Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/3/24: Israel Threatens Iran Regime Change, 8 IDF KIA In Lebanon, Helene Survivors Speak Out, Polls Reveal Debate Winner, CNN Stunned By Trump Worker Support, CBS Ambushes Ta-Nehisi Coates

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Israel threatening Iran with regime change, Hezbollah kills 8 IDF soldiers amid Lebanon invasion, Helene survivors speak out, polls reveal debate winner, CNN stunned by Trump working class support, CBS ambushes Ta-Nehisi Coates over Israel apartheid.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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 Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do a lot to get through this morning. So we have more indications about how Israel might respond to those Iranian attacks. We'll break that down. We're also taking a look at survivors of Hurricane Helene who are speaking out now and also what it's going to take to rebuild in that area if it's even really possible. So we'll show you some extraordinary video from there. We also have

the polls post-debate about who the people thought won. It's actually, it's kind of interesting. So we'll get into that. We'll also show you what the polls are saying in general about the state of the race and some troubling indicators on the Kamala Harris side about the direction that working class voters are going in. We're also going to take a look at quite an interview, Ta-Nehisi Coates, who was, of course, very much celebrated for his anti-racist work. Now, when he's speaking out about Israeli atrocities and apartheid, very different reception from the mainstream press. Quite an interview that we'll break down for you. And we're also going to be joined this morning by Dr. Jill Stein, of course, Green Party nominee for president, candidate for president, about how she feels about the state of the race and also some extraordinary efforts being undertaken by the Democratic Party to keep her off the ballot in Nevada in particular.

That's right. A lot to get to this morning. We are very excited to talk to her. Before we get to that, we've got a discount going on right now you want to take advantage of. Let's put that on the screen. BP2024 at BreakingPoints.com for $15 off our premium memberships. You get exclusive access to some of our election content, but you also get to support the show and participate in our exclusive AMAs that happen weekly. So go ahead and take advantage of that. But with that, let's,

of course, get to the major news coming out of Israel, Iran, the United States, what a potential response could look like. And literally could happen tonight, could happen within a week. Nobody really knows right now. Yeah, that's exactly right. Let's put this up on the screen. So of course, we covered extensively on debate night exactly how we got to this place of, you know, really standing on the brink of a massive regional war that the U.S. would undoubtedly get pulled into. The latest indications of Israel, they're saying they're mulling attacks on Iranian oil rigs, nuclear sites as well in response to missile attack. That would be, you know, an extraordinary provocation. Let me just read from this article. This was mostly reported out by Axios and is rewritten up here in Times of Israel.

Israel may respond to Iran's major Tuesday ballistic missile attack by striking strategic infrastructure such as gas or oil rigs. That would obviously be devastating to the Iranian economy. Or by directly targeting Iran's nuclear sites, media reports said on Wednesday, citing Israeli officials. Targeted assassinations and attacks on Iran's air defense systems are also possible responses. The absence, they write, of a more specific decision was in part out of a desire to coordinate any plans with the U.S., the report said, adding that Bibi was expected to speak with Joe Biden as soon as Wednesday afternoon. Quote, we have a big question mark about how the Iranians are going to respond to an attack, but we take into consideration the possibility they would go all in, which will be a whole different ballgame. The US on Wednesday

signaling a willingness to support Israel in a potential response with the White House promising, quote, severe consequences for the attack and saying it will work with Israel to make that the case. In a sign of just how hawkish the Israeli public is, sort of across the board from the Netanyahu government, as well as some of the opposition figures, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took to cable news to indicate now is the time to attack Iran's oil and nuclear sites, saying it would be a gift of the Israeli people, the Jewish people to the Iranian people to help foment regime change in that state. Let's take a listen exactly to what he had to say. Arms that were sort of defending it or they were, it's insurance policy against an Israeli strike,

and that's Hezbollah and Hamas. But those two arms are temporarily paralyzed. So it's like a boxer out in the ring without arms for the next few minutes. Now is the time that we can attack because Iran is fully vulnerable. The Islamic Republic of Iran, it's time to hit, destroy the nuclear program, and finally allow the Iranian people to rise up. The amazing Iranian people who have the worst regime, one of the worst regimes on earth. This is the time. This would be the gift of the Israeli people, the Jewish people, to the Iranian people. I just want to be precise, Prime Minister. You want Israeli airstrikes to blow up Iran's nuclear facilities and its energy facilities,

all the oil wells and the oil-related industry that is the main part of the Iranian economy. That's correct. Quite extraordinary comments there. I mean, I just, as a note, I think it is actually anti-Semitic to conflate the entire Jewish people with this very belligerent foreign policy.

It's also quite extraordinary to frame it as a gift to the Iranian people striking their strategic oil and nuclear sites. But that is the type of tone and rhetoric that's coming out of the Israelis. Hey, you know what? If you want to give them that gift, you're welcome to give it to them all by yourself. But we all know that that's not going to happen. I recently just came across a fantastic military analyst just put this out. The number of missiles that we fired on a couple of days ago to defend Israel was 12. So roughly all of those allegedly made contact. That is the amount of missiles it takes an entire year for US facilities to crank out. So we invested an entire year's worth of missile production in a single night to defend Israel. Now imagine this times 50 times 100.

This is part of why I'm so afraid here is because the US is green lighting these strikes potentially on nuclear sites or on energy and oil facilities. The oil facilities may actually be more dangerous because the current analysis that's coming out of CENTCOM and others is that the likely Iranian response will not be to retaliate just against Israel, but will be specifically to retaliate against US and Western oil refineries and oil tankers in the region, which would, of course, immediately draw the United States into this war. And this is the problem I've had from the very beginning, is that it is clear as day now that the Arrow 3 system did not perform all that well, which we will show you in terms of Israel's own battle defense

assessments of their ability for the Iranians to hit military targets. And then on top of that, the only reason that the majority of the missiles were intercepted was because of the United States naval destroyers. So when we combine that whole picture, it is clear that if Israel actually had to bear 100% cost of its own actions, like in the first time in April after it destroyed that Iranian embassy, and this time around, that they would never be in a position where a tiny nation of 10 million can consider regime change on a tens of millions country. Now, you know, people always love to say it's like, oh, it's not representative of the people. I don't know. You know, it's one of those where it stood the test of time since the 1970s. Clearly, you're talking about the Iranian government.

There's common cope in America to always be like, the Venezuelan government doesn't represent the people or the Iranian people. And maybe, especially with all these elections. But as with all things, it's complicated. Are we gonna say that they have no Democratic support? Are we gonna say that they have no representative of the people? And especially if you try and foist a new regime on them, how do you think that's gonna go?

It's one of those where- We've seen how it's gone in the past many times. So, you know, we have fantasies in America. Everybody's just like us. Oh, the Iraqis just want representative democracy. It's like, no, actually, you know, it's complicated. And especially when you put that into practice, they end up slaughtering each other. So it's one of those where are we really better off, you know, replacing it? What do we know that comes next?

Nobody knows. Nobody knows the answer to that question. We always talk about that with Russia. Oh, he's a dictator and all that. The likely replacement for Putin would be somebody who is more aggressive and more dictatorial and warmongering, not the other way around. And this is a fantasy that clearly, you know, the Israelis, they're not stupid. They probably do know this. It's just one of those where they also know that at the end of the day, big brother, America will come in to save their ass. And ultimately, if we do have to quote unquote save them, it will be with our own military force, our own ground forces that will get drawn into this. And we will be the sucked in for another 25 years. Iran would make Iraq look like a cakewalk.

And Iraq was a disaster. You don't have to take my word for it. Take any war planner or others who has studied this. There's a reason that we never wanted to cross this red line for ourselves, despite the protestations of all the neocons in Washington. But we are the closest that we've been to war with Iran, probably since 2009. I encourage people. There's an Atlantic article written in 09 Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote this entire profile of BB back then saying to Obama, either you deal with the Iranian nuclear problem, or I will by striking

and destroying their nuclear facility. I'm pointing that out to show you, this is a multi-decade project by BB Netanyahu for regime change in Iran and specifically to draw the US into that conflict. It was only through the nuclear deal and others that we were able to avoid that. But we came this close to getting back into war that time, and not a lot of people remember. So it's terrifying. It really is. Yeah, it absolutely is, especially when you look at, I mean, you've got a president who is adult who knows how engaged he is or not. I'm not sure whether it would be better or worse if he was able and engaged because his

lockstep, bear hug commitment to whatever Israel wants to do, specifically whatever Bibi Netanyahu wants to do. Ultimately, I might complain a little bit, but I'm going to back him up, has been an utter disaster. This is the one outcome that they have asserted from the beginning they wanted to avoid. And yet here we are. So you seem to have a few key individuals, Brett McGurk, perhaps chief among them, who have truly embraced the full neocon, let's install democracy around the world, let's spread democracy around the world view, who learned nothing from Iraq and other foreign misadventures. Because the reporting is

that actually the US wanted Israel, at least the White House, over the objections of the State Department and the Department of Defense, wanted Israel to go forward with escalating vis-a-vis Hezbollah, with invading Lebanon, thinking that now's the time when we can remake the Middle East. When have we heard that before? They think it's going to be different somehow this time around. And, you know, with regard to the Iranians saying, hey, you know, we think U.S. oil assets and other strategic assets in the region are fair game. Who can blame them for saying that we're an integral part of this? Of course we are. I mean, we directly involved in the Israeli response to the Iranian attack. We've been sharing intelligence with them. We enable this entire situation. Sagar is 100% correct. If the Israelis knew

they had to bear alone the cost of their continued provocations and escalations, there's no way that they continue in this direction. But they know that we will back them up no matter what. Joe Biden was asked about the potential targeting by Israel of Iranian nuclear sites. He seemed to be opposed to that. Let's take a listen to this exchange in front of Air Force One. No. And I think there's things. We'll be discussing with the Israelis what they're going to do. But all seven of us agree that they have a right to respond, that they should respond to the forces. So just to be clear for people who struggle to hear that, he was asked directly, does he support an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites? He says no. He goes on to say they have a right to respond, but they should respond proportionally. I mean, I play you this

because he is the American president, but do his words matter at all? Doesn't seem to. Doesn't seem like they're willing to use any sort of leverage in order to enforce the direction that the US wants things to go in, or at least that they pretend that they want to go in. So these words, even though they're important because they're the US president, that's why I play them for you, they're also sort of irrelevant and meaningless given how incredibly impotent he is. And you could go down that path and still get us into a war, which is, okay, fine, don't strike the nuclear site.

You just take out a few oil refiners. Yeah, just a small little tap on the sole source of income for the Iranian regime. That's part of the problem is that even if you rule out something like the nuclear strike, it doesn't mean that even strikes in the middle of Tehran wouldn't itself invite major retaliation against the US. Not to mention, we have tens of thousands now of troops who are in the region, who are at risk from the Houthis, from in Iraq, in Syria. I mean, all of these people are frankly just sitting ducks to any potential retaliation because of the Biden administration policy. And again, there has been this disgusting effort in America to just

whitewash what happened with these Iranian missiles. There is no way that you can call it a failure. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from the Times of Israel. This is, again, like a more right-leaning publication inside of the country where even through military censorship, quote, they acknowledge that Iranian missiles hit some air bases. Now, they claim no major damage was caused. Maybe. I mean, you know, release some photos maybe of the air bases that are okay. But the point is, is that if you only intercept a, quote, majority, and let's say you have a 30% hit rate, even 40%, that's a failure.

Ask anybody who's studied or involved in missile defense. If you have 30 or 40% of these things that are coming through and that are precisely hitting military targets, including air bases, what does that tell you about the future? Iran has one of the largest ballistic missile stocks on earth, and they're relatively cheap to manufacture. What you saw was only 200. They have thousands that they could fire, and those 200 were able to overwhelm the Arrow 3 system. So if there were thousands, do you have any doubt now that this would not immediately cripple at least some of the IDF and of their air force? So this is the problem, is that we just believe our government and our idiot media.

For example, in the VP debate, that's like, well, it was a failed attack. I'm like, what? Hold on a second. Just because it didn't kill anybody or just because it didn't wipe every airbase on the planet, if it made impact on an airbase, I'm gonna call that successful, especially in terms of establishing deterrence and establishing your ability to inflict damage if you want to. It's like any time, I don't know, in the past, like when America would strike Assad air bases and the Syrians would be like, oh, it was a failure because we were able to rebuild the airfield. I'm like, okay, but it did destroy the airfield. And the point is that the US military has the capability to do that if they want to. So if you're watching this just from

a pure military view of the missile's ability to make contact with those air bases, you can't call it a failure. And yet, how many people are gonna see this segment or read the follow-up news, which admits that bypassing military sensors, that there was damage? Almost nobody. It's crazy. Glenn was opining on this on Twitter, as he does. And he made a point that I think is a disturbing but important one, which is basically like, because of the savagery with which Israel has conducted itself in Gaza and now in Lebanon, also in the West Bank, the view from the West is now like, oh, if you didn't murder a bunch of civilians and take out hospitals and schools and aid agencies, then it wasn't a success. And you see that sentiment effectively on Twitter and other places. And I think that's basically correct. I mean, if they are downplaying the

damage that was inflicted on military assets in the country in order to try to downplay the need for escalation, then I kind of support it. But I don't think that's what's going on here because you don't see any of that in terms of the rhetoric. I mean, they're threatening regime change. They're threatening a strike in the nuclear facilities. They're saying basically, like, we're cool if we go to all-out war, which, of course, Bibi has been cool with that for a very long time. So I don't think that that's the game that's being played here. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened

when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on

June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We also are learning some new and extraordinary things about that strike that Israel committed to assassinate Nasrallah, of course, used over 80 gigantic 2,000-pound bombs, killed

hundreds of civilians in addition to killing Nasrallah. So according to the Lebanese foreign minister, according to him, Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire deal, had been communicated to the U.S., had been communicated to Israel prior to that assassination attempt. You know, it kind of tracks with also the fact that they assassinated Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, at a time when it still appeared there might be a possibility of a broader ceasefire involving Gaza Strip and Hamas as well. So I mean, that tells you everything you need to know about Bibi Netanyahu's desire to coexist, desire to get to some sort of a diplomatic resolution.

He is not interested in that. He's never been interested in that. Every time there's been a possibility of it, he has been, I'm not gonna say that Hamas wasn't a roadblock too at times. He has been the primary impediment the entire time because his personal political interests and ideological interests are towards all-out consistent war. So, you know, as this, as we're watching what's happening in Iran unfold, it's also important to keep an eye on what's happening in Lebanon. There were strikes overnight in Beirut that killed dozens of individuals,

early indications are. And Israeli soldiers have begun that ground invasion, you know, with some limited incursions into Lebanon. Of course, you know, we wouldn't feel they were very limited if there was any sort of incursion into our borders. So let's keep that in mind. But there is has already been a cost to the IDF in terms of this ground invasion in Lebanon. We can take a look at these images of Israeli soldiers being evacuated here who had either been wounded or now we know that at least eight were killed in clashes with Hezbollah here in southern Lebanon.

So what you see on your screen is helicopters landing and people being carried down on stretchers, IDF soldiers being carried down on stretchers, IDF soldiers being carried down on stretchers. So Hezbollah, certainly, I don't think there's any doubt, obviously, they've been, their capabilities have been degraded, their communications have been compromised, which may be as critical as absolutely anything. But that doesn't mean that they don't still have warfighting capabilities as evidenced by these latest casualties from Israel. We can put A6 up on the screen, which is the official acknowledgement of these deaths.

Israel said on Wednesday, eight of its soldiers were killed in combat in South Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbor in a campaign against Hezbollah. The losses were the deadliest suffered by the Israeli military on the Lebanon front in the past year border area clashes. Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israeli forces pushed over the border. And Hezbollah said that it also destroyed three Israeli tanks with rockets near a border town there as well. So you still have Israel bombing

Gaza and killing people in Gaza. You still have Israel bombing Beirut, killing people in Beirut. You have this ground invasion going forward, which, again, the U.S. greenlit and actively encouraged. And you have us all in wait-and-see mode about just how large a provocation and an escalation we will get from Israel vis-a-vis Iran. Yeah, let's put the next one up there because this is an important It's a decent analysis and it actually shows this was the first time actually that Israel and Hezbollah came into direct fighting in Hezbollah and I think we should learn something from the fact that almost immediately according to Israel all eight people were killed You know in an ambush this illustrates that in the actual ground war, the IDF has not performed all that

well. They've been relying heavily on air power. Now, you can only get away with that to a certain extent. And you can definitely in Gaza if you want to just level the whole place. But in Lebanon, we're talking about a very, very different enemy. And this is something we've tried to talk about here quite a bit. The Hezbollah, yes, their regional commanders are dead. Their infrastructure has certainly taken a major hit, but their military arsenal is significant. And if you don't think that the IRGC hasn't immediately sent over experienced battle commanders who have been fighting for almost 20 years or so between Iraq and Syria and now here and to replace these people, then you're an idiot. And that's the problem is that they don't just have rockets. They have actually very sophisticated

military equipment. They have a fighting force, which is battle tested for almost a decade. And also they've got Iran and Syria, which themselves are sovereign nations, which are being attacked by Israel, which have a direct interest in making sure that their borders allow weapons to flow through seriously, if not outright, just giving it to them themselves. So the fact that you had these eight people from the IDF who were already killed just demonstrates what a real invasion would look like. If anything, it's probably why they almost immediately started retaliate bombing in southern Beirut. But the more that their troops want to create some sort of so-called buffer zone in the country, they're going to pay for it in blood. And I think that's really what this underscores. This is not Hamas. It's a far

more sophisticated force. The IDF has known this. They're afraid of it. That's part of the reason that they had to call up a lot of reservists. And, you know, these were some of the more elite fighters, actually, in the IDF, if you look at the biographies of those that were killed. So that should tell you. They were special forces. Exactly. So it will tell you when you, you know, when's the last time America lost eight people from special forces? It doesn't happen all that often in an actual ground invasion, you know, especially maybe if they're shot down in a helicopter or something. But it just demonstrates that the parity of the fighting force is much higher. And you should be afraid because this

would also cause significant problems in Israel. If hundreds, you know, thousands of people in the IDF start dying, this is a small nation and they don't have all that many people. On top of that, their economy is suffering dramatically. I mean, who knows? Hundreds of billions of shekels have already been lost on the war. Expanding it and creating all of this domestic turmoil and economic problems. Like this is major. This is a major issue now that we're almost a year removed from October 7th.

It's kind of insane that they got themselves into this situation. But of course, that's the project of their national leader. And at a certain point, he clearly has some Democratic support too. I just talked about- No doubt about it. So, you know- No, I mean, there's a lot of national support for this program. Obviously, there have been protests about wanting a deal in order to bring the hostages home, which, but, you know, in terms of the hawkishness, the attacks on Hezbollah, as far as I can tell, in terms of the public polling, this is widely supported across the Israeli political spectrum. And, you know, Sagar, you made this

point when we were talking on debate night, like, where's all the rhetoric about the hostages? That's just gone. Like, they've outlived their usefulness. Sorry for the horrible, crass nature of that language. But to Bibi Netanyahu, he doesn't care if they live or die. Does not care. In fact, for him, maybe more convenient if they end up dying because then they can't come back and talk about the way that they were abandoned by the Israeli government. And that's what happened. I mean, extraordinarily enough, I don't know if you saw this, Nancy Pelosi went on CNN with Dana Bash, and she was asked about the attacks in Lebanon

and the attacks, you know, the coming attacks on Iran and all of that. And she said, I think Bibi should be using his might to get the hostages home. Hey, how about that? Remember when that was when you pretended like that was a key priority? not so much anymore. And, you know, for the broader long-term outlook for Israel, what does this look like for them? Their credit rating was downgraded again. Purportedly, the goal of these attacks in Beirut and this ground invasion in Lebanon is so that Israelis can return to northern Israel where they, you know, have been evacuated and, you know, they haven't been there since post-October 7th. Well, this is no way to accomplish that.

I mean, you're just creating more hostilities. You're just creating more danger in that region. What the mayors of those towns wanted was a ceasefire deal so that there would be, you know, coexistence and at least some limited amount of peace so that people could go home. Like, there's no end in sight. There's no immediate timeline for Israelis in that region to be able to return. You have enormous burdens on the workforce because of the continued call-ups of reserves to go and fight on how many fronts even at this point.

You know, you're in Gaza, you're in the West Bank, you're in Lebanon, you're starting a war with Iran, et cetera. And so, and you're increasingly, even though the U.S. supports you wholeheartedly, you are increasingly isolated in terms of the world stage, where this fading superpower is increasingly becoming one of your only friends. So, you know, there's no long-term planning here. It's an ideological project. It's a political project for Bibi. It's a project of revenge. And that's where we are. And because the U.S. is too weak or actively supports this direction, you know, it's all completely enabled and greenlit and funded and supplied and made possible by us and our tax dollars. So we're all just waiting with bated breath to see what happens next. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her.

And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get

asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there

and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne

from brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man benny the butcher brent smith from shine down got be real from cypress hill nhl enforcer riley cote marine We'll be right back. season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. That's a good transition to where our tax dollars should be going and where our national attention should be going. I wish they weren't hostage to a regional war in the Middle East because we literally have hundreds of people potentially dead and tens of thousands who are now affected by the horrific Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

We have some interviews here we want to show you from some of the survivors just to show what the conditions remain like on the ground and what the experience was. Let's take a listen. We don't have any power. We haven't had any since Friday morning. We had water, running water, but we can't drink it. And now the pressure is so low that there's no water coming out anymore, really.

It's indescribable. I don't know, it just was covered in litter and trees and mud and it's stinky. And it was all the way up the street up here. It just looks like the bottom of a river. That couple, Dylan and Larson, that came across the bridge, they had a cat as well. They got inside to our house and we sat there for a little bit. And before we knew it, it was dire that we needed to get out. And we had gotten the cat bags ready.

And, you know, that's all we were worried about at the moment is saving our animals. And we were looking around at things. And that's when I really realized that none of what we own matters right now. And our lives, their lives, our cat's lives, that's all we have. When we were going around just looking to see if anybody was okay, I drive those roads all the time and I just couldn't even, I couldn't even picture where we were anymore. And just knowing that nobody is ever going to be able to live there probably. Most of the people who have built their lives there aren't going to be able to finish their lives there. And it's just really horrifying. Yeah, I mean, that's what it's like in North

Carolina. And that's what is happening. Now, in terms of our government response, don't worry, this is a real thing. It's become a meme, but I checked into it. FEMA says you can get up to $750 for grocery assistance if you happen to survive that. Meanwhile, we spent $100 million in a single night shooting down a bunch of missiles on Israel's behalf. So if you're a North Carolina resident, I would think about that and say, hey, how exactly should US government resources be spent? On top of that, it is going to cost tens of billions, if not hundreds, to rebuild after this. Let's put this on the screen. We were talking about this privately, but it really is going to be an important real story about whether America and our government even

cares about rebuilding this city, particularly Asheville. Because the Wall Street Journal wrote this, and it's a fantastic article. I encourage everyone to read it. The Hurricane That Threatens to Sink Asheville's Feel Good Success.. Asheville, North Carolina has been one of the boom towns of the East Coast now for a decade. It had huge population inflow from all across the US. It became a genuine tourist destination in its own right. It has, of course, all the fundamentals of beautiful weather, scenery, the Biltmore Mansion, etc. But it also became like a real refuge for a lot of people all across the country who wanted someone that was cheaper. They had a good vibe and they enjoyed it. This is not just Asheville, by the way. There's a huge inflow into North Carolina.

Raleigh and Charlotte are two of the most dynamic cities for young people in the United States, wage-wise and affordability-wise. What they point out here is that the devastation has wiped out almost all the development of the last decade to the point where if the government does not expend literally, I mean, billions and billions of dollars, then it's gone. All of their hard-fought resources, the businesses, I believe it had more craft breweries than any other city in the United States, is gone. The tourist destinations, all mountain resorts, etc. And I'm not just talking about the ability to visit.

It's the fact that lots of people had built great lives in the city and they were wiped out completely. And I really do feel like America is already forgetting them. Our national politics and more is not focusing on the ability to rebuild this place. Yes, it's great. The politicians came and visited, but it took New Orleans more than a decade and arguably never really recovered, you know, from Katrina. And now we're in a similar situation. So I'm, I'm honestly outraged at the way that they're not getting the help that they need. There's a lot to say about this. I mean, I actually went down to Louisiana after Katrina. I was, this was another life. I worked for a federal government contractor that did like

accounting systems. And so I was there for this very sort of tedious, boring reason of helping people be able to itemize some of their losses and help them figure out what they could expense and get reimbursed for from the federal government. But I'll never forget the experience of being down in that state and just the absolute devastation, individual personal losses. Because while the task sounds very, this very boring accounting task sounds very cut and dry, what people are actually bringing you are the photos of what their home used to be and how it's just destroyed now. There's stories of, we just thought, okay, it's a hurricane. We've seen this before in this area. Let me pack a bag for the weekend. And that bag I packed for the weekend is literally all I have left.

You're right that, you know, New Orleans, yeah, they rebuilt and other, you know, surrounding areas, Lafayette, Houma, et cetera. But the population did not return to New Orleans. There were many people who just left and never came back. There were many businesses that closed and never came back. There were many businesses that closed and never came back. There are neighborhoods that never came back. And when you think about Asheville, North Carolina, which is a place I've spent some time in, it's truly one of my favorite places in the entire country.

It is a small business economy. Part of what makes Asheville have this very special feel that a lot of people really love is that it isn't all the big chains. It's unique. There's the little coffee shop and incredible food, incredible dining scene, the arts district, all of those things that made people feel like, and the reality being, this is a special place with things and people and places that we can't get anywhere else. And, you know, I read the stats here in this article from the Wall Street Journal. They say

that almost half of small businesses never reopen after a disaster. So it's heartbreaking to think about. I mean, just think about it. If you're a business owner, you know someone in your family, like the way they put their heart and soul into this idea, it truly is heartbreaking. And you hear these survivors who, you know, they escape with their lives and their cat's lives,

thank goodness, but the whole, their home, their community, their livelihood, all of that, it's gone. It's gone. And, you know, there's also, I think part of why this doesn't get the attention anymore in the news media that Katrina got is that these, you know, extreme weather events are more and more and more common. But the chief meteorologist quoted in this Wall Street Journal piece says that the scale of the wreckage suggests it might be one of the worst flooding disasters in U.S. history. So you have a failed media response. You have, you know, a lack of an aggressive political response. And not to say that there aren't federal resources going there. I know that

there are. But, you know, this is like the new normal. I've even seen interviews with people who moved to Asheville from Florida to escape extreme weather events. Because who would think that, you know, in the mountains in North Carolina, you're not anywhere close to the coast that you could face this type of natural disaster wrought by a hurricane. And yet because, you know, and this is definitely partly because of climate change and the fact that the waters in the Gulf were so much warmer that helped to strengthen this storm incredibly rapidly so it makes landfall as a category four. This is the new horrific reality that we are living through. So my heart breaks for the people who are affected there.

My heart breaks for this region just in general, which is so beautiful and so special. And I know they will rebuild, but there will be things that will be lost. That's just the reality of it. There will be things that can't be rebuilt. There will be people who never come back. There will be businesses that never recover. And it's a devastating loss for them, first and foremost, but really for the whole country and for all of us.

Absolutely. And also, I mean, it's not in a crass way, but there will be, just like there was with Hurricane Sandy or previous hurricanes, it could have a political effect depending on how things go. Let's put this up there on the screen. Already, there have been, quote, a massive challenge for election officials in terms of just getting votes in, including mailing ballots. They say many residents have temporarily already left the area because of the damaged roads, the lack of potable water. They don't know whenever they're going to return. Quote, the challenging circumstances could suppress turnout in a part of the state where almost a million people cast ballots in 2020 of almost 6 million cast statewide. So that's one sixth of the North Carolina electorate.

And they talk about how Trump actually defeated Biden by less than 80,000 votes, his smallest margin of victory in any state in the country. And the Washington Post poll found that before Helene hit, that Trump only held a two-point lead over Kamala Harris. So they say that Trump actually won some 25 of these counties under the disaster declarations with almost 65 or 62% of the vote at the time. But one of the hardest hit communities, which was Asheville, was where Biden won some 60% of the vote. So it actually could wreak havoc on the election itself too.

Actually, we saw some of this after Katrina. I remember there was a lot of machinations. People didn't know what to do with all these North Carolina residents who moved to Texas where I was. And there was all kinds of, you know, what do we do? Are they residents? Where do they move? Are they ever going to come back? How should we consider them?

Also, apparently some overseas and military ballots were sent to those who had requested them. Domestic absentee ballots were sent on September 24th. And that meant we're, quote, probably in transit when the storm hit and were potentially destroyed. At least one post office in the county was flooded, and hundreds of mailboxes are now gone. So people have to be able to track and see where things are. Currently, the U.S. Postal Service has suspended service to 1.3 million North Carolinians that are in the state. So it is a logistical nightmare ahead of the election. And to say that it won't have any impact whatsoever is ridiculous. We just don't know yet what it will be. But our heart goes out to these people because what a mess, both know, both of the election people and then also those who want to vote. We all know what

bureaucracy is like. They're maybe going to try and vote wherever they went to in their relatives' house or whatever, and you're going to face issues. So the state's going to have to step up and make sure that something can happen. Yeah, well, there's a lot to say about this. I mean, first of all, you have to thank, like, the people that we showed you. Do you think that their top priority right now is, like, how do I vote? They're like, how do I eat? How do I survive? How do I put a roof over my head? How do I make sure that my loved ones are still alive and fine? So it's probably not top priority right now. But then there are these really key logistical issues. So this is a weird, there's a sort of weird butterfly effect thing here that happened.

To take you into the backstory, their absentee ballots were actually supposed to go out weeks earlier. So would have been out and in voters' hands, presumably, before Hurricane Helene hit. However, RFK Jr., after he endorsed Trump, wanted to be taken off the ballot and went to court and sued in order to get taken off the ballot and went to court and sued in order to get taken off the ballot in North Carolina. The legal system agreed with him, but that meant that since the ballots were already printed, North Carolina sends out their absentee ballots, they're really on the early side in terms of when those go out. They had to restart the process, reprint those ballots,

and that delayed those ballots sufficient amount of time so that they're going out right at the time, basically, that Hurricane Helene hits. So there's that. Then as Sagar was noting, you have post office that was flooded. You also have many polling locations that are either destroyed, inaccessible, etc. So even the roadways, you guys have seen the pictures, many of the highways washed out. It's very difficult to get anywhere in that region right now.

And then you have polling locations that have been destroyed. Then the Republican-controlled state legislature actually made it more difficult last year to be able to take emergency actions, like being able to change polling locations in an emergency. This was part of the stop the steal fallout. So they specifically made it more difficult for the election board staff to take emergency actions, like allowing counties to swap out one polling location for another. They also changed state law to require absentee ballots to arrive in their county no later than election day. So there's no grace period now to deal with this sort of catastrophe that has unfolded that used to allow any ballot postmark by that day to arrive

up to three days later. So that's made it even more difficult to be able to get the machinery of the election working here in Western North Carolina in particular. Other states are affected as well. We're focusing a lot on North Carolina, but Georgia, Florida, also South Carolina, also very much affected. But this area could be the most consequential in terms of the electoral politics. And it's a disaster. I mean, again, this is like the least of the concerns of the people that are there,

but we would be negligent if we didn't know that this could for sure have a political impact. Bingo. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend.

I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case,

bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast

season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's turn now to the vice presidential debate where we have some polling in now about who won, who lost, who was more favorable, who did better on the issues. Let's put this up there on the screen from CBS News.

I talked a little bit about this in our post show, but it does show that partisanship is alive and well in America. Who won the vice presidential debate? 42% J.D. Vance, 41% Tim Walsh, 17% said it was a tie. If we continue along the issues, what do we see? Who did a better job talking about abortion? So 62% of viewers said Walsz did compared to JD Vance at 38% you will note that's roughly where abortion favorability ratings and support for pro-life or pro-choice is healthcare 59% for Wallace and for Vance 59% versus 41 conflict in the Middle East was a 50-50. Economy was 49-51, with Vance taking the edge. And then immigration was 48-52. So not a lot of surprise in terms of where they are. They break down very much along partisan lines. Let's go to the next one here. Favorable opinion of

candidates. So before the debate, Tim Walz was at 52. After the debate, he was at 60. Before the debate, J.D. Vance was at 40. After the debate, he was at 60. Before the debate, J.D. Vance was at 40. After the debate, he was at 49. So actually a rough equivalent increase in the favorability of both of those candidates. Of course, Tim Walz experiencing the 60%. And then finally, something that I talked a little bit about last time, let's put the next one up there, is just about who won the debate when you compare it to the past. So this was actually CNN's snapshot. It had Walsh at 49 and Vance at 51.

But if you compare the Vance performance compared to past Republicans, it's actually pretty significant. 59% said Kamala Harris beat Mike Pence. 42% said Cain beat, roughly it was 48% Pence, then 42% there for Tim Cain. For Biden, Ryan, it was 48-44 with Ryan. And then Biden, Palin was 51-36. So Sarah Palin, of course, taking the last. But J.D. does nudge out 51 and 49, so the best performance there within the last, what is it, last 14, 15 years, something like that. So yeah, roughly, oh, I forgot, we didn't include this, but there was a poll that was like,

will this impact your vote? And only 1% said yes. So as we always try and tell you here, the VP debates, unfortunately, they just don't make a big impact here in the country. I mean, there's something interesting here. I mean, first of all, I think people, it was 50-50, not just in this poll, but a lot of other polls. I think people were kind of impressed with J.D. He came off a lot better

than he's come off in other instances on the campaign trail where he's just been consistently in attack dog mode. But I think they also found Tim Walz to be just nice and relatable.

Even his being nervous at the beginning is like, if he's not just putting on the character of the aw shucks, what am I doing here? Like, if you really are that person, you would be nervous at the beginning. I think people just, there was a weird thing, Sagar, where I think the Normie reaction was like, oh, this is so much more normal and respectful than the Trump-Harris debate. And why can't we have this type of politics? But then on the other hand, when you look at the polling of how Trump's polling versus how every just sort of like standard issue, more normal Republican is polling in the Senate races, he's doing better than they are. So it's like, you know, people profess that they would rather have this more sort of like normal, more boring exchange, but then what they actually vote for and find appealing,

like on some level, they also want the show. So there's some internal contradictions going on. That is a very astute and correct observation. I actually said that. I was like, you know, watching that, somebody like me, I'm educated. I come from an upper middle class family. I look at that, I'm like, wow, that actually seems very attractive. You got somebody who's decently high IQ, can articulate a position that these people allegedly want. You have Tim Walz, seems like a nice enough guy. I don't see anything particularly wrong with that. But then you ask Republican voters what they love most about Trump, and it's the circus. Let's all just be honest about what's happening here and about what is most animating for not even Republican voters, but for the vast

majority of the people who do vote for him. If you look at the amount of turnout that Trump has been able to drive in American politics, it is historical. I mean, especially compared to George W. Bush to any so-called normal politician. So I think this is a classic example of people who allegedly say that they want one thing, but it's kind of like social media. If you tell everybody like, my social media algorithm, I don't seek out rage content, that's for other people. It's like, well, you do. Statistically, you do. And statistically, it's what gets you to perform or to spend more time on the platform. So your actions are much better predictors. And I think that, look, I don't think it's a good thing per se, but it is clear, I think it's a reflection of what people actually want. And their voting behavior

shows us this quite clearly. Trump is polarizing in a sense where people who hate him love coming out to vote and people who love him also love to come out to vote. And that's why 2020 was one of the highest voter turnouts in modern American history. So I think the truth is, is that everybody who professes wanting to return to this, there was another thing I also saw, which is some teenagers who came of age during Trump. This is purely anecdotal, but I saw some analysis floating around there. They're like, oh, mom, dad, that was so boring. And yeah, it was boring in a traditional sense. I guess the Rorschach test is like, what do you prefer? Do you want a boring

politics or not? There's pluses and minuses, I think, to both sides. But it does tell me about Trump's power. And you can see that in all of the neck-to-neck polling. For all of his downsides, he is just the most singular candidate in modern history. And he's changed everything about the way that we look at the presidency. I mean, in some ways, this is like Trump's central insight, is that even though people may say, like, oh, I liked the J.D. Vance, like, the respectful tone of the debate, and I want the decorum and whatever, they also can't resist the show. And I don't put myself above this either. No, everyone's the same.

Was it more fun to talk about the, you know, like, insane cats and dogs debate? Did I have more to say about that? Did we, like, you know, did we have more energy around that and probably do a lot more blocks on it? Yeah, we did because it was more interesting, even though obviously the content of the policy ideas that were articulated by Walls and J.D. Vance are important, although, you know, they're the vice president. So how important are they also in the greater that plays into it as well. But Trump has this view of the world that all attention is good attention. All controversy is good. Like no

publicity is bad publicity. That's his view of the world. Now, I think sometimes he takes that too far. Like, for example, the Haitian pets thing he thought was good for him was not good for him, right? There are ways you can go too far with that. But that was kind of his central insight into American politics is that, no, you people profess that you want the decorum, you want the norms, you want the niceties and the civil discourse, but you don't. You don't. You want the messy show, and that's what I'm going to give you. And that's been one of the kind of defining characteristics of the Trump era. And to your point about the teenagers, like for young people today, that's all they know of American politics.

Is it just being this messy, outrageous reality show? And the bar also becomes higher and higher for what is even going to grab people's attention and have that shock value because we're also becoming so inured to constant shock value in our politics that things don't rate in the same way. But I just go back to, I don't know that Trump will win this election. He's certainly in a position to have a shot to do it. I do think he's probably a little bit behind right now in terms of the battleground states, but it's very difficult to say because it's so ultimately close. But if you look at the Republican Senate candidates, they are all underperforming Donald

Trump. All of them, across the board, as far as I know. So what does that tell you about what people really want in our politics? And although you know, although they may profess to appreciate that sort of more dignified debate, when it comes down to it, there's a lot of people out there who are interested in the show and gravitate towards the show and like the show and like the aggressiveness of it and the nastiness of it and all of that. Yeah, look, I mean, I think it's an elite thing. I genuinely do. It's that in an old that in the modern 2000s, the 1990s, elite gatekeepers had much more control on who was able to make it into politics and not. It was a much less democratic system. In the modern media environment, most people can vote not only with their eyeballs but literally with their ability to engage in the process.

And then with the internet, they chose Donald Trump, really, he was like the first truly modern candidate in this sense. And that is why he is outperforming everybody. He even has a higher favorability than J.D. I mean, to me, that's nuts. That's actually crazy that you can look at that and be like, you know what? Between these two individuals, Trump is the one that should be president. But I'm not dumb. I know. That's the base circus instinct. It's a tame tale as old as time. You go back and you read about Rome and about what got the mob all jazzed up and what they wanted to, who they eventually just started to back. And I think it does tell you something. At the same time, the caution is that that circus

and all that does ignite such passion in an equal number of the electorate that you do risk actually defeat at the ballot box. And so for this, you know, we talked about that election moment. The Kamala Harris campaign immediately ended up cutting an ad about the J.D. answer on whether Trump won the election. C5, let's take a listen. It's really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power.

He is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election? Tim, I'm focused on the future. That is a damning non-answer. America, I think you've got a really clear choice of who's going to honor that democracy and who's going to honor Donald Trump. So look, I mean, we knew at the moment that that was going to be turned into it. And that's exactly what's happening.

We see it all around. We see it all in the battleground states. If you look at the midterm elections, that was a major issue why Republicans underperformed. And I do think it remains a risk for Trump, especially because a lot of these constituencies who he's gaining with, like younger Latino or black men, here's the truth. They don't vote statistically as much as seniors and upper middle class whites. Those people vote in droves. Now, I'm not saying that they won't vote. It's just a lot riskier to pace your electoral ambitions amongst non-voters or infrequent

voters. You would always want to bank people who are very civically engaged. And that is a message very geared towards them, the type of folks who will order their mail-in ballot or the type of people we covered in Northern Virginia who will line up for a mile on day one of early voting just to make sure that they can bank their vote. So that's the risk. We'll see. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt that was the moment that will be most remembered from this debate. Do I think it'll be electorally consequential? Not really, because I do feel like people feel about Donald Trump however they feel at this point.

You know, being reminded of Stop the Steal, being reminded of January 6th isn't going to change any minds at this point. The people who are out there who are still undecided, I think, are more likely to be deciding on economic issues, bread and butter issues, potentially whether we're getting dragged into a war in the Middle East, you know, those sorts of things. If the port strike ends up impacting the economy, some other unforeseen thing that happens between now and election day, I doubt that at this point that really moves the needle. To me, it's more of a warning sign for if this election is close, I don't think there's any doubt that Trump is going to try to pull the same thing again.

And, you know, J.D. Vance was put on this ticket with the assumption that he would stick with Donald Trump through all of those, you know, election lies in a way that Mike Pence ultimately at the end of the day didn't. And so this was, I think, indication number one that he may, right? When he's up there on the debate stage and he's faced directly with the question, did he win? He can't say. He knows what Donald Trump wants him to do, and he's going to stick with that through thick or thin. And for J.D. and his future career and whatever it is, probably the determination of that is not going to be made in this campaign. It's going to be made if Trump loses and goes down the same direction, which if he loses, he will go down the same direction, how he handles

that moment. Because obviously it's like, it's the no one situation. You either end up with Mike Pence in Mike Pence land where the Republican base hates you and wants you literally dead. Or, you know, you're all in with the most, the greatest insanity you can possibly imagine. And then you can kiss any sort of like mainstream respectability goodbye. And the truth of the matter is that while Trump can get away with those sorts of things, no other politician has shown an ability to. So it's a very, you know, if they win, then he'll, you know, that's a different scenario. And that's very possible, right? If they lose, I don't think there's any

ultimate winning for J.D. Vance out of this. Politics is about gambles. The gamble was that Biden was president. They were easily going to cream him, and it would be a very, you know, be an easy cruise to the nomination, I guess, in 2028. In this case, yeah, if he loses, I've always said, I think it's a problem just because you have to endorse, stop the steal, which were really put off, no matter, especially if we do it twice. I mean, can you imagine the exhaustion? Oh, People will be thoroughly disgusted. People will be pissed. And if they were pissed once. And Trump's an old man. This show doesn't go on forever. Well, Trump will be around, though, no matter what, until the day he dies. And so he will basically demand, if he doesn't run again, that at the very least, whoever his successor is has to pick up that mantle. The

question will be the ability to people's pull away from it. I don't think that will exist. I think the Republican electorate will stick with him. If he does win, though, then of course, you know, this debate performance and others was significantly was good for him, especially inside of the campaign. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out

there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got

any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of absolute season one taser incorporated on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,

binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th, ad free at lava for good. Plus on Apple podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

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Probably a good segue then to the actual polls of where the election is right now. All right, let's go ahead and start with the first one, which is about kind of the themes of the actual debate itself around working class support, where people are trending and more. Harry Enten over at CNN had a good summary of this. Let's take a listen. It ain't what it used to be. You know, you go back to 1992. Bill Clinton won that union vote by 30 points. Hillary Clinton only won it by 12 points back in 2016. That was the lowest mark for a Democrat since 1984, Mondale versus Reagan. But look at where Kamala Harris is today. She's only leading by nine points. That would be the worst Democratic performance in a generation. Ten points off the mark of Joe Biden, who,

of course, won four years ago with sort of that union guy, Union Joe, right? Won it by 19 points. She's 10 points off his mark. And the worst in a generation is margin among vocational and trade school grads and pre-election polling. Bill Clinton was leading that vote over George H.W. Bush by seven points. Look at where Donald Trump is today over Kamala Harris, a 31 point advantage. When I think people think of the working class, they think of people who use their hands. And we know that Donald Trump has been going after that vote, and he is in a very, very strong position. Well, that's one that's obviously been tracked for quite a long time. But when you put it together with the Latino vote as well, those are probably the two biggest changes in modern politics. Let's put that on the screen,

please. This is from NBC News' poll, Telemundo. This is specifically with Latinos. It shows that Republicans now have some 37% of Latinos backing the party as opposed to just 49% for the Democrats. First time that they're under 50 in modern politics, 23% supporting Latinos, supporting Trump back in 2020, 54% Democrat. 2016, it was lower. It was 20 versus 59. And in 2012, it was actually 21 and 62. So that massive increase in Latino support, some 15 points in the span of just a decade or so, is very significant for the Republican Party. It also does, if you split it apart with men, that's where things get even more interesting. Because Matt Iglesias is actually out with a piece today about how to win

back male votes. And he talks specifically about how if you look at men in basically all demographic groups, I believe it's every demographic group except for black men, that there has been huge increases in Republican support. A lot of this is gender gap stuff, which we've talked about ad nauseum here on the show, but it is indicative of where things go and for what messaging is. There's a reason why the whole January 6th thing is very targeted for these more upper middle class and white voters. Not to say that people don't care about it, just statistically that's gonna be the main one. Abortion, too, generally aligns with educational levels if you look at it. And then on immigration, it's the flip side. And I think that probably is the number one reason why

you see this increase in working class supporters because of the bifurcation between the parties on the issue of immigration and it being the true like irreconcilable issue for the GOP. And then same for abortion amongst the Democrats. So anyway, I think it's fascinating just nonetheless. And don't let anyone tell you that American politics can't change like this. This whole 40 years idea from James Carville was nonsense. The Obama coalition fell apart in a single generation. That's amazing. There's a reason they called it the Obama coalition. Yeah, because it's gone. The only one you could vote. I mean, that man won Indiana. Right. Like, didn't he win Ohio? Of course he won Ohio. I mean, yeah, it was a totally different, of course he didn't win Georgia. Yeah. Didn't win Arizona. The map

has shifted dramatically. But yeah, I mean, the college divide has become a central one. And, you know, there are some things that really challenge my view of politics and what I would like to see. Because the Biden administration, if we look at the economics, they've been way better than the Obama administration. Way better than, in my opinion, any on the long-term, like industrial policy, labor policy, antitrust policy. They've been way better than any president in my lifetime. Now, I think in the short-term stuff, I think they screwed up a lot, right? Because the entire COVID safety net is dismantled under them.

You have inflation. You have an inability to deal with that or really articulate what's going on. They're not pointing fingers at the corporations who are gouging people, not taking any action, not taking a lot of action. I shouldn't say any, not taking a lot of action to rein that in. And, you know, that certainly plays into this. I think a lot of the we're going to talk about some numbers out of the out of Philadelphia that show that the lowest income areas are the places that are shifting right within the city. And I do think the immediate inflation numbers have to do with that. But I also do think that our politics is just, it's becoming totally de-aligned. It's becoming

very much about these cultural issues, which the liberal side of cultural issues tends, like you said, Sagar, more to align with higher education levels. And the conservative cultural landscape tends to align more with high school, trade school, et cetera. And that's truly becoming the central divide. And the union numbers are the most indicative of that because it continues to be the case that union membership is, you know, more likely to lead you in the direction of voting Democratic. But, you know, what we saw with like the Teamsters not endorsing and the union vote in terms of the rank and file shifting to the right so that Democrats are only more narrowly leading in that vote. It does indicate because you have a very clear divide between the parties in terms of union issues,

it just does indicate that the cultural issues, what some political scientists call status issues, have become more central to American politics than economic issues. And it makes some sense when you feel like neither party, no matter who's in power, is really delivering for you economically. You can at least feel like you have a cultural warrior on your side on those issues. And I don't want to pretend like those issues don't matter either. Like certainly a lot of people, women in particular, feel that abortion rights matter quite a bit in terms of their life and their ability to make their choices. But, you know, Trump is a big part of crystallizing this trend, but it's also a trend that we see across advanced democracies and across

like Western society. And it's a trend that in some ways predates Trump as well, this realignment. So as with many things, I think he's an accelerant, but he's not entirely the entirety of the story that's going on here. Yeah, I've recommended this book a million times, The Age of Acrimony, How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865 to 1915. It was written just in 2022. But the central story of post-Civil War America and the reason why the Gilded Age was allowed to happen is because the central dividing line in American politics was basically Reconstruction and whether Black people should have rights and Jim Crow should be allowed. That was it. That was all we fought about. It led to the rise of Southern populism,

you know, down in the South and the segregation and the rise of Jim Crow on top of in the North and how much we hated the South. And at the same time, mass industrialization was allowed to happen. But the sad part is that that actually is the time when Americans were most engaged. It was not on the progressive reformer issues that took decades of fighting basically about black rights before we ever had a conversation about it. So I think it's similar today with abortion and with immigration. These questions just have to be solved. One side has to win, then we will litigate. And unfortunately, that's just the way that things are going. And I mean, as you said, with the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote the story, I mean, this is the

educational divide. Let's put this up there, please, on the screen. In deep blue Philly, working class voters are shifting towards Republicans. But it's not just saying working class voters. It really is bifurcated on income. Go to the next part, because this shows the slide more than anything else. If you see here, average net Republican vote shift, 2016 to 2020, so just four years, 0% to 10% in poverty, minus 25 towards Democrats, 0 to 16%, minus 20 for Democrats. 16 to 24%, minus 9. But then once you get to the 24 and 35% of share of residents in poverty, swing of 13 points amongst Republicans, and the most significant is 35% or more. 35% or more, think about what that means, of share of residents in poverty precincts have now shifted plus 47 towards Republican. Of course, in our modern economy, that is almost entirely indicative

of what educational levels look like. And that tells us that these cultural issues are the number one reason that people are either shifting right or left and is what determining them to come out and to vote. And so when you see this, I fully expect this to replicate all across the US. And it also tells us why the Sunbelt would drift a little bit more Democrat. These are the most dynamic areas. This is where the net population influence are all people who are college educated. It's also why the Midwest, the Midwest is to have a lot more working class white support, but it will only be offset potentially by upper middle class white liberals and or seniors

who are a whole other thing that happens in America. But the point is that when the boomers die off, this is what America is most likely going to look like. To me, one of the most interesting things happening in American politics as sort of an experiment is happening in Nebraska, where we've covered this Senate race. The Democrats just basically decided, like, we're not going to win a Senate race in Nebraska, so we're not going to even try. And there's an independent populist, CounterPoint's interviewed him, named Dan Osborne, who was a strike leader, like, very grounded in the labor movement. Populist economics are, like very grounded in the labor movement, populist economics are like the

core of his pitch. He wants to secure the borders. He sort of tries to be more or less neutral on cultural issues, although he has expressed himself as being pro-choice, but really leans into that labor populism. And the latest poll that just came out, I don't know if it's accurate or not, has them up five points. An independent Senate candidate running on like a, you know, left populist agenda and minimizing some of the cultural issues is winning or close in the state of Nebraska. And so if you're looking for like, what's the path forward, that seems like in the red states where the Democratic Party is just poison for like, and frankly, a lot of understandable reasons where it's just poison, that seems to be a pretty good

playbook for them to run. So that's the place that I'm watching with the most fascination in terms of like, you know, democratic experiments and what could, what could also kind of shake. Imagine he ends up being the 50th vote. Imagine how much power this union worker, labor leader, strike leader, imagine how much political power he ends up. Instead of Joe Manchin, we have Dan Osborne. Like, it can't possibly happen because it would be too exciting and too good. But the fact that he's even in the running

is, I think, quite an extraordinary development and, you know, should be an indication of some good directions to go in that really could kind of shake some of the bedrock foundation of the two-party system in a way that would be incredibly healthy. You can always learn a lot from people like that. Even if he doesn't win, let's see what margin he puts up. If he comes within two, that should be something that tells you. This is also

why national parties need to let go of a lot of litmus tests. I think his name was Brian Sandoval. He was that governor of Nevada. He was pro-choice and he was a Republican. He was massively popular in 2016, totally ruled out for because he was pro-choice and he was a Republican. He was massively popular in 2016. Totally ruled out for because he was pro-choice. I remember looking at his approval rating and being like, hey, we've got a Latino Republican governor here with like a plus 70% approval rating. And we're all just going to pretend he's not national. Yeah, that's the thing. You get ruled out.

I also forget who the governor was of, I think it was Louisiana. He was a Democrat, John Bell Edwards. Yeah, there you go. John Bell Edwards, but he's pro-life. And so the same thing, he just gets totally ruled out. And something I always respected about Bernie is that even as early as, or as late as 2017, he was endorsing pro-life Democrats as long as they were decent. Yeah, you've gotten a lot of trouble for that. He got so much shit for it, but he was like, look, these are the only people that can win. I would rather they win as long as they need to satisfy whatever things for their constituents,

but let's do it. And those people actually, those people need to be more elevated by the national party, in my opinion, because in the future, if you want to contest more swinging areas, especially in a more 50-50 country where people – everyone's totally divided, that's the portrait of how you actually break open something new. That's what Trump did. That's what a lot of – there's Bell Edwards and other figures. They were basically just kept out of the national conversation only because of national party litmus tests. And I think that's really stupid. I don't think it works.

Yeah, but it would be pretty cool if we got a new independent in the Senate and what that would mean. And, you know, if his was up for grabs, he said to counterpoints, he didn't really plan on caucusing with either party. And so it's one to watch for sure. One to watch going forward.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day.

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iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz

Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right. We wanted to bring you this really extraordinary interview between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Tony DeCobol of NBC News. And so Ta-Nehisi, of course, really rose to prominence as like a prominent intellectual based on first he wrote The Case for Reparations in Atlantic Magazine. And then he's also an author of a number of books. And so he's most associated with the anti-racism movement. And in particular, I think it's fair, and I don't know if he would object to this characterization,

he's sort of a race pessimist, right? The idea like this is the founding sin and this is America's legacy and this is something we can never get over, which I have disagreements with, you certainly have disagreements with, et cetera. I despise him solely for that, regardless of what he says now. I blame him actually for a huge amount of the intellectual anti-racism revolution,

but regardless, we can stick to this subject for right now. So he has a new book out called The Message. And in it, actually, I've been reading it almost all the way through it. And in it, he tells three different stories. And the book, the central theme of the book is basically that writers have a responsibility to be, to speak out for the voiceless, to tell stories in a way that matters. And so he goes to Senegal and talks about what that's like and what that experience is like for him, reflecting on his ancestry and the legacy of slavery. He talks about going to Columbia, South Carolina, where a teacher was being viciously attacked for teaching one of his books in the classroom in her, I think, AP English class. And then he goes to Israel and he talks about Israel being an apartheid

state and is the largest section of the book. And it's also obviously in the American political context, the most provocative. So what's interesting about Ta-Nehisi Coates is that he was overwhelmingly celebrated for his previous work, you know, and really became like an insider, an insider, you know, in these like elite circles and media circles and beloved in those circles from his previous work. Now he's telling a story that is very uncomfortable for them and that they don't want to hear and that they don't celebrate and is incredibly challenging and not often heard in Western media. So the result of that tension is this interview right here. Let's take a listen. When I read the book,

I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away. The content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist. And so then I found myself wondering, why does Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I've known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second intifada, the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits? And is it because you just don't believe that Israel in any condition

has a right to exist? Well, I would say the perspective that you just outlined, there is no shortage of that perspective in American media. That's the first thing I would say. I am most concerned always with those who don't have a voice, with those who don't have the ability to talk. I have asked repeatedly in my interviews whether there is a single network mainstream organization in America with a Palestinian American bureau chief or correspondent who actually has a voice to articulate their part of the world. I've been a reporter for 20 years.

The reporters of those who believe more sympathetically about Israel and its right to, don't have a problem getting their voice out. But what I saw in Palestine, what I saw on the West Bank, what I saw in Haifa in Israel, what I saw in the South Hebron Hills, those were the stories that I have not heard. And those were the stories that I was most occupied with. So that's basically the first question out of the gate. And by the way, I said NBC and CBS. But yeah, basically accusing him of being a terrorist effectively. And the framing of the question to me is incredibly significant because it gives up the game that if he didn't have this elite insider status that he can now trade on and effectively burn because that's what he's doing right now. All the political

capital he built up in this world, he's now burning through at a lightning pace because of what he says in the message. Like, he doesn't even get that interview if he's not Ta-Nehisi Coates, if he hasn't won those awards, if he doesn't have that elite status. And that's part of what his book doesn't say. You know, he's an excellent writer. It's well-written. It's, you know, extraordinarily provocative, not provocative, but evocative in terms of taking you into the life of a Palestinian living in Israel or living in the occupied territories. So it's important, but it's not really new ground. What makes it incredibly important is because of who he is and the fact that he's allowed

into these rooms. So that was the opening question out of the gate. I have another clip that I'm going to show you, which is basically the rest of the interview. Also, these formats of like five minute interviews are so absurd. But I want to get your reaction to that before we move on. I just thought it was wild. That's a wild thing to say. As I literally said, I don't like Ta-Nehisi Coates. I genuinely blame, I think he might be the godfather of a lot of the race problems that we have today. I don't, that's not an exaggeration in terms of his, that essay, The Case for Reparations, single-handedly radicalized every white girl on a college campus who eventually ended up

working at the New York Times, behest of the BLM movement, of all this other nonsense that we have today. So I, again, I really do find him a villain in American politics. That said, I don't even like him and I would not open with a question like that because that's wild. It would be an interrogation of the book itself and not to say something like that would belong. What did he say in an extremist backpack? The backpack of an extremist. That's an insane thing to say. And especially considering that that guy didn't disclose a lot of his own biases whenever it comes to Israel.

So that's another problem, I think, that was going into that. Do you want to listen to the rest of it? Yeah. I mean, I just want to respond a little bit. Sure. I mean, I disagree with his, with the race pessimist view. But I don't know, to be so, like, call him a villain and evil and like, causing every racial problem in America is crazy. That essay was the godfather of the anti-racist

movement. He's allowed to have a perspective and write what he wants. That doesn't make him a villain. And to acknowledge that like, you know, racism in America and that this continues to be a legacy that matters today. There's not like, that's a noble thing to do. So the fact he comes to a different conclusion than you or I, of course it's noble that he comes to a different conclusion than you or I. I don't know, you're villainizing him in a way that's not that different from the way Tony DeCoppo is here on CBS. I would say to his face, and I also wouldn't call him an extremist, I would say, I think your case for reparations basically was the reason that we have all this DEI bullshit and that you effectively radicalize a bunch of white liberals into thinking that racism is the single biggest problem in American life.

So you would blame Ta-Nehisi Coates? Yeah, absolutely. Over, okay, the police that murdered George Floyd, over Donald Trump and all of his many provocations. I mean, I just think that to like lay the blame at the feet of one person is sort of insane. Tommy Nisikos' case for reparations, again, is what radicalized a bunch of white liberals into thinking that burning the country down because a single cop murdered George Floyd was a good idea. Or for everybody to start quoting Martin Luther King in this all bullshit about the

riot is the voice of the unheard. All of that stems from him and his case for reparations. That is crazy. I'm not the only person who's taking that. That is crazy to lay the OK, again, he's allowed to hold his political positions that he has and he's allowed to make, you know, a case in The Atlantic magazine or wherever for whatever reason. I didn't say he shouldn't. He should make him more of a villain than a police officer that murdered someone for doing nothing is to me wild. But anyway, let's go ahead and move on to the rest of this interview because this is also quite extraordinary because that was just the beginning. The opening question is basically, aren't you a terrorist for thinking this? And then the rest of it, he goes on to insinuate that he's effectively an anti-Semite,

must be an anti-Semite for holding these views. Let's take a listen to that. But if you were to read this book, you would be left wondering, why does any of Israel exist? What a horrific place, committing horrific acts on a daily basis. So I think the question is central and key. If Israel has a right to exist,

and if your answer is no, then I guess the question becomes, why do the Palestinians have a right to exist? Why do 20 different Muslim countries have a right to exist? My answer is that no country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights. Countries establish their ability to exist through force, as America did. And so I think this question of right to Israel does exist. It's a fact. The question of its right is not a question that I would be faced with with any other country. But you write a book that delegitimizes the pillars of Israel. It seems like an effort to topple the whole building of it.

So I come back to the question, and it's what I struggle with throughout this book. What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place and not any of the other states out there? There's nothing that offends me about a Jewish state. I am offended by the idea of states built on ethnocracy, no matter where they are. Muslim included. I would not want a state where any group of people laid down their citizenship rights based on ethnicity. The country of Israel is a state in which half the population exists on one tier of citizenship and everybody else that's ruled by Israelis exists on another tier, including Palestinian Israeli citizens. The only people that exist on that first tier are Israeli Jews.

Why do we support that? Why is that okay? I'm the child of Jim Crow. I'm the child of people that were born into a country where that was exactly the case of American apartheid. I walk over there and I walk through the occupied territories and I walk down a street in Hebron and a guy says to me, I can't walk down the street unless I profess my religion. I'm with another, no, no, no, no. I want to, this is very, very important. Extremely important. Let it lay down. I'm working with the person that

is guiding me is a Palestinian whose father, whose grandfather and grandmother was born in this town. And I have more freedom to walk than he does. He can't ride on certain roads. He can't get water in the same way that Israeli citizens who live less than a mile away from him can. Why is that okay? Why is that? Why is there no agency in this book for the Palestinians? They exist in your narrative merely as victims of the Israelis, as though they were not offered peace at any juncture, as though they don't have a stake in this as well. What is their role in the lack of a Palestinian?

I have a very, very, very, very moral compass about this. And again, perhaps it's because of my ancestry. Either apartheid is right or it's wrong. It's really, really simple. Either what I saw was right or it's wrong. It's really, really simple. Either what I saw was right or it's wrong. I am, for instance, against the death penalty. What the person did to get the death penalty, it really doesn't matter to me.

I don't care if they were selling a nickel bag of marijuana or if they were a serial killer. I am against the death penalty. I am against a state that discriminates against people on the basis of ethnicity. I'm against that. There is nothing the Palestinians could do that would make that okay for me. My book is not based on the hyper morality of the

Palestinian people. And that's basically the entirety of the interview. And I think that the key point he makes there is like, listen, I don't care. There's nothing the Palestinians could have done that would make me say apartheid is morally acceptable, like that would make me change my values. So it's either right or it's wrong. And all this attempt, and this is part of what really upset people and became a whole conversation online, is in an excerpt he had said, listen, people as a Dodge say that this is all very complicated, when sure, the history is complicated, no doubt about it. The morality of it, if you have some basic principles, really isn't. And so again, it's not that no one said these things before. It's because he was so uniformly celebrated in these circles and he's

allowed in these circles. For him to say it is part of why there's, you know, this sort of like collective meltdown and why Tony DeCobb will take such a, I don't know if he's ever taken such an aggressive posture with an interview subject previously. This is morning show stuff. Normally it's like very fluffy and he comes in loaded for bear with every single talking point you can imagine. It's not a surprise. I mean, look again, my disagreement with Coates is Coates believes America as much as an apartheid state as Israel. And that's why I can't stand the guy. He believes that it was under Jim Crow, which is correct. No, but his essay about the case for reparations makes the case that we effectively still live in an apartheid society,

which is insane. And we still have massive wealth. That's not the same thing as apartheid. That's what I'm saying is exactly is that he sees moral equivalence between the two, which I think is outrageous for a country that has done more than any other country- That is not what he articulates in this book, and it's not what he articulates in this interview. But I think he deserves a lot of credit. That's right, he doesn't articulate because no one will ever push him on freaking anti-racism. I think he deserves a lot of credit for the fact that he, you know, he is, all of that elite credibility that he got, he's burning it right now to say something that should be

obvious on its face, that is powerfully true and certainly impacted him when he went and visited. And the fact that he is willing to burn that elite credibility and capital that he has on behalf of, yes, a group of people who in the American political media context are voiceless. I think he deserves nothing but praise and admiration for having the courage to do that, which is not an easy thing to do and what most people avoid. I could see how you arrive at that conclusion. I think that it's only a furtherance of his project, which is to draw some equivalence between our country or society and theirs, which again, I think is outrageous and insane. But where are you getting that from? From his own writing, his own essay.

Sagar, I literally am reading this book. Okay, I'm not talking about the book. And he does not say that. I'm talking about the ideology that he put forth. What he compares apartheid Israel, modern day Israel to is the Jim Crow South. That's what he compares it to. And I think that's accurate. I think that is highly accurate and it's obviously a very powerful comparison to make in terms of the American political context and especially given him and how people think of his credibility on these issues. So I don't know why it's so difficult for you to just say like, hey, I disagree with him on these other things, but good on him for using his elite capital to say something that's powerful and true in a space that it's

normally never heard. Yeah, I guess I could say that. Look, for me, I'm frankly, I have T, what is it? TNC derangement syndrome. Anything him, Nicole Hannah-Jones, Abraham Kendi, and all these other people, I honestly just don't care. I blame them for so many problems that we currently have. That's clear. And yeah, I do. I think they're genuinely villains. I think it's fine to say you disagree with them, but to say they're not allowed to have that ideology. I didn't say that allowed. There's no not allowed. But you basically are. You're blaming them for every ill, every racial ill in America, which is insane when you consider the amount of continued discrimination, when you consider George Floyd being murdered, when you consider Donald Trump

going out and inciting terror in a small Ohio town, lying about Haitian immigrants to say, oh, every racial problem we have is because of Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an article in The Atlantic. I think him and his project radicalized the American elite to believe that race is the only problem that we have in America. And as we just covered in our working class segment, the actual people who are working class don't agree with that. A lot of Latinos are very anti more immigration. So is that race? That's my point, is that his viewpoint gives us nothing in the American political context.

But, Sagar, again, to say you disagree with his viewpoint, legitimate. I have disagreements with his viewpoint, which I have expressed previously and have expressed in this segment. To say he's a villain, I mean, you're doing the same thing they're doing. You're an extremist. You're a terrorist. I didn't say he's a terrorist. You basically are. So I don't understand why, especially someone who believes in the open exchange of ideas and freedom of speech and the ability to articulate and argue through these things, why you would just denigrate him as a human being versus attacking the ideas that you disagree with. Okay, if somebody who you despise and said something bad had a good idea, a single sentence, would you think it was appropriate to castigate them as a hero for saying one thing?

I think they deserve credit for doing something that, here's the thing, this goes against his own personal career interests. Yeah. Very clearly. So does he deserve credit for that? Yes. Think of how many people, when faced with this issue, when either totally close their eyes or know that it's wrong and keep

their mouths shut because they want to keep their gig. How many American elites do so many? And so, yes, of course, of course, he deserves credit for like burning that political capital for actually living up to what he claims, which is to be a voice for the voiceless. And there are plenty of people who, you know, in the Black Lives Matter movement who they, you know, the Kendi and these sorts of people who it just appears to be like a career ambition grift. And I think with this action and these writings and the way he responds in these interviews, he's proven himself to be different, to have a different kind of moral character than people who are just, you know, grifting off of something that was popular in

elite circles. So yeah, I give him, yes, I give him credit for that. Absolutely. To be different, yes, absolutely. I'm just, I don't want people to have some takeaway that I think this person is like a hero or whatever. I really don't. You've made it clear that you don't think. Good, I hope so. And by the way, I didn't say he was a censorship. If he came here, I would say it to his face too. We could go into it for an hour. I would let him speak. I don't think so. Good, I hope so. And by the way, I didn't say he could refuse his censorship. If he came here, I would say it to his face too. We could go into it for an hour. I would let him speak. I don't think that other guy was allowing him.

I don't think what he said was anti-Semitic or anything like that. I don't know. I just have a very different view of who he is and the way that he's trying to further his whole race-only project. And I think it's obviously fused in an ideology, which I core disagree with. But, Sarah, here's the other thing that you're missing from his writing here that I actually think you would potentially agree with. Is he writes that the fact that you've been oppressed or that you've been a quote-unquote victim does not absolve you. Does not mean that you cannot then go and turn around and do the very things that were done to you. That's again, that is the core of the message in the book, The Message. That is a core of what he's articulating here, which I think is a very important concept when you think about, you know, the Israeli state founded out of the Holocaust. And he talks about the fact that,

you know, in his, in the case for reparations, he made this point about how using the Israeli state and, you know, German reparations to help found the Israeli state as a positive example of reparations. And it was actually someone, some of you may know, Rania Khalek, went to one of his events and stood up and said, you know, you really, you really misunderstand this because those reparations were not to the Jewish people, the survivors of the Holocaust. They were to create a new state that has caused new oppression. And he sat with that. That's what he said. He's he, that bothered him. Like Rania got shouted down. Was that a synagogue? Yeah, I read it in his essay.

He got shouted down. She was demonized in that group. She was very nervous, she said on Twitter, to have stood up and said that at the time. But he actually sat with that, and that led him down this path. And it leads him to this central thesis that it's really important to understand that, yes, of course, the victims of the Holocaust, horrifying, like the fact that there was this, you know, pressing sense of a need for a Jewish safe space, obviously horrifying, obviously important. That doesn't mean the fact that you were a victim or you were a victim of oppression doesn't mean you can't turn around and that the roles can't be reversed and that these, you know, designators of like oppression and oppressed are locked in time and place. And so, you know, I think that's something that you agree with. And I certainly

think it's something that's important to be heard. And so I appreciate the fact that while I have disagreements with him, that he gets to have that voice in these elite spaces where those sorts of concepts, and especially speaking for the Palestinians, where that is never heard. So that's my only- I understand, at least on that point, is that the only reason he's allowed on CBS this morning

is because of who he is. Yeah, that's right. And yeah, it's true. He's gonna burn a lot of bridges doing this. And it is true that the, not even Palestinian perspective, but really anything that goes against, what's that guy's name? Tony, whatever, like Tony's ideology. That is not common. And there's a reason I think that you're going to see it here on this show or any, actually, frankly, a lot of independent media these days, frankly, a lot more interesting is specifically because of

this. So yeah, it's true. I think he burns probably some bridges. He's going to experience a lot of pushback. I guess my only point was that within his ideology and specifically like who he is as a figure in American politics, I think it's still important to evaluate like what this book is and also why he was able to get that CBS News post and what, and then also consider what it meant for him to be such a respected figure. And for me, I just can't erase what I see as like a decade, honestly, of him pouring fire on a horrible accelerant in American politics only to then excuse it because, oh, he went on CBS News and wrote a book about Palestine. That's just not enough, I guess. And look, I invite him here on the show. I'd be happy to talk to him. I doubt he would. I've already invited him on the show.

Okay, good. I will tell you this. We can go as long as he wants. We can go for three hours. We can go for five hours. I will not cut him off and we will sit there and we will talk. And I would say everything I just said right to his face. I think what I would say is that it says something that the previous writings were comfortable for these spaces. Of course they were. Because, I mean, first of all, the reparations is such an unlikely political outcome that when you propose something that is outside of what anyone really thinks is politically possible, that becomes sort of inherently safe. And because if there's this sense, this race pessimist sense of like, this is just how things are in America and it can never change, then it also sort of absolves you from having to make political change that could be threatening to elite circles. So I think it's telling that the previous work

was very comfortable for people in this space and that this work is not. And I think, you know, I think that's an important thing to note. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. Go ahead and sign up at breakingpoints.com and take advantage of the discount BP 2024.

Otherwise, we'll probably see you over the weekend for some breaking news with respect to Iran. Yeah, exactly. Don't want to be doing it, but almost certainly won't be have to doing it. Otherwise, we'll see you on Monday. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country

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