Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/11/25: Trump Meets With Former Al Qaeda Leader, Tech Stocks Hiding Losses, AIPAC Trackers Unmask

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump meets with former Al Qaeda leader, tech stocks hiding losses, AIPAC Trackers unmask.   AIPAC Tracker: https://www.trackaipac.com/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Speaking of sanctions, guess who just scored some more sanction relief, none other than the former Al-Qaeda leader, now known as Ahmed al-Shara, the current president of Syria, formerly known as his Nom Degere al-Jalani. So he made a historic visit to the White House yesterday, first time ever by a Syrian head of state. So extraordinary. This guy just, I think, less than a year ago was a designated terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head.

Now he's hanging out in the White House warmly greeted by Trump playing basketball with former commanders who were previously out trying to kill him. Let's take a listen to Trump here, D1, getting asked about his past and how he squares. that with their now friendly relationship. You can expect some announcements on Syria. We want to see Syria become a country that's very successful. And I think this leader can do it. I really do. I think this leader can do it.

And people said he's had a rough past. We all have rough pasts. But he has had a rough past. And I think, frankly, if you didn't have a rough pass, you wouldn't have a chance. He gets along very well with Turkey, with President Erdogan, who's a great leader. Erdogan's a great leader. So he says, people say he's had a rough past. We've all had rough past, Sager.

And then he goes on to say that that, quote, unquote, rough past of being an al-Qaeda terrorist, that that actually may help him in his leadership. He gets along with Turkey. He says, you may need that kind of a rough past to be in this position. I mean, just absolutely insane. And I have to point out that this comes at a time when a lot of people on the right, including Trump, or out there shrieking about Zoranam Dhani's a jihadist and he's anizanismus and he's going to implement Sharia law in New York City.

And you have a literal former terrorist being welcomed into the White House and gaining sanctions relief and scoring new military partnerships, et cetera, et cetera. That's a good point. I hadn't put that together, but you're absolutely right. I mean, it's just one of the most depressing things for anybody who lived through the war on terror. I mean, I can't imagine. You know, yesterday was the birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Imagine being one of those Marines who served in, you know, what was it, Al-Anbar province in Iraq,

and you're fighting al-Qaeda, literally guys like Jolani and his entire crew who blew up your friends and who you had to try, you know, and to be back at bay, and you're desperately trying to stop the rise of these jihadists, and then to see him come to the United States of America and to put a suit on and everybody is just laying out the red carpet for him. And let's all remember why. It's because he's pro-Israel. That's the only reason, okay? That's the whole ball game is because he was pro-Israel. Also, it really does validate a lot of the whole Al-Qaeda is CIA stuff from the 2010s,

which I'll be honest, I, you know, I dismissed. But at this point, I mean, how else can you explain David Petraeus being like, I worry about how you sleep at night, the former CIA director when he did that interview with Al-Shara? And now put D2 up here, for example, on the screen. Like these, you know, meetings that are now happening with our, you know, that's Brian Mass, who literally got blown up by the Taliban, meeting as the head of the U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee with Al-Shahar, like, here in Washington, like, seeking sanctions relief. And by the way, they actually got it.

I think he should have worn his IDF uniform for this photo op, personally. That would have been more appropriate. It's definitely true. Because, again, like, that's the whole thing. And look, I'm not above making peace with enemies. In fact, I think it's not really, if we don't do it enough, you know, in terms of diplomacy. So this isn't really about him per se. It's more about how bullshit the entire war on terror was.

And like that is where they hate us for our freedoms. We have to eradicate them. And this time around, oh, now it's all realpolitik. It's like Assad bad. Why? Assad hated al-Qaeda. Assad hated ISIS. But he was bad and he was scary and pro-Russia.

This guy is pro-Israel. And so you're like, oh, okay. Well, as long as- I guess we can do that. business, right? That's the part where I'm like, God, this is ridiculous. That's really the important part here is, you know, I support sanctions relief on Syria. I think it's, you know, I think it sucks. We had sanctions on them to be. I think our whole policy towards Syria has been abysmal. It is a miserated the Syrian people. It has destabilized politics across

Europe created this mass migration crisis. I mean, it's been horrible. I've been to Syria. There is a beautiful country with an extraordinary culture and extraordinary history. And so it's heartbreaking to watch. So it has been done to that country with our assistance and our backing. And you're absolutely right that like the most, you know, sort of conspiracy brain takes about our involvement in their civil war and why we were involved and who we were backing. Yeah, it's hard to deny, you know, some of that, like the veracity of some of what was being suggested there. It certainly looks like they were more right than they were wrong. But the real point here is that next time, and it's already happening, you know, Maduro,

oh, he's a drug trafficker and he's a terrorist, he's harboring Hamas and he's Hamas and he's and he's Iran and he's Hezbo and whatever. Like, they just make this shit up. The terrorist designation is the fakesest thing on planet Earth. This man who just got sanctions relief and we're setting up some military situation in Syria with him and we're doing all these deals and, you know, we're besties with him now. A year ago was a designated terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head. terrorist just means

somebody who we don't like at this moment. We do deals with all sorts of bad guys around the world. That's, look at our friendship with Saudi. Look at our bestie Netanyahu who is the biggest terrorist on the entire fucking planet. No doubt about it. And that is our bestie who we back up

and support and arm no matter what. So do not, like, don't be influenced by the things that they say. Think for yourself. Because they will turn on a dime and go from oh, you know, he's our biggest enemy to, oh, you had a rough pass, who among us has it, in a second.

That's the thing to really understand is just how fake and invented all of this is. And not to say, I mean, Jelani genuinely was like trying to murder Americans. No, like actually, like for real. I'm not trying to whitewash his past. I'm just saying the who we label as a terrorist versus who can be our best bud, there is no distinction in their like level of evil and the atrocities that they're willing to. Yeah, like I have no issues with making. deals with enemies, with moving on and admitting that wars were failure. In fact, I think we should

do a lot more of them. But I also think that there needs to be some come to Jesus honesty and not just pretending that it's all, you know, basically a farce. Let's put this, you know, video, for example, on the screen. Like, can we play D3? Like, this is literally the Al-Qaeda leader playing basketball with top American generals who 10 years ago, these guys were literally trying to kill each other. Now, again, fine. If we all just say, oh, we once fought on the battlefield, we resolved our differences, and it's to the benefit of our country. I think you can make a case for that. I don't agree with that.

I don't think, you know, living under his leadership or whatever for Syria is supposedly so much better for America. I think it's great for Israel, right, who gets to extend its territory out a little bit more and gets a nice little, you know, colony in Damascus. If we want to be honest about that, like, I guess, right? Yeah, this guy is part of the Greater Israel Project. Literally, yeah. That's why we're friends with him now. Exactly. That's the part which is driving me insane. Put the next one up there, D4, just to show you. Again, like this was literally like a year ago. This was his $10 million bounty, reward for justice as the member of al-Qaeda in Syria and who long, long history of fighting U.S. service members. All of this, just what it puts together for me is how fake so much of it was, is, oh, we have to know, to the bitter end. We have to fund all of this. We have to make sure, you know, that the moderate rebels, which were al-Qaeda, which will take over.

That's literally what they said, you know, and I believed it. I'm serious. I really did. I was like, look, you know, he's a bad guy. I really believe, I was in Assad. He's a bad guy. Drops barrel bombs on children, you know, so awful. We should do something about it.

But look how it ended up. You know, it's like, it becomes just like some pro-Israel colony in Syria. Well, yeah. And there's tons of, like, retribution killings of minorities that are going on right now against the Alawites, against Christians, against the Jews that are happening right now. Now, what Al Jalani says is like, oh, well, you know, I don't really have control over. This is his outlet, his outfit, HTS, like they're the ones who are committing these atrocities and retribution killings against minorities within Syria, which has a diverse population with a lot

of different backgrounds. He claims that he just can't control them. I think a lot of people are very skeptical of that. But, I mean, that's another important, like, part of the, the story. story here of what's happening in modern-day Syria right now under the sky's leadership. Yeah, I think that what they, America doesn't appreciate is just, I don't know, I really hope if you're an American service member, if you served in Iraq, you know, if you served in the counter ISIS mission, just, you know.

Can you imagine? Like I genuinely, I feel so much for you. Because think about how much propaganda you had mainlined into you. And all those missions that you went out, you know, beyond the wire and people got blown up and, and then just to watch this type of stuff happen in front of your own eyes, like, it's honestly sickening. Like, put D-8 up here on the screen. Like, I guess this was what it's all about. The U.S. military will now establish a presence at the Damascus Air Base. After he's, you know, all friendly with Israel, and, you know, it doesn't matter the minorities and the freedoms and all that stuff that they sold to you back in the mid-2000s. It was all

totally fake. So, yeah. Again, should we make deals with our enemies, and our former enemies? Should we admit our mistakes? Yes, absolutely. But we haven't really done any of that. Right. The Syrian people are way worse off. 14 years, brutal civil war. We funded it. So many of our allies funded it. We never really did. We kind of enjoyed it as a little play thing. The Israelis liked it too. Hezbollah and all of that was happening. They could occasionally strike within there. Whenever they wanted, we used it as some proxy with Iran. The Iranians used it as their playground.

It became an international kind of chew toy for everybody to basically play with. We destroyed the country, along with many others, not just us. And in the interim, you know, millions of people fled. It caused a demographic crisis in Europe. Basically ignited right-wing politics across the continent. We would have been better off from day one doing nothing. And I think that's what's so infuriating, I think. There's a lot of people who died in Syria.

Americans died in Syria. A lot of Americans died fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq, you know. That was the primary mission is why we had to do the surge. And then to see the same architect of that, you know, fluffing Jolani on stage in New York City. And then same with the CENTCOM commanders who guys were literally on the other side of this for a reason, again, of nothing. It's really depressing. You know, if you lived and followed foreign policy, discussions, politics, like it would be unthinkable. And then finally, it's just about the relative moralism of Assad bad al-Qaeda good, right?

It's like, no, there's no. There's no such thing. We deal with countries on the basis of what's good for us. Because this moralist stuff, it's all bullshit. You know, it really is. Just to see it all in front of your eyes like this, it's hard. It really is a tough pill to swallow. Okay, let's get to AI, shall we?

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So some new indications of potential AI bubble. Interesting post coming here from Michael Burry of big short fame. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen and I'll do my best to decode this in straightforward English. So he says, understating depreciation by extending useful life of assets artificially boost earnings, one of the more common frauds of the modern era, massively ramping CAPX through purchase of Nvidia ship servers on a two to three year product cycle should not result in the extension of useful lives of

compute equipment. Yes, yet this is exactly what all the hyperscalers have done. By my estimates, that will understate depreciation by $176 billion by 2028. ORCL will overstate earnings by 26.9%, meta by 20%,

etc. But it gets worse, more detail coming November 25th. So stay tuned. We certainly will. And he has up there a chart. showing the way that the useful life depreciation in years has increased at companies like meta, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon going from roughly three years to now five or six years. Okay. So as best I can put it, straightforward English interpretation of this is basically as they're buying up all of these Nvidia chips and servers, rather than reducing the amount of time over which you can depreciate that, they're actually extending it. And it makes no sense

because those chips become obsolete very quickly. So the net effect of that is to basically juice their revenue, juice their net profit to make their financials look more impressive than they actually are. So he's pointing to that as some sort of significant financial engineering that is going on with these magnificent seven stocks that our whole economy is basically like floated by at this point. Yeah, I mean, look, you've got to take him seriously whenever he makes a bet like this. Now, to be fair, you know, he was right on the big short, Michael Burry. He's also been wrong a lot since the big short, famously telling people, don't buy now.

And then the S&P's up like 70% since he told people to do that. But, you know, I can't just sit here and dismiss what the guy said. He's one of the most legendary, you know, people who found the arbitrage opportunity before anybody else. And so for him, in particular, when we're all looking at the AI thing, and it feels wrong. I think it just feels wrong to everybody, from even people on Wall Street to people, everyday average folks who are looking at it and feeling uneasy. He's giving some language potentially to something which may have been missed. And having read so much about Enron, about, you know, even in the modern times, between dot com, Enron, WorldCom, and 2008, the same hallmarks of,

there's this theory like that these people on Wall Street are so smart and they know exactly or what they do. No, like, they get their rational exuberance, they overlook stuff, they undervalue, they, you know, they always underrate risk, they cheat, behind the scenes, like the Enron thing is so obvious, you know, in retrospect. And yet at the time, barely anybody even was able to call it out because of the level of corruption that was happening inside of the system. Same in 2007, like the reason the big short is such a good movie and a good book in particular is because there's only like four people who really actually saw it coming and were able to make money off of the vast majority of the people who do it for a living. They either had too much invested

or they just didn't see it. So I feel like that's the story here with AI. All of the similar, you know, feelings around this, the same structural problems, the same amounts of money being made, the same government, which is just looking in the other direction. Like the ingredients are all there for a massive bust. And I think what's scary about it is that the behavior, of a lot of the people at the top, it doesn't inspire confidence. We played Sam Altman yesterday, basically having a crash out whenever he was asked by a friendly investor. It was like, hey, man, like, how are you going to pay for this $1.2 trillion thing?

He's like, well, if you don't want it, I'll sell your shares. You know, it's like, dude. Why are you so sensitive about this? Just answer the question, bro. You know, you're a CEO, multi-billion dollar company. You should get a lot of people who use your product and or, you know, betting on Microsoft stock or something like that because of your partnership. with them. It's a genuine question. Just answer it. Same, like I just mentioned, Enron, that's just

like Jeff Skilling calling the analyst an asshole who asked a very basic question about their books. Well, here, Alex Carp, who's a CEO of Palantir, basically had a crash out on CNBC over Michael Burry shorting the stock and, you know, not just attacking like the short sellers, but not really giving a lot of reason to actually buy the stock or to question why, you know, the PE ratio is so crazy high right now. So, take a listen. There are two parts. Of course, when I hear short sellers attacking what I believe is clearly the most important

software company in America, therefore in the world in terms of our impact, simply to make money and calling, trying to call the AI revolution into question where we have these anomalous numbers, 114, rule of 40, et cetera, it just is super triggering because these people, they could pick on any company in the world. They have to pick on the one that actually helps people, that actually has made money for the average person that is actually supporting our warfighters, why do they have to go after us? And I'll tell you what, though, it's crazy motivating because I'll tell you why the short sellers are constantly getting screwed by Pallinger, because every time they short us, we just are

like tripling down on getting the better numbers, and part, honestly, to make them poorer. But it's almost always sympathy for the expert that doesn't need it, the short seller that has some ridiculous reason for doing something against, I mean, most of GDP growth in this country is because of AI. The real question is, how do we grow that and expose workers? What is the worker available GDP? That's the question for our society. Instead of aligning on that, we've got these completely. And again, if the numbers weren't there, great, be my guess. But then the numbers are there. So then you're not, it's not even clear he's actually shorting us. It's probably just, how do I get my position out and not look like a fool? I don't know. But I do think this

behavior is egregious, and I'm going to be dancing around when it, when it proves, it's proven wrong. I mean, I'm sorry short sellers can't tell a difference between products that work and products that don't, but these numbers should show you that there's a part of the market that, to quote, you is printing cash, and it looks like that part of the market is the park we own. Look, I mean, doesn't seem too inspiring to me. That's just me. I mean, there's a lot of words out there. Here are the basic facts. The stock is up 217 percent year to date. They have a PE ratio of 523 times, extremely large multiples, high growth expectations, which means that even if you grow moderately well, but not very, very well, that that means that you were not living up to

the overall valuation. I don't think it's crazy to say, I don't know, man. No one's saying your company's not making a shitload of money, just not that it's worth this order some magnitude amount of money. That's basically what Burry is saying. And in general, when you see 523 times or whatever, that's according to Chat, GPT, which I just asked, about the P.E. I mean, it says one of the highest in the entire United States equities market. So, yeah, I think a lot of people are like, I don't know. You know, again, like when you give an answer like that, oh, we're fighting, and he talks about the retail investor, that's another thing that doesn't give me a lot of confidence when you're basically trying to get the retailers to continue to buy your stock. You're like not actually talking about the fundamentals of what you do, of what you sell. That AI point also that they make about it being such a massive percentage of GDP similar as to what I think makes me very afraid of this entire thing. Yes. I mean, he says that thing about how AI is so central to the economy responsible for all the GDP growth.

and it's like, yes, and that's a bad thing. That's very troubling. That is exactly why we're also uncomfortable right now. Michael Burry responded. We could put this up on the screen. He says, doesn't surprise sort of cryptic, what he says, he says, doesn't surprise me one bit. Alex Carpena's ontology, Palantir Tech cannot crack a simple 13F fundamental principle of any rigorous ontological epistemological model, whether philosophical or in data science is recognizing

when your information said is insufficient for valid conclusions, whatever that means. In any case, he's basically saying, like, this guy's not. really providing any evidence here. He's just sort of spouting off. And I don't know if you saw that this morning. There was a J.P. Morgan AI CapEx report that came out. And there's this one quote from it that is getting shared around about how much AI investments would have to return in order to generate a 10% just profit to drive a 10% return on our modeled AI investments through 2030 would require $650 billion. of annual revenue in perpetuity.

That equates to either $180 per month from every Netflix subscriber, that's the amount of revenue, or $34.72 per month from every current iPhone user. So that is what has to happen for them to get a 10% return on the amount of cash that they are plowing into these AI investments.

I mean, so far, there is no path to that. You know, when you listen to Sam Altman talk, and he talks about all the revenue that they're going to generate in the future, it's all extremely speculative. It's like, well, and we think he said something to the effect of we think there's going to be lots of, like, science and medicine applications that are kind of hard to talk about right now, like kind of hard to, he didn't say project out, but that's basically the implication of like, you know, we just are hoping that once we get to this level of AGI, there's going to be all sorts of revenue that. flows in that we haven't really specifically identified and can't really see our way to because we don't know exactly how that's going to work. That's what they're all betting on. So I don't know, guys, that's where we are right now. And yet at the same time, you know, there is fallout from what's already been done, already from the development here. You've got the left starting to push back, E4, it can put up on the screen. You know, Bernie Sanders and others on, you know,

the sort of progressive wing of the Democratic Party, really starting to key in to electric bills as a major political issue. Yesterday we covered how influential that was in some races here in Virginia in those statewide races in Georgia as well. So they are starting to push for legislation that would make sure that the data centers are paying for their own electricity, that that is not getting pushed onto consumers. You also have societal fallout such as this. We can put E5 up on the screen, you know, allegations that ChatGPT is pushing some mentally disturbed users towards suicide. Listen to this reporting. They say in one case, ChatGPT told Zane Shamblin as he sat in the parking lot with a gun that killing himself was not a sign of weakness but of strength.

Quote, you didn't vanish. You arrived. Rest easy king. That is what ChatGPT was telling this guy who was contemplating suicide. And so, you know, you have already societal reverberations. We have no idea what the impact of where we are already is going to be on people's mental health on their, you know, on the development like brain development of youth on all of our brains and what, you know, what it's going to rob from us in terms of our like humanity and basic ability to think. And so you've got already these cases that are just absolutely horrifying of chat GPT, openly pushing people towards suicide. Yeah, I saw a great, I talked, yeah, allegedly, but allegedly, allegedly, there with

chat GPT, who of course maintains that they did nothing wrong. And we will pay attention, of course, to the court findings with many of these cases. But I saw a great analysis, which said, what if 50% of all of our problems is housing, 25% is obesity, and 25% is smartphones? I was like, you know, honestly, those things. Three, those are three, like, major pillars. If you talk about health, if you talk about mental health, and then you talk about ability to live to thrive,

which basically determines everything downstream from there. Yeah. I think that's kind of it. And there were like, if you focus, physical health and mental wealth, that's, I mean, come on, these are the building blocks of society. Like, what if the solution to the vast, vast majority of all our problems is cheap and affordable housing, making sure that people are healthy? making sure that people are social.

I just was looking at a new statistic. The amount of people who socialize who are 18 to 24 is down 70% in the last 20 years. 70%. That's insane. And a lot of this breeds the very addictions, which I demonize here every day on a daily basis. Marijuana, pornography, sports gambling, okay?

It's not a secret where it all comes from. You know, everything is downstream really from the smartphone. A lot of radical politics is downstream from the smart. A lot of, all more problems is downstream from what's happening with the smartphone. So I really just think, you know, we got a, we got a laser focus in on, on what the sociological data that's coming out from a lot of this is. And this AI stuff, like if you feel afraid of it, you should be. Like, if you feel uneasy, you should be. Trust yourself. Like, don't trust the experts and everybody telling you that everything's going to be fine. Because also, if you listen

to them whenever they're in their little conferences, they talk about how everything's not going to be fine, about how humanity could be destroyed. Every job will be erased and all that. You get a voice in your own economy and in your own life. Like you've got to use it. You really do. Like, focused in on this stuff. I mean, I do think that's why the data center fight is so important because it's this physical embodiment. You know, it's like with the product rollouts, it's hard to know, okay, well, what is this new version of chat GPT going to do? And how do I, how do I navigate it? I mean, even the people are designing it, don't really understand it, don't really know what, like, level of awareness and potential consciousness or potential intelligence that it has at this point,

what level of, you know, of deceptive behaviors that it engages in. So those of us who are not technical experts are really at a loss to understand just how profound the impact is already of what's available. And so when you have these data centers that are creating clear, like measurable harm in people's economic lives and in their communities. I think it's such an important focal point of the pushback, which is why we've been focusing intently on it. And I'm hardened to see that there are some who are politically starting to pick it up at the national level, because you also are starting to see some of the job fall out. Put E7 up on the screen, white color hiring is

negative. Now this is probably not all AI, but some of it likely is AI. And Derek Thompson says year. Since 1940, the number of Americans working in professional and business services, sort of a white-collar super sector, has turned negative year-over-year 10 times. The first nine were during recessions. The 10th time is right now. Now, he goes on to say, you might expect me to say it's AI, the timing really looks like a surge of hiring around 2021 was unwound, combined with high interest rates, slowing job growth, slowing population growth, but sure, maybe AI too. I think AI is certainly an important part of the story, especially when you take a look at the next piece, E8, which is young unemployment also spiking. You know, these would be

the entry-level workers who would be most immediately impacted by AI and companies implementing AI and pushing more work onto their existing workforce versus bringing in a new cohort. So this is Stephen Ratnery, says unemployment rate for 20 to 24-year-olds is now 9.2%. That's the highest level since 2016, and I think the expectation is that that will continue to rise. New college graduate unemployment rates continue to move up as well. So, you know, these are the early stages of the fallout that we're already being being able to discern in the job market numbers. Yeah, we've got to watch it closely. Some of it is AI. Some of it is just, you know, interest rates, bad. But the whole point tariff uncertainty, all of that, yeah. It's just bad. And these people are getting filthy, rich.

even if they do pop and one of the things I have been thinking about so much is like they cannot let this shit fail like the whole country has every American who has a retirement portfolio you bet on AI whether you know it or not

if you are reliant on interest rates or any of that you're also betting on AI like the whole nation is in on this without actually really any say all of our technological life everything has got into this so if it does fail

it will be a bust which could drag everything down and that's why I said also you know you've got a lot of poor Americans who are like always rooting for a crash but what they always forget is like you're gonna be the first victim you know they'll cut you first

layoffs the first reduction in the amount of money the people who will get bailed out and will be okay yeah Alex Carp and Palantir sure their stock could go down 100% it's already up by 2nd like they're multi-billionaires already got the cash a lot of these folks like They're all going to be fine.

That's the stuff that really worries me the most. Yeah. And we were all techno-optimists at the beginning of like the, you know, the social media, waves and smartphone, whatever. I didn't have any reluctance about it. I just thought as positive, period. End of story. Like, this is great. I mean, there's some.

You know, the Arab Spring and the hope of like, oh, this democratic engagement. I mean, but that was really, that was the way people genuinely felt. You know, the election of Barack Obama and oh, my God, we're going to. That was the dream of the Internet was that actually would. have like a flattening effect that it would create more like small d democratic flourishing where ordinary people would get to have more of a say and you know instead we've actually what we actually seen is consolidation of like authoritarianism and flourishing of like you know internet induced psychosis and mental illness which you can see on your timeline literally any day consolidation of wealth

in the hands of a very few people and um you know all sorts of effects on children and brain development that, you know, we were never warned about, like the people who were selling us this technology never said, you know, it may come with some downsides. So you certainly shouldn't trust them at this point to give you the full story about what AI is going to look like either. And again, the truth is they don't know. They don't know either. You know, the goal is to replace all of us. That's their goal. So that's, you know, that's if it succeeds. If it fails, then we've got this giant bubble and economic calamity. It looks very grim either way. Guys, we talked a lot during the show. Emily and Crystal are going to cover the Adelson section tomorrow, so that will be a fun discussion. Let's listen now to our interview with the APAC tracker founders. And then we're going to do our AMA later for our premium subscribers. See you all later.

On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane de Bolo, comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On health stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2?

Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that, like, Your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but, like, you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in.

Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a son. small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV.

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica occur. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke. And he got down.

And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to Heavyweight on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So as you guys surely know, APAC and the Israel Lobby more broadly have become lightning rods in American politics, in no small part thanks to this website. Let's put this up on the screen where you can go and you can check out various members of Congress, various candidates, and see just how much money they have taken from APAC or from the Israel Lobby overall.

You now have even centrist Democrats like Seth Moulton saying they are no longer going to take APAC funds. And we are very fortunate to be joined this morning for their first public interview ever by the co-founders of Citizens Against AAPC corruption. We have Corey Archibald and Casey Kennedy. Welcome, guys. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you. Yeah, of course. So I want to get a little bit of your backstory, what you think the impact of the organization has been. But first, just tell us a little bit about yourself. and you've been anonymous up to this point.

What made you decide, Corey, I'll start with you, to come forward in this moment. Sure. Well, so a little bit about me. I started working in progressive politics in 2017. I worked, I was chair of the board of brand new Congress for six years, and I worked on a lot of progressive campaigns. I helped work on AOC's initial campaign for Congress. I worked with Cory Bush on her first two runs for Congress and also Jamal Bowen and a number

of others, but those three in particular. really close to me. I, through that, that's how I got to be really familiar with the work that APAC is doing and their influence on our elections. And so that's, that's, you know, kind of where I got started in this process. Yeah. How about you? So I've been working in the digital marketing space for about 10 years now. I've done both private sector work and I've worked on political campaigns for like city council and a local congressional race. Basically how I got into the APAC sphere, was actually back in 2020, is the first time I watched the documentary, The Lobby. It's a deep dive investigative piece.

They go undercover and really do let – they pull back the curtain on APAC and how they're pressuring our government to tow the policy of the far-right extremist Israeli government. When I saw that in 2020, it really stuck with me because anti-corruption measures have always been kind of the driving front of my personal politics. And after seeing that, and then if I ever talked to anybody else about it, they didn't really – know what I was talking about, so it just was like a glaring, like red flag, like something, why is anybody talking about this? Yeah. So that was always in my mind.

And then, of course, the genocide starts picking up after October 7th really starts escalating. We have a live stream genocide. And still, nobody's connecting these dots of why are our officials okay with being complicit in this? Why are we sending American tax dollars to be used for war crimes? Why are we sending American-made weapons to murder women and children and innocent civilians? So I just started doing some digging for myself, and I was kind of surprised to see how the information is always accessible, but it just wasn't maybe easily accessible or, like, broadly pushed out anywhere. So that's when I had the idea to start a Twitter account. Track 8. Yeah, Track 8. We started that in April of 2024.

And within about a month, we had 100,000 follow. So people were just like... It was shocking, watching how quickly it became a thing. And I know, I'm assuming you're... But, you know, you may be surprised. It's become a right-wing lightning rod as well. You know, we've definitely followed up. Yeah, okay, good.

I mean, you know, that's part of the reason I was also interested in talking to you is because, like, did you guys anticipate, you know, from the beginning? You came together. You created this. It has become, like, a genuine, like, when you quote tweet a politician or something, this may seem a little foreign for any of our listeners who are not on Twitter. But, I mean, this is where a little foreign. discourse happens, right? This is where most people who are battling it on the so-called sphere

of ideas. So what was the impetus of creating the graphics, the tracker, and then were you surprised at how quickly it caught on? So pretty much the idea was to take a complex topic and put it into a format that could be, this somebody could digest within like two seconds of looking at it. Everybody wants to say that the Israel-Palestine conflict is complicated. It's not. It's really not. The reason that our officials are towing this line is because they are in the pocket of foreign interests who pressure them to do so.

I was definitely surprised to see how quickly it caught on, but given how just the amount of atrocities that everybody's seen, I think everybody was kind of looking for the reason, like the actual why is this happening? Yeah. Well, and to Sager's point,

anytime you'll see an official say something shitty and then below it, inevitably someone is sharing your graphics saying well this is why like look at all the money that they're taking if it's not our own account it's certainly other people that are sharing our graphics and yeah that's exactly right that's how we've seen how quickly it has spread I mean not only have we seen the graphics showing up everywhere they're showing up in text we're not on TikTok but our content is all over it's everywhere it is it's everywhere and you know we really started to see the difference in how elected officials began to engage because of the the change we were having on this dialogue. We started to see, you mentioned Seth Moulton. You know, he came out recently said he was rejecting APAC money. Well, we actually had a response to that and we said, okay, well, you know, we're not impressed yet. So you can't tweet your way out of supporting a genocide. So you're going to have to, we're going to see some proof from your votes. Yeah. But there are other

elected members who have in the past taken APAC support. They are now rejecting it. More and more candidates are running on an anti-AP platform. We have people that come to us and ask us to help vet candidates. And we even have members of Congress that have reached out to us and wanted a dialogue. Really? Yeah. So, I mean, that's a lot of how we know the impact that we're making. Well, that's real power. That's how you know, you go from a Twitter account to like being actually influential. Absolutely. Yeah. It's kind of amazing to watch. It's never existed before. It's pretty incredible. The amount of people who have reached out through our DMs, like many members of Congress. I'm not going to say who they are, but if any other member of Congress wants to reach out,

we're always happy to have a dialogue. Absolutely. Well, and Casey, let me ask you a little bit more about this Seth Moulton piece because there's also some reporting that first he went to APEC and when they were like, yeah, we're not going to give you money. He was like, I hate APEC. I'm totally not taking AAC money. This is exactly why we didn't throw out the colossal amount of praise for him. Like, thank you for calling out that APEC is a corrupting force. Yes. Well, but what would you say? Like, what's the next question to ask? Because APAC also, it's important for people to understand APAC has kind of become the catch-all. They're not the only part of the Israel lobby, though. In a lot of Democratic primers, this group DMFI, that Ryan Grimm, our colleague, has done

tons of the best reporting on, in fact. But, you know, so what is, once you get, okay, here's this money to interest, APAC, what is the next question to ask that politician if they're now able to check the box? Okay, I'm not going to take APAC dollars. Because we've also seen some reporting that maybe what happens is the individual APAC donors give the money so they can technically say they're taking AIPAC money, but they're really getting, you know, still the same amount from the same group of people. So this is actually part of the work that we're doing through the PAC is we're actually expanding on the data project that we started with track APAC.

We are going to be beefing up that infrastructure and digging deeper because certainly it didn't start with the more recent rejections of APAC with the APAC brand becoming as toxic as it has. at this point. They have always funneled donors directly to the back door, but not to the same degree that we're starting to see it now. We're starting to see reporting about leaked emails where they're just directing people straight to secret donation pages.

So knowing that that's happening, we are going to be expanding our data infrastructure so that we can more accurately report like the full picture to see these individual donors also get folded into the numbers. There's the individual donor, the ADL. There's an entire network of this. You know, we've gone up against it.

We've faced significant obstacles. So I'm curious, you know, what's it been like, you know, on the receiving end of this? I mean, they will go after you. Well, we're starting to feel that. So tell us about that. Why we're here. So I would probably go back about a month ago. Apex started going on a tirade on Twitter.

They were tagging us, replying to a bunch of our posts, quoting us, trying to invalidate our data, trying to smear O'Connor for praising our work and it didn't really work out for them so I guess they just went away but interestingly enough about a week after that is when we started seeing my information be posted and door replies so it's like my picture some information

I ran for a Central Committee off a Democratic Central Committee office a few years ago so that's how they found some of my basic details and they didn't really don't have anything else to go on but they're just kind of spinning up all sorts of different narratives about who I might be

or who I'm working for. So that was just kind of interesting to see. It was very obviously an organized effort. Like we could see which accounts were kind of... Yeah. So who do you work for that? I work for myself. Okay.

We work for... You guys work for the PAC? Yeah, we work for the PAC, I guess. Yeah, I mean, well, actually, the work that we're doing to the PAC currently is on a volunteer basis. I mean, we've been really focused on building our war chest. We both have other work that we do,

But, like, we've been focused on building our war chest for the last year has been my focus. While Casey's been driving the data transparency project, I've been driving the kind of fundraising and building up our resources because we do intend. Can I get the inevitables out of the way? No foreign funding. No foreign funding. No foreign funding. No Qatari funding. No Qatari funding.

None. Okay. We're sure. A hundred percent. Soros. Never met the man. No, no anything about him. Okay.

Who else? Who are the other boogie? You're on the right. I don't know. You can tell me who you people are concerned about. I think, I think that's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. So it's just, you know, normal Americans who are upset.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. What role do you hope that your organization plays in, I think, you know, it seems like there's sort of a Democratic Tea Party that's brewing. Zora and Mamdani's victory in New York City was a major earthquake in terms of national politics, in terms of Democratic Party politics specifically, you know, what role do you all

hope to play in the forthcoming primary season? Yeah. Well, we set out to really make the, to make working with APAC a political liability. That has been our primary focus. That was how the track APAC project started. And then I found it the PAC, and we got introduced by mutual connection, brought the two, realized immediately like our work was very synchronous and decided to merge our efforts into one thing.

So that's now what we lead together. But that's the goal, really, is we want to make working with APAC a political liability. And that's the reason why it's in the name. Track APEC, Citizens Against AAPC corruption, we're coming straight at them. When I saw what they did to Andy Levin, when I saw the way that they have a smeared and attacked Bernie Sanders repeatedly, when I saw what they did and the money that they spent against Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman to take them down.

I was so furious as a person who worked in this space that no one was going on off against offense against A PAC. Or that there wasn't, I can't say no one, that there wasn't enough of a forceable offense against A PAC. And that's what we set out to do, it's to go on offense. Well, I was telling you, last week I interviewed Summerlee, who is representative from Pittsburgh, and had, she just put out, like, the most mild tweet about Israel, one tweet, one time about Israel. And that was enough for the Israel lobby to come in and spend millions of dollars against her. She narrowly wins.

She was able to ever come in. She narrowly won. And she said, you know, I think now it would be different because at that time, there just wasn't a level of awareness. And now, obviously, the genocide live streamed in all of our feeds is the biggest part of the awareness of just how horrific this country is. And, you know, the policies coming from this country, our own politicians' complicity, whether it's Democrats or Republicans, with the atrocities that are being committed by Israel. But you guys really help to sort of coalesce this understanding of the inner work. So I just want to say, like, thank you for doing that work. It's been incredibly important. It's been very useful for us as journalists. You know, when I'm interviewing and, you know, when we're interviewing a senator, it's helpful to have right there exactly where they're taking money from. Sometimes you clip some of my spiciest content and then other people, it can cause a lot of problems my personal life. But, okay, so this is the last question, I think, about the inevitable anti-Semitism. Okay, so, you know, that's part of the criticism I hear.

Hey, it's anti-Semitic to say A-PAC should register as a foreign lobby. These are American citizens. They're rightfully spending their money as they're. would like. What's your response to that? Is it anti-Semitic to track A-PAC funding? Why aren't you tracking Nigerian funding or any of these other things? I would say it is not anti-Semitic

to stand against an ongoing genocide that's being perpetrated with American backing, American tax dollars, and American weapons. What we're doing here is taking information that's always been publicly accessible but making it more easily accessible and digestible for the public. And I would guess that you guys

would support the tracking of other money in politics. A hundred percent. As well, yeah. I mean, you can look at our, we have a track oil packs, which has recently started up. So that's kind of our next target is the big oil lobby. Yeah, and I mean, working in progressive politics, as I have, I've always worked with candidates that stood against corporate PAC money. It's actually one of the litmus tests for candidates that would like to get an endorsement from us. One of the questions we have is, will you support overturning of Citizens United

and standing against corporate money and politics? It's very important to both of us. That is actually my last question is you guys are backing a slate of candidates. We are. What are the specific criteria that they have to meet to be, you know, considered for your endorsement? So these are candidates who are going to reject money and support from APAC and their allies. So that would not be just APAC. It's the other groups like DMFI, RJC, if they're on the Republican side.

There's a whole slate of other groups. We also asked them if they would support enforcing the Leahy laws to make sure that we're not sending weapons to be used in war crimes. We ask them if they support Palestinian statehood for the U.S. to stop. blocking such votes at the UN and do they consider it a genocide what's happening is real genocide that's a deal breaker if they don't yeah yeah and then of course citizens united because that's really a key to getting big money out of politics it's interesting amazing well if you guys want a different type of politics you know they've created incredible resources for you all to go and see who the candidates are who the you know members of congress are who's what kind of money has been flowing

into their coffers so you guys can choose candidates that, you know, ultimately align with your values. And I have personally, you know, consulted your resources. I will make, you know, contributions at times to candidates. And if they're not on your list, they're not going to be on my list. There you go. We love that. It's public data. That's all you did. It is. Exactly. For all the people we're freaking out about it, like, sorry. All right. And if people want to support the work we're doing, as I said, we've been building up our war chest. We're still building it. If they want to support the work that they're doing, that we're doing, And we can go to Citizens Against APEC.com or track apoc.com, either one of those.

We have a donate button right there, and any contributions are helpful. Like, we're really focused on being able to make a big play in some of these upcoming primaries. Amazing. Thank you, guys. Great to meet you both. Thank you. In podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. I'm Dr. Priyankawali, a double board certified physician.

And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I Have Scurvy at 3am? And on our show, we're talking about health in a different way, like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On an all new episode of IHeartRadios Las Culturistas, Jennifer Lawrence is dishing.

Jennifer Lawrence from her hilariously awkward run-ins with A-Lister's. I don't know what I was expecting, but he was just like, nice to meet you. To her unfiltered take on beauty treatments. I'm so upset I think the Botox before that. And a jaw-dropping reveal you won't see coming. I don't know if I can announce. this, but I'm just going to. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Las Culturista

and listen to the full podcast now. Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet stand. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing? Where I embark on a noble quest

to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high-speed rollercoaster we call reality. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.