number of civilians.

We still don't know exactly the toll. Numbers could be as high as 500. I've seen as low as 100, but a huge number of people. And there have been a lot of disputes over exactly what happened here. Was it Israel's fault? Was it a Palestinian rocket that misfired? Both Israeli and U.S. intelligence came down on the side of it. It was an Islamic Jihad rocket which exploded midair and fell and landed in the hospital courtyard, igniting this blast explosion that killed all of these people. One of the key things that they based this assessment on was this particular video from the Al Jazeera live coverage that evening. Okay, so we have a new development in the investigation into whatever the hell actually happened here, coming from the New York Times, directly disputing the analysis of both Israeli intelligence and, critically, U.S.

intelligence of what this video actually shows. Let's put this up on the screen. So this is from journalist Eric Toller. He says, Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials believe that a projectile captured on videos shortly before the Ali Arab Hospital explosion was a Palestinian rocket. New York Times visual investigations found that this object was actually launched from Israel and likely unrelated to the deadly blast. He goes on. I want to bring you all of this analysis here so that you can have all of the details. So he goes on to say that an IDF spokesperson went on CNN and the BBC with a printed out screenshot from an Al Jazeera live stream showing this projectile claiming it was the rocket that hit the hospital. We also believe that American officials are incorrectly assessing

this to be a Palestinian rocket. And U.S. officials did confirm to them that they believed that this was a rocket and they used this in their assessment. We geolocated five videos that showed this projectile launch from the north, south, east, and west. By drawing lines of perspective, three of which can be seen here, we assessed that this project was launched from near the Israeli city of Nahal Oz. We cannot say with confidence what exactly the projectile actually is, but we know that there is at least one Iron Dome launch site in nearly the same location that overlaps from the sight lines we drew from the five videos. This site was still present in satellite imagery this year. This projectile may have been launched in reaction to barrages of rockets from Gaza. Here is the timeline. One, Palestinian rocket barrages followed shortly by two, Israeli projectile

launch. Three, 17 and a half seconds in air before the projectile detonates, four, explosion at the hospital seven seconds later. The projectile launch from Israel detonates at least two miles away from the hospital, so not very close. And 25 seconds passed from when the final Palestinian rocket was launched in these videos and the hospital explosion. They go on to say the situation in the area around the hospital was chaotic that evening. The Al Jazeera live stream of the scene, plus other videos we reviewed, shows at least two large explosions near the hospital in the minute before the deadly blast. And he talks about, and we had discussed before, the fact

that this very same hospital had actually been hit by like a warning shell. That part is more or less confirmed. They had also been warned to evacuate in advance of whatever happened with this explosion. One other update here, LeMond also confirmed the newspaper. LeMond also confirmed that the New York Times telling of what this video actually shows. Asked about the Times findings, a spokesman for the Office of the DNI said the Times and American intelligence agencies have different interpretations of the video. So again, basically this video coupled with that, what I think is total BS, alleged conversation between Hamas militants is what Israeli officials in particular were basing their assessment on and what American intelligence was largely basing their assessment on as far as we know based on what they've said publicly.

So the New York Times directly disputing their analysis of this video. What I think is interesting is that they're saying, and this actually explains a lot, because everyone was like, well, if it was Israel, then it would have had to be a JDAM, it would have had to be a bomb. And if it was a bomb, then it would have caused a ton more damage in the hospital because it didn't end up in the hospital. It hit the parking lot. And then a lot of the scorch marks that were on top of it, everyone was like, well, that's consistent with the rocket and with something that is fueled in particular by it basically has fuel and it gets on fire and it like sprays everywhere. According to their analysis, if it was then an Iron Dome interceptor, what was it intercepting? They say a possible answer is that by the IDF's own admission, there was a rocket incoming

to Nahal al-Az and Saad at the exact moment of this projectile launch, which would then strengthen their theory now that this was actually an Iron Dome missile. And the thing is, is that again, for anybody who doesn't even know, Iron Dome is the Israeli system which shoots down incoming or intercepts, more importantly, incoming rockets like with their own missiles that were fired. There's a lot of software and technology that goes into that. The point, though, is that that could be, again, could be consistent. I guess the big question, though, is why did Hamas just scrub everything in the parking lot the day afterwards? They never released any of the photos. They were like, no, no, it's an Israeli strike. And remember, even their story was that it wasn't an iron donut interceptor. They blamed

the Israeli airstrike. They specifically said airstrike. So the confounding variable is the parking lot itself, Hamas's sketchiness, and their immediate lies about the death toll, at least on an immediate basis. There's just no way they could have decided at that time, like, oh, 500 people died. And you just know that, you know, what, 30 minutes after the strike? That's impossible. So, anyway. Independent estimates, which, again, journalists can't get into Gaza to verify, but are that hundreds were killed, but probably not the 500 that the health ministry originally said. We still don't know exactly what the death toll was. And we still don't have any definitive

proof of what happened here. The New York Times investigation is basically saying this video that Israel and that the US were pointing to, again, as really like the bedrock piece of their evidence, doesn't actually show anything that had anything to do with this hospital. Because based on, first of all, it came from Israel. Second of all, it was two miles away from the hospital. And the timing doesn't exactly match up either. So they're not saying like, we know what happened, but they are saying there were Israeli airstrikes right in the vicinity of the hospital at the same time. They really say, oh, but it wasn't close enough to of the hospital at the same time, they really say, oh, but it wasn't close enough to damage the hospital. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not.

And they're saying this thing that the intelligence agencies are basing their assessment on doesn't show what they're purporting it to, that they say that it showed. I think on the other side, what you point to is maybe the most critical piece against Hamas's version of the story, which is like, okay, well, where's your evidence? Yeah, take a picture of the damn rocket with Hebrew on it and then send it to the world. And I think it's important to say, like, there are other things that Israel could have used to bomb the site other than J-DAMS, right? And which would have had a smaller footprint and be more consistent with the type of crater that appears to have been, you know, in this parking lot, in this courtyard after the strike. But number one, I think it's just, you know,

adds to the level of uncertainty. It certainly calls into question the Israeli, as I've never had any confidence that the Israelis or the American intelligence agencies would tell us the truth about what was going on here. They desperately needed at that time some evidence to say it wasn't us. Because remember, the context of this was, number one, mass protests instantly break out. Number two, Biden literally visiting Israel that morning. And he needed some kind of face saving, something he could say and point to. So, you know, there was a real effort to muster this, quote unquote, evidence so that he could say and point to. So, you know, there was a real effort to muster this quote unquote evidence so that he could point to and say, oh, no, no, no, it was the other team in his words. And New York Times and other news outlets, I would say at this point, really calling that

into question. Yeah, the reason why it's just so difficult is, you know, immediately came to mind, like, OK, I obviously I don't trust what Hamas says. OK, then it was like, all right, well, then this evidence comes out and then for me, I didn't even care about the phone call. For me, it was the parking lot photo. Like, okay, well, the parking lot photo is period. Like, it's not an airstrike. So then it doesn't seem like there could have been an alternative explanation. But now there is an alternative explanation that considers it. And you're not wrong. I mean, don't forget the Times actually is the one who debunked the original story about the U.S. airstrike on supposedly against the ISIS ringleader, which ended up killing like some random civilian and his kids in Afghanistan. If you'll remember that airstrike, the water salesman or whatever. It was actually a New York Times visual investigation that completely debunked that.

So anyway, look, I don't know. And what's even more of a plot twist is the guy who's behind this, he used to work for Bellingcat, which is like ties to the CIA. So I'm like, I don't know, man. I mean, it's like, you know, one case, the CIA says, no, no, no, it was Israel. Now he's departing, but now he works for the New York Times. And he's like, no, actually it might've been Israel. I have truly no clue. I'm just going to come on the side of, we're probably won't know. And it just going to come on the side of we probably won't know. And it also just comes back to the side of why don't we let journalists into Gaza? Because when you do, that's a hell of a lot easier. Somebody can go and bring an actual camera and maybe even a news crew to this hospital and look around moments after the strike and be like, all right, what's that?

What's that on the ground? It's simple. When otherwise, we're constantly relying on all of this. Although, honestly, at this point, the damage is done in both ways. It is just a great highlight of like, you know, you gotta be careful with what the information that is coming out here. And that several, pretty much every party who's involved, from the US press, to the US intelligence community, to the Israeli military, to Hamas, has all had a proven track

record of lying in the past, which makes it so difficult to actually even figure out what's happening. Correct. One thing I will say just to wrap up this story is there have been 62 different health facilities just in this engagement that have been bombed during this quote unquote war against Hamas. So, you know, what happened at this hospital, given the level of carnage is obviously incredibly significant. There should be an independent investigation. By the way, the US is opposed to an independent investigation, which is another red flag in terms of their story and what they want the world to believe, just as it's a red flag on the Hamas side that they won't muster their own proof and their own evidence, et cetera. But why would you be opposed to an independent investigation? Anyway, there

should be one. We should know what happens here. But of course, it doesn't erase the massive, widespread damage and civilian casualties that we are seeing throughout Gaza, regardless of what happened in the specific incidents of this hospital. Your comment, Sagar, about the need for journalists on the ground in Gaza is unfortunately a perfect segue into another horrific, horrific story about a journalist's family, which was just killed in Israeli airstrikes. But before we even get to that, Al Jazeera, the network that is funded by the Qatari government, has really come under fire, both from the U.S. and really from Israel, but also from the U.S. Let's put this up on the screen

in terms of Tony Blinken went to the Qatari PM and asked him to rein in Al Jazeera's war coverage. Let me give you the details here, which I think are kind of wild. He told a group of American Jewish community leaders on Monday that he asked the Qatari prime minister less than two weeks ago to tone down Al Jazeera's rhetoric about the war in Gaza. This according to three people who attended the meeting. So you have official U.S. policy trying to shape what international media outlets, which again, backed by Qatar. So it is really important to keep that in mind in terms of their coverage, right? But trying to shape what this coverage looks like internationally. So it more closely conforms, I guess, to the Western

propaganda that we typically receive. And in addition, put this third element, guys, up on the screen that the Israeli government banned all activities of Al Jazeera in Israel. So they out and out banned Al Jazeera, ordered the closing of all of their offices. The tower, which was the hub of Al Jazeera and other pro-Palestine media in Gaza, has been demolished by Israel. And they go on to note that Rishi Sunak, the PM of the UK, said today that Israel is exercising its legitimate right to defend itself. They, man, Israel, in terms of a crackdown on any kind of dissent, like the stuff we're seeing here is child's play compared to their like

arresting movie stars who are posting begly pro-Palestinian stuff. They propose this law that even if you were saying things that were true, if they were against the quote unquote national interest, that they could arrest you at the discretion of this one dude. That hasn't gone through, but that's the sort of stuff that's being floated there. But this direct war on Al Jazeera is the backdrop for an absolute horror that there are no words for, which is the Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera, a guy by the name of Wael Dadu, his wife, his son, and his daughter were all killed, and his grandchild, by the way, in an Israeli airstrike, targeted a shelter house that they had fled to, because remember, people have been told, okay, you got to leave the north of Gaza. They had left. They went to this house that they thought would be safer, and they end up,

all of them, being killed in an Israeli airstrike. He actually received the news while he was on air covering what was happening on the ground in Gaza. Let's take a look at this. You can see him here just after having received the news, which as I said, he got on air. Here he is with his son weeping over the body of his son. And I know these images are very, very difficult to see. But again, so many questions. Was this a deliberate target? Was this house with the family of the Gaza bureau chief for Al Jazeera, with Al Jazeera coming under fire from Israel, being told to close its offices, the United States secretary of state going and saying, hey, they need to turn down their coverage. And then immediately afterwards, the family of the Gaza bureau chief is killed in this airstrike. A lot of questions here.

Yeah, so 21 others were actually killed in the separate incident. The Al Jazeera parent company, Media Network, they're the ones blaming the Israeli airstrike. They're calling it, quote, unquote, a indiscriminate assault, saying that Al Jazeera is deeply concerned about the safety and the well-being of our colleagues inside of Gaza. I don't think it's in dispute at all that members of his family then were killed, and there has not yet been an alternative explanation or dispute yet by Israel. You can take that with what you will. The big question is about the number of journalists now who have died. It's at least 24 that have been confirmed died since October 7th. 20 of those actually are Palestinian since the hostilities in October 7th really began here.

Yeah, I mean, it's just absolutely like it's a horrific thing to watch. Also, you know, in terms of the front on general with Al Jazeera, it is difficult. And, you know, they are basically directly controlled by the Qatari government. I've used to live in Qatar. By the way, I don't believe in censorship. I do believe that they should be allowed to broadcast in Israel. If you're Israeli, actually, you want that because you want to know exactly what these people are saying and reporting from there. Because like it or not, the huge swaths of the Arab world actually do watch Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera Arabic has been caught many times reporting absolute bullshit, especially whenever it came to the US and Iraq. So I'm not going to sit here and stand for them. At the same time, it reflects, I think, a little bit of what we

talked about previously in our broader war coverage crystal, which is that Al Jazeera, the images, and all of that that are flooding across the Arab world. And Al Jazeera, frankly, is probably the tame version compared to what's being distributed on WhatsApp and on Twitter or on Telegram. It is laying the base of the exact same media environment the United States found itself in in 2004 and 2005, where Al Jazeera Arabic basically all day, every day was just broadcasting carnage of what was going on in Iraq and being, this is America's fault, this is America's fault, this is America's fault, which, you know, kind of was. And that, it was the backdrop of the huge rise in the jihadist movement, and which ignited a lot of terrorist attacks against the U.S. And it took a while, you know, for that to start to materialize. But the London bombing happened,

then you had multiple other, you know, major al-Qaeda attacks that were attempted against the U.S. That was also the beginning of kind of the quote-unquote lone wolf terror thing, which I mean, what? We lived with that for more than a decade. So I think we're just going right back to very familiar territory. And that's actually what scares the hell out of me. Because I know that this is the backdrop of what every person in the Arab world is consuming on a daily basis. That's why Blinken was like, hey, can you please tone it down? Because we know how influential this is. But to be honest, I don't think it's going to do anything. These people are all online. Al Jazeera doesn't matter. Even if Al Jazeera became CNN overnight, it wouldn't matter. And also, I mean, to state the obvious, like stop,

rather than trying to curb the coverage of the atrocities. How about you just curb the atrocities, which the United States government, if they wanted to use their leverage, could very much, very much do and could get behind a ceasefire to try to end. You know, I mean, I already talked about the number of civilians that were killed here, thousands and 13 confirmed Hamas fighters killed. So, you know, it's also worth mentioning, and we covered this here at the time as well, this isn't the first Al Jazeera journalist who has been killed by, who's been impacted by, you know, Israeli strikes. You had Shireen Abu Akleh, who originally Israel said, oh, it was Palestinian fire that she got caught in the crossfire. It was actually Palestinians who killed her. Well, it turns out months down the road after investigation, no,

no, they had to admit because there was too much proof that it was the IDF that killed her. So, you know, putting aside this horror, absolute horror, and whether or not it was a direct target, which I think is very much an open question here. It's clear that the Israeli government wants to try to curb the images that are coming out of Gaza and the American government wants to try to curb the images that are coming out of Gaza because it is horrible. It's horrible. And they are very much afraid of these continued protests and the rage and the fury and what that could ultimately spiral out of control into. But as I said, the answer here isn't to try to change the coverage or curb the coverage or sanitize the coverage.

It's to actually get at the root cause of the, you know, the war crimes that are being committed here. I mean, the siege part is, you could potentially have some argument about human shields, et cetera, on the bombings, but the complete siege of all the civilians, this is collective punishment. Like, by international law, it is really indisputable, and the U.S. could do a lot about that. They could, but they're not going to.

Of course. The U.S. political system is not. They've made that very clear. The U.S. political system supports this action. I think we all need to also reconcile ourselves to that and just be prepared for what the fallout from that is going to be. At the same time, though, it is also having fallout elsewhere. Hollywood. What a story here.

So, you know, these actors and actresses, they've got their little brands they've got to protect. They want to be on the side of good things and against bad things. But of course, you know, this is a very difficult situation. People feel a lot of ways. And we're talking about, you know, not just some like bullshit, not to totally dismiss it, but like diversity play or whatever. We're talking about life, death, war, peace, possible World War III, hostages who are being held, etc. And it has gotten very messy. So we have two effectively rival letters being signed on to by Hollywood stars. This first one is, I mean, it's almost just, it's very confused. And it's, in my opinion, quite laughable. Let's put this up on the screen. Long list of Hollywood stars and executives signed on to this letter thanking President Joe Biden for his leadership and asking to keep the focus on the hostages in Gaza.

Thank you for your unshakable moral conviction, leadership, and support for the Jewish people who have been terrorized by Hamas since the group's founding over 35 years ago. And for the Palestinians who have also been terrorized, oppressed, and victimized by Hamas for the last 17 years that the group has been governing Gaza, we would urge everyone to not rest until all hostages are released. So basically, we can put this up on the screen, the list of some of the stars here. We've got, you know, highlighted Jordan Peele, Olivia Wilde, Jon Hamm, John Watts, Dean Cain. I don't know who most of these people are, but that's not because they're not, they're nobodies. I just don't know who anybody is. That was the one so far. Anyway, so this is one list that's being put out. Aaron Sorkin is on this one as well. And the

reason I call it confused is like, why do you need to sign a letter that's just like, good job, Joe Biden, way to go person with the most powerful, you know, position in the entire world. Like, we stand with you. But they have to throw in this hostage piece to try to act like they're, like, rebellious and standing up to power. And really, you're just completely co-signing what the American government is already doing. I was going to say, it's like, why does he need a letter from you to be like, you know what? I'm going to keep working to get those hostages out. It's just like, shut up.

Like, keep your, you know, if you want to make a dumb ass post on Instagram, like go for it. Good luck with that, considering with Jamie Lee Curtis and all these other people. But nobody asked for you. Nobody cares, you know, what you think. This entire thing, like you said, it's confused because this is the policy of the government. No hostage can be left. Yeah, the Secretary of State has said it. So is the president. It'd be different if the president was like, you know what, we're giving up or something like that. Be like, okay, fine. Then you can, quote unquote, speak out. But what does that even mean? It's also just so banal. We all want the same thing. Freedom for Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in peace. It's like, okay, thanks. Thank you, Bradley Cooper and Courtney

Cox or Chris Rock. I'm most surprised that Gal Gadot is the one who signed on to this because she's just straight up Israeli. And so if she comes out and is, like, totally supportive of Israel, I mean, I don't have a problem with that. She's from the country. So I just don't get it. I don't understand the point of this thing. She also did, I believe, was behind the Imagine song.

Do you remember that? Whenever they all sang Imagine during the pandemic. Oh, really? So this is not the first foray for Miss Godot. So producer Griffin flagged that at least one of the people on this letter is now coming out and saying, wait, I didn't, I actually, my agent put me on this and I didn't actually want to sign on to this. I wanted to be on the other letter, which let's put this up on the screen. The other letter has a little more clarity of

content here. Artists calling for ceasefire now. Obviously, this is in direct opposition to what the Biden administration is pushing for. They say we come together as artists and advocates, most importantly, as human beings witnessing the devastating loss of lives and unfolding horrors in Israel and Palestine. We ask that as President of the U.S., you and the U.S. Congress call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel before another life is lost. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the last week and a half, a number any person of conscience knows is catastrophic. We believe all life is sacred, no matter faith or ethnicity, and we condemn the killing of Palestinian and Israeli citizens. We urge your administration,

Congress, all world leaders to honor all of the lives in the whole Atlantic, call for and facilitate a ceasefire without delay and end to the bombing of Gaza and the safe release of hostages. So this one, you know, an actual challenge to what the Biden administration is calling for and, you know, Hollywood very much at war over how to approach this issue. You also have the Writers Guild coming under fire because they didn't say anything, which to be honest with you, when you've got a union with a lot of members

with different backgrounds and different views on this, not saying anything kind of seems to me like not the worst thing in the world. Like just to, you know. It's the correct thing to do. Stay out of it. Yes. If you don't have a unity of opinion among your membership, that seems entirely appropriate to me.

I mean, obviously, I would love for them to call for a ceasefire. I'd love for them to come down on the side of Palestinian humanity. But it's interesting to me that they're coming out of under significant fire from their membership just for being like, we're going to keep quiet. Yeah, I've seen this from the universities, too. People are like, why has Harvard University not denounced the attack? I'm like, who gives a shit? The issue, though, is that Harvard boxed itself into a corner where any time the social justice cause du jour was happening, they're like, oh, we unequivocally stand with Black Lives Matter or trans whatever. And like, you know, abortion, Roe versus Wade or DACA or immigration, all these other things.

I'm like, well, you guys are the ones who dug your own grave. I'm like, you want to weigh in every single time there's something going on, then yeah, people are going to call you out when you don't say anything. But I'm very much exactly of the same opinion of yours is if you have an organization like the WGA where there are, I mean, many of the people who just signed both of these letters are how could you unequivocally come out and have a single position? Then that's just the narcissism of leadership. It's not a true union. And this is one of the, in my opinion, big missteps that a lot of unions made in the 80s and 90s is explicitly aligning themselves with the machine art of the Democratic Party. While not majority, but some of its people, coalition and others, did not vote in a similar direction. It caused like a big split.

And I think one of the benefits to a guy like Sean Fain, who has been a little political with Biden and all that, but has also been willing to call him out, is that even the people who are in his union who support Trump, like for example, I don't think they could ever say for a second that the man would never put them first over loyalty to the Democratic Party. That's what you have to do. So anyway, in some ways, I don't have some sympathy because I'd have to go back and check to see what WGAO said about the last BLM or whatever. I'm sure they probably put out some BS statement. So in some ways, it's like this is why. You don't have to weigh in on everything. And if you do, then when something becomes socially inconvenient and you don't have 100 percent of people behind you and then you say nothing, people are going to call you out. So I'm a bit conflicted. I agree with the policy you laid out, but I think you should be consistent. matters a lot more what the president of the United States, what the people with power in

the House and the Senate, you know, and, you know, the people who are funding super PACs and who are, you know, really influential in terms of our public policy. Like it matters a lot more what they are saying than like whatever the Writers Guild might put out, whatever Sarah Silverman thinks about them. Or Harvard. Or Harvard. Or like, you know, some dumb kids marching on some college campus. And it can be very easy when we see things we disagree with coming from groups that maybe we have antipathy for to fixate on those things.

But I would just keep our eyes on the prize of the people who actually have power and not even what they're saying, what they're doing. That's where all the real action. I think it comes to a powerlessness. Like, you know, nothing that we say here on the show is going to impact US policy. And that's actually a very difficult thing to accept for a lot of people. Even, and now imagine you're a billionaire. Now imagine you're an actor. What you can control if you're a billionaire donor to Harvard is, you know, nobody in the White House is going to care what you think, although they'll care more what you think. Oh, if you're a billionaire, they might care. Ish, but probably not in a case like this. But what you can control is Harvard University, who you donate $10 million a year. Yeah, that's true. You can control, if you're a student in

particular, and I understand being a student, it's like you want to be righteous and you want to have an impact, but like nobody cares what you think. So what do you do? You march in or you, you know, project some dumb ass statement onto a wall and you like embroil the institution in conflict because you're trying to be heard. You're trying to have agency. Again, I understand where that comes from, but that is why I think people get engaged in these fights. It's because 99.9% of us will never have any impact on what Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, or President Biden have to say. However, you can have an impact in a more immediate, like, fight in the WGA in a letter or on campus, something like that. It's like a way of acting out.

And I do understand it. I do also mostly think it's pointless. So anyway, I'm glad that you said that. All right. So we do have a little bit of good news to bring you guys. Sagar just mentioned Sean Fain and the United Auto Workers who have been obviously doing this standup strike for, I don't even know what the count is, but number of weeks at this point, they've been escalating week by week. They actually have a tentative deal with Ford. So one of the big three with the idea being that if they come to this deal with Ford, which the membership still has to vote on, that'll put pressure on the other two to fall in line and also, you know, come to the table with sufficient concessions to be able to achieve

similar results for the membership here. Let's take a listen to what Sean Fain, and I think he's like the vice president, I don't know, he introduces him, but another UAW leadership member have to say about the deal and its contents. UAW family, I'm excited and honored to be joined today by Vice President Chuck Browning as we announce a major victory in the stand-up strike. Today, we reached a tentative agreement with Ford. For months, we've said that record profits mean record contracts. And UAW family, our stand-up strike has delivered. What started at three plants

at midnight on September 15th has become a national movement. We knew we were getting close, but we also knew the companies needed a major push if we were going to make sure we got every penny possible in this agreement. So we took our strike to a new phase and hit the companies with maximum effect. So when we say historic, we mean it. We have won a 25% general wage increase over the course of this agreement. With COLA, we expect the top wage rate to increase by over 30 percent to above $40 an hour. Our starting wage rate will rise 68 percent. For decades, temps at the Big Three have been abused and exploited. Over the life of the contract, temps will see raises of over 150%.

Some of our lower tier members at Sterling Axel and Rawsonville will see an immediate 85% raise upon ratification. So those are some of the key provisions. Just to reiterate here, 25% raise through April of 2028. Starting wages going up by 68% to 28 bucks an hour, reinstatement of cost of living adjustments that those had been lost in 2009 when workers helped to bail out the automakers, a right to strike over plant closures. That's actually a big deal that they're, you know, if a plant is being threatened with closure, they can go out on strike and protest that move. That's a big deal. Abolishing two tiers, abolishing multi-tiers at two major plants, top pay rises to 40 bucks an hour. It's now at $32

an hour. New workers to reach the top wage after three years instead of eight. More retirement funding for retirees, those with pensions, and 401ks. So as I said, membership has to vote on it and see if they think that this is sufficient. But it's also not a surprise to me, Sagar, that Ford was the first one to be able to come to a deal because the reporting I had seen is that Ford actually had the best relationship with the UAW and the CEO there had tried to maintain close relations. And so it's not a surprise to me they're the first ones to come and we'll see what happens at the other two automakers. But, you know, these already are huge concessions, huge victory, and I think really validates the strategy and the tactics that Sean Fain, their brand new president of the UAW, used in order to secure these gains. Yeah, I mean, 25% is nothing to sneeze at, and $40 an hour is good money. I just still think we all have to remember to annualize

it because people forget, you know, at the top line, that's $83,200 a year. I mean, yes, you also receive benefits like healthcare pension 401k. So I'm not going to discount that. But on a cash basis, that puts you like solidly middle class in America. It puts you in a place where you can afford like roughly a $400,000 house, although you still, it's going to take you a while to come up with a down payment. And that's the wage of the top assembly line worker. There's still a 25% bump. So I believe that brings somebody to around $40,000 a year again. You get decent benefits. It's not like they gave them the, remember the vaunted, what is it, four day a week? That's not included in the agreement. I always thought,

I'm like, this guy is reaching there with $32. They were shooting for the moon. Yeah, I get it. I was like, that's not actually going to happen. But it didn't happen. They agreed to this deal. As you said, let's see. I'm curious what the membership thinks of it.

Although, I mean, to get cost-of-living adjustments back when they were suspended in 2009, that's pretty big in itself because it's not frozen in time. You get the COLA adjustment, and that is really one of the reasons why they have not just suffered lack of wage inflation. They actually suffered deflation over the last decade. So if it were me, I would take the deal. I think that's a pretty good deal. Now the other two automakers kind of have a roadmap for like, okay, if we want this to be over, and at this point, this strike is hitting some of their most profitable plants. Like if we want to end this, all right, this is what it would take. That's why there's, you know, more likely than not that there'll be a lot of pressure on them and they may be able to come to tentative agreement with those two other automakers as well in the near future, let's hope. The other thing here is, you know, there are a lot of workers

across the country, not just auto workers, but also auto workers at thing here is, you know, there are a lot of workers across the country, not just not just auto workers, but also auto workers at Tesla and other foreign automakers that have plants down south who are looking at these wages, who are looking at what was able to be secured here and are thinking, like, why am I doing the same job for so much less money? So between this, between what the UPS workers were able to secure, between what the actors were – sorry, the writers were able to secure in terms of their deal, there's a number of very clear demonstrations of what you can achieve with a union, with this type of collective bargaining. And so I think that that helps to spur and continues to spark an increased interest and increased success throughout labor organizing. So from that perspective, it's also very exciting and much bigger than, not to say just, but much bigger than just this one industry, especially since the American auto industry is just such an iconic part of American

life. Yeah. One good thing is from GM's perspective, they actually just reported their earnings and their earnings actually rose quarter over quarter. They did project a single quarter, 7% drop in profit, but they're still profitable as a company. So they've got the margin, at least right now, to negotiate from that. And now they have the roadmap. So hopefully this does show us that we're coming to an end. Although you don't know, it certainly could continue. No way to say. All right. We'll see you guys later. Premium subs and everybody else, we're going to an end. Although, you don't know. You know, it certainly could continue. No way to say. All right. We'll see you guys later. Premium subs and everybody else. We're going to have a separate interview with Daryl Cooper of the Martyr Made podcast.

It's going to post later. We just didn't want to include it as part of the main show because we want to get this one out on time. We'll post it as a separate podcast. You guys can look out for that. Obviously, the premiums, you guys will get that first. We'll be on standby should any breaking news or anything happen. But otherwise, we will see you all on Monday. 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. A lot of times big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.

Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John.

Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's You're Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, 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.

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