Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/30/23: Bibi Calls For Biblical Wipeout In Gaza, Erdogan Threatens War, Russian Mob Hunts Jews, Israel Losing TikTok War, New Speaker Flip Flops, Pence Drops Out, New Dem Primaries Biden, UAW Wins, Televangelists Push Holy War

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Netanyahu declaring a Biblical Wipeout of the Gaza strip as the invasion and death toll mounts, Erdogan holds a rally in Turkey threatening War with Israel, a Russian mob swarms an airport hunting for Jews, Israel loses the information war on Tik Tok, New Speaker Mike Johnson flip flops on Ukraine, Mike Pence drops out of 2024 race, Democrat Dean Phillips challenges Biden in the primary, the Big 3 cave to UAW's strike demands, and we're joined by journalist Lee Fang to talk about his reporting on Christian Televangelists pushing for a Holy War alliance with Israel.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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 show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have a great show for everyone today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. As has been the case, a lot to get into this morning. We're, of course, going to give you all of the updates from the ground in Gaza, plans as Israel moves into what

they're describing as the second phase of the war. So we'll bring you everything that we know there. We also have a terrifying mob swarming an airplane at an airport in Dagestan, looking for any Jews on a plane coming in from Israel. Absolutely horrifying scene. So we'll bring you everything that we know about that. We've also got a big panic over the way that young people are getting their news on TikTok. Some interesting numbers there that we want to share for you. We've also got some updates on how the new speaker may be thinking about potential Ukraine aid. Sounding a little different now that he is Speaker of the House

than he was previously on the issue of Ukraine. So we've got some thoughts on that one. We've also got some good news. UAW winning another tentative agreement, this time with Stellantis. That leaves only GM of the big three remaining out. Of course, these agreements have to go to the membership to be voted in, but them winning some significant concessions from those auto companies. And also excited to be joined by Lee Fong, who's been looking at the religious connection between the way the right in America in particular, but also parts of the Democratic base view the relationship with Israel and how that impacts our politics.

Yeah, he's been doing some great work. I'm excited to talk to him about it. Yeah, absolutely. We've been trying to get Lee on the show for a while. So excited to have him in today. But let's go ahead and start with the very latest on the ground in Gaza. A lot of things to update you on here. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. We can take a look at some of the images that are coming out. These were actually released by the IDF. You can see these tanks massing as we brought you over the weekend, more significant incursions into Gaza. That is part of that phase two. Now we can see some of the rubble here and destruction. This is a child being pulled out from underneath some of this rubble, this building that was bombed and collapsed. Horrifying scenes there. You also have here a rescue worker who is just completely

breaking down a member of the civil defense team. Similar scene here, you have paramedics, one of whom is trying to comfort a baby as best he can. He also ends up breaking down. Here you see some of the desperation. These are people who are masked outside of a bakery waiting in long lines just in an attempt to try to get any sort of food to feed themselves, to feed their families. Of course, this is going on multiple weeks now of a complete siege. Very little in terms of food, water, medical aid,

anything being let in. I just saw a stat about the number of pregnant women who are drinking brackish water and children. It is a horrifying situation there. We also have an update for you on the death toll. Let's put this up on the screen. We have, you know, same number out of Israel, roughly 1,400 who have been killed there. We now have over 8,000 in Gaza who have been killed as part of Israel's war on that enclave and the majority of these women and children. So it is just a horrific, horrific situation. We can also show you some additional scenes of desperation in terms of food and just being able to secure any sort of sustenance. Let's put this up on the screen. This is people taking flour out of a UN warehouse.

This is in Khan Yunis. That's in the southern part of Gaza where people were told to flee. Now, they have still faced bombings, even in this part. This is one individual explaining, we have no flour, no aid, no water, not even toilets. Our houses were destroyed. No one cares about us. We appeal to the people of the world, he says. All international powers are against us. We needed aid and we wouldn't have done this if we were not in need. So, Sagar, you can see the way that civil society, you know, the level of desperation here, things are just completely breaking down. I'll tell you one thing that I saw that completely broke me.

There's a whole hospital wards full of preterm babies who were cut out of their dead mother's stomachs and who are now, you know, have to be on ventilators in, you know, the equivalent of a NICU. And these hospitals are running out of fuel. They're also under threat of potential imminent bombing. So you just can't overstate what a humanitarian disaster this is. No, it's full-scale disaster going on. Doesn't sound any signs of abating so far. The Israelis are calling this just the fourth day of a, quote, extended military operation. It does seem we broke down the tactics for everybody last show around. If you did miss it, our Saturday update, the TLDR is basically tanks have now been inside of Gaza for the last four days. It seems

what people, the Israeli's military strategy is to use the tanks for taking very minimal casualties at this time to try and encircle all of Gaza City, which they're saying is like the nexus of the Hamas terror attack, but also really of the militant organization itself, at the same time saying that the residents should leave. There has been, prior to that, we talked about the cutoff of electricity, of water, but also of telecommunications. Now, we're going to get into that a little bit. But on the military side itself, what I think people need to understand is that there is a big war also over information. And one of the things that we really wanted to highlight, Crystal, for everyone was after the cutoff of internet and of

telecommunications, the IDF spokespeople came out with a message in English to the residents of Gaza. And we especially wanted to flag this because it just highlights something about the information war that is waging online. And we've told you before, if something's coming out in English from Hamas or from Israel, it's because they want you to hear it. This is one of the most blatant examples. Let's take a listen. We'll talk about it on the other side. Attention, citizens of Gaza.

Listen carefully. This is an urgent military advisory from the Israel Defense Forces. For your immediate safety, we urge all residents of northern Gaza and Gaza City to temporarily relocate south. Let me repeat, we urge all residents of northern Gaza and Gaza City to relocate south immediately. This is a temporary measure. Moving back to northern Gaza will be possible once the intense hostilities end. Hamas puts your life in danger by placing weapons and forces within civilians' area in Gaza,

including schools, masks, and hospitals. The impending IDF operation is set to neutralize these threats of Hamas with precision and intensity. So, of course, people in Gaza, I mean, I'm sure some do speak English, but I guess the predominant language is Arabic. But also, people in Gaza were not going to be able to hear that because the Internet literally was cut off at the time that all of that came out. That was a very clear message to the West about like, hey, because the Biden administration has been heavily pressuring them. They're like, you need to minimize civilian casualties. There's been a big war behind the scenes in the administration over restoring telecommunications access. But also, I think the key, the most thing that struck out to me, I'm curious what you thought, was you will be allowed to return. So they are making, they are trying to hammer home.

They're like, listen, this is not going to be a permanent occupation. You will be able to come back. They are trying to message to the Arab world, to the Western world. You're like, this is not going to be some colonization project. Now, listen, obviously, we have no idea what things will look like. But I took it as a major note that this is in English, that this was broadcast immediately afterwards. It was obviously not about Gaza. It would have been more honest. They're like, listen, Western world, here are our intentions. Or here is what we are at least saying that we're going to be doing here. But pretty significant in terms of releasing it in English at that time, especially that's really when some of the major international

condemnation on the Arab side started to roll in from the kingdom of Jordan, from Egypt and from Turkey as well, which we're going to talk about. Well, to show you just how blatant and cynical this was, even the Pod Save Bros were not impressed with this English language messaging. I don't normally quote Tommy Veeder on this show, but I'm going to. He reposted that message, that English language message for all of us from the IDF and said, an urgent message for residents of Gaza, telling them to relocate from north to south, delivered in English after Israel cut off Gaza's telecoms and internet networks. Just a completely cynical PR move for Western audiences. And I saw, you know, a lot of folks who were saying the same, like this was lost on no one. This was clearly for us and for the Biden administration to try to show them like, look,

we're doing everything we can in a humanitarian, to basically cover your ass for a Biden administration is effectively what it is. Now, at the same time, very different language and rhetoric coming from Bibi Netanyahu about what this is all about. And Sagar, you were mentioning they're trying to reassure, oh, of course you're going to be allowed home, et cetera, et cetera. At the same time, Netanyahu likening this to what Israelis call their war of independence, what Palestinians call the Nakba, the catastrophe in which they originally, 750,000, lost their homes. So I doubt there's a single Palestinian who really, truly trusts or believes that they're going to be allowed to come back home. Now, we don't know what the future holds, although we get to that in a moment. There are some increasing signs

of what the plans actually look like. But let's take a listen to what Netanyahu was saying about this and the very existential and once again, religious terms that he is framing this conflict in. Take a listen. You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.

And we do remember and we are fighting our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or October War, and all other wars in this country are hero troops. They have one supreme main goal to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country. We've always said never again. Never again is now. So I'm learning more about the Bible. Yeah. I also asked a Hebrew friend or a Jewish friend of mine to explain this. Well, I asked Wikipedia to explain this to me. Here's what Wikipedia says for what it's worth. They say because the reference to Amalek here in Judaism, three of the 613 Mitzvot or commandments involve Amalek to remember what the Amalekites did to the Israelites, not to forget what they did to the Israelites and to destroy the Amalek utterly. The specific quote is now go and

smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. So when he's talking about Amalek here, which is like the, you know, historic foe, like the quintessential enemy of the Jewish people, the specific language that they're referring to here talks about destroying not just them, but everything, their oxen, their destroying not just them, but everything, their oxen, their sheep, their infants, their children, everything and everyone associated with them. Yeah, that is why, again, it is very important to try and understand what the message in Hebrew is. Also, in Netanyahu, the coalition that he has to deal with, the ultra-Orthodox and

the Orthodox Jews as well, that is a message that they directly, or not only relate to, they probably were already thinking it. So to see him say it and to resonate with it is going to be powerful for the domestic constituency he's speaking to. Let's actually put this up there on the screen because I wanted to dig into some of the maps. The Economist actually did a pretty good job. And let's keep this up here, please, because it shows you the shaded area of the so-called evacuation zone, but also the various tactics of the Israeli plans to try and to encircle Hamas. So we had an incursion that was up in the north for those who are watching, but also a simultaneous one from the south. The plan, as I said, is to try and encircle

Gaza City, which is right in the middle of all of that. And with the sea blockade that they also have going on, it's to try and squeeze all of the militant elements into a single area, which obviously makes it easier for airstrikes, but also concentrates your enemy, and that is where the majority and the bulk of the fighting will remain. Now, the IDF, prior to the first day, when they said they had only taken,

they had taken no casualties, they've taken some casualties. They're not releasing the official number, but the official number of IDF dead, you know, does remain in the hundreds now at this point. And every once in a while, they're adding one or two or three to that. Now, we don't know because they could also be killed with military operations in the north against Hezbollah. Prior to that, about five had been killed previously. They're not giving us all the details. But, you know, once we do start to see casualties that comes with some video, which is beginning to come out of Gaza Crystal, there are ground troops that are there.

Now, again, they're not engaged in the heavy hand-to-hand combat yet that we do expect if there is some sort of final matchup. But military operation, yeah, fine. It's difficult to always talk about this without video game reference, I guess. The point just being that everything right now is about encircling. There's a lot of use of tanks preparing everything with airstrikes. And the big, big battle, if there is one to come, still remains, quote, months away, according to the Israelis. And that might be part of their battle plan. Again, though, that may never materialize simply because of international pressure. Or, you know, they may just want to say this is the actual, quote unquote, invasion, pull out and then deal with some diplomatic solution. We don't know what the end stage of this is going to look like. We certainly don't. We are getting more indications.

We also have this, which is referenced in the Economist piece, laying out, you know, their best analysis of what the Israelis' plans are at this point. You also had the former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, with a long thread on Twitter. Now, this is, we have the Hebrew translated via Google. So, you know, this is their translation for what it's worth. But let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. I'm not going to read all of this, obviously, because it's way too long. But just to give you a sense of what he claims is the Gaza siege plan. He says that they want to surprise and not go deep into the Gaza Strip as Hamas expects us to do, but to impose a complete siege on the north of the Gaza Strip, dry up and suffocate the Hamas

terrorists in the tunnels until they are forced to leave. So the idea being, all right, we're going to deny them any fuel that is going to make it so that, you know, their ventilators and lights in the tunnels, they are not able to sustain and they are sort of forced out of their holes. He also says they want to create a new security strip two kilometers deep into the territory of the strip along our entire border, a permanent strip. This is through the use of massive fire power and ground forces and engineering. Imagine bulldozers simply leveling that area. Number three, continuously use firepower on Hamas all over the strip. Israel conducts a continuous series of targeted ground operations with enormous firepower to separate neighborhood from neighborhood from Hamas. There's no need to hunt down every Hamasnik in hole and tunnel for the residents

of Gaza. Stay in the southern half of the Strip or outside the Strip, outside the Strip, until the end of the war when Hamas disarms unilaterally and releases all the hostages. This, of course, according to international law to preserve their lives. Okay. And then the last piece here, and again, this was a lengthy thread. I'm only reading pieces of it, but I thought this part at the end was very noteworthy. A sustainable political line of defense. In other words, this is what we're going to present to the world to try to avoid World War III and try to keep the American opprobrium at a minimum. Until the Israelis return home, neither will the Gazans return home. Everyone is going home together. Israeli hostages are returning home to Israel. Neither will the Gazans return home. Everyone is going home together. Israeli hostages

are returning home to Israel. Families from the Gaza enclave will return only with the disappearance of Hamas. Residents of Gaza will also be able to return because the war is over and the danger to their lives has passed. So, I mean, effectively what he is out and out saying there is we are going to hold the citizens of Gaza hostage until we achieve our war aims and get our own hostages back. Now, left unsaid, of course, is the fact that this intense firepower that they're describing is going to kill some of their own hostages, put their own hostages at severe risk. And the other thing I would say, Sagar, is just to try to imagine as best we can an unimaginable situation to be in the place of the Palestinians and looking

at all of this unfold. You've got the Israelis talking about the war of independence, which again, as I said, you know, Palestinians think of as the Nakba. You have them being forced already out of, you know, more than a million displaced out of their homes in the north. And at the same time, you have increased settler violence in the West Bank, murdering. There was a young olive farmer who was, you know, out harvesting his olives, doing nothing wrong, who was murdered by settlers and increased efforts to push them off their land as well. So if you're looking at all of this as a Palestinian, you're not thinking, oh, they're going to let me go back to my homes. You're thinking this is another knock, but that's what they have planned. Well, especially, I mean, look,

I don't know what they have. Does Naftali Bennett hold power? I don't know. You know, does he speak for the Israeli government? Is he just a guy who's posting? I mean, I find it a little hard to believe that the former prime minister, I mean, imagine if the middle of a, you know, a former president who was involved in American politics, who put out a long policy statement, like obviously the rest of the world would be forced to take that seriously. So that's the level that I would look at this. I mean, if you look at this, you're basically talking about collective punishment. You're talking about the establishment of some sort of two kilometer zone. I actually do think this is

where we're going to end up, just the reality of the fighting, where he talks about no need to fight them in the tunnels or any of that. They are effectively talking about establishing like a massive DMZ, like some sort of North Korean-style DMZ with a fence where they currently are, but then a two-kilometer free-fire zone.

Think of the Berlin Wall or West Berlin, East Berlin, with some sort of gap in between that's like heavily militarized and landmined. And that is, it seems to me, you know, based upon this, that's what jumped out the most, that they're going to go in, they're going to clear, they're going to have some sort of, you know, thing. But in terms of destroying Hamas, it's clear even in what he says. Well, whenever he says there's no need for us to fight them, it's like, well, if that's true, then you're not going to destroy the organization. It's not possible. Are you really going to destroy this militant organization? Like what? You think they're just

going to surrender? Like they're not going to surrender. And look, in terms of the population and all that, I don't know. And, you know, everyone's like, oh, well, they could rise up. At this point, you know, we, from the video that we played, they're most, the basic threes, like the food, shelter, water, that's what they're worrying about. They're not thinking about the political construct. At this point, there probably is no even real government in Gaza anymore. Hamas is off fighting.

The people are basically left to survive, and everybody else is just trying to do their best. So this, to me, actually does read like what the real plan may be. And if that is, I mean, the long-term prospect of minimizing violence here, I mean, I just don't see a political sustainability to create some sort of massive DMZ, which would require, you know, raising all these towns and all this ground. I don't really see the Arab world just sitting by and taking that. And the interim, you know, even while any of that is constructed, as they keep saying, it's going to take months and months and months. Every day that goes by is a loss of public confidence for a lot of people in Israel,

especially, again, in the world. And it also increases tensions and the likelihood the United States is going to get involved, which is ultimately what I honestly care about the most. So looking at this, I think that it explains also why the Biden administration is absolutely losing it behind the scenes. Right. Because they're like, we cannot co-sign this. They're like, this is not fits in any way with the official U.S. policy of a two-state solution and of a political sustainability. They're like, this is not politically acceptable really to us at all. But that's part of the problem is there is real – there's no, there isn't really no, I think like there's no

shared goal right now between the Biden administration and the Israeli government. And I don't see there being for a long time. Yeah. But that may be true, but you also have the Biden administration stating very clearly publicly, we're not going to actually do anything. Of course. Yeah. So they're just like having, you know, difficult conversations behind the scenes with Netanyahu, et cetera. I mean, he's, Netanyahu is balancing the fact that his political ass is on the line, you know. And he's trying to push off as long as he can any inquiry into the failures that led to October 7th, including his own admitted bolstering of Hamas over the years. Because, you know, while we sort of never gave up on this fiction in the U.S. that there was some sort of peace process ongoing and that we were building towards one day having a two-state solution, that has never been the policy of Netanyahu.

I mean, this is not me like reading the tea leaves. This is overtly what he says. He does not want a two-state solution. He does not want peace. He wanted to be able to manage the boil and keep it at a low boil in terms of their occupation and their blockade. And that was the idea of like, OK, we'll bolster Hamas because they're the radicals. You know, everyone will understand we can't possibly have a peace deal with them. And, you know, to try to minimize and undercut the more moderate Palestinian authority. So you have that piece. You have the fact that, you know, he is trying to somewhat balance or at least give the U.S.

some sort of cover as he watches protests rise, not only here, but around the world. You also have his, you know, extremist parts of his coalition and a significant part of Israeli society, by the way, that is, of course, they're all absolutely furious. And there is this deep desire for vengeance. So he has to show enough of a tough response and, you know, enough brutality to satisfy that piece. Israeli public opinion turns against a ground invasion if you're taking significant losses in terms of Israeli IDF forces. And you already have seen a huge public opinion shift out of concern for the hostages who are being held inside of Gaza. You've had a huge drop in support for a full-on ground invasion. So those are some of the political things that he is weighing. And of course, the lives of millions of Palestinians hang in the balance with all of this. I just mentioned, you know, the rising protests around the world, including there's a big march

planned for D.C. coming up this weekend. Well, there was a massive rally in Turkey led by Erdogan. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. I mean, some of these scenes, look at that. They're waving Turkish flags and Palestinian flags. Huge rally. And Erdogan, who is an Islamist, trying to use the Palestinian cause in order to bolster his own previously rather precarious political position. But he's using extremely bellicose rhetoric here. He says accurately that Israel is committing war crimes, but he also directly floats a possible war with Israel, something that this crowd seemed to be very supportive of. He said, according to translations, quote, Israel has been openly

committing war crimes for 22 days, but the Western leaders cannot even call on Israel for a ceasefire, let alone react to it. We will tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal. We are making preparations for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal. And as I said, there was some direct sort of beating of the drums of possibly getting involved here. Turkey has a very real, very sizable military, is obviously a NATO ally, which is also significant here as well. And Israel in response has withdrawn all of their diplomatic personnel from the country. Yeah. I mean, the most important thing to understand about this with Erdogan is that prior to Erdogan's regime, the government in Turkey was much more secular. Erdogan, of course, awoke a lot of the Islamist elements inside of Turkey. And that is where his ruling coalition

really comes from. So this is such an emotional issue and strikes at the heart for a lot of Muslims all across the Arab world. A lot of leaders have used that to their advantage and used the Palestinians as pawns, but that's like a second kind of piece of commentary there. In terms of this, Turkey, as you mentioned, of course, has a very world-class military, but at the same time, they're a NATO ally. So to have the fracture inside of NATO over an issue like this and also pressure from them on the West, it also raises the question of whether they would use this issue as some sort of crux or like a wedge in future NATO negotiations. Erdogan certainly would not be above that. He's done it for his own domestic political purposes. So anyway, I'm looking at that, and I just see that as one of the most significant elements about the powers in the region. The Egyptians, of course, are going to go in whatever direction that Sisi wants. The Jordanians are basically boxed in to go on the

Palestinian side. Much of the Arab world itself, they don't necessarily want to deal with this, but they know that their populations are very activated by it. Have the Turks come out so forcefully to see all those people out in the streets, all across the country. That's a very, very significant development. Yeah. And of course, I mean, the utter brutality of the images that are coming out are only going to inflame those tensions. And also, you know, the language that we played you before from Netanyahu, like overtly framing this as a sectarian religious conflict doesn't help. And, you know, we're already seeing like mob violence. Yeah, we're going to get to that. Right. I mean, I mentioned what happened at the airport. We're going to show you those images. There were also far right Jewish

extremists that were chanting death to Arabs and surrounding a college dorm inside of Israel that was housing some Arab students. I mean, when you frame things as this religious, holy word, sectarian violence, you know, these are the sorts of reactions that you get because then you're not separating out. These are the combatants. This is a political dispute. This is how we're going to handle it. No, then anyone who is of that religion becomes your enemy. So it is an absolute horror. As we've been discussing, you know, I sort of get irritated. There's all these leaks, the Washington Post, New York Times, whatever, about how the U.S. is so concerned by him, the scenes, and they're

talking to Netanyahu and they're trying to pressure him, oh, please turn the internet back on, etc. Again, not willing to actually use any of the considerable power and leverage that we have in the situation, but, you know, they're going to ask some tough questions behind the scenes and leak it to the press. Here was John Kirby getting asked publicly, is the U.S. setting any red lines for Israel? And he gives an unequivocal no. Take a listen. You've said you've asked them tough questions, but has the U.S. set or discussed any possible red lines? No. So there you go. No, no red lines whatsoever.

You know, there's already like with collective punishment, with the siege that's in place on the 2.2 million civilians, you cannot argue that there is not already collective punishment and international law being violated here. So, you know, they're saying publicly, at least we're fine with this. And he also said something very similar to reporters indicating that, you know, they had not actually set any hard red lines for Israel at this point. The same time, we've got a meeting from a high level Saudi official that happens to coincide with this time period. Apparently, this was already previously planned, but still very noteworthy that this is happening. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So you've heard of MBS. This is KBS. Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman is expected to visit D.C. today for talks with senior Biden administration officials. This is according to Axios Why It Matters. The visit has long been scheduled, the sources said, but it will take place just days after Israel expanded its ground operation in Gaza. An offensive Riyadh condemned

on Saturday also comes as the U.S. and Saudi Arabia express concerns that the fighting between Israel and Hamas could widen into a regional war. He's expected to meet with Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin, Tony Blinken, and several senators, according to this report. It's interesting.

I keep coming back to this news item about how the Saudi government told the propagandists, they're like, hey, they're like, we need to chill on any issues coming from Palestine. All these images, all of the babies, the stuff that we're playing, a lot of people inside Saudi Arabia, if they are getting it, it's not at the encouragement of the government. And I think what people, again, need to understand is the populations there, you know, they don't have a lot of power. But if they all coalesce around one thing and they decide the government's not doing enough, then the Saudi royal family is going to feel as if they are in trouble.

They don't care about the quote-unquote Islamists. They struck this deal. You can go and read about it if you're interested back in the 1970s. They let the Islamists do whatever they want because they pay them, but in exchange, you don't question it whenever they get to party on yachts and drink champagne. That's the deal. That's how it's been for a long time. With this type of stuff, though, anything with ethno-religious tones, like specifically with the Palestinians, that is a major threat to their regime because they're going to be viewed as weak by their own

population and they could possibly, you know, have some sort of Islamist takeover. So that is the main motivation for them. They don't care about the Palestinians at all. But when they're coming here, they're basically, and this has been communicated in all the leaks that are happening behind the scenes, they're like, if you guys do not put pressure on the Israelis, we are going to be forced to do something. Now, we don't know what that something looks like. And that's the main reason, I think, why we keep getting all these leaks, Crystal, like this one we could put up there on the screen. Basically, it's like we read this every day now. White House preps for broader war as concerns rise. And again, it's just like the Ukrainians. It's like we read this every day now. White House preps for broader war

as concerns rise. And again, it's just like the Ukrainians. It's like, well, we wish they wouldn't use the missiles in Russia, but what can you do? I'm like, well, you could stop giving it to them. And they're like, oh no, that would be too crazy. They specifically cite the Saudi defense minister coming on Monday. They also cite all of these calls going on behind the scenes between the Secretary of Defense and the Israeli defense minister about the Israeli intelligence services, quote, which they say believe that Hezbollah will increase the intensity of its attacks against Israel on its northern border because of the Israeli ground operation inside of Gaza. Israeli officials think Hezbollah will try to escalate without leading to an all-out war that could easily get out of control. But, I mean, just think about the gray line that that is. It's like, oh, well, we're going to escalate right up to the line. Well, who knows? We've already seen multiple instances of

failures. We've seen, you know, Israeli bombs go off of target and kill a bunch of civilians. We saw the Israelis accidentally fire at the Egyptians. It only takes one. You know, it takes one missile to go one wrong way and kill the wrong person. And now you're in a full-blown war and you don't even know what the hell happened before that even occurred. So behind the scenes, it's very clear that the West Wing is freaking out. I mean, we brought you everybody the news on Saturday about the White House was like, hey, just call off the invasion. They're like, don't do a full-scale ground invasion. Just do what we did in Iraq, like joint surgical operations, special forces. But what you guys are about to do, we really don't want you to do it. But then they did it anyway, or at least the tanks are

going in. There's a lot of negotiations going on behind the scenes. And every statement now from the White House, Crystal, is basically like, we need to respect humanitarian law. We need to respect civilians. And it's not about even at this point, like, of course, they're not going to change anything in terms of actual policy. But the fact that they keep saying it over and over again is also just an indication of how worried they are about spiraling of escalation. Absolutely. And it should be. They're worried about that. They're very worried about, you know, public opinion here, which is already shifting. And, you know, the view of younger generations on this conflict is very different from older generations. And guess what? Young people are

a critical part of the Democratic coalition. So I wish I could say like, oh, they're really concerned about the babies on the incubators and the kids being pulled out of the rubble. But let's be honest, like the concern is political. And the concern also has to do with they're not fools. They know what war with Iran would be and that it would be an utter catastrophe and complete nightmare. So, you know, that's why we keep getting these reports. Again, this is more of the hand-wringing like, oh, we're so worried about what they're doing, but, you know, we're not going to draw any red lines or actually do anything. Have you seen Sagar? There's this video that came out that's been confirmed of Netanyahu from, it was from many years ago, like probably 20 years ago, when he

thought that the mics and the cameras were off. And he gets asked about, you know, how to deal with the Palestinian issue. And he's talking about how you go and you hit them hard. And someone asked him, like, well, aren't you worried about what the Americans are saying? Oh, I've seen this clip. Yeah, this is famous. Yeah. He's like, oh, well, I understand how America is easy. Yeah. He's basically like they're very easy to persuade and very easy to maneuver. So basically he's like, no, they give us carte blanche and they're always going to. And you know what? He's been 100 percent correct. Just to show you how serious this is, and it's not just leaks to Axios, take a look at the military assets which are moving. Put this up on the screen. We've got

this graphic here, 24 hours of U.S. and allied transport aircraft moving from the continental U.S. to the eastern Mediterranean CENTCOM, including both U.S. and the U.K. transports. So you can see a lot of activity here. And this person says, as far from a complete list, does not include tankers or other types of aircraft. So we already knew about the carrier groups that had moved to the region. This also shows you some of the air assets that have moved to the region. Now, they would probably say, oh, this is part of deterrence. We're trying to avoid this wider conflict. But, you know, there's also this fine line between deterrence and provocation. And, you know, anytime you see this amount of military firepower moving to one region, you have to ask, what is this leading towards? And,

you know, one thing that really, from this particular Axios report that we had up, one line, Sagar, that really stuck with me is they had an official who said they continue to believe that diplomacy and Biden's experience can still help prevent worst case scenarios. However, they think that the most pessimistic outcome is the most likely outcome. Oh, absolutely. I agree with that too. I mean, I just, I like to think of things in terms of systems. Think about the American political system as it is current, not as we wish, as it is currently constructed. There is no scenario where Joe Biden is going to do anything to constrain Israeli military operations without freaking out the entire democratic Republican establishment. He'd probably be censured by his own party. And it would be, you know, it would be interesting if he were to do it,

but he's not going to do it. He doesn't have that kind of courage. He's only displayed it one time in his life with Afghanistan, took such a beating, he's probably never going to do it again. And this is 10x more powerful in terms of that lobby. Then think about the Israeli political system. How can anyone in the Israeli political system at this current moment, especially a guy named Bibi Netanyahu, who the day the military operation stops, he is going to get destroyed for allowing this to happen and for splitting the country apart, where already the security apparatus and everybody was allied against him. It's in his direct interest to keep this thing going as long as possible. And then let's think about Hamas's political interest. They didn't launch this attack

because they were afraid of retaliation. They want, they're like bin Laden. They want Israel to come in and blow the shit out of Gaza because that helps increase their message. Well, they want the broader war. They want the war. The war is good for them. Yeah. And so all three systems, each one, there is no exerting pressure that can keep us away from that.

And look, the most pessimistic outcome is the most likely. You should always, and I wish it were different. We're going to sit here. We've given so many alternative viewpoints on this. But we cannot pretend that these viewpoints have any power in Washington at the current moment. The only good thing, I guess you can say, about crisis is things move very, very quickly. So two weeks from now, who the hell knows what kind of world that we are living in. And sometimes discourse is much more relevant.

But as things stand right now, I don't see a single off ramp on this entire thing. I really don't. Yeah, that is certainly what it looks like. And just a sign that this conflict is having international implications, there are horrific scenes coming out of Dagestan in Russia. Let's go ahead and play some of this video that has come out. This is from an airport, as I said, in Dagestan. It's actually in southern Dagestan, where a full-fledged riot broke out after some leaked reports on Telegram informed the population that some passengers may be arriving at the airport from Israel, and so therefore might be Jewish.

A full-fledged, and I don't think you really call it anything else, basically attempted pogrom, you know, broke out. Here you have an instance where one of the individuals was pulled off of the plane, and they're asking him questions. They're like, you have to wait here until we make a decision. He's trying to tell these people, He's like, I'm not Jewish. I'm not from Israel. I'm freaking Uzbek.

He's an Uzbekistani or was an Uzbek resident coming to Dagestan. For those who don't understand Dagestan, we were trying to talk about the way to contextualize it. Most Americans probably first heard of it after the Boston bombing. The two brothers, the Tsarnaev brothers, were both Dagestani. You might have heard their citizens are very, very good in the UFC. But Dagestan is a very interesting place. And even in saying it's Russia,

it's like, kind of. It's part of Russia, but it's kind of one of those areas with a very distinct ethnic history, long been part of the Russian Empire, but heavily Islamic population, very, very fundamentalist, especially in recent times. They kind of have a detente piece with the Moscow government, but the governmental structure is very similar to like Chechnya, where they have

like armed warlords and all of that, but they're allied with the Kremlin. They get to do what they want. Moscow only troubles them if they start embarrassing them or doing terrorism, you know, like this. Yeah, I'm sure you can expect a full scale crackdown after this one. So currently, 20 people, including police officers, were injured. I mean, the crazy part of it really is just that they completely stormed the airport. Security authorities were totally overwhelmed almost immediately. The Kremlin spokesperson said on Monday that they blamed, quote, outside interference for the riots. Crystal, we have some information on that. And they cited, though, no evidence to that. However, they are saying that this is,

quote, Western attempts to use the events in the Middle East to sow discord in Russian society. But unfortunately, it highlights one of the ugliest things about the Russian Empire historically, which is it is the site of some of the worst pogroms against Jews in all of history. If you meet Americans, especially Jewish Americans whose roots go back to the 1900s, nine out of ten times, including many good friends of mine, their families were fleeing pogroms in Poland, in Ukraine, in Dagestan, all across this. Dagestan in particular, they used to have a pretty thriving Jewish population, gone, just completely driven out. Israel actually has many Russians who came to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union just because they'd experienced such horrific anti-Semitism. So this is a very, very ugly thing that the world is getting to view. I mean, I, you know, from someone like me and many others, like you read about these things, you know, the pogrom of 1906 or whatever, but it's like, when you see something like this just break out,

it's a, it's a, it's a horrible reminder of what ethnic straight up ethnic violence looks like. And every time you do, it's just like the most hideous and ugly thing. You know, imagine searching passengers to see if they're Jewish to try and kill them. I mean, that's what they want. They wanted to lynch them. It is. I mean, there are no words for it. It's really just unbelievable to watch that mob mentality take hold and, you know, searching through the airport and surrounding the plane and searching the passengers for passports. And this was ongoing

for hours. Complete insanity. You were talking a little bit about Dagestan. I was trying to also get some context from our friend Yegor about this. I mean, basically the idea is like this is a relatively poor region. It's actually very beautiful on the Caspian Sea, but relatively poor and, you know, poor in the context of Russia, which is much poorer than in the context of the United States. Very religious and very conservative. So that's effectively, you know, the fundamentalists who are storming this plane and inciting these mobs and this riot. that Dagestan was actually the only region in Russia that really violently protested against conscription to be involved in the Ukrainian war. And because of that, there were all of these sort of like information operations coming from the Ukrainian side to try to sow that discontent and make the most of it. And so when they're saying, oh, this was like

Western influence, that's what they're talking about. And I'll read to you from the New York Times what they've been able to suss out about the origin of these calls, because a mob doesn't just appear out of nowhere. They were following directions and instructions and information about, hey, this plane from Israel is landing here and here's what you should go and do. So local authorities in Dagestan blamed extremist outlets administered by Russian enemies for inciting the unrest. Some of the protests were supported by a Telegram channel linked to a former Russian lawmaker, Ilya Ponomaryov, who had fled to Ukraine and has become a staunchly anti-Kremlin politician. He basically fled because he was in trouble for corruption,

et cetera. So he flips, goes to Ukraine, has been helping out the Ukrainians with these efforts to sow discontent within Russia. Plans to catch the passengers of the incoming flight were shared on that Telegram channel associated with that dude, along with screenshots of the flight schedule on Saturday and Sunday. Local religious figures in the North Caucuses have condemned the clashes. But so that's the connection that they're pointing to, is that this guy who's an anti-Kremlin dissident who works with the Ukrainian government, it was a Telegram channel affiliated with him that basically like stoked and helped to spark this mob violence. Wow. Inside Ukraine, huh? What's that about? Interesting. Just telling you what the New York Times is reporting here. Don't blame us for reporting that. But yeah, look, it illustrates

something which we were able to talk about eventually in a mainstream conversation. There is a lot of Nazi-affiliated anti-Semitism inside of the former Soviet Union. And they find themselves, I guess, temporary allies with straight up Islamic fundamentalists in places like Dagestan. And it's so deeply disturbing. And it highlights the absolute worst of Russian history of state sponsored pogroms of Jewish residents. So I know a lot of people, a lot of Jews were just absolutely shocked and I think really traumatized because, a lot of Jews were just absolutely shocked and I think really traumatized because, and I saw many people saying, you know, my great-great-grandfather was killed in a pogrom in Ukraine or in what was at the time the Russian Empire. And this is,

you know, just gives me a flashback to what that is like. And I honestly cannot imagine. I just think it is so horrifying to watch. The Russian authorities are almost certainly going to crack that crack down. That is one thing we should talk about. Everyone was interpreting this like, oh, if this was an anti Ukraine protest or Ukraine war protest, they would have immediately done something. I'm like, I am not reading this as state sponsored. Like I'm reading this as the Dagestanis got out of control and now they've embarrassed the entire nation of Russia and they are about to have the wrath of the Kremlin and Moscow brought down upon them for humiliating them in the eyes of the world. I don't really

see an interest that serves the Russian government. I mean, listen, maybe somebody can make the case for me, but I don't see the interest that they would have. They are anti-Semitic, I mean, mostly. They're very Greek Orthodox, or they're Russian Orthodox, and very Orthodox in an exclusionary way. Jews in Russia have never been fully accepted as citizens despite their propaganda purposes. So it's one of those where it's been simmering below the surface, but something like this is very, very ugly. And we also wanted to highlight, you know, some other ethnic tension and violence, which again, this really connects back to what we started our A Block with, which is unfortunately, the more that this is framed as some sort of religious holy war,

people in those religions are going to basically heed that call and treat it as one. Basically act like it's a freaking religious holy war. And to give an example, let's put this one up there on the screen. This was happening outside of Netanya College, which is a dorm in Jerusalem that was housing Arab students. And some very hard right, you know, Israeli citizens gathered outside and started chanting, you know, death to Arabs. And the protesters, they claim that the Arab students had disrupted their prayers at a synagogue by hurling eggs at worshipers and playing loud Arab music.

So in the evening, they decided that they were going to take retaliation and say that they were going to gather around that. The authorities had to break up all of this and, you know, allegations about eggs being thrown and all this. But, you know, this is the simmering hatred that has been now in Jerusalem for quite some time. And then the war and the backdrop of that is making things so much worse. I don't know. I really feel despair. We've talked about last time around about the most pessimistic solution or the most pessimistic outcome is the most likely. And this is a key part of that. One of the worst periods of the Iraq war was not just watching American soldiers, you know, die for basically nothing.

It was really to watch the full-scale outbreak of sectarian conflict, of Sunnis and Shias like killing each other in the streets in some of the most savage and horrific ways possible. And now, you know, you're watching this and you can only think if this is really Operation Last Months and then whatever the hell the political fallout on all that is going to look like. How many more scenes are we going to see like this? People deserve to be safe wherever they are, and it's really horrible to watch. I was struck by what we interviewed the host of the Martyr Made podcast, this long podcast about the history of Zionism, the history of this conflict, you know, very in-depth, very thoughtfully done. And I know a lot of you all appreciate that interview that we did,

as I did. He wrote in response to what happened in Dagestan, this is disgusting. It is also an example of why Israel must find a way to make peace and resolve the Palestinian conflict. Prior Israeli governments worked hard along with their Palestinian Authority counterparts for peace. But Likud, that's Netanyahu's party, has shown no more interest in peace than Hamas. Netanyahu stated openly he prefers to keep the conflict at a low boil while settlers continue to occupy the West Bank to make a two-state solution impossible. This is not to say, because I know some are already typing this response, that Israel is to blame for incidents like this. But incidents like this will never stop unless there is a just peace with the Palestinians. The Israeli government has an obligation not only to its own citizens, but to Jews around the world to stop pursuing a policy

that can only intensify hatred and conflict. There is no way to fix this with bullets. And, you know, I think that is very carefully worded and true. I mean, these sorts of horrors beget more horrors. And that's the unfortunate reality of human nature, of world history. I mean, how many times do we have to see this play out? And what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza right now, let's be honest, this is not going to make Israelis or Jewish people around the world safer. If anything, and not just if anything, very likely, if not, you know, totally 100% reality, they are sowing the seeds of more radicalism. They are creating more terrorists. And Netanyahu,

especially with his sectarian holy war language, is making horrific mob scenes like this much more likely to unfold around the world. So this is the sort of stuff that they're playing with here. And I think, you know, Daryl also did a great job of talking about the fact that at its core, this isn't a religious conflict. It's a conflict over land. It's a political conflict over land. However, when you overlay it on your side, when you believe your actions must be righteous because they are coming out of your religious context. And you know, when you have a lot of fundamentalists on both sides of this, this is how these things can spiral completely out of control. And so when I see what happened at that airport, I think that is the tiniest glimpse of where we could ultimately end up with these things spiraling.

Yeah, it's very important. And look, nobody's saying it's like, oh, if they do this and this is, you know, this is just no one's justifying anything. But we live in reality. We know that these types of things are only more likely to occur as the violence escalates. And, you know, that is a real that is really sobering, as always, just to be reminded of what that looks like. And I think it's really unfortunate. I think it's horrible. And I really hope that we don't see any more of it. And yet stealing. I think it's really unfortunate. I think it's horrible. And I really hope that we don't see any more of it. And yet stealing, I think we should all steal ourselves for the unfortunate reality that we'll probably see. Indeed. All right, let's turn to, we've talked a lot about the like information landscape, which is a really important part of this war and all

wars. Put this up on the screen. This was interesting for a variety of reasons. Okay, so this guy, Jeff Morris Jr., who I'd never heard of before, but he's apparently like a tech executive. I know Jeff a little bit. Former Tinder exec. You wanna, like, is there any other context? Oh, no, yeah, I was gonna say, he's a tech guy.

He used to work at Tinder. That's how I know him. And he's very, you know, Israeli sympathetic here. So he started taking a look at the data on TikTok to see what was going on because he's observing like, oh, young people have very different view of this conflict than older generations. So they get their information, you know, largely on TikTok. What's going on here? So he says, I looked at the data, saw that Israel is losing the TikTok war by a long shot.

As an example, the top hashtag is three billion views for Palestine versus 200 million views for Israel. If you look at the other hashtags, it is clear Israel has a distribution issue. Now, I would personally say Israel has probably some other issues than just distribution. But it was interesting, the concern here that what was really to blame for the generational divide was the TikTok algorithm and the concern that, I mean, listen, for a long time, for many years, just lockstep support for Israel, no matter what they did, was the bipartisan standard in Washington. It was what you got out of every single American media outlet, certainly on cable news, etc. And so this is a bit of a panic around the fact that there are these other platforms and other ways that people are getting their information that don't line up with the way the ADL guy would say, like getting the story right as they see. I think it's generational in the sense that people did not come up in the same, not even in the same information area. But I think that the biggest reality is at our age, you have never really known a time of war. The most, you know, the thing,

the day I remember earliest from my youth is 9-11. So basically like crystal memory on forward is just war, war, war, war, war, war. And when you have that, you're going to come at things from a very, very different perspective than a lot of people who, for them, 9-11 was something that came in the context of they remember the great peace and winning the Cold War and all this other things that are foundational to their memory of America as this giant great power. They think of Israel probably much more in that context of the older times, and they may even think of it, you know, with the Intifada and PLO and Arafat and all. So just the way that you think about these things is very different, as opposed to, let's say, someone your my age. I mean, Gaza and the Hamas situation going on for 15 years. That's pretty much all I know. I don't really remember a time pre-Hamas. Most people don't either, who are especially younger. If you're really young, let's say you're 21, 19,

that's quite literally the vast majority of your lifetime. And it's especially highlighted, let's put this on the screen, you know, the CNN poll, this is going really viral, but it does show you at 65 years old and above Israel's military response is fully justified. They say 81%, 50 to 64, 56%, 35 to 49, 44%, 18 to 34 is only 27%. And I really believe that that comes from a place of war wariness more than anything. I've seen a lot of people be like, and, you know, including, and look, I don't know Jeff well. I've talked to him maybe once or twice. I'm assuming like this is somebody who supports Israel and then is like, well, what is happening here? I would just really urge everyone for, look, with the TikTok algorithm, and you guys

know I would ban TikTok if I could, but it's not for reasons like this. It's for much bigger, like national security reasons about America owning its company. What does everybody tell you about the TikTok algorithm? What is it best at? It serves you what you already want. It's not like it's being created out of thin air. It's that these people are ingesting this content and are sharing it around and are finding it compelling, which is very counter-narrative. And it's not because it's being forced in front of them. Now, maybe if you could find out a case for why that it is, I would absolutely be willing to learn and listen to it. But I suspect that that's really not the case here. I just think

based upon swimming in a very different media environment like our show and just in general, like keeping my finger on the pulse, I think we're living in two separate worlds. There are people who are on like establishment Twitter and on a table and who are reading the papers. And then there are people like us who are swimming in the internet. And if you're in the internet, you have no choice but to engage with a lot of facts and video and elements and all these other things that you would never see if you were up there too. That's very true. And it's also the case that, I mean, we see this with our show as well. If there is some perspective that is not being served by mainstream, guess what? People go to YouTube, people go to TikTok, people go to Twitter to try to find more and find more viewpoints that

reflect the way that they are viewing the conflict. So there's certainly a generational divide here. And then there's also a divide in terms of people who, you know, people who are basically pro-Israel and they think, you know, Israel's completely justified, et cetera, et cetera. They have all types of mainstream sources where they can go to see that viewpoint reflected. If your viewpoint diverges from that, you're more likely to be on TikTok. I also think, you know, you talked about the war weariness. I think that's a really important point and one I didn't necessarily think of. I also think, you know, the change in media is definitely part of it. The fact that you can even go anywhere and get those different views didn't used to be the case, you know, a couple of decades ago.

You also have generations that have never really, you know, we didn't grow up in the Cold War. So this just like, they're on our side to fight communism and that's that. They're the goodies. These are the baddies. Like that doesn't land for these generations the way that it does for, you know, we had those numbers about 80 some percent of the oldest demographics, like yes, 100% Israel is fully justified. You also have with this generation in terms of this conflict specifically, there hasn't been a time in our adult lives when peace was really on the table. That's a good point, too. We don't remember Oslo at all. I've only read about Oslo. Exactly. So even me being significantly older than you, I mean, that's distant. Matt was like a kid, like sort of vaguely aware of what was going on and not really like viscerally engaged with it whatsoever. So, you know, we have never really we don't have all this legacy of imagining that a two state solution is still on the table.

Good point. So I think that really changes the way we view this as well. And then something that we've talked about before and you've pointed out before, too, Sagar, is that Netanyahu has also made this conflict much more explicitly partisan by coming to D.C., by giving the speech against Obama. This was in the context of the Iran nuclear deal. You know, by putting his thumb on the scales, he tried to smooth things over by saying, yes, Biden won, et cetera, et cetera, pissing off Trump. But, you know, the reality is he made this conflict much more explicitly partisan. So you have a variety of reasons why, you know, if you take your average 80 year old and you take your average 20 year old and you ask him about

this conflict, you are going to get completely different views of what's going on. You know, the White House is apparently very concerned about the politics of how this is all going to work out for them. Put this up on the screen. They privately concede things have never been worse since the 80-year-old took office. Biden's dual horror shows threatened his reelection campaign. This is another Axios report. Some of the things that they cite here is, look, in the polls, he's tighter trailing Trump nationally in swing states. He gets crushed on his handling of immigration crime and inflation. They have a quote from one Biden official who says it's not death by one issue, by half a dozen hitting at once the load-bearing wall breaks. Many of Biden's own voters do not want him to run. His popularity

with his own supporters hit a new low in a poll this past week, and that seems to have been directly related to his approach to Israel's war on Gaza. You saw an 11-point drop among Democrats in their support for Biden, most of that coming from young demographics who are very unhappy with his just lockstep support for Israel and sending them whatever they want. You've got a quote here. You say, the Middle East war gives the president a chance to protect stable leadership ahead of a general election. But the White House knows the war will likely widen.

And so one last piece here in terms of showing the generational divide. You've got this. I thought it was kind of a weird question. Put this up on the screen. But they asked, what should the U.S. government say publicly in regards to the Israel-Hamas war? This was by generation. So silent and greatest gen, 86% say they should support Israel. You go down to millennial and Gen Z, so not even just Gen Z, but millennials and Gen Z, and it's less than half who say they should support Israel.

So while Biden is satisfying one part of the Democratic base and certainly overwhelmingly the D.C. establishment, you know, in terms of young people, this is really becoming a litmus test issue. And certainly for Arab-Americans, who've also been a key part of the Democratic coalition for them as well. And you can already see them paying the price in the polls. Now, one of the things that they said, I think it was in this piece that was like, oh, they think they'll get over it by the time the election comes around. I actually, I do kind of think that's right. I think that with the specter of Trump and the fear around that, that the boogeyman, look, the boogeyman has always worked for Democrats.

We'll see. That's what they're betting on. We'll see. That's what they're betting on. I would never bet on that personally. You can ask Hillary how that works out, but it's like. I guess it depends on how this all, you know, is this, does this end in a week or are we still seeing, you know, babies being pulled down a rubble and their incubators being shut off as we head into election day, which is real, you know, real possibility. So I think this represents a more consequential break. Young people had already, there was, it's easy to forget, but at the beginning of the Biden administration, young people were his most fervent supporters, his largest by, you know, by the approval rating, his largest supporters, most fervent supporters, et cetera, that quickly

fell off a cliff due to, I think some of his, you know, economic handling. And now this represents for a lot of people, it's very emotional, it's very visceral and a real break in terms of how they're seeing Biden where it's no longer like, yeah, I kind of have affection for him, but, you know, I don't love everything he's done. But whatever, I'll suck it up and vote Joe, especially when you've got other options on the ballot. So I think this is a real problem for them. And they apparently are aware of that as well. Certainly possible. Let's move on. Talking about the American political system a lot here. The speaker of the House. Now, it's interesting. We brought you the news before. Speaker Mike Johnson, prior to becoming the Speaker, he was somebody who did not vote for Ukraine aid since May of 2022, had a very different tone,

said that we needed to fund our border. He seemed very skeptical of the neocon establishment. Well, in his very first interview ever, things, let's just say they changed pretty significantly in terms of how he started talking. Let's take a listen. Now, we can't allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don't believe it would stop there. And it would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan. We have these concerns.

We're not going to abandon them. We want to be cooperative. We need to work together on this. But we owe it to the people to know what the plan is, where the money is going to be spent. And we need some auditing for the dollars that we've already sent over there. These are not tough questions, right? One thing that House Republicans are resolved on is that we must stand with our most important ally in the Middle East, and that's Israel. We will. We certainly hope that it doesn't come to boots on the ground.

If it comes to that, and we communicated this to the White House staff as well today, that, you know, we have the Article I power in the legislative branch of government, and they have Article II. They have very limited authority on what they can do to respond without coming to Congress to seek consent.

I mean, they tell us when we're in Israel, and you've been there, they say the reason that we are able to sustain ourselves and survive is because everyone knows that our big ally is America. We know that Iran is directly tied to all this. These are Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies of Iran. And they're tied in now with Russia and China.

I mean, it is a new axis of evil. That's how we see it. And so it has to be addressed accordingly. Would you say if Israel, with all the funding of terror and all these terror organizations, they would then have the right to fight back and go directly at Iran? Of course. That was, as you noted, the first act of my speakership is that we pass that resolution to articulate that and make it very clear where we stand. All right.

So as Michael Tracy summed it up, can't allow Putin to prevail in Ukraine, ties it to Taiwan, the most dishonest trick pulled by McConnell. Number two, U.S. boots on the ground may be required to stand with Israel. Number three, supports Israel directly attacking Iran. Number four, Russia, China, and Iran are the new axis of evil. Okay, so we are right back to where we started. Arguably, maybe even worse. However, there are at least some signs of hope if you do oppose more aid to Ukraine. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. New Speaker Johnson has now said, because of really pressure from within the Republican establishment, that they want to split up Israel and Ukraine aid, which is setting up a showdown with Biden and the Senate. So remember, in the Senate, which is controlled by Chuck Schumer,

Schumer is talking about linking the two of Israel and of Ukraine. This was presented from the Biden administration of a $70 billion-some package, $10 billion for Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine that is added within there. The Speaker of the House says, no, that's not how we're going to participate. One of the reasons why that's important is that in terms of procedure, remember this, the Senate cannot do anything where they have to rate, where they basically can't spend money without making sure it's revenue neutral, whereas the House can do whatever it wants. It has the power of the purse. So for the House, if they originate that position and they send it up to the Senate, the Senate and then Biden have to decide, well, OK, are we really going to veto Israel aid, you know, because it's not tied to Ukraine. There's no way. Now, the other question though is, did Johnson strike a deal where he will bring Ukraine aid to the floor where, and give it an up or down vote? Because as we have always talked about, Crystal, all the Democrats support

Ukraine aid. Oh, about half-ish of Republicans in the House support Ukraine aid. So they have an outright majority if it gets to the floor. The victory for the side would be just preventing it from getting it to the floor in the first place. Where does Speaker Johnson fall on that? I have no idea, but starting to get some insight. Yeah. I mean, if it's brought to the floor, it passes. That's the bottom line. And so I don't know either. I never heard of this guy until like a week ago. So I can't claim to have any like inside knowledge into the way that he might operate. But the fact that he immediately goes on Hannity and starts sounding just like 100% neocon, even using the ax, like dredging up that axis of evil language. Oh my God. It's not a good sign. And I will also say that it's very possible he feels like by splitting the two, Israel and Ukraine, splitting them apart, that's like his attempt to sort of appease the anti-Ukraine part of his caucus.

But, you know, maintain like whatever deal he might have struck with Democrats or the White House or whatever. So I would guess that's the direction that things go in. But we'll see. We will see. I asked some people who are in the know. They said it's not nearly as cut and dry as we might think. It's very much still a possibility, but there is a lot of procedural effort to try. And to deny it, there is, yes, there is a majority of the Senate that does support aid to Ukraine, but there are enough voices out there that they're, basically it all comes down to this. It's going to be a death by a thousand cuts, a ton of procedural warfare, split it apart, make sure it doesn't get to the vote. Even if it does pass, then hold it up, make sure this doesn't happen. At the same time, and this is the biggest

problem, this is, and you would think Israel is the number one priority. Yes, but they already know it's passed. Ukraine is a very, very close second. Like, this is the nearest and dearest thing to Mitch McConnell's aging heart. It's like the last thing that he's like, I must get this through. And in general, I do not bet against that man whenever he wants to get his things through the Senate. Very true. There you go. There are some other interesting conflicts unfolding on the Republican side over the Israel issue. Another flare up between Vivek and Nikki Haley. Oh, yes, that's exactly right. Let's move on. And I guess we have to start with the news, which it was funny. We were debating. We're like, are we even going to cover this is breaking?

We're like, no, we'll just put it in the show, because let's be honest, we all knew it was going to happen anyways. Mike Pence, Mike Pence, the former vice president of the United States, is dropping out of the 2044 race. Let's take a listen. Traveling across the country over the past six months, I came here to say it's become clear to me, this is not my time. So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today. Now, I'm leaving this campaign, but let me promise you, I will never leave the fight for conservative values and I will never stop fighting to elect principled Republican leaders to every office in the land. So help me God. Wow. Okay. Came sooner than expected,

but still happened. Now, the reason why it happened, Crystal, is because he was slated to not make the third debate. And him and his team correctly were like, look, former vice president of the United States, not qualifying for a debate on the stage, while somebody like Vivek Ramaswamy is, especially after all the smack that we talked against all these people, we cannot have that reputational damage. And so they decided to drop out. By the way, I fully support that.

That said, it is one of those where it's deeply humorous just from the level of watching this man indulge in his own personal egotism while running, but at the same time, basically trying to run against any of the tides of moderate progress that have made in the Republican Party. When we're talking about populism, when we're talking about any questioning of the Ukraine consensus, of neocon foreign policy, to the limited extent it even exists, this man was the sworn enemy of that. So I cannot help but rejoice. It also, though,

this same meeting, the Republican-Jewish coalition meeting in Las Vegas, highlighted the two sides of where the debate is here right now. You had Vivek Ramaswamy, who has, I don't even know how to describe him. He's one of those people who at the first was really sounding more of like a Tucker Carlson voice of like, we need to avoid war with Iran. We need to make sure that Israel does not escalate this to a situation which endangers America. Then you have people like Nikki Haley, who last I checked is now taking like an anti-racism

angle to anti-Semitism. She's like, if you are not, she's like, she said, if you're anti-Zionist, then you are anti-Semitic. And she said she would even pass a law declaring that to an effect should she be president. That must be news to a lot of Jews who are anti-Zionist. Yeah, that is like being, that is like Ibrahim Kendi, Department of Anti-Racism level, stupid. Well, that was fully on display here at the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting. Let's take a listen. I would love nothing more than for the IDF to put the heads of the top

hundred Hamas leaders on stakes and line them up on the Israel-Gaza border as a sign that October 7, 2023 will never happen again. And then to use all of those saved resources to build the border defenses of the future. But that is Israel's decision to make, not ours. That is what David Ben-Gurion would tell Israel to do. That is what George Washington would tell the United States to do. The stakes couldn't be higher. And given those stakes, we cannot have four years of chaos, vendettas and drama. We can't afford to go down that road. Not now. Eight years ago, it was good to have a leader who broke things. But right now, we need a leader who also knows how to put things back together. Well, well, well, there you can see about Nikki Haley voicing that. And Vivek, I mean, he's trying his best because he got it on the chin, even in basically saying what I think a

lot of people are thinking about, well, maybe we should watch out here. We definitely don't want to go to war with Iran. He's changed his tune now to now he's like the most rah-rah, like cheering on Israel. He's like, no, no, no, they can do what they want to do. But that needs to be Israel's decision to make, and they need to own the consequences. Honestly, I do think it is smart rhetorical play. I think it's the only one that you can exist as a capital R Republican in the party at this point, because the level of pushback to the very basic raising of concerns, it's not possible right now in the Republican Party or even in Republican media. I mean, oh my goodness, I have

never seen these people come out with their knives for anything more than they did for Vivek at that time. Just being like, hey, we should watch out a little bit here. Who knows what's going to happen? That's too much for most of these people. Listen, and he had to know that it was going to be a provocative stance that he took. So if you're going to take a provocative stance, like be ready to take the heat and defend it. But you can see the rhetorical approach that he's taking here of basically like, let me say the most bloodthirsty shit anyone's ever heard. And then use that as like a distraction from my like, and we should kind of stay out of it maybe. Anyway, back to the heads on the pikes, am I right? Like clearly that's his approach now rather than

really standing behind what he was articulating. And you even saw Trump. Remember Trump who has this personal, now he's like mad at Bibi because Bibi said Biden won the election. And so he's got this like personal grievance thing now with Netanyahu. And so he made some critical comments of him right after October 7th, which, by the way, puts him in line with, like, literally 90% of Israelis. Yes. But here in the U.S., there was this whole freak of how dare you criticize Netanyahu. How could you say anything bad about Netanyahu at this moment, et cetera, et cetera. And so even he has like completely changed course, which for Trump, you know, he's normally the guy, he's the bull in

the china shop. He'll say the stuff that, you know, pisses everybody off and he'll just stand by it. But for him even, the pressure was too intense and the heat was too hot. And so in terms of the Republican Party, like any sort of divergent views they may have on Ukraine or, you know, other foreign policy approaches, Afghanistan at times, they've said certain things. All of that is completely out the window when it comes to Israel. Yes. Completely out the window. They are completely lockstep. You know, there's so much belligerent talk with regard to Iran. There was actually one Republican who did vote against the Israel resolution that had

that belligerent language about Iran. That was Thomas Massie, he's like dyed in the wool libertarian, but that's it. That's as much as you get in terms of dissent. So it does kind of expose that this idea that there was a different, that there was a new direction towards paleo-conservatism or a different, that there was a new direction towards paleoconservatism or a different approach under MAGA towards foreign policy, maybe when it comes to Ukraine, maybe when it comes to a couple other issues, but when it comes to Israel, not even a little bit. I think it's fair to put it like every party has a coalitional interest which exposes a lot,

right? So like the squad. We had Ro Khanna on this show. He supports Ukraine to the hilt. Every single member of the squad votes for Ukraine. On Israel, they're allowed to dissent. I would put it basically as the vice president. I wouldn't say they're really allowed because they face a lot of political. Summer Lee and Jamal Bowman could very easily lose their seats over their support for Palestine. Absolutely, but they at least feel enough. Or let's say they feel convicted enough in order to speak. But they don't feel that on Ukraine and definitely didn't. So I would just say like every party has its own thing, which is

going to expose a lot of hypocrisy on this one. And yeah, Israel is definitely the absolute third rail whenever it comes to the Republican politics. Yeah. And all their cancel culture, censorship, et cetera, that also out the window. DeSantis now trying to ban any like pro-Palestine group on college campuses in Florida. Chris Christie saying the same thing, like I'm for free speech, he said, but this isn't free speech. This is hate speech. That's like the worst of the dumbest like hall monitors who used to exist in the previous Twitter regime. That's a whole other conversation. We can talk about that. Yes, indeed. But it just exposes there are like three people who are actually committed to free speech. Absolutely.

Let's go to the next part. Representative Dean Phillips launching a primary challenge to President Biden. So we now have another Democrat in the race here. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he has to say. Are you running for president? I am. I have to. I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country, but it's not about the past. This is an election about the future. I will not sit still. I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying that we're going to be facing an emergency next November. I think the time is now because I think four years from now, it might be too late. We were saying before, it's a little reminiscent of the case that TYT's Cenk Uygur is making. He's basically saying, I don't think the guy can get elected. Sure,

he's done a good enough job, but this is at least something that someone should do. He's been teasing this now for a long time. Let's go and put this up there on the screen, the Washington Post. He says, quote, I am the long shot. Dean Phillips is embracing the underdog role in a shaky debut against Biden. The thing is, though, is that it's very smart because his very first thing he did is file to run in New Hampshire, where the press is mostly the one that showed up. But one of the reasons why he might have a leg up over everyone else is Biden's not on the ballot in New Hampshire. So it's a pretty good media story to come in and to win New Hampshire. This it's a pretty good media story to come in and to win New Hampshire. This was always a case I always thought that RFK Jr. had. He's like, man,

if you can just win New Hampshire, Kennedy wins New Hampshire. I mean, what a story, right? Like it's a headline that nobody can look away from. So Phillips very much now trying to fill like a centrist lane Biden alternative. People in New Hampshire already pissed off at Joe Biden for skipping the state, for removing their first in the nation status whenever it comes to the primary. So I don't know. I might see a case where Mr. Phillips does win the primary just from the sheer like lack or from sheer inertia and then gets himself some headlines. Do I think he's going to win? No. But the other problem for me is he waited way too long. Why are you announcing? You know, during Israel, you're going to get washed out. Like this main gunman story was, that would have

been the biggest story in the country if Israel had not been happening. But it basically went from, hey, a bunch of people died to local story after the guys found dead. And by the way, of course, as with every time we found out he was known to law enforcement and visited six weeks before. Getting ahead of myself. But my whole point is that the entire country would be scrutinizing this thing to death. Yeah. Well, with Dean Phillips, he blew it, you know, in terms of the timing. Now that he waited really till Israel, he basically guaranteed this is going to be the month's long biggest story in the nation.

And I mean, rightfully so. It should be. Because the stakes are existential. Yeah, I mean, Dean barely made it into our show today. Exactly. We're like, we feel like we should cover it, I guess. But, you know, I'm not sure anyone really cares all that much. Right.

I tried to figure out where he is politically. You know, he's a problem solvers caucus guy. He frames himself as like a centrist or a moderate, whatever. Whenever he critiques the Democratic Party, it's always from the right. But in terms of his voting record, he has voted with Biden 100 percent of the time. Put this up on the screen. I mean, he's been a chief Biden booster. So here this is just from, you know, a couple of days ago.

President Biden issued an outstanding speech this evening, making a strong case for why we must support Ukraine, Israel and all who seek self-determination, security and peace. That's what America does. So you're not going to hear like a single word of criticism of Joe Biden. It's just all about basically like he's old and he's going to lose. And so let's do something else. Do I think it's going to work? I mean, to be honest with you, for a lot of the Democratic base, the majority of whom still would like an alternative to Biden, that is their concern. They aren't like, you know, now you have you have a lot of dissent among young voters with regard to his approach to Israel. Not to say there aren't policy issues in there as well.

But the biggest concern is just his age. And I'm worried he's going to lose. We're going to get Trump again. So I don't actually think it's that crazy of a strategy to be fawningly supportive of Biden and vote with him on literally everything and just be making a case about electability. But, you know, you're Dean Phillips. No one's ever heard of you before. Do people really think

you're going to be the guy to beat Trump? Like, that's hard to believe. I do think the fact that he's a member of Congress, you know, he's got his like credentials, mainstream credentials for the media to pay more attention to him than they would pay to like Cenk or that they did pay to Marianne. So if it wasn't happening right now when there's wall to wall news coverage about the atrocities that are happening in Gaza right now, maybe he'd be able to build a little bit of a kernel of something. But don't say it. No, I don't think you're right. I think you're right, too. I mean, I honestly,

and something you and I have just kept our head on, but we all, you know, we want to make sure people are getting our political coverage as well, is the polls coming out for RFK Jr., this man is in the position that no man has been in since Ross Perot. I mean, it's like shocking. Like when you're clocking 20 something percent and you're going to have that level of consternation. The interesting thing on Kennedy is if he wasn't as pro, if he tones down as pro-Israel coverage where he has been in the past and just really leans into being anti-war, I could even scoop, see him scooping up some of this young energy, you know, that's surrounding Israel-Palestine. So. Now it's too late on that front. Well, for the people who are online, I'm talking about normal folks out there who have no idea what he said or whatever about Rabbi

Shmuley and Israel and that stuff in the past. I'm saying if he just talks about being anti-war, which you can interpret any way that you want, and just like the ad that we played here previously, where he's like, hey, you know, the American political system is bad. And my name is Bobby Kennedy and I have peace. Like that's a very potent message. I think it's very potent. If he hadn't gone, I mean, what he has said about Israel was so unequivocal. Yes, that's true. And I think it's genuinely ideological for him. I mean, he got pressed on this a lot and did not back away from his positions on it. And I think he lost, you know, a significant chunk of his like online based support over this issue specifically. So I think you're right. If he had not gone in that direction and he had a

dissenting view with regard to Israel, I think there would have been an even larger pool for him to scoop up. I mean, you still have Cornel West out there. There's a lot of questions at this point about his campaign and where he's even going to be on the ballot since he, you know, went from People's Party to Green Party and now he's running as an independent and his campaign and where he's even going to be on the ballot since he, you know, went from People's Party to Green Party. Now he's running as an independent and his campaign manager just left. So a lot of questions about whether he'll even be on the ballot. But, you know, that's another bailout option for people who are like disgusted with Biden on the issue of Israel, Palestine, and, you know, want to register their protest over that. They may have that option with regard to Cornel West or they may just stay home. Yeah. So, well, that's always the biggest one. Yeah. Just staying home is a huge. I mean,

I've done it before. Very possible. I think that's very possible. But Bobby Kennedy is continue. I mean, this is a story we're going to continue to take a look at and I think has been wildly undercovered because, yeah, if you have he's got a lot of money, he's a Kennedy. So people may not know that much about him specifically, but he's a Kennedy. So he's got huge name recognition. He may have the operation, be able to get himself on the ballot. He is sounding outside of put Israel, Palestine aside. He is sounding these notes of just like, I'm just disgusted. I'm disgusted with Biden. I'm disgusted with Trump. I'm disgusted with the Democrats. I'm disgusted with the Republicans, which is a very mainstream widespread sentiment.

So he could really be the determining factor in how this all ultimately goes down. So we're going to keep our eye on it. All right. We got big news that actually just broke while we were doing the show about the UAW, which is they now have a tentative agreement with all three of the big three. The latest one that just broke this morning is reading from Bloomberg here. General Motors Company, GM, reached a tentative agreement with the UAW to end a six-week-old strike with similar terms to the deal signed by Ford Motor Company on October 25th. That deal reached on Monday includes a 25% hourly pay raise plus cost of living allowances over the more than four-year contract, according to the person who was not authorized to speak publicly. So very few details here.

We don't have Sean Fain, the president of UAW's comments on this or breaking down, you know, some of the concessions they were able to gain, but it sounds like it's along similar lines to what they were able to achieve with Ford Motor Company. This comes on top of very recent news that they were also able to reach a deal with Stellantis. Let's take a listen to Sean Fain explaining some of the highlights of that tentative agreement. Today, we reached a tentative agreement with Stellantis. Today is the 44th day of our stand-up strike. 44 days.

We called it the stand-up strike as a tribute to the sit-down strike, which built our great union almost 90 years ago. Over the 44 days we were on strike, Stellantis more than doubled the total value of the proposals they had on the table. At Stellantis, we not only secured a record contract, we have begun to turn the tide on the war on the American working class. And we truly are saving the American dream. So just to reiterate some of the details of this deal, let's put this up on the screen. They've got some of the high level concessions that they were able to achieve.

So 25 percent wage increase in 2023. This is, again, with Stellantis, but tracks pretty closely with Ford and the very basics that we know about this new GM tentative deal. All wage increases from 2001 to 2022 were 23%. So in a single year, they're getting a bigger wage hike than they got over the course of two decades. That seems significant. Let's go ahead and put the next piece up on the screen. Current Stellantis temps get a 168% raise through 2023. This was a big sticking point in terms of the treatment of those temps. And another thing that came out of this Stellantis deal that was really significant to Sagra is they actually secured the reopening of a plant. Yes. Which that never happens. A 1350 employee assembly plant

in Belvedere, Illinois. Not only that, but they're also going to add an adjoining battery facility to that plant. So, you know, again, this all has to go to the membership for approval to see what they think about it. I talked to, you know, someone in Kentucky. They have a big truck plant there for a Ford to get a sense of like how are the members there feeling about it. And so far, at least the feedback is they are delighted. They think this was, you know, this appears to be an extraordinary deal. They're very excited about the gains that they were able to make here. And I think really validates the strategy that Sean Fain and the other leadership of the UAW put in place here with the standup strike in order to secure these gains. Yeah, no, the strike strategy, absolutely. This is a big, now, of course, look, the union's got to

ratify all this. So we'll see, you know, we'll see how they vote. I mean, look, it's a pretty good deal. Yes. I mean, I'm not in the union, but I mean, I'm looking at it and I'm saying, listen, you can make like a pretty decent middle class wage now at the top where you also get healthcare, pension, and some benefits. That's a great deal. It's one that a lot of people in this country don't have. And if I were in that position, I would be very, very happy, especially considering you haven't had a cost of living raise since 2009. And now you have some of that baked in. Overall, what I think it does validate is not only the strike strategy, but also just the place that we are in the labor market. So I was just reading about how this is just really in line with how all American workers are finding themselves in a position of bargaining power. So right now,

Americans currently have more time off than at any time in modern history in terms of more paid time off with U.S. private sector average weekly hours that are peaking because employers, quote, are offering that time in a stronger labor market and employees are finding themselves using it. They're finding themselves not ashamed to be taking advantage in these cases of their paid benefits. So I think that it fits very much in line with where the rest of the country is and kind of a new bargaining power that the worker has found themselves. And so I expect it not only to have political support, and I think most people when they find the details of this find it entirely reasonable, and that's pretty much where we're going to end up. That's part of the reason why they had to cave too, because even let's say they

went non-union, for example, under the current deal for what I was reading, the UAW, the big three are going to have to pay like something like 60 something dollars per hour, according to their own internal figure. Well, Tesla's paying 55 and they're not even union. So, you know, to put it over like $5 or whatever above just shows like with bargaining power and all of that, they're putting themselves and locking them in place for years to come to make sure that they don't get wiped out as they did in 2009. Yeah. And I'm sure there's a lot of Tesla workers who are looking at these deals. Well, definitely. Especially with that cyber threat.

I'm sure there's a lot of workers down in the South in those right to work states at foreign automakers who are checking out this deal and what they were able to achieve. I'm sure there's a lot of workers in other industries who are also looking at like, wow, when they have a union and they're able to do this collective bargaining process, they're actually able to really secure significant gains over the protests and the freak out and the panic attacks of the executives and certainly of CNBC and Jim Cramer in particular. That was the one last note I wanted to make is remember the beginning of the strike, all this like, oh my God, it's going to tank the economy and this is a disaster and it's going to

destroy Biden's reelection bid. Biden's doing enough to destroy his own reelection bid. But none of that like, oh, it's going to crash the economy stuff and car prices are going to go through the roof, et cetera. Did any of that happen? No. Did any of it happen? No, not at all. So just remember that the next time that we have a similar situation. And also, let's wait. I want to see what happens to the price of those cars. That's the real one, because that's what they kept saying was going to happen. I will call on them to release a better car, but that's a different thing. We've got Lee Fong standing by. Let's get to it. We've been talking a lot today about how a lot of political leaders are playing

into the sectarian nature of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Played you some of the comments from Netanyahu earlier today. So we're excited to be joined by Lee Fong, who's long been covering the way the religious right views this particular conflict and how it impacts their political approach on the issue. Lee, great to see you. Good to see you, man. Hey, good to have you. Yeah, of course. And guys, check out Lee has a fantastic sub stack. It's just Lee Fong dot com,

where he does great work as an independent journalist there. So make sure you check that out. And the piece we wanted to have you on to talk about, let's go and put this up on the screen. You've been tracking the way that televangelists have been talking about what is going on in Israel and their war on Gaza. Your headline here is televangelists invoke holy war to push for weapons for Israel, strikes on Iran. Just talk to us a little bit about the significance of this, Lee, and what you've been tracking. Look, this is a very different conflict than other geopolitical issues, China and Taiwan, or Russia and Ukraine, in that religion is playing a huge role here. You know, all three Abrahamic beliefs have a eschatology feature that, you know,

there are elements of each religion that are pushing for the end times that see this kind of messianic vision of war, of control over Jerusalem as critical for bringing about Judgment Day. Here in the U.S., we have something like 90 to 100 million evangelicals. A fraction of those believers are people who subscribe to some of these end times beliefs. And going back into the early 1980s when Prime Minister Menachem Begin brought Jerry Falwell

and his moral majority to Israel, Israel has worked proactively to cultivate these voters. They're looking for a voting bloc that can pressure Congress and various administrations to support pro-Israel policies. It's a very concerted effort, and we're seeing that being revved up again with this war. Israeli government officials are reaching out to evangelical voters, encouraging them to help lobby lawmakers, to put pressure on the media to support this war effort. And there's a little bit of cynicism involved here, because if you look carefully at some of these Christian Zionist end times theology, it's kind of bleak even for Jews and for Israel. If you look at this end times theology, there is a final war over Jerusalem

that when Jesus comes back in the second coming, there will be a final event where non-believers, including Jews, are all killed, except for 144,000 Jews who are converted to Christianity that have become evangelists for Christ. And that kind of ushers in a thousand-year reign of Christ. So this is not a positive event for Jews or for many people in the world. But in this kind of crisis for Israel, they need as much political support as possible. So there's a lot of outreach going on. Yeah, we have one of the videos actually

you posted of the Israeli ambassador actually joining Pastor John Hagee at a meeting in Texas, directly invoking some of this and asking for political support. Let's take a listen. We'll get your reaction. In the words of Isaiah, for Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet. We must stand together, Jews and Christians, in our holy mission for the truth. And so, Lee, how potent is this politically? Because you did some interviews with some congressmen that I'd like you to touch on, where they cite directly some of this biblical ties as to their direct governmental support for Israel. Yeah, that's right. You know, I've worked on this issue for a very long time. I helped out last year with a Norwegian documentary, Praying for Armageddon, that explores the Christian Zionist

issue. And, you know, I talked to a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill just simply asking to explain the U.S.-Israel relationship, and rather talking about this in U.S. interests, or even Palestinian or Israeli interests, many of these lawmakers quickly pivoted and said, look, their support for Israel comes from the divine, that they believe that we should give weapons, money, more U.S. support to Israel, because of what's written in the Bible. And, you know, you look at the Christian Zionist theology, it's a hodgepodge of verses. There's some stuff from Isaiah in the Old Testament, a lot from Revelations. But this has become a very consistent ideology. You know, there are very powerful televangelists and Christian groups.

Christians United for Israel is one. There are several groups in Israel that cultivate this belief system and that takes this theology and harnesses it for a political block on Capitol Hill. So these same groups lobby very directly. They reach out to lawmakers. They mobilize them. So it's a true fusion of

religion and politics. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, this is, I even said earlier, the religious right. But the truth is there are plenty of evangelicals who hold these beliefs who are also Democrats. We actually had one in the focus group that we did of Democratic based voters. When we asked questions about Israel and Palestine, I mean, she said forthright that her views on the issue came directly from her religion and what she believed about it. And listen, people can believe whatever they want to believe. It's a free country. But the reason why it seems important that you highlight this issue is because if you have a view of this conflict that is based on, you know, your view of whose side God is on and this end times philosophy and this holy war that you think was prophesied,

it's not going to make you very likely to be able to compromise on the issue. And also, by the way, when you believe one side has God on their side, it's also going to lead you to justify a lot of actions that may otherwise be wholly unjustifiable. Yeah, I mean, there's not many other conflicts where you have a large voting bloc, you know, a large number of elected officials praying for salvation through war. You know, you can't apply that to many other conflicts going on today. But that's the case here. And, you know, I don't want to single out only Christians here. And that's a dominant force in a lot of these Republican Party primaries and some Republican Party politics here in the U.S. There are certainly some Democrats as well,

but this is also a major feature of politics within the Islamic world. There's Islamic eschatology that references the end times, and there are political groups that harness and exploit that for encouraging conflict with Israel. You know, ISIS and al-Qaeda, you know, they reference, they clearly reference the discussion around, you know, the hidden Mahdi, the final Islamic leader coming with black flags, appearing with black flags. And that's why they use black flags in some of their propaganda. Hamas in their charter discusses Judgment Day and a war with Israel, again, kind of referencing end times. And some of these new and newly resurgent religious right groups that are part of Netanyahu's governing coalition, these are groups that openly discuss blowing up the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock, to build the Third Temple.

That's the kind of messianic Jewish vision of bringing about the kind of final epoch of Jewish theology. So there are extremists on all sides. I want to be clear about that. The Christian Zionist influence, however, is just a more dominant force here in the U.S. You know, it's a very well-oiled lobbying machine. We're seeing calls for action every day. People are pressuring their lawmakers to support Israel and support Israel for more conflict,

hoping to bring about an apocalyptic war because of their religious beliefs. Yeah, this is something, if you could dig into a little bit here with these congressmen, is it, and now we actually have a speaker, honestly, who, I wouldn't say he falls directly into this, but he is certainly an evangelical Christian with some past ties to the groups, which very much seem aligned with this. In terms of their political power, as you said, is it bottom up in terms of their constituents? But then how much of it is it also their own personal beliefs in the case of some of these representatives? Look, I mean, it's hard to say what people truly believe. You have to kind of go on what they say. But I do kind of assume that there's a little bit of pandering going on. I think some lawmakers

might kind of signal to these beliefs, perhaps just for votes or for campaign donations. But some are more pragmatic. It's hard to say. If you look at some of these large televangelist leaders, there are many, but, you know, the biggest is John Hagee. Does he truly believe this? You know, he claimed back in the day that Y2K would bring about the end times, the lunar eclipse, you know, Harry Potter. You know, he finds pretty much any kind of conflict in the news and says the end times is happening. Does he truly believe that every single one is a sign of the end times? I don't know. But what I do know is that he mobilizes tens of thousands of his supporters to get on buses and go to Capitol Hill and lobby multiple times a year to call their members of Congress and demand more military support and political support for Israel. We know that they are very active in this current conflict, so they're making an impact. So what John Hagee actually believes in his heart when he's asking for donations and selling

these books that are constantly prophesying around the end times, I don't know. But we do know that he's having an impact and that he has dozens of members of Congress at his beck and call that go to his congregation and participate in this political operation. Yeah, and just to give people a sense of a little bit of the rhetoric here, you have Hagee's son who says the Secretary of State is not going to get us out of this one. God has a hook in the jaws of these nations, and he's drawing them here. God tells Ezekiel exactly how he's going to defend Israel. He speaks about raining down fire and hail and brimstone. That's a heavenly air assault. So talking about the airstrikes, describing them as heavenly. And, you know, this is exactly what God told Ezekiel was coming. So just so people get a

sense of some of the rhetoric that's being used here. Lastly, Lee, I was wondering if you could weigh in a bit on some of the rhetoric that we've been highlighting here directly from the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, really framing this in terms of like religious holy war terms, you know, feeding the flames of the sectarian nature of this conflict, even though at bottom it really is a political conflict and a land dispute. We played today, you know, him invoking Amalek. He talked previously about they're going to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. You know, what do you make of that sort of framing of this conflict? Look, I think it's very dangerous because, as you say, this is at heart a geopolitical conflict. There are valid security concerns on both sides. There are many issues

that can be discussed, but when you invoke religion in this way, and it appears to be an organized talking point because it's not just Netanyahu. Many of his ambassadors and consulate officials here in the U.S. are now repeatedly invoking the same Old Testament verses from Isaiah that are very popular among these kind of end times Christian Zionists. So this is a concerted effort. But the issue here is that they're using religion to obscure the bigger picture, to dehumanize the enemy, to say that, hey, these are nonbelievers. These are people that need to be wiped out based on religion.

And it's the same kind of political trick that we see really across the board throughout history. You know, many on the left, you know, in my opinion, use identity politics in a similar way. When you kind of divide people based on skin color, ethnicity, it's very easy to not see the common humanity on the other side. The same thing is happening, I think, on the right here with religion. To say, hey, these are the believers versus non-believers,

it's hard to see that, again, we're all humans. A Palestinian life is just as precious as an Israeli life. And the invocation of religion is an attempt to divide and mobilize political support for this war. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm glad that you highlighted it too, that this is a feature of a lot of these Abrahamic faiths. I mean, one of the reasons that the Palestinian cause is weaponized by a lot of people in the Arab world is they talk about the

Al-Aqsa Mosque, exactly as you said, the Temple Mount. That's like the main source of continuing some of this. And then the people themselves often is used as pawns, same as you said, in terms of a lot of the extremism that we've seen from some of the, is really far right as well. So I just, I've always appreciated your work, Lee. You've got a great sub stack. We encourage everybody to go and subscribe to it. We'll have a link down in the description and we appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Thanks, Lee. Great to have you. Thank you so much for having me. Anytime, my friend, anytime. And thank you all so much for watching. We appreciate your support.

It's a hell of a lot of work doing these shows and I guess standing through it, right, Crystal? But we do it because we love all of you and it's the most edifying at crisis times like this. So we appreciate all of your support and we will see you all tomorrow. This is an iHeart Podcast.